Lists
by Madeline Shier, May 4, 2023 9:03 AM
There comes a point in every young person’s life where they need to make an important decision: where will they go to study magic?
While excellent students from a variety of academies and programs have been sharing their experiences for years — Ged’s adventures at The School of Wizardry on Roke Island in A Wizard of Earthsea (1968), Cat Chant’s training at Chrestomanci Castle in Charmed Life (1977), etc. — it’s impossible to deny that a particular institution has dominated the conversation for the last twenty-six years. But as news continues to break regarding the outrageous transphobia, antisemitism, and racism propagated by that academy and its founder, more and more students who’d previously anticipated immediately accepting their invitation to an ancient castle in Scotland are finding themselves considering alternative courses for their magical education.
(This is not to say that one person’s cruelty, even its founder’s, can wipe away all merit from an institution. You may still wish to take a tour of the campus there, and that is of course your prerogative. You will likely find much to love; this writer certainly does. I would simply also urge you to consider your surroundings as you pass through. If you, like me, find yourself put off by the tokenization of your non-white, non-straight peers, and by the mistreatment of entire groups of sentient beings, it is simply good to remember that these hallowed halls are not our only option.)
Hereafter, you will find a catalog of academic options to weigh as you plan your studies. Certain programs — such as the much-lauded training offered by Camp Half-Blood and its sibling organizations, or the prestigious School for Good and Evil — are undoubtedly already on your radar and have therefore been omitted, though we highly recommend you consider them as well.
Middle Schools
In recent years, a bevy of arcane academies for middle schoolers have opened their (oft-enchanted) doors, and a number of authors have taken great care to describe them in correlating Middle Grade accounts. These include:
Onyeka and the Academy of the Sun
by Tolá Okogwu
Tolá Okogwu biographies this Nigerian school for Solari, a group of superpowered individuals, in Onyeka and the Academy of the Sun. Onyeka’s specialty is her psychokinesis, which she expresses using her prehensile curly hair. If you have a gift that is more X-Men than incantation, this may be the academy for you.
The Marvellers
by Dhonielle Clayton
At the Arcanum Training Institute, students like Ella Durand (The Marvellers, Dhonielle Clayton) come from all over the world to practice mystical arts from a number of cultures. This is the perfect institute at which to learn about magical traditions from all sorts of global backgrounds while celebrating your own.
The Hidden Knife
by Melissa Marr
Do you find yourself contemplating the use of subterfuge and chicanery to bring justice to the disenfranchised? If so, the Corvus School for the Artfully Inclined may be your perfect fit. At Corvus, students like Vicky (The Hidden Knife, Melissa Marr) learn how to utilize their arcane gifts, including course options in alchemy and sword fighting, under the gargoyles’ watchful eyes.
Spell Sweeper
by Lee Edward Födi
The Dragonsong Academy for the Magically Gifted has course options for magicians of all skill levels, both as wizards and as spell sweepers (like Cara Moone, as recorded by Lee Edward Födi in Spell Sweeper), who clean up the magical residue left behind by complex arcane workings. If you like to keep things safe and tidy, training as a MOP (Magical Occurrence Purger) may be just the thing.
Wildseed Witch
by Marti Dumas
Renowned charm school (literally and figuratively) Les Belles Demoiselles has helped generations of young witches grow into powerful movers and shakers. Whether you’re a legacy or a Wildseed (from a family of non-witches, like Hasani in Marti Dumas’ Wildseed Witch), Les Belles Demoiselles is the academy of choice for witches who want to train their magic alongside their manners.
Mystwick School of Musicraft
by Jessica Khoury
It would be remiss of me not to include a school for the arts on this list of schools of the arcane arts. After all, the bardic tradition stretches back centuries! Students like Amelia Jones learn to use their musical gifts to express their magical ones at The Mystwick School of Musicraft (biographized in an eponymous title from Jessica Khoury).
