Win a copy of my new poetry collection.
So Sam's Dot Publishing is releasing my second full-length poetry collection The Handless Maiden and Other Tales Twice Told this month. This book (a whopping 100 + pages!) collects many of my fairy tale and fantasy poems published between 2005 and early 2008 and is beautifully illustrated by my dear friend (and fellow 2008 Bram Stoker nominee) Marge Simon. To celebrate, I'm offering you your very own chance to get one of three prizes: a free copy of the book, a neklace based on a poem from the book or a handwritten copy of one of the book's poems on high quality paper and signed.
How do you enter? All you need to do is comment here with an answer to the following question: Why retell fairy tales? Your answers can thoughtful, sagacious, audacious, just plain silly or anything else. Just go easy on the profanity, please. Not because I object to profanity (I swear like a sailor after seven pints and seven verses of "Friggin' in the Riggin'") but because I want to keep this blog civil and professional. You don't even need to adhere to a word count ... though please be reasonable and don't post responses that are two words or Tolstoyesque. You have until 11:59 p.m. Mountain Standard Time on July 31 to post. My partner and I will then pick the three winners and announce them here by August 5.
OK, people. That's it. So get posting!
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Carter Tachikawa says:
Why retell fairytales?
There's a pretty easy an answer to this; you don't want to let the stories die. Everything has a different side to it and what you hear isn't exactly how everything went down. Retelling them not only keeps the story alive but it gives you a different point of view. Maybe the villain isn't as bad as they appear. Maybe the hero/heroine isn't as great as they appear. Maybe something darker went down in a light-hearted fairytale. Or maybe the darkness wasn't that bad. In any case, a fairytale isn't one-sided and telling another one certainly opens up the imagination to more.
-CT (coldwriter from LJ)
Stacy Mantle says:
Retelling Fairy Tales
Why retell fairy tales? Because they remain the only time-proven way of passing along heritage, myth, fact, fiction, life lessons and love. Fairy tales inspire us, make us believe that anything is possible... They take us back to a simpler place and remind us that words are the only things that truly transcends time, taking on a life of their own and becoming a living entity. Whether spoken, written or read, fairytales inspire us to believe in the impossible, to strive for the unthinkable, and remind us that we can endure the unsufferable - if only we believe...
Something magical happens when we communicate these tales to another human being. They remind us of a time when fairies, goblins, witches, unicorns and royalty could live in relative harmony, and problems could be solved with a simple enchantment. Fairy tales bestow comfort on us by demonstrating that there once was a clear line between good and evil, leaving little room for the grey.
Yes, the art of relaying fairytales must stay with us forever. To allow these classic tales to become lost in time would be to lose a piece of our humanity...
Deena Fisher says:
Why...
Fairy tales answer the questions we always ask, no matter what time or era in which we live. Will I marry? Will I love? They give us adventure, and caution us, both against wolves and against crying when there are none. We retell them because we want to make them as fresh and exciting as they were when we first discovered them, and we want to share them in fresh clothes, take away the outdated styles and archaic speech. Sometimes we want to change the lesson, make it relevant again. We want the prince to be rescued, we want the monster to be the hero, we want to reflect our times and heart. We retell fairy tales because we want to believe in the magic, in a more textured and possible world, and we want to share the wonder of it with others.