Endicott Redux

On ghosts and giants. . .

I hope y'all are familiar with Fantasy Magazine, the weekly webzine devoted to high fantasy, contemporary and urban tales, surrealism, magical realism, science fantasy, and folktales. The magazine is co-edited by the indefatigable Sean Wallace and Cat Rambo (of Prime Books), along with the stellar team of Paul Tremblay, K. Tempest Bradford, Paula Guran and Stephen Segal.

They've published some terrific fiction recently, but of particular interest to mythic fiction readers is Paul Jessop's fine tale "A Word Without Ghosts" (with its delicious allusions to fairy tales, animal bridegroom myths, and the story of Peter Pan), and Richard Bowes' enchanting fable "The Cinnamon Cavalier." Don't miss them.

The charming painting above is "The Artist at Work," from K. Tempest Bradford's profile of illustrator Kat Beyer.

Speaking of Prime Books, did you know that they're republishing the "Snow White, Blood Red" fairy tales series in new trade-paperback editions? Black Thorn, White Rose is available now, with more volumes to follow.

   

My hat is off to the Stainless Steel Droppings blog, which just keeps getting better and better. This week is Book Week, which editor Carl V. says "will focus on different art, artisans, etc. that have something to do with that form of entertainment that so many of us love: the book!" Today's post features the fabulous work of Su Blackwell and Brian Dettmer. Go here to see much more.

The art above is "Twelve Dancing Princesses" by Su Blackwell.

Of men and dogs...

 

I was researching the folklore of dogs recently and came across a good, short article to share with you: "Black Dogs: Guardians of the Corpse Ways" by Bob Trubshaw (posted on the At the Edge website).

"The dog is the oldest domestic animal," writes Trubshaw, "traceable to the paleolithic, since when dogs have enjoyed a peculiarly close relationship with humans, sharing their hearths at night and guarding the home, working during the day as sheepdogs or hunters. This close symbiotic relationship with people is reflected in the early literature where dogs seem to have clear connections with the Otherworld. But this is not unique to hounds as many species from bulls, boars, to owls and cuckoos have clear associations with deities which lead to ritual veneration. However, archaeological evidence and mythology brings recurring examples of a very specific role for dogs. They are the 'psycopomps', the guides on the paths to the Otherworld, the guardians of the 'liminal' zone at the boundaries of the worlds...."

If you happen to be looking for a more in-depth study of dog mythology, try David Gordon-White's wide-ranging, fascinating book Myths of the Dog-Man, from the University of Chicago Press. The Mythology of Dogs by Gerald and Loretta Hausman is also a good source of information on dog lore from around the world.

As for dogs in magical fiction, I hope you haven't missed Kij Johnson's absolutely brilliant story "The Evolution of Trickster Stories Among the Dogs of North Park After the Change," published in The Coyote Road: Trickster Tales. (It can be read online here.) Reviewer Colleen Mondor was as bowled over by Kij's story as I was:

"Johnson takes a relatively simple idea -- that animals have gained the ability to speak -- and takes readers into an emotionally charged arena that is wholly unexpected and exhilarating. Once I realized the hook for this story, I thought it might be funny in a wry or maybe even sophisticated sort of way, but I didn’t think that Johnson would be able to touch my heart so deeply....'The Evolution of Trickster Stories' is a perfect story for classes on the modern short story; it conveys an amazing amount of powerful emotion in such few words and in a truly uncanny way."

I recommend reading Colleen's full review (over on the Bookslut website), in which she also looks at dog tales by Nick Abadzis (Laika) and Charles de Lint (Dingo), as well as a reptile novel by Wendy Townsend and animal poetry from Marjorie Maddox.

Kristen Bakis' novel Lives of the Monster Dogs is a Frankenstein-like story about a race of dog-people, designed by a mad scientist, now living in New York City. I loved the wacky premise, but didn't find the book itself entirely successful...Ellen Datlow loved it, however (as did many other people), so it's definitely worth checking out. On the mainstream shelves, I was impressed and occasionally unnerved by the hard-hitting stories in Brad Watson's Last Days of the Dog-Men. Despite the fanciful title, this is a collection of realist stories with just a tinge of surrealism at the edges...but don't miss it if you're a dog lover, or simply a fan of fine contemporary writing.

