I’m writing this on Solstice Eve, with the skies grey and the ground wet - doesn’t bode well for the sunrise tomorrow!  I wonder how many of you reading this will have risen early to go outside and greet the dawn? It’s been a very busy few weeks since Beltane, with both Magus and Moondance now republished and in the shops (well, some of them - many Waterstone’s branches don’t seem to have Moondance yet). I’m so pleased with tthe new covers and seeing the new books out there gives me such a thrill.  Feedback has been good so far and there are now more reviews on Amazon.  I really do appreciate my readers making the effort to post reviews for Stonewylde, and it does help. Magus currently has 85; it would be wonderful to get this up to 100!  Solstice is out on July 7th and then the one you’ve all been waiting for  - Shadows at Stonewylde - on August 4th.  I’m really delighted with its cover.  It’s being printed right now and I can’t wait to hold a copy in my hands.  We’ve all waited so very long for this book and I can’t wait to hear what you all think of it! The Stonewylde Promo-Pixies have really done me proud - the response to my request for help was fantastic and I was overwhelmed by people’s kindness.  In the end, 102 of you received a bundle of cards, four badges and a car-sticker, and several of you have already asked for more cards! Thank you all so very much.  I can’t believe your loyalty to Stonewylde.  I’ve had some lovely tales back of how you all went about it - from guerrila tactics (a member in Hungerford who put a card inside every holistic magazine in a crystal shop) to blatantly approaching likely- looking members of the public and telling them about the books!  Orion are now printing a fantastic new card featuring the covers of all four books and a brilliant slogan - and the back is a postcard, so the cards can be sent!  They’ve kindly agreed to supply some to every promo-pixie who volunteered last time - though probably not quite as many as you had before! If you don’t want a bundle of these new cards, please let me know soon so I can remove your name from the list. And anyone else who’d like to help spread the word, please send me an e- mail here with your name and address.  By the way, the promotions e- mail address was lost for a while when the new website was launched - so if I never replied to an e-mail I’m really sorry and please send it again. We spent a fantastic weekend in Shropshire at Beltane and had fun at the Green Man Festival at Clun. We met up with a whole tribe of Stonewylders there - loads of them - and had a classic moment when a strange man wearing an original Stonewylde Green Man T-shirt, all the badges and clutching a fistful of promo-cards approached us. He stared at Mr B in identical T-shirt, then me and did a double take. “You’re ... you’re not Kit Berry are you?” he gasped.  It was so funny - he’d no idea I’d be there and had thought we looked like a couple who’d enjoy the books!  You can see him in the far left of this photo. I spent an amazing weekend at the Wessex Gathering on the Isle of Purbeck, camping with Nick and Sandi, my new friends who run the Dorset Wildlife Rescue.  We had a fantastic time - free workshops, Damh the Bard playing unplugged and camping too, beautiful weather and wonderful atmosphere.  Nick reported that all the fox cubs have now been released into the wild, and the baby stoat too.  There was an auction at the Gathering with items donated by pagan artists, musicians, writers etc.  It was incredible - some people had donated the most amazing items so very generously, and the bidding was wild and frenzied.  Phil Robinson, who organises the camp along with his partner Nina, was a hilarious auctioneer and should be doing stand-up comedy in my opinion.  He was very good too - a huge sum of money was raised for the charity, and this may be enough to build a new release pen for next year’s fox cubs.  I’ll explain about this soon in a blog, but in the meantime do look at the charity’s website here, and also the fantastic home of the Wessex Gathering - see you there next year maybe? I’ve arranged a whole summer of book signing events which you can see below - please do come and see me if you can, even if you already have the books. I need the moral supoort of my readers - and I’ll be giving away badges and postcards!  Please come and say hello.    