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Tarot for Writers
by
Once reserved for mystics and seers, the tarot is one of the best tools for boosting your creativity and shifting your imagination into high gear. Famous authors such as John Steinbeck and Stephen King have used the tarot deck to tap into deep wells of inspiration, and you can enliven your own writing the same way--whether you craft short stories, novels, poetry, nonfictio
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Paperback, 358 pages
Published
February 8th 2009
by Llewellyn Publications
(first published February 1st 2009)
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The first half of the book is your standard "how to read tarot cards" that you can honestly find even free on the internet. The second half, however, is fascinating-- how to, when you are stuck and cannot figure what to write, pull a few cards and get ideas for a character or a plot idea. I really liked this section and intend to refer to it often in the future.
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Didn’t finish as I wasn’t in the right frame of mind for this book. I enjoyed what I did read and fully intend to pick this up again someday and work through some of the fun exercises in it.

Review pending. So far only fault I found is inclusion of reading for Waite-Smith deck. Not everyone uses that deck, so not everyone has those particular images. I personally favor the Mystical Manga Tarot by Rann and Barbara Moore. My Fool is a very different image from A.E. Waite's.
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Jul 28, 2011
Steve Cran
added it
An excellent book has been written for writers who want to use Tarot cards to spur on their creativity. Several authors like Stephen a King and Italo Calvino have used a deck of Tarot cards to inspire them in their writing. The most common Tarot deck is the Rider Waite deck developed back in the earlier part of this century. Use of other Tarot cards goes back to the Early 14oo’s
There are several spreads that one can use to help their writing. The first one is a two card reading . This is used to ...more
There are several spreads that one can use to help their writing. The first one is a two card reading . This is used to ...more

This book was fascinating. The only think I think might be a problem is I think you would need a deck that had art work that was kinda themed to go with your story... or maybe I need to think more outside the box. I loved the concept and think it would be fun to write a whole story based on it. I think if you got several people together and asked they to write a story using the techniques in this book and the exact same deck you would end up with several very different stories. Might be a fun ex
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This was, and continues to be, an invaluable book in my journaling. She has included writing prompts for each card along with goodies like astrological associations, symbols, myth, and archetypes. She has also written a book on Tarot and Astrology if you want an additional companion to your writing journey. This book is for those who want to look deeply within each card.

I used this book for NaNoWriMo in 2013 and it gave me a lot of good ideas. I'm just learning tarot and I'd never thought of using it as a writing aid before I got this book, but it was very thought-provoking and helpful.
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An interesting arrangement of Tarot meanings, layouts, readings and writing exercises. Includes history and basics of Tarot, which I didn't need, but enjoyed her take on it, anyway.
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Hmmm. I was bitten by the writing bug long ago, and I have a pretty regular personal tarot practice for many years now. Combining the two felt quite natural to me, and I have been exploring tarot as a writing tool, following my own impulses and intuitions, on my own. I hoped this book would maybe give me some new ideas, but my creative process does not mesh so well with the methods outlined in this book.
If you are brand new to writing and tarot, this will surely be a handy resource. If you are ...more
If you are brand new to writing and tarot, this will surely be a handy resource. If you are ...more

Interesting take on using a tarot spread to plot a story/novel or pulling random cards to develop character, setting, and plot. Some suggestions for other aspects of writing like covers and administration. Also includes links to archetypes, symbology astrology and descriptions of the cards. Worth experimenting with just to see.

Full of inspiration for writers and writing. I liked this book better than Astrology for Writers because this one seemed to make more sense to me. The cards can be somewhat related to Joseph Campbell's Hero's Journey, which can be helpful for a story arc.
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In my on going quest to ferret out obscure writing books, today I am going to review “Tarot for Writers” by Corrine Kenner.
Writers have long used tarot cards as writing prompts. Even the famous Stephen King uses them. The imagery on the cards, the pictures and the symbolism sparks a deep chord.
Though almost any deck with varied pictures for inspiration can work, the tarroka by whitewolf for the Ravenloft supplements was specifically created to inspire character and plot development in a Dungeon ...more
Writers have long used tarot cards as writing prompts. Even the famous Stephen King uses them. The imagery on the cards, the pictures and the symbolism sparks a deep chord.
Though almost any deck with varied pictures for inspiration can work, the tarroka by whitewolf for the Ravenloft supplements was specifically created to inspire character and plot development in a Dungeon ...more

I was very pleased with this book. I've always been fascinated with reading tarot cards; I have a deck, but I have very little knowledge of how to read the cards. The book that my deck came with is a tiny little thing that doesn't go into much depth. But Tarot for Writers has helped me to understand the cards better, and has also given me some ideas as far as writing goes.
As with every book, I did see some problems with this one. I'm not familiar enough with tarot history to know if it is actual ...more
As with every book, I did see some problems with this one. I'm not familiar enough with tarot history to know if it is actual ...more

I can't speak to the merits of this book as a tarot guide, given that I'm a hobbyist at best. It's clear that the focus of this guide is the craft of writing and the creative process, and it keeps mentions of tarot's more mystical side to a minimum. I find that the exercises and prompts in this book are helpful and different from a lot of writing guides I've seen out there, and I'd recommend it for any writer or artist looking for something outside of the proverbial box.
The more in-depth interpr ...more
The more in-depth interpr ...more

I am a bit mixed on this book, on one hand I disagreed with a lot of her interpretations of the card but on the other I am far enough along in my understanding of the tarot that this didn't really throw me and I was able to use what I already knew instead. I did find many of the exercises for creating characters and scenes and such to be interesting and helpful and rather entertaining to use. This seems to be either for an experienced writer or an extremely casual writer though, as the suggestio
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Tarot for Writers by Corrine Kenner had some interesting thoughts on sparking ideas for characters and plots, but so much of it is so repetitious that it can be difficult to get through. The writing style doesn't help. Also, it's probably just trying to be thorough in presenting possibilities but the result is that it seems the author spends more time interrogating the cards than actually writing stories from it.
Since the book suggests that people create their own spreads to read and get ideas ...more
Since the book suggests that people create their own spreads to read and get ideas ...more

This isn't so much a Tarot book as it is a guide to using the Tarot to jump start a writer's creativity. It features different spreads and ways to use (or misuse, depending upon your point of view) a Tarot deck to help determine plots and characterizations. It's intriguing, but I'm not certain my decks would be happy to be put to such use.
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Brilliant. One of the most useful writing tools I've yet tried.
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Corrine Kenner is a certified tarot master and the author of several books, including Simple Fortunetelling with Tarot Cards, Tarot Journaling, Tall Dark Stranger: Tarot for Love and Romance, The Epicurean Tarot, and the forthcoming Wizards Tarot and Tarot for Writers. \r
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Corrine has lived in Brazil and Los Angeles, where she earned a bachelors degree in philosophy from California State Universit ...more
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Corrine has lived in Brazil and Los Angeles, where she earned a bachelors degree in philosophy from California State Universit ...more
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“Where there's smoke, there's fire: the wand cards can indicate that sparks are about to fly, that passions may be enflamed, and that an affair is about to heat up.”
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“The Major Arcana cards are the big-picture cards. They're dramatic: the characters are larger than life.”
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