Alex Mar is the guest. Her new memoir, Witches of America, is available now from Farrar, Straus, & Giroux. Alex showed up in the car of a journalist. She was, I think, fresh from the airport, and a journalist had picked her up and interviewed her on the way to my house. Busy author. She got out of the journalist's car and walked back to my garage and sat down and talked to me for an hour about witches and Paganism and magic and religion and the occult. I often worry, when an author is on an extended tour, doing a ton of media, that I'll catch her in a state of fatigue, that she'll be "all talked out" by the time she gets to me. (This can happen.) Fortunately, this wasn't the case with Alex, who was totally game and has a truly incredible story to tell. I hold journalists, and particularly those who work deep in the field, in the very highest regard. It's a noble line of work. Alex has spent much of the past five years doing just that, and Witches in America is the very fine result. Today's monologue is (spoiler alert) pretty long. The podcast got a mention in the New York Times this past Sunday, and it meant something to me. I talk about that, and about the origins of this show and the people who inspired me to create it, and so on. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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“What did the council decide on item 42?” — answered with the speaker and the moment.