Feminist Fables

I have been reading various anthologies as part of my short fiction module at university, and I recently came across three of Suniti Namjoshi's Feminist Fables in an anthology edited by Angela Carter. I was struck by how her writing could be both humorous and deeply meaningful in such a small space - they can't be more than a couple of hundred words...

I particularly enjoyed 'A Room of His Own', which is a take on Bluebeard. Bluebeard goes through the usual routine with his new wife, goes on his travels, and when he comes back finds that she hasn't been in his room. He questions her and wants to know why she didn't look, and why she wasn't curious. When she tells him 'I think you're entitled to a room of your own,' he is so angry he kills her. 

It really made me think.

And it definitely made me want to try re-writing fairy tales again!

by fatamorgana1989 @ dA

The anthology I referred to is called Wayward Girls and Wicked Women (ed. Angela Carter) First published in 1986 by Virago Press.

The Kindle has landed

I celebrated my birthday last week, and knowing that I am a writer, book lover and English student, my parents very generously bought me a Kindle Touch! I know that e-readers are nothing new anymore, but it has taken me a while to get to a point where I feel like I want and could make good use of one. I'll admit I am a sucker for physical books; I love the way they feel in my hands and the way they look on my bookshelves!

Recently though, I began to see how an e-reader would be a good investment in my life...but more as a writer and a student, than purely as a reader.

English students spend how much on books each year?!

Yep, the biggest draw is the money I can now save on my books for university. I was talking to a friend  recently who studies sociology, and she was having a bit of a rant about her £10 course reader and the other £15 she'd spent on a mandatory text book for the term. I bit my tongue, and didn't tell her that in my first term as an English student I spent nearly £100 on my books, followed by about £70 for the second term.

Whilst there's no way my massive anthologies will ever be released as e-books, a lot of other books are accessible, either at a significant reduction or, through sites such as Project Gutenberg, for free.

How many English students break their backs each year?!

OK, I'm exaggerating slightly here. However, I have a back problem that may have been caused by the heavy loads I've been carrying throughout my school/uni life, and is definitely exacerbated by those days where I have a lecture and two seminars for different modules, and need three+ different books for the day. (Especially when one of those books is a Norton Anthology. Seriously. Go and find one if you think I'm stretching the truth about how massive they are!)

Bring an e-reader on to the scene, and my day gets a little less painful.

Students' eyesight deteriorates by how much per term?!

I have to read a lot of PDFs from the university's electronic library. These essays and articles can be thousands of words long, and require translating into laymen's English and serious note-taking. I can't look at a computer screen for more than about an hour before I start to get a headache and tired eyes. And popping pills every day isn't a brilliant solution.

Thank you, Kindle, for your non-glare, 'just like paper' readability! You will be giving my optician something to smile about for the first time in 10 years!

You want to write? Read!

This isn't a new idea by any means - it's common knowledge that if you want to be a writer you need to know what's popular, what works, what doesn't...and that means reading a lot. And how does one read 'a lot' of books?

Besides finding making the time, you need to have the books in the first place. My library is great, but they don't always stock the newest releases (particularly for kids books) and they don't always have a great selection in certain genres or the sorts of non-fiction books I need. Buying the books builds up the cost, and then there's the issue of storage. Where on earth am I supposed to keep ten different children's books about rabbits that I bought because for a while I was dead set on writing an amazing children's book about rabbits?

My e-reader stores something like 3000 books. Amazing!

It has taken me a while to get here, but it now looks as if my Kindle and I have a beautiful friendship ahead of us...

Brothers Grimm on The World Tonight

Last night, the Brothers Grimm featured on BBC radio 4's The World Tonight programme, as part of celebrations for the 200th anniversary of their first published collection of fairy tales.

The World Tonight  

BBC radio 4, 22:00, 20th September

It was only a short segment of the programme, but they discussed some pretty interesting things. For example, according to a survey of Britain's parents, 90% say they read fairy tales to their children, and more then 50% prefer the Grimm fairy tales to all the others. 90%! I didn't expect the number to be so high considering all the negative media recently about 'how bad fairy tales are for children'. 

One writer was asked why fairy tales still appeal to children - because surely it is all about Harry Potter these days - and they said a large part of it was probably to do with the fact that things just happen to you, regardless of who you are, unlike in Harry Potter, where only certain children are selected for great things to happen to, who then have to spend time in training anyway.

They did bring up the violence and unjust punishment in the earlier tales, e.g. in the original Frog Princess, the princess attacks the frog in order to gain her reward. A psychologist commented that this is how children learn to deal with scary situations - within the safe confines of a book.

There appear to be quite a few Grimm features around the BBC at the moment, so keep your eyes and ears peeled!

