Fairy Tale Review Archive
Browse submissions from past editions, web exclusive content, author Q&A, and more.
The practice of retelling fairy tales in the form of literary fiction is, if not quite hallowed, certainly established. The great Angela Carter’s revelatory 1979 story collection, “The Bloody Chamber” — a brocaded work of heady sensuality, intelligence and violence — remains the benchmark, but Kate Bernheimer’s Fairy Tale Review and the several excellent Bernheimer-edited anthologies spun off from it carry the standard forward. Those are just some of the more overt homages; Western literature owes as much to fairy tales as it does to Greek myth and the Bible.
-The New York Times
De vilde svaner (Wild Swans)
That first time I saw myself miraculous, we baked swan-fat
into bread when Satan whispered
The Girl, the Wolf, the Crone
More than once there was a soon-to-be-old woman who had a loaf of bread, held it in her hands she did, and it was inconvenient to have a loaf of bread always sitting in her hands…
Pinnochia from Pleasure Island
Now I think of what I’d die to forget. Now I forget.
Where did I grow up, get out—was I as rich as a golden
yolk waiting to crack in the hay?
Fairy-Tale Files: Hanna
Fairy-Tale Files, published once weekly, feature three variations of a fairy tale chosen by one of Fairy Tale Review’s editors. The 2011 action film...
Fairy-Tale Files: The Stretching Tree Kupua
Fairy-Tale Files, published once weekly, feature three variations of a fairy tale chosen by one of Fairy Tale Review’s Assistant Editors. In...
Fairy-Tale Files: Donkeyskin
Fairy-Tale Files, published once weekly, feature three variations of a fairy tale chosen by one of Fairy Tale Review’s Assistant Editors. At a...
Fairy-Tale Files: Snow White
Fairy-Tale Files, published once weekly, feature three variations of a fairy tale chosen by one of Fairy Tale Review’s Assistant Editors. Scottish...
Fairy-Tale Files: Iemanja
Fairy-Tale Files, published once weekly, feature three variations of a fairy tale chosen by one of Fairy Tale Review’s Assistant Editors. Iemanja,...
Fairy-Tale Files: Germelshausen
Fairy-Tale Files, published once weekly, feature three variations of a fairy tale chosen by one of Fairy Tale Review’s Assistant Editors. In this...
Fairy-Tale Files: The Enormous Turnip
Fairy-Tale Files, published once weekly, feature three variations of a fairy tale chosen by one of Fairy Tale Review’s Assistant Editors. Pliny the...
Fairy-Tale Files: The Crane Wife
Fairy-Tale Files, published once weekly, feature three variations of a fairy tale chosen by one of Fairy Tale Review’s Assistant Editors. Named one...
Fairy-Tale Files: The Goose Girl
Fairy-Tale Files, published once weekly, feature three variations of a fairy tale chosen by one of Fairy Tale Review’s Assistant Editors. Like the...
Fairy-Tale Files: In the Uttermost Parts of the Sea
Fairy-Tale Files, published once weekly, feature three variations of a fairy tale chosen by one of Fairy Tale Review’s Assistant Editors. Carsten...
Fairy-Tale Files: Jack and the Beanstalk
Fairy-Tale Files, published once weekly, feature three variations of a fairy tale chosen by one of Fairy Tale Review’s Assistant Editors. Man Man,...
Fairy-Tale Files: Inkarri
Fairy-Tale Files, published once weekly, feature three variations of a fairy tale chosen by one of Fairy Tale Review’s Assistant Editors. In honor...
