Tampa Bay Times: Festival of Reading

Halloween is my favorite time of the year. There is no better holiday, to me, than one where we run around ringing doorbells, lugging around garbage bags full of candy, pennies, and dental floss (didn't that happen to you?), while ghoulish skeletons and vampires try to scare us.

What. Could. Be. Better?

The man. The legend. R.L. Stine being brilliant.

Turns out, October brought with it a special bookish surprise that I HAD to write about. Every year, the Tampa Bay Times organizes the Festival of Reading in St. Petersburg, Florida. This was the first year I went. I couldn't resist my friend and author JB Lynn's invitation to go with her. We both learned very quickly that even the best GPS's can't find certain streets, and that neither of us never lost our nerves as we drove down neighborhood roads and trolled through overflow parking lots.

When we finally made it, the festival was in full swing. The tiny campus of USF-St. Petersburg was packed with early risers, already in line to meet their favorite authors or attend their readings. The sheer amount of people that came out for the event was awe-inspiring.

I'm so used to not attending book events, since there's a lack of them where I live. But being able to go, and with a great friend no less, made attending this festival 100+ times more awesome.

Instead of a series of panels, the Festival of Reading schedules authors to speak for about 45 minutes, and then sign books for 45 minutes afterwards. The campus was small, but not small enough to see two authors in one hour - a huge bummer, since we ended up missing John Henry Fleming by four minutes. Yes, I counted. He had disappeared like a magician by the time me and Jennifer burst into an empty signing room.

We tried seeing Carl Hiaasen first thing in the morning, but found the ballroom to be filled to the brim with his fans. All the seats were taken. Standing room taken. And with fifteen minutes before the talk began, the room was already boiling hot. From years of going to anime conventions, I knew this was a bad sign. Rooms don't get hot so soon, so fast, at the very beginning of the day when a nice breeze was still blowing outside.

We ducked out of the room and opted for lunch instead. It was a shame, but as soon as we popped open our cold, spicy sushi rolls, we knew we made a good decision.

The morning, after all, was chilly enough to wear coats. It was glorious - I think even my coat was smiling, because it rarely gets to leave my closet - for about a half and hour. Before it got REALLY HOT outside. So we buried our coats in our bags and ate our cold lunches.

I've recently become a rabid fan of Starbuck's Pumpkin Spice Chai Tea Lattes. There it is. Oh my gosh. The autumn feels.

Re-energized, we went back upstairs after the Hiaasen fans left to listen to R.L. Stine talk.

R.L. Stine was my Reason For Coming. In the sense that, if I got to meet him during the festival, I would consider it one life goal achieved.

Like many people, I grew up reading his Goosebumps series. I used to borrow stacks of those books from the library, and never moved from the couch until I had finished them all. Between my brother and I, we owned a lot of Goosebumps books, and most of them have stayed with us over the years. Here's a photo of all the books we have now, give or take a few that I have in my room, where I'm rereading them (eh, I can't help it):

Jennifer and I settled into our seats. We were both surprised that R.L. Stine's talk wasn't packed with people, but also thrilled at the same time. It meant we wouldn't slowly bake for the next 45 minutes, haha. Stine walked around the room before the talk started, chatting with readers. When he stepped up to the podium and began to talk, I was blown away by how epic he was in his presentation. I mean, he was ridiculously funny and engaging. He shared some of his fan letters, and I was lucky enough to film snippets of that, so you completely understand what I mean when I say that we were rolling the aisles over his charmingly frank delivery (videos HERE and HERE, via my Instagram).  

He shared a "true" ghost story (debatable, even by him) and talked about the new Goosebumps movie coming out soon (and how he was told he was too old to play himself in the movie, awwww). When he opened the floor for questions, a bunch of kids came up to the extra mic. I've never heard kids ask questions, despite having attended panels for years. The coolest part was that the kids wanted to know what his favorite things where - his scariest book, his favorite book to write, etc. I don't think adults ever ask those kinds of questions. 

It was hard to tear ourselves away, but Jennifer and I wanted to make sure that we had a good chance of meeting Stine at the signing. We slipped out of the room and went outside where they had set up booths for the authors (thankfully shaded for them). We ended up talking to the people in line with us as we slowly moved forward in line. And then... sooner than I thought, I was face to face with R.L. Stine! 

This was probably not my shining moment of cleverness. I asked him to sign one of my favorites of his books, and we ended up talking about it a little (more like bumbling on my part, haha) as he signed the book. He was very kind, and managed to play off my awkwardness to make us both laugh. The biggest question people asked me when I started posting these photos to Instagram was what book was it that I picked? 

