Tarot Interviews

Here, Queer and Creating! Tarot with Nova and Mali

• Finbarre Snarey | Tarot Interviews • Season 1 • Episode 15

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Nova and Mali are married nonbinary lesbians who love fostering kittens and making inclusive gay art projects. Nova is from Michigan and Mali is from Germany and Texas, and they live together in Lansing, Michigan with their cats, Sam and Cosmo.

Discover their latest project Star Crossed: A Queer Tarot - a gorgeous new set of cards celebrating LGBTQ+ identities and disability representation. Now live on Kickstarter, the deck is a love letter to queer resilience and artistic freedom.

For more information:

Website: novaandmali.com
Instagram: nova_mali
Bluesky: novamali
Tumblr: novaandmali

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If you're curious about the cards we use and want to find out more, visit our Tarot Interviews podcast page.

Disclaimer: The Tarot Interviews podcast is intended for entertainment purposes only. The views and opinions expressed by the hosts and guests are their own and do not constitute professional, legal, financial, medical, or psychological advice. Listeners are encouraged to seek guidance from qualified professionals where appropriate.

Finbarre Snarey:

Welcome to Tarot Interviews. Today we're sitting down with Nova and Marlee Quinn, the creative duo shaking up the world of queer art publishing. Since 2020, they've been on a mission to bring more LGBTQ+ and black indigenous people of colour voices into the spotlight, reimagining classic art and literature in bold, inclusive ways. Their classics trilogy gives famous artworks a fresh, diverse twist, and Cover Me Queer transforms vintage romance novel covers into vibrant love stories that reflect the real world. But their work isn't just about books. It's about building community where underrepresented artists can thrive. Through workshops, exhibits and collaborations, they're making sure that queer and BIPOC creatives get the recognition that they deserve. Let's explore their journey and see how they're rewriting the narrative, one stunning piece at a time. Hi, now you're a little bit pixelated, but you look like very friendly pixels.

Nova Quinn/Mali Quinn:

Yeah, like I said, the internet was being. It's been in and out, so we're hoping that it'll work, fingers crossed.

Finbarre Snarey:

Fingers crossed. And Nova and Mali, could you just raise a hand so I know which one's which.

Nova Quinn/Mali Quinn:

Nova and I'm Mali. I'm Nova. Hi Mali.

Finbarre Snarey:

Hello Nova and I'm Mali Hi.

Nova Quinn/Mali Quinn:

Nova, hi Mali, hello, hello.

Finbarre Snarey:

Hello and remind me where is it in the world that you're speaking to me from?

Nova Quinn/Mali Quinn:

Michigan, USA-ish.

Finbarre Snarey:

Michigan.

Nova Quinn/Mali Quinn:

I am technically still working, so I'll be looking at my phone occasionally, but I will be paying attention.

Finbarre Snarey:

Bless you. No worries, no worries at all. And who will be answering the questions? You worries, no worries at all. And who will be answering the questions? You're going to take one each, and then maybe one between you they're probably yours okay. Now I read somewhere that you've fostered a large number of cats 98 90. I do you know? I read 60 and I was thinking on goodreads. Somewhere it read 60 and I was thinking on Goodreads, somewhere it says 60, and I was thinking that's an awful lot of cats.

Nova Quinn/Mali Quinn:

It's also been five. This will be five years. Yeah, in the summer it's been five years of it, but yeah 98.

Finbarre Snarey:

So what's the most number of cats you've had at any given time?

Nova Quinn/Mali Quinn:

So what's the most number of cats you've had at any given time? It was the 10. We had a mom, a pregnant mom, who came to us and then had nine kittens. Technically we had 11, because Sam was also there, our cat. But yeah, 10 cats in one room was a lot to behold. Was you okay for like the first six weeks, five or six weeks, and then they had just all started bouncing off the walls and the mom was just like, oh my god, it's really cool because we got to see all but one of them be born. It was our first pregnant mom too, and then she had nine kittens. Oh, I love that we've got sam and cosmo cosmo's in his room. He, he won't be out, but we got our two.

Finbarre Snarey:

Do you name the cats that you take in or do you just take on the names that they arrive with?

Nova Quinn/Mali Quinn:

A little bit of both. Sam came to me a long time ago, before I even knew Mali, and she came with a name that was completely ridiculous. So I asked her if she had a name and we decided on Sam. And then Cosmo came to us and named Cosmo and I was like, well, we can ask him and see if he tells us if he has another name. He did that. No, he's also not the most intelligent cat we've ever met.

Finbarre Snarey:

I would more kindly say that it looks like he's staring into another plane. He's gazing into the astral realm. That cat.

