Laura Morgan is an author and a librarian living in New England. Laura writes novels for adults with fantasy, science fiction, romance, and horror. Laura’s work centers sapphic protagonists and romances, and representation is an important part of their writing.
I’m currently querying a 70k contemporary fantasy novel called Witch Wise! Witch Wise is a labor of love that I started writing in 2020, and finished last summer. It’s a perspective on womanhood, on grief, on coming-of-age, on the meaning of family. This book stars nine sweetly mischievous young witches learning to control their power at the Wise House, through the eyes of the newest member of the school. I look forward to introducing you to the magic.
Catalina Quinn is the newest member of Wise House, a school for witches learning to use and control their magic. Surrounded by women who finally see the world the way she does, Catalina is welcomed into the glorious, whimsical life of studies at Wise House. Still, she can’t help but be wary of how lovely it seems, having seen the dark side of magic gone wrong. Only a year before, Catalina was the sole survivor of a devastating magical accident.
Her underlying fear of her power gone wrong starts to fade as she learns to use her magic in delightful ways. The girls at Wise House begin to grow on her, and she loves them more and more as they help her adjust to witchhood. But there are secrets in the Wise House that have been there since before Catalina showed up, and they threaten the safety and lives of the family she’s created.
With their teacher unexpectedly away, a curse descending on Wise House, and an unseen enemy lurking behind the shadows, Catalina and her coven are short on options. If the witches are going to survive the danger in their home, they’ll need to think with more than just magic and fight with everything they have.
What does Witch Wise mean to me?
Witch Wise is a magic-academia fantasy about the magic we find in forming sisterhoods with the women in our lives, balancing elements of cozy fantasies with darker themes of loss and grief. This story is meant for the witches who haven’t always had the right power in their bodies, but have had to learn to make magic anyways. It’s for the witches with a complicated sense of family, at the intersection of a little lost in our coming of age. It’s for witches who are women, queer, trans, Black, disabled, who can take their power from fantasy worlds. I wrote Witch Wise for myself. I wrote Witch Wise for everyone else.