2024 CritWitchCon Speakers

Alex Cheruk

he/him

Alex Cheruk (he/him) is a Spiritual Naturalist, activist, and the Executive Director of the Spiritual Naturalist Society. Though he grew up Protestant, his religious beliefs began to unravel during his freshman year of college. He started searching for spiritual answers elsewhere, immersing himself in New Age spirituality, bhakti yoga, Vedanta, psychonautics, ceremonial magic, and neopaganism before arriving at Spiritual Naturalism.

Today, he volunteers his time promoting public awareness of the various emerging Spiritual Naturalist traditions, hoping to get them included in the public discussion on spirituality. As an activist, he believes these traditions have the unique potential to evolve into a counterculture that promotes science, ecomorality, and social justice.

Alex Wrekk

she/they

Alex Wrekk (she/they) is an animist and agnostic secular witch who has been building a DIY practice since 2005. Alex is the author of the zine Brainscan and the book Stolen Sharpie Revolution: a DIY Resource for Zines and Zine Culture, is an organizer for the Midwest Perzine Fest as well as the CritWitchCon. She enjoys gardening and getting to know plants, is a friend to her neighborhood crows and an altar building enthusiast. They enjoy drinking, eating, and making fermented things.

A selfie of a smiling woman with dreadlocks in a red and black velvet top. She's holding a black dragon TY beanie baby stuffed toy.

Amethyst Rhodes

she/her

Amethyst Rhodes (she/her) is a relatively new witch coming from a strong science and social justice background. She was raised by a mother who would’ve never called herself a witch, but nonetheless lived a pretty witchy life. Through her and Amethyst’s own inquisitive nature, she learned about different understandings of what we call the ‘spirit world’, faith vs blind dogma, and the importance of discerning for one’s self what one’s path in this world should be (even if it meant not following her mother’s, or anyone else’s, advice).

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Ana Mor

she/they

Ana Mor (she/they) is a practical atheist witch, general weirdo, and perpetual student. She started practicing in her youth but never took to what the others were doing. She can often be found entertaining herself with shiny things, mugs, useless knowledge, horror movies, cats, and spicy books.

Bree NicGarran

she/her

Bree NicGarran grew up in the wilds of Bucks County, Pennsylvania, and now resides in Tidewater, VA. She is the host of the Hex Positive podcast and her breakout work, Grovedaughter Witchery, has been hailed by the online pagan community as a new standard text for beginner witches. She lives with her husband and two very spoiled ginger cats, and is very glad that none of them seem to mind having a pagan altar in the living room.

A black and white photo of a person with dark hair, lipstick, and painted nails holding up a hagstone and peering at the camera through it.

Catamara Rosarium

she/they

Catamara Rosarium is a Master Herbalist, Alchemist, and Ritual Artist. Her experience and knowledge working with herbs is extensive, much self taught, motivated by her desire and attraction to herbs and scents and how they impact the senses. She has also undertaken numerous unique trainings, apprenticeships, and teachings in various esoteric herbalism currents which the culmination of each has become the foundation and framework of her praxis and magical work.

She is also the co-founder, organizer and convenor of the Viridis Genii Symposium and co-organized the Esoteric Book Conference (Seattle, WA) for the first seven years after its inception.

She has articles published in Sorita D’Este’s Hekate anthology, Her Sacred Fires (2010), Verdant Gnosis Volume 1 (2015), and Clavis: The Green Key Edition (2016). She coedited the Verdant Gnosis book series Volumes 1-5, and is the co-founder and editor of Viridis Press.

Person with short hair wearing a black shirt, red lipstick, shuffling tarot cards, standing outside in the golden sun.

Chelsey Pippin Mizzi

she/her

Chelsey Pippin Mizzi is writer, tarot reader, and certified Shadow Work practitioner specializing in creative applications of witchy practices for writers, artists, and small business owners. She is the author of The Tarot Spreads Yearbook (out now), Tarot for Creativity (out October 2024), and The Shadow Path (out January 2025). She also publishes The Shuffle, an independent magazine exploring the intersection of creativity and spirituality.