It was a hard decision, but I went with ESCAPE FROM THE CARNIVAL OF HORRORS, the first of the Goosebumps' Choose Your Own Adventure books. 

Do you see the holographicness? Do you? It's blinding. This photo doesn't do it justice, but you would know if you ever read one of these. 

I think I've read this book every way you could. My brother, mom, and I took turns reading it out loud. Many times I cheated by bookmarking the pages so that if I got a bad ending, I didn't have to start all over again (I'm sure I'm not the only one). This book, in particular, has my favorite bad ending of the Choose Your Own Adventure series, featuring the Doom Slide. 

What are you waiting for? Go read it. 

Book Haul:

 Okay, so this time, it's not a "haul." But I did get two great books. The first is R.L. Stine's newest Fear Street book, Party Games. I didn't read as many Fear Street books (though Sunburn is one of my favorite books, ever, but my copy is too tattered to have survived the journey to the festival). But the premise sounds intriguing. It won't be long before I start reading it. Like, probably tomorrow.

Then there's this beauty. I could not have left the festival without this extensive collection of Andrew Lang's fairy tales. The thing is, I could talk about Lang for a long time. It should probably be its own blog post. But he is my favorite fairy tale curator. I only owned one of his collections, the classic Blue Fairy Book, so finding this book that covers multiple collections seemed like a dream come true. I started reading it last night before bed, and YES, it is a dream come true. 

And one more thing: when I first saw this book sitting underneath B&N's vendor booth, I thought, my gosh, the cover art reminds me of Thumbelina's book. 

IT DOES. More magic, my friends. 

Have you ever met a favorite author? what was the experience like? What about book events/festivals? I'd love to hear about it!

Publication News: "Mr. Fauntleroy's Flying Family"

Admittedly, I haven't been struck by the blog muse this month. The only part of my life that seemed even remotely blog-worthy was that the summer rainy season has hit Florida - but I talk about the weather all the time. Surely you don't want to hear about how, for two weeks straight, the rain clouds stalked my car and unloaded only when I was one street away from reaching home.

I starting watching Dominion  if only for the world-building and Tom Wisdom's portrayl of everyone's favorite archangel, haha. Catching up with Sherlock, Doctor Who, and MST3K as well. And slowly making my way through the stack of books stacked underneath my bedside table. Then there's work. My job's been getting pretty exciting, but until I get comfy with my new role, I've been buried in manuals and training.

After a month of not much writing, not much blogging, and itchy eyes from staring at the computer at work (oh, and one paper cut), I'm thrilled to say that Gingerbread House, an online literary magazine that publishes poetry and fiction with magical elements, has just launched their 7th issue today... and one of my stories is in there: "Mr. Fauntleroy's Flying Family."

The coolest part about being published in Gingerbread House is that each piece is accompanied by artwork. Even cooler? The artwork used for my story was specifically created for the magazine by artist Natalia Pierandrei. Natalia's artwork is gorgeous; I can't express how honored and fangirly I felt when I first clicked on my story's page and saw a mysterious, melancholic harpy guarding her eggs (Georgina, for sure).

"Mr. Fauntleroy's Flying Family" is a favorite of mine. I have a thing for birds as a writer - I'll never get sick of writing about them, same as with stars, hearts, and other ethereal (and kind of creepy) things. Mr. Fauntleroy's quiet hope for a human child, despite loving the family he has, struck home with me the minute he tentatively stepped into my head. After a few years of trying to find this story a home, I'm so happy that Gingerbread House was the right place.


How has June been treating you? Any epic thunderstorms?  

Frozen, Retellings, and Mother's Day

As the grand finale to an entire weekend celebrating Mother’s Day, Mom and I sat back and watched both Frozen and Tangled. The two movies, paired together, made perfect sense, especially because I love the theory connecting Anna, Elsa, and Rapunzel together. I don’t really care if it isn’t true. It’s fun to think about.  

Anywho, I love both movies. I think that Tangled’s animation is more polished, but the music in Frozen is delightfully addicting.

However, I’m also a huge fairy tale fan and some things just sort of… bother me. I’m always in search of new retellings, whether in film or book form, and when I was poking around Goodreads, looking at Snow Queen retellings, I found a review that said something like this:

“… if you want a good retelling of the Snow Queen, watch Frozen.”

WHAT.

I cannot agree with this.

Because I think it’s fairly obvious that Frozen is not a retelling.

When rumors of the new movie were floating around, all signs pointed to the news that Disney was going to retell Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale, “The Snow Queen.” And I was thrilled. It’s a long, strange tale full of danger, longing, and hope trapped in ice. Gerda is one of the strongest fairy tale characters I’ve ever read, and I wanted badly to watch her entire journey unfold on the big screen.

