So guys I’m proud to announce I’ve finally done it! I’ve created a website complete with a blog that I’m finally going to keep up with.
Unlike the other…I can’t even remember how many blogs I’ve tried in the past.
But this one is different. For one, it’s something I’m super passionate about. That’s right–fairy tales. And not just Disney fairy tales (but I definitely do like a good Disney movie), but old fairy tales, new fairy tales, popular retellings, not-so-popular retellings, my own retellings, interesting articles, recent scholarship–you get the idea.
It all started, once upon a time, when I was a little girl…
Okay, so maybe I never had tea with imaginary friends. But for as long as I remember, I would make up stories for my dolls or stuffed animals to act out. Some were inspired by Disney, yes, but many were also inspired by other stories I saw in movies, heard read aloud, or later read myself.
I know, typical writer backstory, right? But much like other writers who are passionate about the craft because of a childhood love of books that never really ended, I too was passionate about books from a young age.
As soon as I learned to read, I developed a thirst for stories and storytelling that, to this day, I’ve been unable to quench. And a lot of what I was reading, before I got my hands on the ever-legendary Harry Potter series early in my elementary school years, was fairy tales and fables found in three obscure fairy tale books and pretty much any of the Little Golden Books.
Those were all pretty much Aesop’s fables and Disney stories when I was a kid, so really, can you blame me?
There’s something about fairy tales that just keeps pulling me back. And not just me, either. Disney is heavily invested in retelling these stories we all know so well, and so is Hollywood. How many Cinderella stories came out in the 90’s and early 2000s? How many viewers did Once Upon a Time get on ABC? How many ways can we tell a fairy tale from the villain’s point of view, or genderbend it, or put in a surprising twist?
There are lots of opinions and research as to why fairy tales don’t ever seem to die, and I’ll admit, I’m curious to know the “why” myself. I get the feeling it’s something we’ll never really know or understand. But I do know one thing: fairy tales are in no danger of dying off yet. They’re just going to keep being retold again and again, sometimes in obvious ways, and sometimes in not so obvious ways.
I think it’ll be fun seeing how the future shapes fairy tales, similar to how the past has shaped them to what we know today. That’s what this blog is all about. Fairy tales, past, present, and future.
I hope you’ll join me on this whirlwind journey looking at the stories we all think we know like the back of our hand, and stories we’ve never heard before.