The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland In A Ship of Her Own Making

Catherynne M. Valente is posting her YA Fantasy novel, The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland In A Ship of Her Own Making, a chapter a week each Monday starting today. I think it’s worth checking out, based on that title alone. Here’s a blog post explaining the “hows and whys of Fairyland”.

This is the novel described in the author’s words:

This is a book about a little girl named September who gets herself a ticket to Fairyland on the back of The Green Wind and a somewhat cranky Leopard. There she discovers the realm of the capricious Marquess and the dangers of the Perverse and Perilous Sea. It is going to be something else.

Anyhow, why not check it out and if you like it put a few bucks in the tip jar to help a fellow writer out. Or just read it and enjoy.

Brownie

Still busy today, so this will be a quick post.

One of the characters in my NaNoWriMo project is going to be loosely inspired on the Brownie from mythology.  Here’s a link describing Brownies from Wikipedia. I say the character is inspired because I’m not using the idea exactly as described there.

My Halloween Short Story, Frank, has been the post getting the most hit here lately, which nice because people are seeing something I’ve written rather than that Death of Garfield post which usually gets the most traffic.  People aren’t leaving any comments on the Frank post, though, so I have no idea if they are enjoying the story or not. Oh well.

Bye for now.  I hope to post more later.

Serendipity Magazine Issue 2 Online

Issue 2 of Serendipity, the free online Magical Realism magazine is now online.  I haven’t had a chance to read it yet, but if it’s as good as Issue 1, it will be a treat to read.  They also posted a Halloween Reading List which you all might find interesting.

I’m a tad busy this morning, so I will wait until later to tell you all about my weekend. Happy Monday!

Some Fairy Tale Links

I just thought I’d share a couple links I found the other day regarding Fairy Tales. The first is a very extensive article from Endicott Studio titled Fairies in Legend, Lore, and Literature which asks and answers the question “Where do fairies come from?”. There’s some really good stuff there.

Next, I found a link to the “proppian fairy tale generator” via the blog Scribblings of a Maniac Writer. The site is really cool. You select some options, click a button, and it generates a Fairy Tale. I generated the following “story”:

“Sugar and spice,” the old woman beckoned as she held out palms filled with cinnamon falling between her fingers like sand. As she sprinkled it across the floor my head swum up in a dizzy spell of hunger. I could no longer control my feet moving towards the cheap gimmicks of an old woman.

As I approached the top of the mountain a white spectacle blinded me for an instant. When I blinked again I saw a white dragon shifting over the mountain like a layer of foam riding ocean waves. I could tell by its movement that it was a territorial creature; I could tell that it would fight me before allowing me to press further.

When he placed his hand upon me he let out a great cry and then vanished into the earth.

Waves of comfort and relief washed over my tired limbs as my father and mother embraced and kissed me. The familiar sights of my home and scents of my family soothed me so much that I nearly forgot the heavy pack I had carried for hours on my back, a sack filled with treasures I had collected throughout my journey to bring back to my family.

It doesn’t really make any sense, but it’s still pretty cool. I guess you could just select one option and generate some story ideas there. Enjoy!

The Endicott Studio Journal of Mythic Arts

I’ve been on a Fantasy/Fairy Tale kick lately, what with Stardust and all. While doing a Google search I came across an excellent web site called The Endicott Studio. The site contains art, articles, poems, and short stories with a myth, folklore, and fairy tale theme. It also contains a quarterly (?) online magazine. As far as I can tell, all the content is free although they encourage donations. Here is a link to their Summer 2007 Issue.

In my brief perusing of the site I came across a few poems written by Neil Gaiman: Boys and Girls Together and The Fairy Reel. In searching for this, I see he actually has four poems in their poetry index. Check those out.

In addition to poetry, they also have short stories there. I particularly liked The Man Who Owned the Moon about an old man who had the moon in a jar and placed it on his windowsill each night.

I don’t know why I’m so interested in these types of stories lately. I guess the world we live in is so drab, and dark, and brooding sometimes that it’s nice to read about magic, and fairies, and old men who have the moon in a jar.

Endicott has been around for 20 years so I am just scratching the surface of what is there. Look around.

Enjoy!