a dark & tasty blog by kl pereira

Thursday, October 28, 2010

The Possibilities of the Fairy Tale

What? You expected a post right after my other post explaining my begging off blogging forever?

Greedy, greedy readers!


No excuses. Just writing. My new motto. After chatting with a friend at the Boston Book Festival and attending a kick-ass session on new fairy tales called "My Mother She Killed Me, My Father He Ate Me" (a line from my favorite fairy tale, The Juniper Tree), I was inspired to re-commit myself to my flash fairy tale collection. Maybe it was the inspiring words of Kate Bernheimer, an idol of mine, admonishing the literary world for turning their noses up at fairy tales (more on this later), or maybe it was the brilliant words of fairy tale scholar Maria Tatar (who makes me want to disguise myself as a Harvard student so I can take her classes), or perhaps it was the sharp and fantastical (and utterly amazing) story and banter from Kelly Link, my favorite writer. Whatever it was it opened my goggled and life-befuddled mind to the possibilities that are latent and waiting in the fairy tale.

It was no coincidence that this all took place a mere two weeks before Halloween--the ending of one year, one season of life, bespeaks the opening of another.