A Taste of Magic
by J. Elle
Schools like Park Row Magick Academy, housed in the back of a local beauty shop, provide essential education and camaraderie for neighborhood magical kids. That’s why it’s so important to keep local schools funded (something Park Row has unfortunately struggled with in the past, as seen in Kyana Turner’s attempt to secure school funding through a baking competition in J. Elle’s A Taste of Magic).
Tidesong
by Wendy Xu
Simply put, the Royal Magic Academy is one of the best magic schools around. Their commitment to excellence is reflected by their rather arduous entrance exams. Extra training is recommended before application (as seen in Wendy Xu’s Tidesong, which chronicles the preparation efforts of young witch Sophie — and her friendship with water dragon Lir).
Middle School Alternative Programs, Homeschooling, and Societies
Not all magic is taught in the classroom. Some students do better in one-on-one study or by working within their family or coven, and extracurricular activities are important for every developing young magician. Consider the following options when shaping your Middle Grade studies:
Cattywampus
by Ash Van Otterloo
There is a long-standing tradition in magical families of creating and passing down a family spellbook, which can be an especially important practice in places where magical training for adolescents is limited or banned. Washington-state author Ash Van Otterloo highlights one such place (the town of Howler’s Hollow) in Cattywampus, which serves as a peek at the longstanding feud between rival magical families the Hearns and the McGills, as seen through the eyes of two of their youngest witches.
The Unicorn Rescue Society
by Adam Gidwitz
The Unicorn Rescue Society is dedicated to the preservation of mythical creatures. Adam Gidwitz works with illustrator Hatem Aly and partners with other authors to chronicle the Society’s adventures and encourage young people to help care for magical beings and their habitats. Right here in the PNW, for example, we have an incredible and secretive Sasquatch population, as documented in Joseph Bruchac’s series addition Sasquatch and the Muckleshoot.
Root Magic
by Eden Royce
If you belong to a tradition of folk magic like rootwork, you may learn your craft from family members. For example, Eden Royce’s Root Magic is an excellent look at such training in 1963 South Carolina. Jezebel “Jez” turner and her twin brother Jay go to a newly integrated school by day; at home, their uncle Doc introduces them to their Gullah-Geechee family legacy of rootwork.
The Witch Boy
by Molly Ostertag
You may belong to a magical settlement or community that has its own style of arcane education. Molly Knox Ostertag peers into one such settlement in the Witch Boy series. That settlement operates on strict gender norms, with boys learning to shapeshift while girls study witchcraft. Aster, a boy drawn to witchcraft, yearns to change the status quo. His story is an important reminder to celebrate our inner truths, and that we can and should push our communities to be inclusive and supportive of all their members.
Witchlings
by Claribel A. Ortega
If you live in a town like Ravenskill, you may study magic in a coven instead of a classroom. As Claribel A. Ortega documents in Witchlings, magical youth in Ravenskill participate in the Black Moon Ceremony to be placed into a coven — though some, like Seven Salazar, aren’t chosen by one of the five covens and find themselves instead as Spares. As Seven’s story goes to show, however, a coven of Spares can be just as powerful and change-making as a legacy coven.
High Schools & Colleges
Once you complete your middle school magical training, you’ll likely be looking into furthering your occult studies in high school and/or college, as documented in various YA and Sci-Fi/Fantasy accounts. There are a number of schools and programs available to you, including:
Not Your Sidekick
by C. B. Lee
Students who attended the Academy of the Sun for their middle school years are particularly likely to matriculate into Andover, as it similarly has a student population whose gifts veer more towards the “super” than the sorcerous. You may also find opportunities for internships, though as described in C. B. Lee’s Not Your Sidekick, you’ll want to watch out for postings made by supervillains.
The Nature of Witches
by Rachel Griffin
Witches who want to change the world for the better (likely including conservationists from the Unicorn Rescue Society) may find themselves called to study climate maintenance at the Eastern School of Solar Magic. Most students find their power peaks in a particular season (summer for this writer), but you may find yourself to be a rare Everwitch, powerful in every season. For one such account, see The Nature of Witches from Washington-author Rachel Griffin.