Four colorful pictures of soaps and body scrubs, in a square grid with rounded corners. The top left picture shows a stack of rustic yellow-gold soaps on a wooden surface, with yellow flowers in the background. In the top right, a glass vial with a black cap rests on burgundy flowers and foliage; the label is pinky grey and reads The Grey Hound; carnation, white musk, sandalwood, grapefruit; hair & perfume oil; net weight .33 ounces or 9 grams. The bottom right shows a stack of smooth, square, red & green layered soaps on a white background. In the bottom left photo, orangey-brown swirled sugar scrub is shown in clear jars.

Hayley Jay

they/she

Hayley Jay is a solitary, queer, non-theist hedgewitch wandering the alleyways and access roads of southern Pennsylvania, by way of Montreal & England. They use tarot as a therapeutic tool, reach for fire any time a spell needs a little something, and suspect their witchcraft is pretty boring but find it deeply effective. If you approach slowly with a cube of sugar, they will talk your face off about native plants, family systems, maker life, and funky food.

Hayley Jay is fifty-something, is the founder & High Saponatrix of Paintbox Soapworks, and is very proud of you. Yes, you.

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Jul Bloomfield

she/her

Jul Bloomfield is an atheist witch with a practice focused on nature, art, and community building. She has a background in marine science, education, and fine art. A tall gnome by nature, she endeavors to weave her passions together through various media and social engagements.

Dr. Kate Cherrell

she/her

Dr Kate Cherrell is a writer, researcher and public speaker specialising in 19th century gothic and spiritualist practice. She is former cemetery worker and keen taphophile, and has studied many modern ritualistic mourning processes, and is keen to discuss modern traditions and beliefs relating to grieving and memorialisation. She is the creator of BurialsAndBeyond.com, a blog exploring the stranger sides of life, death and what’s left behind. She has been internationally published, writing both commercially and academically, and her debut novel is due in late 2024. She co-hosts Loopholes, a weekly light-hearted esoteric discussion podcast and can be seen co-hosting Discovery’s Jack Osbourne’s Haunted Homecoming and Unexplained: Caught on Camera.

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Kath Wallace

she/her

Kath is a witch from the UK with over 25 years of experience in various witchcraft pathways and traditions. Today, Kath identifies as a British folk witch working with magical herbalism, her local biosphere, astrology, and divination. She loves teaching and writing about witchcraft and is passionate about supporting new witches to establish and develop their practice.

Photo of Lane, a light-skinned person with very short graying dark blonde hair that is shaved on the sides and wavy on top, smiling and wearing a brown leather jacket over a black tank top. They are leaning forward with arms crossed on a flat stone surface with a blurred urban environment with green trees in the background.

Lane Smith

they/them

Lane Smith is the author of “78 Acts of Liberation: Tarot to Transform Our World,” published by Sounds True (August 2024). They are a transmasculine nonbinary writer with over 20 years of experience as an activist, organizer, and Tarot reader. With a professional Master’s degree in Social Work from the University of Maryland and an academic Master’s degree in Humanities and Social Thought from NYU, Lane expresses their ideas in clear, nonacademic language in the interest of putting social justice values into practice. Lane is the editor of the Tarot & Politics zine, and a member of Solidarity Tarot where they live in Baltimore City, Maryland.

Laura Petchey / Lozzie Stardust

she/they

Laura Petchey, aka Lozzie Stardust, (she/they) is a witchy history nerd part ADHD Chaotic Goose Witch & part time co-host of the Stardust Sessions (on Hex Positive) out of GMT Time Zone. She is a returning contributor to Witch Con, and an amazing source of inspiration and motivational chaos.

Lee Ignire

they/them

Lee Ignire (they/them) is an animist Witch currently studying for a BA in Early Modern History. Their YouTube channel focuses on magical theory and practice to help all witches and seekers Do The Magical Thing. They have an aversion to hierarchy and when not greeting wildflowers, they frequently bribe their Wife with chips for extra time browsing occult bookstores.

In a space brightly lit by natural sunlight, a smiling woman leans into the image frame on the left edge, smiling at the camera. Her eyes are playfully scrunched up with her smile. She has dark brunette, curly hair, which is touched with purple and natural gray. In the background and slightly out of focus, are houseplants.

Maya Amatvult

she/her

Maya Amatvult (she/her) is an agnostic, skeptical, analytical, science-minded, logic-based kitchen / garden / hearth / water witch who calls the universe “mamma.” She is happily neurodivergent, joyously queer, and big-emotional about space robots. She is an event manager by trade and is a writing professional by passion. Currently in an MBA program, she is a low-to-no accessory witch who believes in community building and supporting small businesses as a way of waving a middle finger at late-stage capitalism.