Breaking Stonewylde news      Stonewylde Newsletter 36 June 21st 2011 Bright blessings at    to all Stonewylders What’s been going on ... The Summer Solstice is a Fire Festival, marking the turning point in the year when the sun "stands still" in the sky. It’s a time for honouring the life-giving force of the sun and its regenerative and fertilizing powers. Our ancestors would have used this day to mark their calendar; all over the Northern Hemisphere people would celebrate the longest day, and shortest night, of the year. This is traditionally a time of magic, as Shakespeare depicted in Midsummer Night's Dream. In more recent years the Solstice has been brought to the public's attention by the media's coverage of celebrations and rituals held at Stonehenge and other sacred sites. In many places there are standing stones aligned to the Solstice sunrise. Although surprisingly to many, the place where the midsummer sun rises is exactly the same spot where the full moon closest to the Winter Solstice rises. Perhaps these standing stones were aligned to the winter moonrise? It requires some commitment to be up to greet the rising sun at this time of year. If you haven't yet risen in the strange half-light of pre-dawn and sat patiently waiting for the first glimpse of the sun, do try it. It's wonderful to be part of a large gathering, but it can be even more Visit the Stonewylde Website Dates for your diary ...  I have loads of booksigning events planned for the summer, and am also hoping to go down to the West Country on a book tour over the third weekend in August.  Unfortunately I haven’t yet finalised this so can’t yet tell you where I’ll be when - please check the website for updates.  Do come along and collect a postcard and badge.  And if you own a Stonewylde T-shirt - please wear it! Waterstone’s Book Events Saturday June 25th - Staines, Middx  Saturday July 2nd - Camberley, Surrey Saturday July 9th - Reading (the Oracle), Berks Saturday July 16th - Cheltenham, Glos Saturday July 30th - Dorking, Surrey Saturday August 6th - Dorchester, Dorset Saturday August 13th - private Full Moon book launch event for Stonewylders (see below) Friday/Saturday/Sunday August 19th, 20th and 21st - West Country Tour Saturday September 10th - Swindon, Wilts Saturday October 1st - Eastbourne, West Sussex All signings will start around 10.30 - 11.00am and I’ll be in the shop for about three hours or so. I’d love to do some signings at independent bookshops too - please contact me if you’d like to arrange this.   Stonewylde Community news ... Something really strange has been happening amongst the Stonewylde community.  I don’t know if it’s the excitement of the fourth book finally being launched, or maybe the feeling that you were all here first from the beginning and now the world is going to hear about Stonewylde - but the whole tribe has undergone an incredible bonding recently.  Stonewylders meet up all over the place at regular intervals, and four distinct groups (so far!) have evolved, although there’s a lot of cross- fertilisation.  We have the infamous Northern Tarts (so-called because they first met up a few years ago in Bakewell, home of the tart) who get together regularly.  They’ve just enjoyed a Solstice party to celebrate our lovely Faerie-Face’s birthday.  We have the Southern Belles, who are camping in the New Forest together in a couple of weeks’ time, and the south-west group who haven’t yet named themselves (as far as I know) but who met up in Totnes recently for a shopping expedition.  Then there are the newly formed Middle Earthlings (the Midlands chapter of Stonewylde) who got together at the Rollright Stones to celebrate the Solstice too (we joined them, although technically I suppose we’re Belles).  And back in May, there was a complete cocktail of Stonewylders when they all descended on Avebury for a weekend.  The community site now has a huge number of members who post regularly, and genuine friendships have evolved.  One lady decided to start a Facebook group for Stonewylde members, seeing as how so many people use Facebook throughout the day and night to communicate with friends. It’s called “The Clan of the Hare - a place for the Stonewylde Tribe” - it’s a closed group but anyone who loves Stonewylde can join, and also the main community too. Please apply for membership and say you saw the info here. Other news - one Stonewylder who’s been a fan for a long time wrote a while back and asked my permission to use some words that I wrote a long time ago in her handfasting.  These are the words here.  I was so honoured!  Lin and her husband Gary were handfasted at Dovedale Camp in Derby and they carried swan feathers found on a riverbank.  