Fairy Tale Review Archive
Once upon a time …
The practice of retelling fairy tales in the form of literary fiction is, if not quite hallowed, certainly established. The great Angela Carter’s revelatory 1979 story collection, “The Bloody Chamber” — a brocaded work of heady sensuality, intelligence and violence — remains the benchmark, but Kate Bernheimer’s Fairy Tale Review and the several excellent Bernheimer-edited anthologies spun off from it carry the standard forward. Those are just some of the more overt homages; Western literature owes as much to fairy tales as it does to Greek myth and the Bible.
-The New York Times
‘Mollie & Lobo Wolf Girl’ & ‘Notes on the Tower’
you are always
walking me
into canyons
at dusk…
Of Humankind
On a dirt street, in a one-room shack with a rain-tempered roof, lived a woman who sold sex to the workers of her district, and she did this because of all the ways one made money in the hard-mouthed world, this was the easiest for her.
‘Song for My Daughter,’ ‘Song for My Son,’ & ‘Out of the Wood-‘
Because my bridegroom marked the trail
with ash
Because my father pushed me
down the path alone
Fairy-Tale Files: Do Bears Belong in Houses?
Sometimes, house-dwelling bears and house-dwelling humans can actually seem to get along.
Special Report: Animal Romance
Interspecies romances, or animal brides and bridegrooms, are a staple of fairy tales. Often, the animal object of affection is actually a human who...
Fairy-Tale Files: Babes in the Wood
Once in the woods, the criminals chicken out and simply abandon the children
Special Report: The Snow Queen
In Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Snow Queen,” there is a mirror that distorts the world into extremes of beauty and ugliness. The wholesome love...
Special Report: Some Enchanted Evening
The version of Sleeping Beauty with which most people are familiar is most likely the Brothers Grimm tale, “Little Briar Rose,” and/or the 1959...
The Winners of the 2016 Fairy Tale Review Awards
The editors of Fairy Tale Review are pleased to announce the winners and finalists of our third annual contests in both prose and poetry. Each...
Fairy-Tale Files: Talking Wooden Dolls
In the Slavic fairy tale “Vasilisa the Beautiful,” a dying mother gives her young daughter Vasilisa a wooden doll. The mother tells Vasilisa: “When...
Fairy-Tale Files: Bald Boy
In many a Turkish tale, Keloğlan, or Bald Boy, is a follicly-challenged country boy, who either bumbles or connives his way to good fortune. In some...
Fairy-Tale Files: Swan Masquerade
When Bjork came to the Academy Awards in 2001 and walked down the red carpet dressed in a swan costume, cameras flashed, people gasped. Swan...
Special Report: Faceless Men, Monsters, and Noppera-bō
The figure of the faceless monster is common in horror and fantasy. You can find several variations in the Silent Hill movie series: the Armless Man...
Fairy-Tale Files: Woebegotten Walls
In Oscar Wilde’s 1888 tale “The Selfish Giant,” a giant returns to his castle to find children playing in his garden. Angry, he declares, "‘My own...
Special Report: Lean In or Fall Down
The “The Red Shoes,” written by Hans Christian Andersen in 1845, is a story of sin and redemption, as are many of Andersen’s stories. His female...