She shares the occasional online thought on the Crit Witch Patreon.

Three zines spread on a dark green tablecloth. All three are titled “Witches’ Brew”. The biggest zine features a drawing of a cat riding a guitar like a broomstick next to the text “the sound of magic” and the issue number “14”. One of the smaller zines, issue number 15, is subtitled “the magic of cities” and has an image of an old building. The other smaller zine, number 16, is subtitled “tarot spreads”, with images of hands and tarot cards.

Nina Zina

she/they

Through her Echo Zines creative project, Nina produces zines, postcards, stickers, buttons, and spell bags (and she plays in the feminist witch punk band Lavender Witch!). The witch zines that Nina makes talk about herbal magic, amulets, self-love potions, mundane witchcraft, and personal reflections about skeptical witchery. Nina also sews and assembles spell bags with natural and repurposed ingredients to promote self-care and community care.

Photo of a woman with blonde hair wearing a white blazer.

Sarah Best

she/they

Sarah (she/her) is a naturalistic, animistic witch who goes by The Skeptical Witch on YouTube. She is also doing her PhD in religious studies, and her research focuses on alternative communities (like science-based nature spirituality or witchcraft!) and their transformative potential for shaping better worlds, renewing our relationships with each other, with the land, and with our nonhuman kin.

A white person with long brown hair in a braid over one shoulder wearing a black tank top, green framed sunglasses, and a black choker necklace looks into the camera with a raised eyebrow. Ze has piercings in the raised eyebrow and both ears, and tattoos on zir arms. The background shows a collage on the wall and a door with plaid shirts hanging on it.

Scorpio Amber

ze/zir

Scorpio (ze/zir) lives in the ancestral lands of the Wabinaki, in what is now called New England, USA. Ze has been a practicing witch for over 10 years, mostly focused on ritual and grounding through connecting with the physical world around us. With a background in climate, community, and design, Scorpio orients zir craft to principles of sustainability and resiliency.

SednaWoo

she/her

SednaWoo (she/her) has posted sporadically to Youtube since 2018. She’s into skeptical witchery that lacks supernatural belief but also makes the odd video about other interests. She mainly gives her opinion and shares thoughts about placebo witchcraft and how we can use ritual and aesthetic to hack our brains into being a little bit happier and more creative.

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Shannon Knight

she/her

Shannon Knight (she/her) is a queer psychotherapist licensed in both Arizona and Florida where she specializes in working with individuals and couples. Shannon received her B.A. in Applied Clinical Psychology from the Florida Institute of Technology and her M.S. in Mental Health Counseling from Johns Hopkins University. Shannon hosts The Tarot Diagnosis — a podcast that invites you to explore the healing properties of tarot through a psychological, philosophical, and humanistic lens.

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Sian Sibley

she/her

Sian Sibley (she/her) is the author of Unveiling the Green, a book on working psychologically, alchemically, and astrologically with plant spirits; and Black Paths and Green Cathedrals, her take on ecological witchcraft and working with the spirit of the trees – both books are known in academic and occult circles for their insightful fusion of scientific rigour and spiritual wisdom. With over 30 years of dedicated practice that spans a broad spectrum of occult disciplines, Sian brings an extensive background in both the mystical and the scientific, she holds master’s degrees in Biological Science and Ecology and Spirituality, blending her academic knowledge with her esoteric pursuits. Her work also delves deeply into planetary magic and the ancient wisdom of the Greek Magical Papyri.

For the past 25 years, Sibley has led the DragonOak Coven, a testament to her practical experience and mentorship. Sibley is also a prolific organiser of occult conferences and workshops, providing platforms for knowledge exchange and community building among like-minded individuals. Her events are celebrated for their depth and their diverse topics, reflecting her wide-ranging expertise.

Currently working on her next book, Sian is researching the new modalities of healing that have appeared, including the power of the placebo and the impact of medicating what used to be normal rites of passage such as age, menopause, and death.

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Timothy Facey

he/him

Tim is a lover of all things planet earth, and now enjoys the privilege of helping first responders and others, deal with lifetimes of trauma and self-destructive behaviours. A critical thinker with a love of the arts, Tim sees the craft as an endless source of inspiration and although currently a solo practitioner, is thankful for communities that welcome him in…like this one.