About me

My name is Beth Maiden.

I’m a tarot reader and writer living in Machynlleth, mid-Wales. My identities include queer and white British, and I’m a cis woman using she/her pronouns.

When I was first introduced to tarot years ago, I was a full-time cynic. I’d never seen a tarot deck, never given divination more than a derisive snort.

But a super-cool tarot reader was in town and she offered my friend and I each a reading. “What the hell,” I thought, and I watched as she laid down my cards.

I was grappling with something pretty major at the time, and as she described card after card, I was drawn in by the way they spoke to me so personally, addressing the innermost secret workings of my heart and mind.

And those pictures! Charismatic queens, stormy seas, animal helpers, mythical symbols and all those weird-ass colors and patterns…they captivated me. Each image seemed to illuminate and clarify a part of my experience. After my reading, I felt strange. And good! Like I knew how to move forwards. Like everything was gonna be fine and I could totally do this shit because, whoa, The Universe Had My Back.

I have been developing my own personal approach to the cards ever since.

As a queer woman and a feminist, I’ve spent years finding alternatives to ‘traditional’ interpretations of the tarot cards.

When I first began my journey with tarot, I was bothered by the heteronormativity and reductive gender binaries I found throughout the tarot decks and books I used. Realising I could interpret tarot in my own way was a revelation and a relief.

Now I read using a mixture of intuition, my own interpretations, and the traditional card meanings I learned in the early days.

I offer two popular, affordable online courses for anyone who wants to find their own way with tarot: The Alternative Tarot Course, and A Card a Day. Find out about both courses here!

I’m also the resident tarot reader at the progressive feminist/queer website Autostraddle.com, where I write the fortnightly Fool’s Journey column.

I live with two awesome cats and my partner Em in a small town in the hills of mid-Wales. When I’m not playing with tarot cards or working on this site, I’ll be out taking photographs, foraging herbs, learning Welsh, or mining the internet for music and writing that moves me.

Want to know more about me? Read this interview, in which I talk with Sarah Gottesdiener about how Little Red Tarot came about and the limitless possibilities of queer magic.

Contact me

Like what you read? Want to talk tarot? Leave a message in the comments on one of my blog posts, or drop me a line to beth@littleredtarot.com.

I’m also on that there Twitter @littleredtarot, where unsurprisingly I ramble on about tarot and queer stuff and share lots of links.

You can also get on my email list! I send chatty, impulsive, irregular missives letting you know what’s happening in my world and sharing helpful tarot tips and news. (There are also pictures of my cats if you like that kind of thing.)