Misdirection, sleight of hand, and smoke and mirrors are all means said to be employed by stage magicians in order to "cast their spell" of illusion. Most of the time those terms are employed in such a way as to be both dismissive of the performer's talent and to explain how it is possible for someone to saw a person in half or make them disappear altogether. The real intention is to deny that anything magical took place during the performance. Of course that depends on what someone's definition of magic is, doesn't it?

If they go through life expecting to see someone waving a magic wand and miraculously making things happen, they are doomed to be disappointed. Yet, what is it they are seeing on stage when the "illusionist" makes someone disappear if it isn't magic? What does it matter that it's only a "trick"? Isn't it still magical to see a body that's been cut in two behaving as it would under normal circumstances no matter how it came to happen?

Magic is where we find it, and it comes in all sorts of shapes and sizes. It's simply a matter of being able to recognize it when we see it. In his introduction to his collection of short stories, Smoke And Mirrors: Short Fictions And Illusions, Neil Gaiman talks about the history of stage magicians using smoke and mirrors to change our perceptions. While a mirror can be used to reflect an image accurately, he says, set it the right way and it can show you anything you can imagine, and some things you can't. An illusionist can use one to convince us that a box full to bursting with paraphernalia is empty or that something empty is full.

Some people talk about art holding a mirror up to society as a means for the creator to express his or her opinion on the state of things. There are many forms a reflection can take, and sometimes the form is as much a commentary upon the world as is the content. When it comes to writing, an author can alter the nature of the reflection in quite a number of ways. There are the genres at his or her disposal, from realism to fantasy, and the option of writing in prose or in verse.

No matter what they do, their mirror will hopefully offer a perspective that's unique to them. Isn't that why we read an author, for the perceptions and insights they can offer?