One spot left!

We have one spot left in a fairly full class. Since this is the last class until next spring and the class filled quickly, I added two more spots for folks who can’t wait until 2010.

If you want to take the class this year, let me know ASAP.

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Two awesome things at once

Thing the first: Gypsy Thornton over at Once Upon a Blog: Fairy Tale News just published a long, juicy interview with Yours Truly!

Excerpt:

FTNH: Why did you start the Fairy Tale Factory? What prompted the idea?

AMY: …I…hope, in my more optimistic moments, that this class will give people some new tools to cope with hard times. I hope to inspire people, to encourage them to trust their own voices, and to help them connect with beauty in the world and in themselves. I especially want to help people find beauty in the parts of themselves that seem dark and scary. Like that Rilke quote about all our dragons really being princesses just waiting for us to be brave.

Read the whole thing.

Thing the second:

Fairy tale fan Lisa Cote sent me a link to the animated version of Oscar Wilde’s story, “The Happy Prince.” Beautiful stuff. Thanks, Lisa!

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Donkey Skin

Perrrault’s “Donkey Skin” is a great fairy tale, full of unwholesome passions, magic, trickery, and wonder. So of course fellow Frenchman Jacques Demy turned it into a film starring Catherine Deneuve in 1970.

Courtesy of We Love You So.

If that clip made you thirsty for more, you can read the whole thing over at SurLaLune:

THERE was once upon a time a king who was so much beloved by his subjects that he thought himself the happiest monarch in the whole world, and he had everything his heart could desire. His palace was filled with the rarest of curiosities, and his gardens with the sweetest flowers, while in the marble stalls of his stables stood a row of milk-white Arabs, with big brown eyes.

Strangers who had heard of the marvels which the king had collected, and made long journeys to see them, were, however, surprised to find the most splendid stall of all occupied by a donkey, with particularly large and drooping ears. It was a very fine donkey; but still, as far as they could tell, nothing so very remarkable as to account for the care with which it was lodged; and they went away wondering, for they could not know that every night, when it was asleep, bushels of gold pieces tumbled out of its ears, which were picked up each morning by the attendants.

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Snow White Meets…the HARLEM GLOBETROTTERS!

I generally try not to succumb to the wild, desperate advances of all the fairy tale kitsch that’s lurking out there in the forest, but I just can’t resist this one. It was the phrase, “Uh oh, somehow that wicked queen OD’d Snow White!” that got me:

You’re welcome.

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The Path: Game based on Little Red Riding Hood

My friend Arlene just told me about The Path – a beautiful, creepy game based on Little Red Riding Hood. The animation is gorgeous, the metaphors divine. Meet the Wolf in many incarnations, learn what happens when you stray into the woods.

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Nothing to do with fairy tales: Alan Watts

Matt Stone and Trey Parker (the Southpark guys) did a lovely bit of animation for this bit of an Alan Watts lecture:

Good stuff, huh?

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Get published

This month is blessings and bonanzas month at the Fairy Tale Factory. Not only have we been interviewed and featured, but folks are writing to me to solicit stories for publication. So nice!

Here is the latest call for submissions:

I just wanted to let you know about New Fairy Tales, the online magazine I run, as some of your participants might be interested in submitting their original fairy tales to us. We’re an illustrated magazine with an audio collection as well and we only publish new and original tales rather than retellings.

It’s all run on a voluntary basis, so unfortunately we can’t pay, but we do ask readers to consider making a small donation to my local children’s hospice. It’s a good showcase for the writers’ and illustrators’ work and it helps raise money for a good cause. We’ve published three issues so far and the deadline for submissions to Issue 4 is the 20th October.

There’s lots of info on the site but if you’d like to know anything else feel free to get in touch.

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Call for Entries

Hey, everyone – Kate Wolford from DiamondsandToads is putting out a new online magazine called Enchanted Conversation and is taking submissions. Read on for guidelines!

To: amy@writefairytales.com

I have a blog called Diamondsandtoads.com, which focuses on the study, art and enjoyment of fairy tales.

I am starting a new online magazine, called Enchanted Conversation, and am sending out a call for “Sleeping Beauty” themed articles. Anything – from the newly-awakened cook’s point of view to how the prince and princess are doing after 10 years of marriage, to – well, you get it. It’s a paying market (modest). It’s at EnchantedConversation.net. You can check out submission tips on the left.

Please tell your workshop students that a new market is out there.

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So nice of you to notice!

Once Upon a Blog just featured us. Which is delightful. Even more delightful were the awesome interview questions that Gypsy sent. S.M.R.T. (That means ‘smart.’) They, and their answers, will be published at a later date – stay tuned.

Check it out. (She even published a photograph of me looking toothy and windswept!)

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Science vs. the 3 Little Pigs

Makes you think about what the Big, Bad Wolf might have eaten for lunch to produce just the right combination of volatile gasses when he huffed and puffed.

As always, thanks, Super Punch!

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