Shavick, Nancy (1957-)

Nancy Shavick, a contemporary author and tarot counselor, was born in Englewood, New Jersey, in 1957. Following high school graduation she entered Hampshire College (Massachusetts), from which she graduated in 1979 with a degree in creative writing. Through the 1980s she taught creative writing, worked as an editor, and became an accomplished student of the tarot cards. In 1984 she founded Prima Materia Books, a publishing house, through which she published her first book, The Tarot: A Guide to Reading Your Own Cards. In the process of mastering the tarot, she became a gifted reader with a growing clientele. In 1991 she closed Prima Materia and moved to San Francisco.

Shavick felt that the tarot should be demystified and was most useful as a tool for self-transformation and personal development. These themes dominated the four best-selling books she wrote for Berkley Books between 1988 and 1993: The Tarot (1988), The Tarot Reader (1991), Traveling the Royal Road: Mastering the Tarot (1992), and The Tarot Guide to Love and Relationships (1993). Along the way she also acquired a working knowledge of astrology and in 1994 authored her first volume on it, Reach for the Stars. Her most recent work, Nancy Shavick's Tarot Universe (2000), is a comprehensive text summarizing her previous five books.

Sources:

Shavick, Nancy. Nancy Shavick's Tarot Universe. Santa Monica, Calif.: Santa Monica Press, 2000.

——. The Tarot. New York: Berkley Books, 1988.

——. The Tarot Guide to Love and Relationships. New York: Berkley Books, 1993.

——. The Tarot Reader. New York: Berkley Books, 1991.

——. Traveling the Royal Road: Mastering the Tarot. New York: Berkley Books, 1992.