Art credits: The painting at the top of this post is from my Desert Spirits series, called "Coyote and the Dog Spirits." The second painting is by Meinrad Craighead, who often uses dog symbolism in her deeply spiritual and mythic art, which has been collected in a beautiful volume titled Crow Mother and the Dog God. The photographs on the left are "Old Dogs" and "Macbeth" by the dog-obsessed artist William Wegman. Visit his website to see more of his work. (There's a cool little flash movie on the homepage.) For more dog lore and art here's a link to to our previous post on the subject: Magical Dogs.

Duirwaigh Gallery: Moving Sale Extravaganza

Angi Sullins of Duirwaigh Gallery is having a huge (over 300 items!) moving sale on Ebay from May 1st through the 14th. Here's a chance to purchase some really terrific pieces of art from well known fantasy artists. Here's the description of the sale: " A treasure box of items will appear for auction here on Monday May 1st to help Duirwaigh find homes for many of its art-children! To make their cross-country move easier, lots of limited edition signed prints, original paintings, unique drawings, one-of-a-kind sculptures, animation cels, collectibles and fun things will be up for auction May 1st - May 15th. Items from Wendy and Brian Froud, David Delamare, Kinuko Craft, Linda Ravenscroft, Amy Brown, Ian Daniels, and Nene Thomas will be featured in the sale."

For more information, stop by Angi's blog for photos and news updates about the sale.

The Monday Video

Our Monday Video this week is "Maybe Sparrow" by Neko Case, with animation by Julie and Paul Morstad. The song comes from Case's Fox Confessor Brings the Flood, an album recorded at the Wave Lab Studio in Tucson. You can hear more of her music on her website.

Julie Morstad is a Vancouver artist whose work I just love. Go to her website to see more of her art -- and also check out her terrific new artbook, Milk Teeth, from the Canadian art & comics press Drawn & Quarterly.

   

Sunday Poem

The Sunday Poem today is "Myth" by Natasha Trethewey, which is read by the poet herself in an audio recording on the Poetry Foundation website.  As Trethewey explains in her introduction, this astonishing poem, written as a palindrome, combines the myth of Orpheus' journey to the underworld in search of Eurydice with the poet's own vital dreams about her deceased mother.

Trethewey's 2000 collection, Domestic Work, won the inaugural Cave Canem Poetry Prize for best first book of poetry by an African American poet, the 2001 Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters Book Prize, and the 2001 Lillian Smith Award for Poetry. Her 2006 collection, Native Guard, received the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. She has been published in numerous journals and anthologies, including The American Poetry Review, The Best American Poetry, and The Southern Review. Trethewey is currently a Professor of English at Emory University, where she holds the Phillis Wheatley Distinguished Chair in Poetry.

You can hear and see more of Trethewey discussing and reading her work here and here (scroll down to see the many options).

*The art above is "Orpheus and Eurydice" by George Frederick Watts.

From Bordertown to Checquers

Those of you who remember the fabulous original covers for the Borderland series might be interested in what the cover artist, Phil Hale, is up to these days. Go here to find out.

The kinetic art of Tom Haney

Tom Haney makes electrical mechanical sculptures, key-wound and hand-cranked automatons, and other kinetic creations he calls "articulated artwork." For example: Down, Boy (to the right) is a key-operated sculpture in which the little dog moves from side to side. Jackalope (below, left) is a hand-cranked piece: the jackalope jumps through the flaming hoop, turns around, and jumps back through, ad infinitum. In Alar (below, right), which is electricity-powered, the wings slowly flap up and down.

"Much of my work is unseen," he says. "Whether it’s an intricate part of a mechanism or the curve of a leg; so much of what I do is not instantly apparent. On a kinetic piece, 50 - 60 percent of my time is spent on the mechanism hidden inside.

"Woodcarving was my initial approach to creating the figures, but lately I've found myself using materials as diverse as fabric, polymer clay, and found objects. Electrical motors, miniature lights and motion-detectors have been added to my mechanical repertoire.

"For the most part, I approach my work searching for that characteristic of the human spirit that struggles to overcome anything fate can throw its way. I've always been on the side of the underdogs, rooting for the little guys. Their lives and stories inspire me."

Born in Ohio in 1962, Haney studied industrial design at the University of Cincinnati and is now based in Atlanta, Georgia. Visit his website to see more of his work.

Blue

Blue is a new exhibition at The Textile Museum in Washington, DC that explores the creation and meaning of the color blue on textiles ranging from Greco-Roman and pre-Columbian tunic fragments to installations by five artists who are currently using indigo dyes in Japan, South America, and the US.

