Who Is TJ Green? Magic, Writing, and a Life Lived Differently
I've been writing about witches for years now — but it took me a while to admit that I am one.
When readers first discovered the White Haven Witches series, I was often asked whether I practised the craft. My answer, for a long time, was no. I didn't cast spells in the conventional sense, and I didn't belong to a coven. But the honest truth is more complicated than that, and it's taken years of reflection, reading, and living to arrive at where I am now.
The Beginning
My questioning started in my late teens. I was already uncomfortable with organised religion with its male-centric god, its rigid hierarchies, and the way it left no room for women to stand fully in their own power. Paganism felt different. The more I read, the more I understood how deeply the church had layered itself over far older beliefs, supplanting rather than replacing. The old ways called to me in a way nothing else had.
I've always been unconventional. I've never married, never had children — neither felt necessary, and I've been fortunate enough to have a partner who agrees. I threw off conventional ways of dressing and behaving early on, dyed my hair in increasingly bold colours, and found my identity somewhere between hippie dresses and grunge. That fierce independence — that refusal to be shaped by someone else's mould — feels, to me, deeply witchy.
There were signs along the way. A tarot reader who told me I was on the wrong side of the table. A friend who refused to sleep in my room because, she said, it was too full of me. A set of tarot cards gifted by someone who introduced me to ideas I was only just beginning to grasp. I still use that same deck, but have gathered a few more along the way. There's something in the lighting of candles, the scent of incense, and the shuffle of worn cards that I find nowhere else.
The Craft and the Writing
About fifteen years ago the urge to write seriously became impossible to ignore. I'd kept diaries for years, but stories wanted out. I took an English Literature degree, and the second paper I chose was on Witchcraft and Magic. Serendipity.
That course sent me back into the thought processes I'd begun in my twenties. I started researching witchcraft properly, such as its history, its practices, its deep roots in the land and the seasons, and found my respect for it deepened considerably. When I began writing the White Haven Witches, it felt entirely natural to draw on that research. Why invent a magic system when a real and beautiful one already exists?
The Moonfell Witches series reflects a shift in how I feel about all of it. These women carry more weight. Their ancestors are close; their history clings. They keep one foot in the past, as one of my characters puts it. That's because my own relationship to the craft has grown heavier and more intentional over time. Witchcraft, to me, is not cosy. It is deep, mysterious, and wondrous, rooted in the elements, shaped by the moon, inseparable from the cycles of the natural world.
Where I Am Now
I'm a Cancerian, and the moon genuinely rules me. I light candles and incense every day to set my intentions. I honour each full and new moon. I speak to plants. I observe the Wheel of the Year — the seasonal festivals that shape my books and my calendar alike. I read the tarot regularly. I sense things others don't always notice.
Living in the Algarve in Portugal only deepens all of this. The land here is old and patient, and there's a quality to the light and the seasons that makes it easier to stay connected to what matters.
I am, in the way that feels most true to me, a witch. Not because of any formal practice, but because of how I move through the world — intuitively, independently, with deep attention to the mysteries that lie just beneath the surface of everyday life.
That's what I write about. I couldn't write anything else.
I'd love to hear about our witchcraft journey, so please drop a comment below.