Nova Quinn/Mali Quinn:

Yeah, the funky eye in particular, I'm like. That's never actually focused, he only looks at you. So he's also really funny because he looks at you like this, because it's just the one eye that actually works, which makes hunting a little interesting. He runs into a lot of stuff. Poor boy. I love him so much, that poor boy.

Finbarre Snarey:

While we've been talking, I've got my little deck of cards here, and the ones that we're using today are the Rider Waite, or the Rider Waite-Smith as you'd be called, and these are the little ones. These are the centenary deck. I do have, you know, the massive ones that you try and juggle, and basically all the cards try and announce themselves all at once. We've only got the little ones today. Ramali, are you ready?

Finbarre Snarey:

yeah the five of ones. Okay, so I want you to look at that. I want whoever wants to answer this one, let's get first impressions. I'd like to vibes. What does the card say to you?

Nova Quinn/Mali Quinn:

You know I'm better than I do off the top of your head, I think. Conflict is what I see. Are we going to fight about it? In the context of like the work we do, what I see is the world in chaos, I would say that some fights could be good fights.

Finbarre Snarey:

I mean, as you say, this traditionally is a card of struggle competition. You've got your five figures wielding wands at each other, courting a chaotic clash. So it's fiery and it's dynamic. So first question is going to be have you faced any competition or challenges in the art world and how did you handle them?

Nova Quinn/Mali Quinn:

I mean. So the queer online art space. It's still very large and yet also very small at the same time, and I would say it's a constant struggle to make sure we're trying to be as inclusive as we can. Just a constant. We're always trying to make sure that we can include more people, and the more people we include, inevitably somebody gets left out. So there's a constant struggle. Head to head with that, I would say, yeah, and also just competition, I feel like, among the artists that we hire, because we got to the point pretty early on where we wanted to hire both new people and returning artists, but then we ran into the issue of not having enough spots for all of the artists that we wanted to hire. So I think, as time has gone on, it's gotten more competitive, which is nice. I'm glad. It's also just like I just want to hire everybody, but I can't. There's only 78 tarot cards.

Finbarre Snarey:

So this will sound almost like a job interview question, but how did you handle those challenges? Could you give me a situation and talk me through what you did?

Nova Quinn/Mali Quinn:

I would say gratefully, with especially not being able to hire how many returning artists we always have, especially not being able to hire how many returning artists we always have, because people, for whatever reason, want to come back and work with us, which is I'm so grateful for. And I think the first couple of times we had to say no to people, especially ones that have become our friends, because we've been doing this for a little over five years now, just like fostering the first couple of times it was really hard to say no to people because I was really afraid that they would take it very personally and sometimes people have, and we've had a few falling outs. But I think for the most part, I think the issues with rejecting people that we've had were people that we hadn't worked with before, because we definitely had. There's one artist, yeah, that got pretty upset over being rejected, complained about it on Twitter, which was difficult for us. So I think we kind of had to sit down and be like this doesn't actually mean anything about us, like it's okay that people are upset over being rejected, but learning how to be okay with the fact that there are people who are upset or unhappy with decisions we've made or products or anything.

Nova Quinn/Mali Quinn:

That's been a really interesting line to learn how to walk Because we both have a fair amount of anxiety, you could say generously. So there's usually a lot of sitting on the floor and I don't know. I feel like we both had to lie down on the floor mid-applications before just because we were in kickoff. This is so hard. I have to have some floor time about it. I have to have some floor time about it. I had to have some floor time about it.

Finbarre Snarey:

I need to save that to use. The reason why that question came to mind is, I imagine I don't know if you're the foreperson of a factory and you know you're sending out a quota of 20 boxes of baked beans per day or whatever it is you do in a factory. You have no emotional link to the product day or whatever it is you're doing a factor, you have no emotional link to the product. But I imagine you have an emotional link to the artists and they have an emotional link to their work. And I mean for me, I I stand in awe because for me that would be, as you say, an anxiety minefield of, I don't know, just the idea of possibly just rubbing up people the wrong way and that being, you know, either reflected in their work or them not coming back to further projects or shoots. I wouldn't know which way to jump in that. So, you know, hats off to you both.

Nova Quinn/Mali Quinn:

Yeah, it's, we've had to learn.

Finbarre Snarey:

It's possibly a little bit like herding cats as well, which it sounds like is something you're adept at.

Nova Quinn/Mali Quinn:

I also work at a cat cafe that works with two rescues locally. I've come up and now I'm an assistant manager there. I have more than once said that herding cats there is easier than herding all of my artists into one spot. I love you guys, but, oh boy, emails are not your specialty. No, being organized is not usually an artist. No, that's my job. I come in with the spreadsheets. I'm just like we're going to get this done, which is why we have as many projects as we have.

