Gretel’s Bones and Transformation, Afterwards

I love the happy endings of fairy tales. But they always leave me wondering: what happened after this? Oh, sure, the story says they lived happily ever after, but is that true? Were they really able to forget everything – and laugh? Or did that laughter – that joy – that happiness – have a bitter edge?

Coincidentally, two of my small works inspired by those endings just went up over the last couple of days:  Gretel’s Bones, about – wait for it – Gretel and bones, and Transformation, Afterwards, about what happens after the princess kisses the frog.

Enjoy!

 

 

The Wolf

Little Red Riding Hood has never been one of my favorite fairy tales. When I was a small kid, I much preferred the stories of the princesses with the beautiful dresses (Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty) or the tales of the girls who went out on adventures and rescued their brothers or princes (East o’ the Sun, West o’ the Moon, The Seven Swans, though calling “weaving together nettle shirts” an adventure of any sort is probably a bit much). Little Red Riding Hood had a bright red hood, but that was about it for the clothing, and then a wolf ate her, and then someone else shot the wolf. Not really my sort of story.

As a grownup, I could appreciate the warning in the tale from Perrault and the Grimms. But appreciating the warning didn’t necessarily make me value the tale all that much.

Still, something about the story nagged at me – enough that I’ve ended up using it as inspiration for a poem or short story or two. This is the latest, The Wolf, up at Daily Science Fiction today. Enjoy!

Feather Ties

Another small fairy tale from me up at Daily Science Fiction today, where I ask the all important question:

What happened to everyone attached to the Golden Goose after its owner married the princess?

Read it here.

Mercy

My latest little flash fairy tale, Mercy, just popped up at Daily Science Fiction.

Enjoy!

The Sword

New from me today at Daily Science Fiction, my little tale The Sword, about that legend of putting a sword in the bed to ensure chastity…..

Enjoy!

Pipers Piping

Technically, this is the second day of Christmas – so I don’t feel too late about posting this: my little holiday story, Pipers Piping, which Daily Science Fiction published yesterday.

Enjoy!

 

Stealing Tales and Burning

Two small things today:

One, Stealing Tales, another very short story up at Daily Science Fiction, loosely inspired by one event in Hans Christian Anderson’s “The Snow Queen.”

And two, my little poem, Burning, is now available at Wild Musette, with a lovely illustration.

Enjoy!

Unicorns, plus, Deathlight is now an audio play!

Up at Daily Science Fiction this morning, a little thing I wrote about a homeowner association and a unicorn. Enjoy!

Also, if for some reason you missed my story, Deathlight, out in Lightspeed Magazine last year, it’s now been turned into an audio play by the folks over at Fancy Pants Gangsters. They have a number of other short audio plays up at their site as well – enjoy!

 

The Lion

The Huntsmen was one of those stories that I wrote because the general concept wouldn’t stop nagging at me: how did the princess of the original tale, collected by the Grimm brothers back in the early 19th century, manage to find eleven women who looked just like her?  (It was only after I finished the story that I remembered that the majority of people at the time had no access to corrective lenses, so many people would have been too nearsighted to tell the difference.) And why go to so much effort just to get an unfaithful lover back?

I was so focused on those questions that I more or less ignored the other oddity of the tale – the sudden, never explained entrance of a talking lion. But as I shuffled the lion to the side, he started nagging at me too.

This is the result.

It’s an example of how very often, when writing one story, another one appears. At least in my case.

 

Hundreds

The latest in my series of flash fairy tales, “Hundreds,” just went up today at Daily Science Fiction. You can read it here – I promise, it won’t take long.

Since a couple of people have asked, all of these flash fairy tales are part of a collection/larger mosaic project that I am hoping to finish….one day. In the meantime, enjoy this tidbit.