Indigo has long been seen as mythical and magical, with many cultures attributing talismanic properties and health benefits to the dye. To make the indigo dye, "plants are cut shortly before blossoming and placed in a container with water. Enzymes and bacteria in the plants break down the indican, indigo's precursor, into a nearly colorless indoxyl and sugars. This fermentation continues for at least 12 hours. After removing the plant material, the remaining indoxyl must be oxidized by vigorous beating with sticks or hands and feet. This precipitates an insoluble indogo which may be dried and formed into cakes for future use or trade. When needed, the cake is joined with an alkaline substance such as dates or wine in a vat with water. Fibers removed from the vat are yellow, but immediately become blue when oxidized by the air. Seemingly worked by magic, this alchemy introduced indigo dyeing to local superstition, myth, and ritual."

Contemporary artists include Hiroyuki Shindo, a Japanese artist working near Kyoto who has developed innovative patterning techniques, Shihoko Fukumoto, one of Japan's foremost artists working in indigo, and Rowland Ricketts, an American-born artist who spent many years in Japan's Tokushima area and has worked on a indigo farm and apprenticed to a master indigo dyer. Also included are Maria Eugenia Davila and Eduardo Portillo, who are now raising silkworms in Venezuela and spearheading techniques of weaving with locally produced fibers and coloring with the region's natural dyes.

The exhibit runs through September 18, 2008. For more information on indigo, see Terri Windling's post from last year (when the exhibition appeared in England). The image above is a detail from a long cloth from Indonesia, Yogyakarta (in the style of Ceribon) from the 20th century.

Dancing with the spirits...

A. Kimberlin Blackburn is a sculptor and multi-media artist who lives on the Hawai'ian island of Kauai. She was born in Honolulu in 1954, studied studio art at Rutgers University in New Jersey and then returned to Hawai'i, where she works out of a studio overlooking her husband's family farm in the mountains of Kauai. She works with a variety of materials including wood, glass beads, ribbons, ropes, fabric, film, paint and inks. Her art has been widely exhibited, has won numerous awards, and is part of the permanent collections of the Smithsonian American Art Museum in DC and the Hawai'i State Foundation on Culture and the Arts.

In an interview in American Style magazine, Blackburn talked about the farm as a source of artistic inspiration: “Nature’s duality of beauty and devastation always compels me. The water moving through the land, nourishing, carving, flooding. I imagine the farmer as the heroine or hero nourishing generations of people.

She also finds inspiration in Hawai'i's vivid mix of cultures, and in the traditional stories rooted in Kauai's dramatic landscape. "In nature, I can see/feel the energy -- the spirit(s) -- the joy sparkles in the light and in the dark under the canopy. For me it sings out and calls to me to co-create so I get to dance with them and work with the glass beads.

"My works are visual stories about spiritual questing, women, men, mountains, water, life. I am delighted with the concept that everything relates to each other, perhaps even 'talks' to one another. I'm exploring dreams, elements of the sacred, stories, and my sense of wonderment of the world's beauty. Carving and beading are a focused meditation. My current imagery is related to the garden, farms and mother nature's divine plants and elemental magic."

Visit her website to see more of her work.

 

               

Hilarious Savage-ry

Ok, I couldn't resist sharing this cartoon by Canadian humorist Doug Savage, who produces a Savage Chickens cartoon on a post-it every weekday. (There are now over 800 of these hilarious and wickedly absurd beauties.) Stop by the website and browse through the archives and be prepared to guffaw.

The Return of Joy Williams's The Changeling

There is a terrific article in the New York Times literary blog, Paper Cuts, by Dwight Garner on the triumphant and long overdue return of award-winning author Joy Williams's novel, The Changeling. The article looks at the savage drubbing the novel first received in 1978 by a reviewer who knew very little about the evocative and emotionally deep well of fairy tales and mythic fiction. (Boy, some things don't change!) It is wonderful to know that the book is finally receiving the attention it deserved, and kudos to The Fairy Tale Review  Press (and brilliant editor Kate Bernheimer) for making it available once again. (We will be posting a full review in the near future.)

The Monday Video

This week's Monday Video, from the French singer and composer Émilie Simon, is for all the doll artists and doll art fans among our readers. I hope you enjoy this unusual little piece.

