Back in 1990, Llewellyn Publications decided to publish an annual Magical Almanac and I was asked to edit it. It promised to be a lot of fun, with the whole world of magic open to us. I hoped to get articles from the wide range of authors who produced books for the publisher. Alas, they were very slow in getting on board. The result was that I ended up writing much of the first issue myself! But slowly and surely the Magical Almanac gained ground and it wasn’t long before I had a wide variety of articles from which to choose each year.
From the beginning, however, there was always one fellow author I could count on—Scott Cunningham. He and I lived not far from one another, in San Diego, and were good friends. We had similar interests and, as it happened, a similar sense of humor! I always knew that if I ran short of material, and the deadline was drawing near, I could give Scott a call and he’d produce something for me. “Dressing With Power,” “Magic in Hawaii,” “Yule Lore,” “The Magical Teacher,” “Magic and Technology,” “The Magical Pantry,” “A Snow Spell,” and “Spells” were all articles of Scott’s that appeared in the first couple of editions.
The Magical Almanac grew in popularity over the years. I continued as editor for the first three years and then, in 1993, Scott joined me and we became co-editors. When introducing him to the readership at that time I stated, “He’s happiest when reading or writing, but can be impossible to get off the phone!” I also noted that Scott had a collection of hermit crabs. For that edition Robin Wood also joined us as designer and her artistic sense made a big improvement to the almanac.
Scott wrote the introduction for that 1993 Almanac and in it he said, “The shadowy realm of magic has always had its share of adherents, in all ages. Unchained by rigidly mundane thought, magicians carve their futures with timeless spells, working with the powers of the Earth, Sun, Moon, the planets, and the elements to create positive change. Forging their lives with the forces of nature and their own energies, such magicians (power workers) discover that life is a series of opportunities undreamt of by most of their peers.” Scott was himself most certainly one of those power workers.
–Raymond Buckland