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
Sleeping Beauty’s Daughter
The day her husband died, Sleeping Beauty gave back to him the kiss he had bestowed upon her consentless lips sixty years before.
The Winners of the 2018 Flash Fairy Tale Contest
On February 26, 2018, we asked our Twitter followers to tell us the biggest and most beautiful stories they could within Twitter’s longer, and more storytelling-friendly 280-character limit.
Terrarium
I’ve made the pitcher on my table human again.
Her elegant white neck, belly slightly bloated
with flowers.
Fairy-Tale Files: Native American Folklore Monsters and Their Slayers
Navajo Ye'iitsoh (Big Giant) In Navajo culture there is no monster more fearsome or powerful than Ye'iitsoh (the Big Giant). A creature from the...
Fairy-Tale Files: Herbally Ever After
Rooting for SerpentsIn the Grimm’s The Three Snake Leaves, a soldier is entombed alive with his dead princess bride. After cutting a snake into...
Fairy-Tale Files: The Labyrinth Edition
(A one-off analysis, mullets and all…)Jareth: The Sexiest Rumpelstiltskin of 1986 David Bowie’s portrayal of Jareth, the Goblin King, is stunning....
Pins & Needle No. 27: Matthew Mercier
No. 27: Matthew MercierQ. Do you think humans are naturally drawn, in some way, to the ugly, as you once were to the witch in The Wizard of Oz? Why...
Fairy-Tale Files: Atop Every Puppet’s Bucket List…
Pinocchio by Enrico Mazzanti. Inked by Daniel Donna.Splinter Me, ItalyDebuting in the 1883 novel The Adventures of Pinocchio by Florentine writer...
Fairy-Tale Files: Let’s Make a Deal
BearskinIn this story, originated by Hans Jakob Christoffel von Grimmelshausen and retold by the Brothers Grimm, a German solider deserts his...
Pins & Needles No. 26: Abigail Zimmer
No. 26: Abigail ZimmerQ. I enjoyed the list aspects in “At the Closing of the World,” bonus points for coral and that beluga whale. “Hiatus” also...
Fairy-Tale Files: True Love's Kiss
Or, Life, Death and the Amphibians in BetweenDisney’s The Princess and the FrogPrince Naveen is convinced that Tiana’s kiss will reverse the spell...
Pins & Needles No. 25: Sarah Sarai
No. 25: Sarah SaraiQ. Winged monkeys, especially those that shoot fire, are bound to provoke anxiety. Suppose they were granted an audience with the...
Fairy-Tale Files: The Technologists Grimm
Polymer is the New MorphBody transformation figures prominently in such fairy tales as “Beauty and the Beast” and “The Juniper Tree.” New medical...
Pins & Needles No. 24: Carrie Messenger
No. 24: Carrie MessengerQ. "I couldn’t remember before the Dust, but my sister could. She had two years on me. She was four when the Dust came." Do...
Fairy-Tale Files: Little People, Hans Christian World
ThumbelinaPeople come in all shapes and sizes in the world of fairy tales and real life. The main character of this Hans Christian Andersen story is...