Simon, who is from Montpellier, studied ancient music at the Sorbonne and electronic music at the Institut de Recherche et Coordination Acoustique/Musique. She has released several CDs, including Végétal, The Flower Book, À l'Olympia, and The March of the Empress. For more information, visit her website and MySpace page.

Sunday Poem

Today's poem is "Eve's Design" by Moira Linehan, which goes out to all you knitters. Spindle, thread, and yarn have been the tools of myth-making since the first woman twirled a thread on a spindle and figured out what to do with it. I love this little poem -- Eve, knitting a serpent's pattern and quietly reflecting on "what's infinitely possible with a few stitches."

The art is "Peasant Girl Knitting" by Frans Pieter Lodewyk van Kuyck (1852–1915).

And here's another suggestion for National Poetry Month: stop by the Poetry Foundation and check out their terrific collection of poetry videos, some brilliantly animated and others read by poets and celebrities. Favorites are Jazz musician and composer Wynton Marsalis performing William Butler Yeats' romping poem "The Wild, Wicked Old Man," Sharon Olds reading her poem "I Go Back to May, 1937," a heart-breaking poem about abuse, and an animated version of Robert Creeley's gorgeous love poem "The Language," read by Carl Hancock Rux.

Ursula Le Guin's Lavinia

There is a terrific interview/article with Ursula Le Guin in the Wall Street Journal, discussing her new mythic/historical novel, Lavinia. The novel follows the life of Princess Lavinia, the very fleeting figure of Aeneas' second wife in Virgil's heroic epic, The Aeneid. Although the original epic has only a handful of lines concerning Lavinia, Le Guin decided she needed much more attention. As explained in the WSJ review, Le Guin "saw in Lavinia a character in search of a writer. Virgil didn't allow Lavinia to speak a single word in his poem. Here, Ms. Le Guin thought, was a woman who needed a voice across the centuries. So she imagined Lavinia: dutiful but strong-willed, romantic but shrewd." You can read an excerpt from the novel here.

There is also an interesting review of the novel by Yvonne Zip of The Christian Science Monitor here: "In one of the more impressive displays of feminist reconstruction since Margaret Atwood wrested Penelope out of the hands of Homer, National Book Award-winner Le Guin has rewritten the last six books of Virgil's epic poem to create a rich life of the mind for the Latin princess. Unlike Atwood's Penelopiad, the novel, as Le Guin writes in an afterword, is a 'love offering,' and she writes with great affection for both the poet and his hero."

Also, if you've not yet read The Aeneid, and don't want to follow Le Guin's example of translating ten lines a day, consider getting hold of Robert Fagels' masterful new translation of this mythic classic. It's a first rate translation -- written in a clear and elegant English but maintaining Virgil's wonderful cadence. It's also a great swashbuckling tale, following the adventures of a Trojan War hero. (There is one cool part with Lavinia, where her hair catches on fire but doesn't burn -- a flaming omen of a coming war). On a side note, Robert Fagels died recently -- a sad loss to the world of classical literature.

Book Arts by Jacqueline Rush Lee

   

Jacqueline Rush Lee is an interstitial artist who works between the borders of craft and fine art to create sculptures inspired by her personal and cultural history. Orginially from Northern Ireland, she now lives on the Hawa'ian island of Oahu, where she is a teaching artist for the Hawai'i State Foundation on Culture and the Arts. Her work has been exhibited in museums and galleries internationally, and she will be a featured artist at the New York Center for Book Arts in January 2009.

The sculptures pictured here come from the artist's Book Sculptures series. “As one who loves books," she says, "and the imaginative worlds to which book contents lure their readers, I am drawn to the physicality of the book as familiar object, medium, and archetypal form.

"As an artist, I am inspired by the materials, colors and forms that I find in my everyday environment. I am particularly drawn to objects that record physical processes or bear the imperfections and scars of life.  Intuitively chosen, these objects suggest layered metaphors of knowledge and corporeality as an embodiment of the transitory nature of the body, thoughts, memories, or one’s life experiences.

"For almost a decade I have found myself drawn to the intimate, tactile, and symbolic qualities of used books. I am interested in how these recycled books come with their own histories of use and meaning and how they serve as potent vehicles of expression. With the idea of working with them as my canvas or building block, I transform the books into sculptures that explore and redefine the book as familiar object, medium, and archetypal form. By scrambling the formal arrangement of the book and transposing its material and conceptual qualities, I aim to create evocative art forms that suggest an alternative narrative."