The Grimoire of Grave Fates
by Margaret Owen and Hanna Alkaf
If you’ve been longing to find something analogous to that castle in Scotland, the Galileo Academy for the Extraordinary may be your ideal institution. Though it has an exclusionary past, it has recently been overhauled to welcome and train magicians of all identities and cultures — though this initiative is admittedly new enough that some are still behind the times. Thankfully, one of the greatest offenders is no longer teaching at the school, though regretfully (to some) he was removed via murder. You can read more about that incident in the upcoming The Grimoire of Grave Fates, a compilation of student accounts edited by Margaret Owen and Hanna Alkaf.
The Wizard Heir
by Cindy Williams Chima
The Havens is a boys’ school on the lovely coast of Maine, a state refreshingly free of supernatural terror and mischief. Headmaster Leicester is happy to take on new wizard pupils, as long as you don’t mind giving him access to your powers in exchange. If that sounds a bit too Faustian for you, you could join ex-students like Seph McCauley in the magic sanctuary town of Trinity, OH instead (as documented in The Wizard Heir, Cindy Williams Chima).
A Deadly Education
by Naomi Novik
For students not afraid to fight for their education (against cursed objects, monsters, and fellow students alike), the Scholomance offers an unparalleled opportunity for arcane studies. If you find yourself the subject of a dark prophecy or beneath a shroud of foretold doom, you make a particularly compelling candidate. Do bear in mind that you may find yourself part of the ongoing conflict between school enclaves; Naomi Novik’s series, begun with A Deadly Education, is an excellent resource on the subject.
High School & College Alternative Programs, Homeschooling, and Societies
As always, you have the option to augment or replace a high school/collegiate academic track with various alternatives and additions. You may be drawn to:
Brooms
by Jasmine Walls
If you intend to apply for an athletic scholarship or take part in intramural sports opportunities, it’s a good idea to study up on the history of the archetypical magic sport: broom racing. The upcoming graphic novel Brooms (Jasmine Walls, illus. Teo DuVall) is an excellent account to start with, digging into the history of unsanctioned broom racing (and magic in general) for people of color in the American South in the 1930s.
Akata Witch
by Nnedi Okorafor
If you completed your middle grade studies in a coven (like the Witchlings) or another close-knit community (like Aster in Witch Boy), or if you found that an academy/institution model is not for you and want to change your path, a coven or community may be the best place for you to further your magical education. Cultures all over the world have such practices — for example the Leopard People in West Africa, notably portrayed in Nnedi Okorafor’s Akata Witch.
Legendborn
by Tracy Deonn
If you want to pursue a broad education in studies both magical and mundane, it may serve you well to attend a mundane institution and participate in a sorcerous society. For example, if you attend UNC-Chapel Hill, you may be interested in joining the society of the Legendborn (see Tracy Deonn’s eponymous account), descendants of the Arthurian knights. There are also a variety of secret societies at Yale, several of which deal in the arcane arts.
There’s Magic in All of Us
This is by no means an exhaustive list of your options for a magical education. You may also wish to look into Transmogrify, edited by g. haron davis, which features insight on Tilluster College, Humperdinck’s School of Magical Mastery, Herman (previously known as the Majestic Queer Academy of Hermeneutical and Practical Magics), and more.
Still, unless you happen to live in a world where magic is part of the everyday landscape (like Darcie Little Badger’s titular protagonist Elatsoe, whose America is shaped by ancestral, indigenous magics), this list should serve as a good foundation in planning your forays into arcane academia. (If you temporarily resided in such a world but have found yourself back in this one, you may find a support system at Eleanor West’s Home for Wayward Children, biographized by Seanan McGuire.)
We all deserve to find places and communities (real and fictional both) that support us and celebrate us for who we are, uplifting us to practice, experience, and enjoy our own magic. I hope this selection introduces you to some of them. There is magic in me; there is magic in you; and there is magic in the space between us, where we have the opportunity to understand and honor each other.
There’s magic in all of us. Don’t be afraid to use it.
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