Sussex Centre for Folklore, Fairy Tale and Fantasy

If you live in the south of England you may be aware of the Sussex Centre for Folklore, Fairy Tale and Fantasy, based at the University of Chichester. They frequently hold events that will interest any fairy tale fans out there, and this is the latest one:

Sex, lies and Videotape: The brothers Grimm experience
Wednesday 10 October 2012 5.15pm-6:30pm, Cloisters, Bishop Otter Campus,University of Chichester**Professional story-teller Janet Dowling presents the story of how the brothers Grimm cleaned up their act for contemporary readers … and what Disney did next.

Their advisory board is made up of big names in the global business of fairy tales, including Jack Zipes, Maria Tatar and Marina Warner. There are a couple of videos of lectures on the site, and a link to buy their journal, Gramarye.

It has occurred to me that I am only about 1 hour and a £13 train fare away from Chichester, and that I should definitely make use of such a wonderful centre that is practically on my doorstep!

Marshland by liselotte-eriksson @ dA

Contradictory thoughts

Hello!

I have returned. I returned a week ago, actually, but I've needed a bit of time to adjust and catch up with my tiny corner of the world. I have also been struggling to figure out how to write about my experiences - I've certainly been awed and inspired, but there is so much to say, so much going on, so much variation in India that I can't find the right words.

I think the best way to sum it up is probably in a single word: contradiction. 

'Holy' cows wander the streets, avoiding starvation by eating rubbish

I could spend a long time talking about the myriad reasons India is contradictory, my chief concern and confusion being that the world's second most populous country lacks basic sanitation...it looks like an epidemic waiting to happen. How can an 'emerging' global player be so floundering? The mind boggles. But I have been thinking about this with a certain sense of irony too, because if I were to write India, or 'world-build' a place based on what I experienced there...I don't think it would be believable to a reader! Seriously, I highly doubt I could get away with it; there are too many loose ends, absurdities and...yes, contradictions.

This trip has reminded me that nothing is as insane and unbelievable as real life. Books might contain the most accessible adventures, but nothing beats going out and experiencing things first hand for their randomness, uniqueness, and that overwhelming, heart-stopping feeling of wonder.

Fairie-ality

Once upon a time, during a balmy summer in the Kent countryside, I tiptoed carefully through gardens, paddocks, forests and orchards in search of bark chips, ivy vines, soft white feathers and fallen petals; I was hunting for the materials to create my very own fairy dress, inspired by Fairie-Ality from the House of Ellwand...

© David Ellwand, 2001

I must have been about 13, but I so vividly remember the way the excitement and passion bubbled in my stomach, it might as well have been yesterday. I wasn't just keen to make a dress: for one month only I was an escaped Londoner, and I was convinced not only that I could make fairy clothes, but that I could find a little someone to wear it whilst I was in the countryside. The chances of finding a fairy in the Big Smoke seemed slim. 

Some people will laugh to think of a teenager believing in fairies, but I grew up on a diet of fairy tales and adventure stories, and none of them ever took place in a city. I associated the countryside, any countryside, with the storybook worlds of my youth.

I never did make that dress. My desire was far greater than my ability (I could just about sew a felt purse together at that age.) But the magic was - is - still there. All you have to do is open the 'catalogue' and let it immerse you.

Recently I discovered David Ellwand's other related work - the Fairie-ality Style book of interior design. This caused all the above happy memories of nature-treasure hunting to come back to me, and when I found out he lives in West Sussex, one county over from where I live, it made me want to embrace the countryside around me so much more, and use it as inspiration in my work (hence quite a few previous posts about how inspirational nature really is.)

Click below to see more images from Ellwand's website, which I urge you all to explore...

Old Oak & The Maiden

After my last post, it seems an appropriate time to say that I have written a 'new' fairy tale! The driving force behind it was the question, 'what would happen if someone in need refused to accept magical help?' After discovering a piece of artwork that so brilliantly illustrated my story (which I blogged about here) I decided that I had no excuse for not finishing it!


I have no doubt that people will be able to see some of the stories that have inspired me, including older versions of Cinderella, the legends of King Arthur, The Tinder-Box...the list could go on. It's a mish-mash of traditions, but hey, there's nothing wrong with that, right?


Old Oak & The Maiden is currently being considered for submission, but I believe I can post an extract without it causing any harm:

     At the very heart of the forest, where no stars could be seen through the treetops, where no animals dwelled and where silence was as thick as honey, she stopped. She had arrived before an ancient oak tree, and mustering the final dregs of her energy she curtseyed in front of the thick, gnarled bark, before collapsing onto the floor and relinquishing into sobs. She had shed the last of her grace.
     Time expanded and contracted, and moved in the mysterious patterns called forth by solitude. She didn't know how long she stayed curled up amongst the dead leaves and her dirty dress, but enough time had elapsed for her to fall quiet once more. 
     The tree spoke to her at last.
     'Fair maiden, you did not come all this way to simply cry at my roots. Tell me your troubles.'

Inspiration from nature: Friston Forest, October 2011