The sculptures here are: "Petrified Book," "Short Stories," "The Green Book," and "Absolute Depth." You can see more of Lee's fascinating work on her website.

The Book of Blood

          

In her terrific article on the Armless Maiden folktale, Midori used this quote from the British poet Vicki Feaver, author of a hard-hitting poem based on the Brothers Grimm verision of the tale, The Handless Maiden:

"I read a psychoanalytic interpretation by Marie Louise von Franz in her book, The Feminine in Fairytales in which she argues that the story reflects the way women cut off their own hands to live through powerful and creative men. They need to go into the forest, into nature, to live by themselves, as a way of regaining their own power. The child in the story represents the woman's creativity that only the woman herself can save."

(The quote comes from an interview in Poetry Magazine, "No More 'Mrs. Nice'.")

I didn't know Feaver's work when I read Midori's piece, and I made a note to myself to seek it out. It's taken me all this time to finally do so...and now I'm kicking myself for the long delay. If you're a fan of mythic poetry, this woman's work is simply not to be missed.

The Book of Blood, Feaver's most recent collection, is the best place to start -- although her previous book, The Handless Maiden, is also a fabulous read. (I've posted a link to the latter book's Amazon.co.uk page here, because the Amazon.com page has Feaver's collection confused with Loranne Brown's novel of the same title.)

The Book of Blood begins with a quote from Stevie Smith, which sets the tone for the pages that follow: "The human creature is alone in his carapace. Poetry is a strong way out. The passage out that she blasts is often in splinters, covered with blood…"

As Laura Helyer points out on the Poetry House website: "Feaver seems to agree that ‘the passage out’ is a necessarily bloody or messy one for women poets who look to make a space for their voice in a tradition that has largely, and often aggressively, excluded them. By this I mean much must be re-visioned and re-imagined from a woman’s point of view. Even today, it is impossible for women to be indifferent to this imbalance even if they resent being labeled ‘women poets’. This has been successfully addressed and redressed through writers such as Carol Ann Duffy and Angela Carter through the unpicking and rewriting of fairy tales, mythic imagery and the voicing of passive female subjects of often canonical paintings. It is an approach that Feaver has supported in this collection with poems such as ‘Girl in Red’, ‘The Gift’, ‘Medea’s Little Brother’, ‘The Red Cupboard’ and ‘The Fates’ as well as famously in her previous book, The Handless Maiden."

(Read Helyer's full article on Feaver's work here, which includes excerpts from Feaver's poems.)

Writing in The Guardian, Sarah Crown observes: "Like the characters in Angela Carter's The Bloody Chamber - clearly a strong influence here - Feaver's unruly women are more than capable of taking aberrant pleasure in their actions. A modern-day Red Riding Hood rejoices in her 'sizzling vermilion' lipstick and 'ruby high heels,' not caring that 'Grandma said / it made me look like a tart;' Cinderella, meanwhile, loves her work, seeing herself as 'an artist of the hearth.' Feaver also lends a more sympathetic ear to the stories of mythically wicked women such as Medea (who dismembered her brother) and Blodeuwedd (the Welsh owl-goddess who conspired with her lover to murder her husband). But she does not absolve them. Feaver permits Medea, for example, to tell her side of the story, but at the same time forces us to look her crimes in the face in a retelling so violent it is almost unreadable."

Indeed, Feaver's poems can be dark, violent, sexual, brutal...much like the old fairy tales themselves. She joins a long line of women storytellers, stretching back and back through the centuries, who have used fairy tales as a metaphoric language with which to speak of the stark realities of women's lives. Her work is unflinchingly feminist, but that doesn't mean these are poems for Women Only, of course.

As fellow-poet Matthew Sweeney has said: "Vicki Feaver's poems always come back to contemporary relationships - not so much domestic as domestic gothic, where the women are sensual and murderous. These are powerfully distinctive poems, women's poems that don't shut out men."

     

Art credits: The top two pieces are H.J. Ford's illustrations for The One-Handed Girl (a variant of The Armless Maiden/Handless Maiden/Silver Hands story); the rest of the art comes from Jennie Harbour, a turn-of-the-century English fairy tale illustrator (about whom little is now known, alas).

The pervasive influence of fairy tales...

