Flowering Dusk (Forthcoming)
Things Remembered Accurately and Inaccurately
Holythorn Press is delighted to announce that we will be publishing Flowering Dusk by Ella Young in 2024. We are also honoured that Dr. Christina Oakley-Harrington has agreed to contribute an Introduction.
Born in Ireland in 1867, where she lived for almost half her life, Ella was a visionary writer, revolutionary, folklorist, and poet. A close friend of Maud Gonne and AE, she was a well-known member of the vibrant Dublin literary and occult scene of the early 20th century. All her life she had very close contact with spiritual beings who guided and shaped her life and work. Going to America in 1925 where she spent the rest of her life, Ella also contacted the nature beings in the redwood groves near her home in Halcyon, California. The community centred on The Temple of the People was a hub of creativity which included John Varian, Henry Cowell, Ansel Adams, and other prominent American modern artists and writers. She taught a course in Irish mythology at the University of California at Berkeley for many years, and authored very popular versions of Irish legends for children.
Previously published only once in 1944, Flowering Dusk is not a linear autobiography, but a series of memories, vignettes and reminiscences which have a vividness and immediacy which is both charming and compelling.