Finbarre Snarey:

Yeah, I was going to say I think in any good relationship, one person needs to be good at spreadsheets, and that person is not me.

Nova Quinn/Mali Quinn:

That is my job. You're cute, but no, I didn't even look at a spreadsheet before we did our first tarot project. I don't think, at least not since high school.

Finbarre Snarey:

Yes.

Nova Quinn/Mali Quinn:

I also don't delve in. I have so many spreadsheets.

Finbarre Snarey:

You don't have a spreadsheet of the spreadsheets that you have, do you? You haven't got to that stage yet. It's not like an inset sheet.

Nova Quinn/Mali Quinn:

We have a master master spreadsheet. So like we have spreadsheets for each project and then we have one that has all of the artists and which projects they've worked on. So, especially for applications, it's helpful to see have they worked with us before, what did they do previously? So then we ding out the master master, so kind of. So kind of yeah, spreadsheet.

Nova Quinn/Mali Quinn:

Okay here we go. Oh, 279 artists. We've gotten to work with over 10 projects so far. 10 projects oh my god, yeah Been busy. This Tarot one. We started our first project with Tarot and now our 10th project is Tarot. This is nice.

Finbarre Snarey:

Somehow you found the time to respond to my email. I feel blessed.

Nova Quinn/Mali Quinn:

Yeah, thankfully it's not too much at once. It's usually one or two projects running at any given time. I mean, it's usually so staggered in the schedule so the emails usually don't overlap very much. So I'll have a ton of emails one month and then I have downtime. Not as bad as perhaps it may sound like, it is Well let's find out what the next card has in store for you.

Finbarre Snarey:

I've got the deck again, so as before. So for card number two, just tell me when to stop.

Nova Quinn/Mali Quinn:

Oh, it's your turn first. Oh, okay, stop the Empress. Ooh, I stop.

Finbarre Snarey:

The Empress.

Nova Quinn/Mali Quinn:

I love a good Empress card. I think that's you.

Finbarre Snarey:

So what does the Empress say to you?

Nova Quinn/Mali Quinn:

Honestly, it's something I do. Have all the pomegranates. Oh, is this the one that Julie Dillon did? No, she's in a different one. No, she knew the cups Queen of Cups. Okay, ignore that part. But trying to remember what the cards look like from the projects we've done. That's why I think it's you, because once you decide that you're going to do something, by God, I'm going to do it, you're going to do it and that's the only reason we do these projects. Yeah, that's fair, you're welcome.

Nova Quinn/Mali Quinn:

I feel like now I need to tell the story of the first. Yeah, I don't remember what we were talking about. I just wanted to take a nap. Yeah, well, okay. So I think I just thought of it in bed and I was like reading or looking at my phone or something, and nova was gonna take a nap and, um, suddenly she she rolls over and sits up and says we should do a crowd funded tarot project just a gay tarot deck gay Gay tarot deck and I was just like this was like three years into our relationship oh, at best, at best.

Nova Quinn/Mali Quinn:

So it's like I I did. My response was the response that I have for a lot of my creative friends, which is that sounds great, that I've. If you can, if you end up doing that, that sounds like a good time, but we all know it's never gonna happen um, out of interest, approximately what time was this conversation?

Finbarre Snarey:

Are we talking like as you're going to bed? Are we talking like two in the morning?

Nova Quinn/Mali Quinn:

Oh no, this is mid-afternoon. I'm a big nap fan. I like a good afternoon nap, um. So I kind of I was like, sure, that seems like a fun idea. But, like I, I don't usually have the kind of organizational skills to follow through on that kind of thing and I didn't know yet that someone else does.

Nova Quinn/Mali Quinn:

Um, and like the next thing, I know she has a spreadsheet and is reaching out to artists. Well, you reached out to Dames first, which is another. They do similar line of work. They do art books, mostly like women, loving women. And now they're good friends of ours because we've been working with them for five years and one of them is our graphic designer on everything. So, yeah, familiar and uh, yeah. So a couple days later she had like a budget lined out and was trying to figure out how to like run applications efficiently, and I was just like I'll be doing this. And then I just kept doing it, yeah, and then, after we finished that one, you were like I could do another one of these and I was like, yeah, sure, but then, out of my mind, I was like I want to do another one. And now here we are, ten later, or nine and a half.

Finbarre Snarey:

This one's not really done yet, but we'll get there and a master master spreadsheet to go with it.

Nova Quinn/Mali Quinn:

Yes, yes, it's beautiful, it's also a rainbow. It's very nice.