       

I've come across an interesting "conversation" between Margaret Atwood and Joyce Carol Oates on the subject of being a poet. It dates back to 1978, and is available online here.

The comment in it that particularly caught my eye:

Oates: Have fairy tales, Gothic romances and other fantasies played a significant part in your background reading?

Atwood: The Gothic; the supernatural fantasy and related forms have interested me for some time, in fact, my uncompleted Ph.D. thesis is called "The English Metaphysical Romance." This may or may not have something to do with the fact that in childhood--I think I was about 6--we were given the complete "Grimms' Fairy Tales," unexpurgated. My sister was terrified of it, but I loved it. These are, of course, not "children's stories"; they were originally told by adults to anyone who happened to be there, and there is quite a lot of material that we wouldn't consider suitable for children today. It was not the gore--being rolled downhill in barrels full of spikes and so forth--that caught my attention, but the transformations. "The Juniper Tree" was and remains my favorite, followed closely by a story called "Fitcher's Bird." The other interesting thing about these stories is that, unlike the heroines of the more conventional and re-done stories, such as "Cinderella" and "Little Red Riding Hood," the heroines of these stories show considerable wit and resourcefulness and usually win, not just by being pretty virtuous, but by using their brains. And there are wicked wizards as well as wicked witches. I would like to write about this sometime.

(Atwood, by the by, contributed one of her fairy tale poems to The Journal of Mythic Arts. You'll find it in our archives here.)

And here's another article that's worth perusing, this one published in The Guardian back in 2004: "Happy Ever After" by A.S. Byatt. An excerpt:

"It is interesting how impossible it is to remember a time when my head was not full of these unreal people, things and events. When I ask friends and colleagues what is their first precise memory of a fairy tale they almost all come up with some shock administered by that psychological terrorist, Andersen - the little mermaid walking on knives, Hans in the icy palace of the Snow Queen. But these shocks happen to people and children who already need and inhabit the other world which gets into our heads and becomes necessary - a world of suns and moons and forests, of princesses and goose girls, of old men and women, benign and malign, of talking birds and flying horses, magic roses and magic puddings, turnips and pigs, impenetrable castles and petrification, glass mountains and glass coffins, poisonous apples and blinding thorns, ogres and imps, spindles and spun gold, tasks and prohibitions, danger and comfort (for the good people) after it. It is very odd - when you come to think of it - that human beings in all sorts of societies, ancient and modern, have needed these untrue stories. It is much odder than the need for religious stories (myths) or semi-historical stories (legends) or history, national or personal. Even as a little girl I perceived its oddity. These "flat" stories appear to be there because stories are a pervasive and perpetual human characteristic, like language, like play...."

All three of these writers contributed fine essays on fairy tales to Mirror, Mirror on the Wall: Women Writers Explore Their Favorite Fair Tales, edited by Kate Bernheimer. If you're a fan of fairy tales and fairy tale literature, I hope you haven't missed Kate's excellent book, or its sequel Brothers and Beasts: An Anthology of Men on Fairy Tales. Or her journal, The Fairy Tale Review.

The Monday Video

We have a terrific Monday Video for you this morning: a clip of Phil Cunningham interviewing Scottish singer/songwriter Karine Polwart about the creative process of writing her songs, which are influenced by traditional folk ballads and the works of Robert Burns. Visit Karine's website to learn more about her gorgeous, gorgeous music...and then visit Phil's to learn more about his. (Phil and his brother -- the late, great Johnny Cunningham --were the founders of the band Silly Wizard, and he's created a lot of wonderful music in the years since.) You'll find another good video interview with Karine here (Part 1) and here (Part 2).

The Sunday Poems

   

In honor of National Poetry Month, we've got not one but six poems for you today -- all inspired by the Little Red Riding Hood fairy tale.

1. First we have a classic: Anne Sexton's "Red Riding Hood" (from her famous fairy tale poetry collection, Transformations):

Long ago
there was a strange deception:
a wolf dressed in frills,
a kind of transvestite.
But I get ahead of my story.....

2. The wolf defends himself in Agha Shahid Ali's "The Wolf''s Postscript to 'Little Red Riding Hood'" (from A Walk Through the Yellow Pages and The Poets' Grimm):

First, grant me my sense of history:
I did it for posterity,
for kindergarten teachers
and a clear moral....

