The Coven is a group blog, written by and for women, founded and edited by Sarah Waldron.

For those not in the know, a coven is a gathering of witches, and that is what we are. According to the Twilight series, a coven also refers to a gathering of vampires – but we’ll ignore that for many reasons. The coven has long been a sacred space for women to do and say thing outside of the norm, and we’re not particularly interested in the norm. 

Content-wise, you can safely expect essays, criticism, social and cultural history, and humour.  We want to look at serious things without being dour and to look at frothy things without being insubstantial; to publish fashion, beauty, travel and food writing as much as criticism or a meaty interview.

But all we really want is for you, the reader, is to find us interesting. Because our writers are very interested in their subjects.

Here is an incomplete FAQ.

1. What is this?

Good question. It is a website. Well, technically it is a blog with posts written mostly by professional writers, so almost anything could happen.

The basic premise of The Coven is this; we want a space for smart, funny and interesting women to write almost anything they want, within a monthly theme.

2. Who’s in charge here?

Me. My name is Sarah Waldron and I am a writer and the editor of this here website. Our deputy editor is Jainnie Cho, who is also a writer with a lot of editorial experience. She’s pretty great.

3. What’s going to go up on the website?

Pretty much anything our writers think of, related to the month’s theme. We welcome personal essays, pop culture criticism, art, photography, fashion, beauty, history, science, politics… whatever. Just as long as it’s interesting and (our only other stipulation) at least a thousand words long. There’s enough digestible pap on the Internet as it is.

4. Is this a feminist website?

Yes and no. All of our writers are feminists and that informs their writing, but this isn’t a feminist newswire. We just don’t have the resources to do something like that.

5. That sounds suspiciously like ROOKIE/The Hairpin/The Toast etc.

Yes, yes it does. However, there have been women-dominated spaces for writing for quite a while now and themed writing prompts have been around for even longer. And there should be more of these around. So we’re trying to make another one.

6. Are you paying your writers?

Nope. Nobody is getting paid. Not the editors, not the writers. It is still just a blog at this stage, though we are open to advertisers.

7. Can I write for you?

Yes! Well, probably. Our writers come from all over the world, and they are all talented and tremendously sound (in some cases, award-winning!) so message us here and we’ll be in touch.

8. Your ideas intrigue me, and I would like to subscribe to your newsletter.

Good call. You can subscribe by clicking on this link here – newsletters are sent every Sunday.