Finbarre Snarey:

I'm thinking about the Empress card and I'm thinking about it's a card of I was going to say flourishment I don't even know if that is a proper word of birthing projects.

Nova Quinn/Mali Quinn:

Okay, how has your community nurtured you in your work? Oh, without them, them we're nothing. Yeah, I mean the first. I think it was someone who, like collects and reviews tarot cards, posted a tiktok or a reel looking through the deck that we had made. Um, and we were both so humbled and emotional just listening to someone else see something in the work that we had done. Um, and, honestly, that just keeps happening, which is wild. It happens both from customers and artists.

Nova Quinn/Mali Quinn:

Yeah, like finding meaning, or creating meaning and the things that we do, which is so weird because, like, I send emails on the couch in my pajamas and, in turn, somehow make these queer projects in a time, in a space where we need to be seen, where we're constantly being punched down, and I, no, we are going to celebrate the fact that we're here, we're queer, we have always been here and we will always be here. So the fact that the artists find meaning, especially with, I would say, our classics. But Make it Gay. We did three books and people would take pieces from art history and make them queer, particularly also people of color inclusive. So it was like a double whammy.

Finbarre Snarey:

I've not had much listening in this particular book, but which kind of schools of art or genres of art are we talking? Are we talking like sort of pre-Raphaelite or Hudson River School?

Nova Quinn/Mali Quinn:

We did up to like the early 20th century. We didn't want to get too modern and get into the copyright issues, but pretty much everything before that, yeah, and the more um. So at the first book it was probably mostly pre-raffelite um and some art nouveau um, and with the second and third I definitely pushed people to a look outside of white art and be definitely different time periods because, like, there's always art history to make more us um. So, yes, it's been wild. So having people find meaning in the things that I'm able to do makes me want to make more and again, especially in today's day and age, for whatever reason, it's also just the juxtaposition for us, like, sometimes doing the projects is kind of just work, like it's stressful and Frustrating, frustrating, frustrating, and it still blows my mind every time anybody has anything nice to say about her.

Nova Quinn/Mali Quinn:

And we have a whole artist community now too, which is insane. We made friends from this. They're actually throwing us a baby shower in a couple of weeks, and I'm just like what do you mean? Wow, what do you mean? That's insane.

Finbarre Snarey:

Is this a virtual event, or are they?

Nova Quinn/Mali Quinn:

Virtual? Yeah, because they're all over the place. We do have a couple in Michigan, but most of them are all over the place. Yeah, literally all over the place. Yeah, literally all over the world. Mind-boggling.

Finbarre Snarey:

And how far away is the baby show? Are we talking?

Nova Quinn/Mali Quinn:

That's a couple of weeks and the babies do mid-May-ish. We'll see Sometime. We're kind of hoping that the foster kitten experience helps us, because with those guys, the bottle babies you're up every hour and a half two hours All night every night. Thankfully only for a couple of weeks, compared to a human child. But you know. So we've done the sleep deprived thing for extended periods of time. So we have our fingers crossed that we're like this much prepared for it, as much as you can be and, in terms of preparation, do you have outfits in mind as well?

Finbarre Snarey:

Because, of course, if you have a small person, you need to have the small outfits.

Nova Quinn/Mali Quinn:

It's, it's part of the role see, maybe not like particularly, but we've gotten a lot. I'm not allowed to walk through the baby clothes department anymore and we also have a lot of hand-me-downs. So we have a lot of cute clothes, a lot of good koala-themed outfits though. Koalas, dinosaurs, anything with the little animals on the feet, oh, I can't handle it Too cute.

Finbarre Snarey:

Okay, so we've got a minor arcana and a major arcana. Let's see what we get for this one.

Nova Quinn/Mali Quinn:

Statistically it should be minor.

Finbarre Snarey:

Statistically, yeah, but for some reason there's some cards I just never seem to get. I won't tell you which ones they are, because I'll just tempt fate that way.

Nova Quinn/Mali Quinn:

Stop.

Finbarre Snarey:

Okay, so cut the deck there.

Nova Quinn/Mali Quinn:

Okay, stop. Okay, so cut the deck there. The two of pentacles thought it was the fool at first. See, I'm not. I think it's because in the original deck, um, your friend did it as a very gesturey and so I'm weird perspective, so they're close to me?

Finbarre Snarey:

I think you're right. It does have a very kind of coincidentally, the fool is one of my favorite cars as it is for everyone, but it's also, um, a pendant I have to wear around my neck, and you're right, this does have a very similar kind of almost color scheme, feel and vibe to it, but what's it saying to you today?