3. Angela Omulepu uses Red Riding Hood imagery to powerful effect in her short poem "Self-Portrait" (which was part of the Poetry on the Buses program in Washington State):

I'm no Red Riding Hood, lost in the woods,
More gap-toothed and leaping, evergreen
To evergreen, more hermit than hobbit....

4. Jeannine Hall Gailey gives us a different take on Red Riding Hood's character in "When Red Becomes the Wolf" (from her terrific collection Becoming the Villainess):

In the forest by your house,

I met someone gathering wood. "Nice axe,"
I said before wandering further.
I was obtaining samples for my botany class....

5. The heroine of Carol Ann Duffy's "Little Red-Cap" (from her brilliant collection The World's Wife) deliberately seeks the wolf's attention:

You might ask why. Here's why. Poetry.
The wolf, I knew, would lead me deep into the woods,
away from home, to a dark tangled thorny place
lit by the eyes of owls....

6. Sonia Murphy, too, explores the allure of the wild in her poem "Marrying the Wolf" (scroll down to the March 31 entry on Murphy's blog, Igneous Paramour):

my sugar bowl of eggs
for his lacy underbelly
of wet fur.

my wooden spoons
for his thick honest
mud-thorn kisses....

More Red Riding Hood poems can be found in the Journal of Mythic Arts archives. Follow these links to delightful pieces by Holly Black, Johnny Clewell, Karen Daly, Theodora Goss, Carrie Miner, and Jane Yolen; and a Sunday Poem feature on Jennifer Chang.

Lawrence Schimel's fabulous poem "Journeybread Recipe" inspired the e-postcard above, with art by Walter Crane. You'll find this and many other free e-postcards over on our Mythic Poetry e-Postcard page.

The art below below is a Red Riding Hood narrative sculpture by midwestern artist John T. Unger, working in collaboration with his daughter Mya Smith. Go here to learn more about the piece, and about Unger's work.

   

For more about the fairy tale itself: here's my article on the history of Little Red Riding Hood; you'll find an annotated version of the story over on Surlalune; and I recommend Catherine Orenstein's entertaining book Little Red Riding Hood Uncloaked: Sex, Morality, and the Evolution of a Fairy Tale.

Attention writers: a call for submissions

Interfictions, edited by Delia Sherman & Theodora Goss, was a provocative anthology of interstitial fiction published last year by Small Beer Press under the auspices of the Interstitial Arts Foundation. Containing terrific fiction by Christopher Barzak, Catherynne M. Valente, Veronica Schanoes, K. Tempest Bradford, Matthew Cheney, Anna Tambour, and others, with a critical essay on interstitiality by Heinz Insu Fenkl, and cover art by Connie Toebe, the book created quite a buzz.

Now the I.A.F. is getting to work on a second anthology of interstitial fiction, to be edited by Delia Sherman and Chris Barzak this time, and published by Small Beer Press in 2009. The editors would like all interested writers to know that the book will be open for submissions later this year. The submission guidelines are below.

To learn more about interstitial fiction, visit the Interfictions blog, the IAF website, and the IAF discussion board.

"From these airborne stories stream contrails of traditional realism, philosophical fable, literary fantasy, existential horror, transmogrified myth, off-center science fiction and unabashed slapstick. . . . [Interfictions] belongs on the nightstand of anyone interested in the development of contemporary short fiction."  -- Michael Bishop on Interfictions in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

   

Interfictions II submission guidelines
from Delia Sherman & Christopher Barzak, editors:

What We’re Looking For

Interstitial Fiction is all about breaking rules, ignoring boundaries, cross-pollinating the fields of literature. It’s about working between, across, through, and at the edges and borders of literary genres, including fiction and non-fiction. It falls between the cracks of other movements, terms, and definitions. If you have a story idea that’s impossible to describe in a couple of sentences, it may be interstitial.

We’re looking for previously unpublished stories that engage us and make us think about literature in new ways. Rather than defining “interstitial” for you, we’d like you to show us what genre-bending fiction looks like. Surprise us; make us see that literature holds possibilities we haven't yet imagined.

We are also open to graphic stories of about 10 pages.

Who We Are Looking For

Writers in all genres of fiction (contemporary realism, mystery, historical, fantasy, whatever) who have an idea that challenges generic tropes and expectations. If you're not sure whether a story is interstitial, send it along anyway.

Practical Matters

Our submission period will be from October 1, 2008 to December 2, 2008. Please submit electronically only. Send your stories to: interfictions [at] interstitialarts.org. You will hear from us after January, 2009.

