Fairy Tale Review Archive
Browse submissions from past editions, web exclusive content, author Q&A, and more.
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
‘Mus Maximus’ and ‘Venice’
In Pompeii we didn’t distinguish rats
from mice.
Avenue
The doctor delivers the diagnosis. He tells Gulisa, ‘It could be worse.’
graverobber’s ballad
bifurcating like a heart would/night scatters into pieces/reassembled like a girl should/be I tug the laces/of my boots and hold the shadows
"Short Cuts" and other poems
I didn’t know that girl was in my belly until the heartburn set in, acid foaming into my esophagus and escaping in a huff of steam wafting silver moonward.
The Peach Boy
Each birth came too early, the samurai’s daughter producing a peach pit with the face of a crying boy or girl.
Auto/biography, or so I was tolde
she pickes mye foote up by the heele
dragges hir fingre padde
along myn arche
& seith unto me
thow hath a noblewoman’s foote
The Eye of the Cyclone
A poplar tree shakes its wet hair
in front of a mental hospital in Ch’ŏngyangni
Maybe the night wind is blowing—
Appleless
It’s unsettling to meet people who don’t eat apples.
Scheherazade
He made his choice. He still speaks, still lives.
Leatherman
He rarely spoke, and never revealed his identity or the reason for his endless trek.
To Take a Woman’s Voice
Because she cannot speak, the prince views her as a favorite pet
Wolf Lessons
There are wolf objects scattered throughout my house: a canis lupus Beanie Baby named Howl, a carved wooden ornament, a snowglobe with a wolf pup...
Is This the Real Life?
It’s a clear case of alternative facts over objective reality
Announcing the 2017 Fairy Tale Review Awards
Each winner will receive $1,000 and publication in The Charcoal Issue of Fairy Tale Review
What Doesn’t Kill You…
“Comprachicos” … alter the physical appearance of children as one would tend a bonsai tree
