2012’s Fairy Tale Review (The Grey Issue) is our eighth annual issue and will debut at the 2012 AWP Convention in Chicago, going up for sale at SPD at the same time.  It is a themed issue, dedicated to lost boys and lost girls.  In the Editor’s Note, Alissa Nutting, author of Unclean Jobs for Women and Girls, writes: “ Getting lost is one of the most widely used narrative vehicles of all time. Once characters become lost, they can stumble upon anything—it’s a light speed bullet train between credibility and suspension of disbelief. Falling down a rabbit hole or stepping off the trail in a labyrinthine wood can transport a character to another world entirely in a manner of seconds.” Contributors to The Grey Issue are Seth Abramson, Matt Bell, Molly Bendall, Wyatt Bonikowski, Brittany Cavallaro, Maile Chapman, Mimi Chubb, Tara Goedjen, Sara Gong, Carol Guess, Aireanne Hjelle, Desiree Holman,Ashley Elizabeth Hudson, Shane Jones, Jessica Joslin, Krystal Languell, David Lasky, Stacey Levine, Oksana Marafioti, Adam McOmber, Christopher Merkner, Benjamin Nadler, Andi Olsen, Lance Olsen, Daniela Olszewska,David James Poissant, Gretchen Steele Pratt, Imad Rahman, Matthew Salesses, Kevin Sampsell, Davis Schneiderman,J. A. Tyler, Lee Upton, Laura Van Den Berg, Rob Walsh, Jillian Weise, Kellie Wells, Elizabeth Clark Wessel,Deborah Woodard, John Dermot Woods.

Now in print! Translated from the Spanish by Toshiya Kamei. "Sagrario died in May, after much suffering." So begins Espido Freire's haunting novel IRLANDA, with a sentence that is bright and troubled at once, just like its hero. After the death of her sister Sagrario, young Natalia has been sent by her mother to spend the summer helping her two teenage cousins (Roberto and the beautiful, "perfect" Irlanda) do minor repairs to the family's decaying country house. Its fairy-tale "tower and chapel...stood crumbling, crawling with vermin." Jealousy, displacement, and loss: these classic themes are twisted and laid bare in a pristinely told mystery story. This beautifully translated book is the first to be published in the English language by one of Spain's youngest and most celebrated authors.

"Exquisite...fascinating...stunning. IRLANDA unfurls like a rose with a ring of gleaming white teeth inside, poised to snap."—Stacey Richter

About the author: Espido Freire was born in Bilbao, Spain, in 1974. She is the author of several novels, including Donde siempre es octubre (1999), Melocotones helados (winner of the 1999 Premio Planeta), Nos espera la noche (2003), Soria Moria (2007), and La flor del norte (2011). Her novels have been translated into over a dozen languages, including French, German, and Portuguese.

Now in print!  Our 2011 issue, The Brown Issue, is Fairy Tale Review's seventh annual issue. It has been brilliantly Guest Edited by acclaimed novelist Timothy Schaffert, who writes in his Editor's Note: "Brown is the color of the wolf, of the harvest-ravaged farm, of thatched roofs, of cinnamon cake, of autumn, of snuff, of wooden boxes (bridal chests, watch cases, humidors, coffins). If ever there was a color more suited to earthly existence it's the color of earth itself. And earthly existence is at the very heart of fairy tales, despite all the unearthly circumstances depicted."

 Contributors include E. Annette Binder, Maud Casey. Melissa Coss Aquino, Elizabeth Crane, Melissa Cundieff-Pexa, Ben Debus, Brandel France de Bravo, Owen King, Drew Krewer, Peter Kuper, Sarah Messer, Brian Oliu, Lisa Perrin, Judith Slater, Dayana Stetco, and Jim Tolan.

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