Overseas submissions are welcome. Stories previously published in other languages may be submitted in English translation for first English language publication.

Please follow standard manuscript formatting and submission conventions: ie, double-spaced, with 1” margins, and the name of the story on each page. No simultaneous or multiple submissions. Word count is open, but the ideal range is 4,000-10,000 words. Payment will be 5 cents a word for non-exclusive world anthology rights, on publication, along with 2 author’s copies.

Any questions? Write us at interfictions [at] interstitialarts.org. 

   

Blue by Elizabeth Genco and Sami Makkonen

We are eagerly awaiting Blue, a graphic novel and the latest offering from the creative team of author Elizabeth Genco and artist Sami Makkonen. Elizabeth explains "BLUE is about a girl whose ex-turned-indie-rock-god comes back and is not as he seems. It's a bit of a sendup of Bluebeard, a old school fairy tale."

And here's a quote from the solicitation copy: "A fresh, fantastic take on the bloodiest of classic fairy tales. When Blue's ex-boyfriend appears on her doorstep, he says he wants to make things right. His true intentions are far more sinister. Blue's shape-shifting powers can help her outrun him, but to survive, she must face him as herself."

Stop by Blue and keep up with the news, promotions, and sneak previews of the forthcoming graphic novel.

Delicious goblin fruits....

   

The Spring 2008 (2nd Anniversary) issue of the Goblin Fruit poetry webzine is now online, and by god is it a spectacular one. "In the grand tradition of launching from new and exciting locales," they say, "this Spring issue is brought to you from the Levant with cedar twigs and a handful of Damascene dust. These poems are wet, deep and sea-salted, sure to leave you breathless as a mermaid's kiss and just as doomed and desperate. Read them with caution, and make sure you know how to swim, first -- or don't, and see what dreams may come."

The issue is divided into The Book of Breath and The Book of Thirst, with so many fine poems in each part that it's hard to single out just a few for mention. Fans of fairy tale poetry should be sure not to miss "Prince Among Frogs" by Anca Vlasopolos, "Twelve Dancing Princesses" by A. Harvey-Fitzhenry,  "Things in the Well" by Erik Amundsen, and "Godmother" by  Anna Marie Catoir. Among the mythic poems, "Nesting" by Dana Koster, "Drowning Downstream" by Deborah P. Kolodji, "Noah's Daughters" by Virginia Mohlere, "Rusalka" by Julia Rios, and "Seeds" by Jasmine Johnston stood out for me, but all the poems are well worth perusing. And as is if all these treasures weren't enough, there's also a special feature on Catherynne M. Valente, with an interview and four of her poems.

Goblin Fruit (produced by the international trio Amal El-Mohtar, Jessica Wick, and Oliver Hunter) just gets better and better. We wish them a very happy 2nd Anniversary!

         

Celebrate Shakespeare's Birthday

      

Were you looking for a way to celebrate Shakespeare's 444 birthday? Why not celebrate at the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, DC? On April 27, from noon to 4 pm, there will be jugglers, jesters, music, song, and dance. Also, you can perform your favorite lines of Shakespeare (what ARE your favorite lines of Shakespeare?) on the Folger stage, or take part in treasure hunts of the Folger's reading rooms on the only day of the entire year that they're open to the public.  What fun! Click here for all the info.

And if you wanted to do a little light reading on Shakespeare to prepare for the party, why not try Bill Bryson's Shakespeare: The World as Stage? The book is devoted to what we DON'T know about Shakespeare, and it's full of amusing anecdotes -- such as that he never spells his name the same way twice in the signatures of his that survive -- Willm Shaksp, William Shakespe, Wm Shakspe, William Shakspere, Willm Shakspere, and William Shakspeare.  Oh, how my inner proofreader cringes!

**The art above is by an unknown artist. It's oil on panel, late 1600s to early 1700s.

Sugar Sculpture

Heather Higgins is a sculptor who designs large, mixed media sculptures out of sugar, ceramics, raffia, rope, feathers, blown glass, crystals, and more. Her influences include puppet designers, Gothic art, the work of American doll artists such as Susanna Oroyan, the humorous automatons of Chomick and Meder, African figure sculpture, modern music videos, and the illustrations of H.R. Giger. Her sugar dries as hard as porcelain and lasts for many years.