I'm short on cash at the moment, but you may be just sitting around wondering where to throw those piles of golden coins cluttering up your parlor. Here are a few options!

Sleeping Beauty, Indeed is a collection of lesbian fairy tales edited by JoSelle Vanderhooft. Fairy tales! Lesbians! Talented writers! How can you go wrong with those things? You can get it on Amazon in paperback or Kindle edition. If you go with paperback, it's eligible for super saver shipping, so you might want to combine it with...

James Fairfax is a book set in an alternate Regency England in which same sex marriage is all good, and Jane Fairfax of Jane Austen's Emma is a man instead of a woman. Even though I tend to find books that build on Jane Austen worrisome, this premise is intriguing, and it comes recommended by sartorias, whose opinions are generally sound.

And lastly, an option for all the small press supporters with e-readers. Every Good Thing is an e-book by an awesome person I connected with through last year's Yuletide fanfiction exchange. This is her first full length novel, and it's a romance about a boy from a strict homophobic background who gets sold as a love slave to a male soldier. I know that Jules has awesome writing skillz, so if you're into the m/m stuff, this promises to be an excellent choice for you.

As for me, I'll be clinging to my library card for the next few weeks.

On Friday at noon, I attended my second panel, The Catharsis of Myth, the Shock of Invention, which was billed as a greatest hit panel topic from Readercon 8. The panelists were Ellen Asher, Theodora Goss (Leader), Elaine Isaak, Laura Miller, and Catherynne M. Valente.

As usual, these notes are paraphrased and not guaranteed to be accurate, or complete. I welcome corrections, additions, and discussion in the comments. Here's the official blurb:

In writing or reading fiction, we place a high value on the degree to which
the plot unfolds in unexpected ways. But much of the power of myth and fairy tale derives
from the way it fulfills our expectations. How do the best works of fantasy reconcile these
seeming opposites?

( Read more... )

So why do we like to hear familiar stories? Catherynne Valente contended that we like fairy tales because they reflect our real life disappointments, but I'm going to go out on a limb here and posit that while that might be true for some people (and probably is true for her specifically), it isn't the only draw that fairy tales have.

For me, the wonder is a big part of it. I also like stories about people surviving, getting ahead, etc. I like that Cinderella uses what resources she can find to make her lot in life better. I like this about stories like Fitcher's Bird, too (but I find Bluebeard's wife lacking in agency, which makes that story much less satisfying).

Where does the balance of familiar Vs. new come in? I think there's something to the fashion analogy there. I agree with Catherynne Valente that just telling the exact story from a different point of view is not enough, but I think that one can use that as a starting point. I have to imagine that someone else could retell The Wonderful Wizard of Oz from the witch's point of view and end up with an entirely different story than Wicked. What matters is not the point of view, but what the new version makes me think about, feel, enjoy, etc. I know how Beauty and the Beast goes, but I still like the feeling of stepping into Robin McKinley's world when I read Rose Daughter, even though the plot is the same.

What about things other than fairy tales? Fantasy is about more than that, after all. And is Rose Fox's fanfic observation a red herring, or does it relate to all this, too? I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Moss and I are about halfway through the altered book round robin project we signed up for last autumn, and the latest results are quite scary! I did my spread in a book of dreams, and Moss took his turn with the Once Upon A Time book. I think his spread takes the cake this time, but here are pictures of both all the same. Click on an picture to see a larger version.


Instant Cooking! With Rudy Giuliani! You're thinking WTF, right? Yeah, that's exactly what I thought when I woke up from this dream.

( Dream or nightmare? )

But enough about that, let's take a look at Moss's spread!


My mother killed me,
My father ate me,

( Can you guess the story on those lines alone? Answer under the cut! )

From Walt Disney to Robin McKinley to Anne Rice to Gregory McGuire and beyond, lots of people have been drawn to retell fairy tales. In this workshop we'll examine what makes a good retelling so satisfying, and also take a look at some of the retelling trends that aren't so hot. You'll leave the hour long workshop chat with a prompt to get you going on your own story, and you'll have the option to post that to a locked community for feedback if you wish. We'll also discuss fairy tale friendly markets.

The workshop chat will take place on Saturday at 7pm London time, 3pm Eastern US, noon Pacific, and 6am Sunday in Sydney, 8am in New Zealand.

If you're interested in retelling fairy tales, please sign up on this entry over here!

I have a few different sets of Boskone panel notes, and I'll be posting them in chronological order as I have the time. This one was at 7:00 on Friday night.

Please feel free to treat the comments on this entry as an open discussion forum, and invite anyone who wishes to join. Here's the official description:

The sanitized versions of fairy tales leave out what matters: the scary parts. The Grimms took out the sex, and the Victorians took out the horror (and the rest of the sex), so what's left? And why do we care? What is it about "fairy tales" that really make people uncomfortable—and how can this be effectively used in the modern genre?

Greer Gilman, Theodora Goss (m), Mary Kay Kare, Josepha Sherman, Sonya Taaffe, Jane Yolen

Mary Kay Kare wasn't able to make it to this panel, but everyone else was there, and in great form. I couldn't write fast enough to get every word, so sometimes things are omitted or paraphrased, but I tried to get as much as I could.

( Read more... )

There's lots of stuff that could be discussed further, but I think the one thing that's stuck with me is Sonya Taaffe's claim about Pinocchio. I've always felt that the Pleasure Island bit was terrifying, but would very much be the sort of thing that would also be terrifying in an older fairy tale. Maybe I've just read too much Hans Christian Andersen? It's pretty often the case that if you do bad things (in this case indulge in sloth, gluttony, and hedonism), bad and horrifying things will happen to you.

Is the whale scene really not scary? I saw this movie in the theatre when I was 4 or so and it scared me quite a bit, but I can't remember exactly which parts were scary.

In other Disney movies are there scary parts that oughn't necessarily be scary, and are the parts that ought to be scary not scary? I've been puzzling over this, but I haven't got any good answers yet. I can agree about the lack of agency on the part of the princesses, though.