Nova Quinn/Mali Quinn:

yeah, I mean it feels like juggling our projects and our artists and an incoming child, an incoming child, our two cats, rough sea in the background, the current political climate in the background, but yet somehow also they are balanced. It'll be okay. Yeah, we just have to keep our head on.

Finbarre Snarey:

Yeah I mean it's a, it's a light-hearted approach to life's ups and downs. So I mean it's it's too much of an easy question to ask, but let's go for anyway. Um, how do you both differently balance multiple artistic projects at once? Because I imagine how I mean it's literally your job, and it's very different to the other what did you say?

Nova Quinn/Mali Quinn:

Literally your job? Yeah, I mean, because I am one of the artists, I feel like I have it. I do some of the art direction once we start getting like finished files and stuff in, but I think for me I get so much inspiration just from seeing what the other artists are making. I think I put a lot of pressure on myself sometimes to live up to the other artists as well, because I don't want to be in the projects just because I'm married to the boss. So I think that sometimes I stress myself out a little bit that. But overall I think I'm just constantly thinking of art anyway. That like playing off the other artists and seeing what we have coming in always gives me a lot of energy to work on stuff.

Nova Quinn/Mali Quinn:

I I just have a lot of to-do lists and I've also gotten better about instituting business hours. Like if it's after dinner, the emails can probably wait. Nothing is that much of an emergency, at least for our projects. Nothing is ever really that time-sensitive. Yeah, I just kind time sensitive. Yeah, I just kind of. Do you know, I have to learn.

Finbarre Snarey:

How do the vagaries of the muse and inspiration coincide with how you work? So, for example, if you suddenly get a really good idea, do you put that to one side? Do you drop everything in the moment? How do you work with what can be a quite unpredictable source of inspiration?

Nova Quinn/Mali Quinn:

I think we have a pretty good. I don't think we actually have a list, but we have a list in our minds of ideas that we would like to do for project memory, that we would like to do for project memory. Sometimes the timing is just right that I can put one. If I'm in a really big dip between work, if we've ordered a bunch of stuff and it's not time to ship it yet, that's a big few months that I can get a lot of stuff done and loop the project over. So sometimes I'm able to just, oh good, stretch.

Nova Quinn/Mali Quinn:

Sometimes I'm able to just start a new project. Yeah, otherwise I have to be good and put it in the back of my mind and try to figure out when the next big dip will be that I can launch something. Or you know, we're gonna have a baby. So like there's a couple of months where I'm not really trying to do anything here. Um, so with this, our new tarot project coming up, we're actually kind of dragging our feet a little bit, because I cannot explain how much I do not want a palette of books and cards to arrive what I'm also supposed to either soon have or just have had a new human arrive. Really don't want a palette of books delivered to my house.

Finbarre Snarey:

Really, really don't as exciting as the arrival of a new human is. I do really want to know about this, this tarot card project. Are you able to reveal anything about it? Are you, can you talk me through what it is?

Nova Quinn/Mali Quinn:

Yeah, so it's um, it's a queer tarot deck. So everyone on the cards, even if they're not like I would say, sometimes with a single figure, it's hard to make it implicit that they're very queer. But, like, every single card features a queer human and we've done our best to make sure there's a lot of disability representation, particularly a couple of new things that I don't think we've hit on before, and, of course, people of color always and lots of trans inclusivity. So that's been really exciting. We did a little more art direction on this one, which was kind of fun. We basically said, if you have a single figure on your card, they need to be trans, disabled, or a person of color, or all free or any combination or of. Yeah, for the most part, I think there are soft feet.

Nova Quinn/Mali Quinn:

We're not always super strict about our art direction, just because we do want to give our artists some freedom, um, but we also made um each of the suits color-coordinated this time, which I'm really excited about, so all of the cups have a similar color scheme. Yeah, I think it turned out really cool. We tried a bunch of new things, things, and I'm very excited. We are working on formatting the card soon to send a print and the book to send a print all in April, so then hopefully it doesn't get here until like June or July. So, yes, we're very excited about it and I really hope I hope that our customers find the meaning in it, that we have found in it so far, and I know that all of our artists were really invested in it. So I'm hoping that love carries through and gives everybody something that they can see themselves in. You know which we need again and today, yeah, we need that what an inspiring chat with nova and marley quinn.

Finbarre Snarey:

Their work isn't just about creating art. It's about making sure that queer and bipoc stories are seen, heard and celebrated, from publishing to exhibitions that opening doors for artists that have been overlooked for far too long. Be sure to check out their amazing projects and support their mission, because these are the stories the world needs right now. Thanks for tuning in to Tarot Interviews. See you next time for more creative conversations. Tarot Interviews.

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