Bargain Witch On Tour!
Near, far, wherever you are, Bargain Witch: Essays In Self-Initiation is on its way to a bookshop near you on October 7, 2025! And author Brooke Palmieri is going on the road to promote it! Save the dates:
SUNDAY OCTOBER 5, 2025, 7 PM PRE-LAUNCH @ WEIRDO NIGHT, hosted by Dynasty Handbag at Zebulon, LA, CA
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 11, 2025, 6-8PM DESERT LAUNCH @ CORNER 62, hosted by Hi Desert Times, Corner 62, Twentynine Palms, CA with readings by Brooke Palmieri, music by Carolyn Pennypacker Riggs, and Hand Pies by Galaxy Pies! Costumes Encouraged.
TUESDAY OCTOBER 14, 2025, 7pm LAUNCH PARTY @ The Philosophical Research Society, LA. THE BARGAIN WITCH REVUE, with readings and performances by Amanda Yates Garcia, Noel Alumit, Amanda Faye Jimenez, Page Person, Emilia Richeson-Valiente, and Carolyn Pennypacker Riggs!
TUESDAY OCTOBER 21, 2025, 7pm @ HIVE MIND BOOKS, Brooklyn. In conversation with HUGH RYAN (RSVP)
FRIDAY OCTOBER 24, 2025, 7pm @ The Bureau of General Services - Queer Division, at the LGBT Center, NYC. In conversation with CLAYWOMAN
MONDAY OCTOBER 27, 2025, 7pm @ POWELL’S BOOKS, Portland, OR. DUAL Book Party with Bargain Witch + Little Faggot by Michelle Tea
THURSDAY NOVEMBER 13, 2025, 7PM @ CITY LIGHT’S BOOKS, San Francisco, CA. In conversation with Starhawk
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 13, 2025 @ THE WRITER'S BLOCK, Las Vegas, NV. Party with Michelle Tea First Blood: Part 2
BLURBS TO WHET YOUR APPETITE!
“Eager to forge a new reality, or recover an old one, with better metaphysics than the modern West? Bargain Witch can guide your self-initiation. It’s magic, through and through.”
—Susan Stryker, author of Transgender History and When Monsters Speak.
“I love this book. My only critique is that it wasn’t long enough. I never wanted it to end! Reading this book is like doing a ritual with your coolest, smartest, queerest friend—it feels sexy, dangerous, and ecstatic all at once. Honestly, if you only get one book this year, get this one. Just reading it is like lobbing a molotov through the window of patriarchy: it’s fun, it’s educational, it’s good for the world. Read it! Then go be gay and do witchcraft.”
—Amanda Yates Garcia, author of Initiated: Memoir of a Witch
“Impeccably researched, passionately political, vast in scope, yet unfailingly intimate, Bargain Witch is far more than an exploration of witchcraft—it is an autobiography of consciousness. Standing with Brooke Palmieri beneath the stars at midnight, invoking the primaeval, is utterly thrilling. I loved this book.”
—Dodie Bellamy, author of Bee Reaved and When the Sick Rule the World
“Reading Bargain Witch is like taking home a thrifted mystery box and cracking it open to discover a trove of letters from wild mages, keys to lost archives, and strange objects that combine to form the perfect spell. This book brought me into communion with writers and wizards from centuries past while offering a new way forward, a way to live a life formed from communion and collection, from being with dead writers and the living earth, from finding teachers and kin everywhere. Palmieri’s debut has left me feeling enchanted and alive—a gift to witches and queers (and nerds and freaks) everywhere.”
—Sam Cohen, author of Sarahland
“This book is going to become very important in some people’s lives, a blueprint for the romantic life of future libertine queer witches.”
—Morgan M. Page, co-author of Boys Don’t Cry and Framing Agnes
“Brooke Palmieri’s Bargain Witch is an idiosyncratic, syncretic delight. It is a deep dive into what it means to be a witch in the modern world, conjured with love, rigor, and a generosity of spirit. It draws equally on Palmieri’s extensive Oxford education in literature and his time working at Treadwells, one of London’s premiere magic bookshops. But Palmieri makes equal space in his theology for the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and the Goosebumps books, creating a quick moving, far-ranging text that shows a witch practice that is both modern and ancient; accessible and esoteric. Palmieri never shies away from the grift, the acts of self-creation, and the always-already lost history of witchcraft. Each possible negative is explored as a positive, embracing a queer methodology and spirituality that thrums through every part of this unique collection.”
—Hugh Ryan, author of The Women’s House of Detention: A Forgotten Queer History, and When Brooklyn Was Queer
“Bargain Witch is a spellbinding triumph! Brooke Palmieri doesn’t just write about magic, he channels it. With wit, wisdom, and a reverence for the fabulously freaky lineage of queer mystics, this book conjures an occult history that feels as lived-in as a dusty spellbook behind the counter of your favorite witchy thrift store. It’s hilarious, heartfelt, and haunting in the best way, like a séance with your smartest, sassiest coven.”
—Peaches Christ