I’m so excited I’m about to bust – I’m finally offering weekend workshops!
People have been asking for weekend workshops since I started the Fairy Tale Factory, but I couldn’t figure out how to deliver a satisfying workshop experience in such a short period of time…UNTIL NOW.
The first weekend workshop focuses mainly on the personal transformation aspects of the Fairy Tale Factory (as opposed to the hardcore writing aspects). I’m calling it Happily Ever After, and participants will spend a fun and engaging weekend using the magic of fairy tales to reclaim their personal power and change their lives for the better. We’ll learn to cast our real-life problems in metaphorical terms (fairy tale terms!), then use the narrative structure and conventions of fairy tales to solve those problems in effective, creative ways.
It’s that time again! The Intro to Fairy Tales students are sending me their favorite stories, and I’m delighted to share them with you.
Once upon a time there was a king and a queen, as in many lands have been. The king had a daughter, Anne, and the queen had one named Kate, but Anne was far bonnier than the queen’s daughter, though they loved one another like real sisters. The queen was jealous of the king’s daughter being bonnier than her own, and cast about to spoil her beauty. So she took counsel of the henwife, who told her to send the lassie to her next morning fasting.
So next morning early, the queen said to Anne, “Go, my dear, to the henwife in the glen, and ask her for some eggs.” So Anne set out, but as she passed through the kitchen she saw a crust, and she took and munched it as she went along.
When she came to the henwife’s she asked for eggs, as she had been told to do; the henwife said to her, “Lift the lid off that pot there and see.” The lassie did so, but nothing happened. “Go home to your minnie and tell her to keep her larder door better locked,” said the henwife. So she went home to the queen and told her what the henwife had said. The queen knew from this that the lassie had had something to eat, so watched the next morning and sent her away fasting; but the princess saw some country-folk picking peas by the roadside, and being very kind she spoke to them and took a handful of the peas, which she ate by the way.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Hey, check us out! Matt Briggs from the Reading Local Seattle blog did a wee interview with me, and a great review of the fairy-tale-inspired genre in general.
There are so many things to love about this short video of Ray Bradbury: his awesome white shorts, his house, his lunch (hint: Coors). Oh yeah, and his words. He says some stuff about writing, too. Nice if you like that sort of thing.