May blossom was shaken over their heads and they jumped the broomstick together, their hands fastened in a symbolic gesture.  Lin said the ceremony meant a lot more to them than the original registry office one twenty years ago, and all their friends and family had a lovely time.   We wish them both many more years of happiness together, and I’m very touched that Lin chose to use my words in her ceremony. A beautiful Scottish lady, Soraya, who’s a member of our community and writes the astrology column in a famous women’s magazine, has recently published three books.  One is a book of psychic answers and the other two are about the pagan path. “The Kitchen Witch” is full of recipes, lotions and potions for each festival, whilst “The Witch’s Companion”  is a very useful guide for anyone wanting to learn more about this path.  If you’ve ever felt confused by all the information out there, this book will be very helpful indeed.  I was delighted to contribute a couple of pages explaining about my personal path, and I wish Soraya every success with her new books.  You can find out more about her work here. At the August Full Moon, many members of the Stonewylde Community will be gathering together at Avebury to celebrate the long-awaited launch of Shadows at Stonewylde.   This is a private event only for members of the community, and will be ticket only in order to comply with Village Hall safety regulations concerning numbers.  We’re hoping that Orion will be filming some of the event for marketing and PR.  John Wilding of The Henge Shop, who’s supported Stonewylde right from the very start and has sold hundreds of copies of my books over the past six years, will be there selling discounted copies of the new books.  And I’ll sign ‘em! Many of us are making a whole weekend of it at the Moongazy Camp, where we’re holding a Stonewylde camping rally.  Organised by our dear Swampy, we’ve taken over a whole field and will be flying the flag there all weekend, with barbeques, fun and games, and a Stonewylde fancy dress party.  This weekend is only for members of the forum, so if you’re interested in joining us, please apply for membership soon.  Click here for details. . . spiritual to witness alone the rays of the sun clearing the horizon. Tune yourself into the rhythm of the earth, imagining the planet at its utmost tilt towards the sun. You’ll feel in harmony with our ancestors who did exactly the same thing for so many centuries. The same is true of the Solstice sunset, many hours later. And there's a certain sadness in knowing that the days will now be getting shorter again. The symbol of the Summer Solstice at Stonewylde is the oak leaf, as folk lore tells us that this was the festival of the Oak King. There was perennial conflict between the Oak King and the Holly King, one superceding the other at each solstice, with each ruling for six months. This may be the origin of the practice of burning the Wicker Man - a symbolic ritual.  In the Stonewylde series, Magus is born at the Summer Solstice and is therefore the Oak King, and Yul the Holly King at the Winter Solstice. They represent opposing forces - Magus with his dark eyes and silver hair, Yul with his black curls and grey eyes. In fact the series could be summarised as the battle between these opposite powers - Yul and Sol. Winter and summer. Darkness and light.          ©Steve Perry Due to all the pressure of finishing the final draft of Shadows, proof-reading it and launching all the promotional stuff, we haven’t yet actually produced the new T-shirts and bags that we’d planned to.  They are coming, I promise - if they’re ready before the next newsletter at Lammas I’ll send you a quick e- mail to tell you.  But to make space in our poor, over-crowded house, we’re now selling off the existing stock at reduced rates.  Yes, a STONEWYLDE SALE!  The black T-shirts featuring a silver labyrinth and the slogan “There’s no escape” will be reduced now to just £5.99, plus only £1 p&p in the UK.  The new logo Stonewylde T-shirts and strappy tops (white in ladyfit and natural in comfort fit) will be reduced to £7.99 each plus £1 towards postage, and the eco- bags will cost only 99p each plus 50p postage.  Absolute bargains - only while stocks last as they say. New designs will be different so get yourself one of these originals now. We also have a new Stonewylde pack available from the shop - a must-have for the keen fan.  Four different badges and a car sticker for £2.99 with free p&p.  These are proving very popular so do show the world where your heart lies.