But as (most) of us know, the movie took a completely different turn and is, truly, its own film. Frozen is Frozen. No retelling in sight.

Even with a time crunch, clever editing, and the combining of minor characters, it would be difficult to fit “The Snow Queen” into a feature-length film. That’s why most retellings for “The Snow Queen” come in mini-series form (I’ll get to that later).

If you’ve never read the original, what are you doing? You’ll need some time, but it will be well worth the read.

There are a few characters that you’d need for a legit retelling of “The Snow Queen.” I was about to make a list, except that I while I was surfing the internet during my lunch break, I found some great articles… and someone who said it better than me, by far:

"There is the Snow Queen herself, a formidable villain who’s power is treated with respect. There is Kai’s grandmother, who provides an essential catalyst to Gerda’s journey. There is the old witch woman with the enchanted garden who functions as a threshold guardian for Gerda while being characterized in a respectful manner that serves as a good subversion of the old witch trope. There is a female crow who knows how to sneak into palaces, a helpful princess who heads a side plot in which she will only marry a prince as intelligent as her (!!!), a robber and her daughter, head of a band of robbers who kidnap Gerda. The daughter is a spunky, knife wielding girl who befriends Gerda and aids her on her way. And finally, there are two women, the latter of whom helps Gerda understand the inherent power she has always had within her, a power that will ultimately save her friend, and the world."

The only characters The Feminist Fangirl fails to mention in here is Kay / Kai and the reindeer. With good reason. The point of her article is much different than my blog post. If you know me, you know I love a good story where a boy needs rescuing. My heart pounds every time I reach the moment when the Snow Queen steals Kai away. He's already damaged by then, after having absorbed poisonous shards in his eye and heart, turning him into a cold, cruel boy.

(SOUNDS LIKE HANS. MAYBE. I need to stop with the theories that may or may not make great Frozen sequel ideas).

Danger looms in the world because people have absorbed the mirror shards (mistaken for snow), but Gerda’s journey takes her beyond her home and into a place where crows talk, princesses read newspapers on pearl-thrones, and robber-girls can be persuaded to help you if you know what to say. Gerda’s love for Kai never wavers, even though she is severely tested by those she meets.

I could probably keep going, haha. Depending upon the ages picked or a retelling, Gerda and Kai’s love may just be friendship, or blossoming into something more.

Frozen is more about sisterly bonds, not marrying the first guy you meet, learning to embrace what makes you unique instead of hiding it away. While all fine lessons and great story material, it cannot be compared to Gerda’s journey.

Now then, before I switch gears, I’ll share my two favorite film adaptations of “The Snow Queen,” in case you’re looking for something that actually follows Anderson’s tale (you should). 

The Snow Queen (2002)

My most favorite adaptation. Yep. Hands down. And Hallmark Entertainment made it. This is a mini-series, allowing us plenty of time to get to know Gerda, Kai, and even the Queen herself. Four things I love about this series:

1)        Gerda and Kai’s relationship is romantic. What can I say? I’m a shipper. They are both teenagers in this version; Kai loves Gerda, but she’s still mourning over her mother’s death to notice her own feelings for him. But just as they start to come together, the Snow Queen strikes.

2)       The mini-series follows both Gerda’s journey and Kai’s, which is a first. Instead of being stuck doing nothing, Kai searches for a way out of the ice palace, tries to fend off the Snow Queen and avoid completing the mirror puzzle, and strikes up a shaky truce with the Snow Queen’s guard – a polar bear.

3)       The world Gerda travels through is sectioned off into seasons. There’s the Spring Witch (the same one, in the original, that tries to trap Gerda in her cozy cottage), the Summer Princess (a new version of the pearl-throne princess), and the Autumn Robber (the old robber woman, mother of the robber-girl). All three are the Snow Queen’s sisters, desperate to maintain their respective seasons despite the Snow Queen’s growing dominance.

4)       Most of the characters have interesting backstories, filling out Anderson’s fairy tale without distorting it too much. Everyone’s motivations are clear. Their actions have purpose. My favorite, of course, is finding out what drives the polar bear’s loyalty to the Snow Queen.

The Snow Queen (2005)

The second is, uh, pretty bizarre, but even more accurate to the original.  Made by the BBC, The Snow Queen is a blending of operatic songs with major CGI tricks that form to create disorienting and beautiful settings. Truthfully, this was a hard one to watch the first time (I mean it when I say the style is disorienting), but it grows on you. Certain scenes exude magic, and the showdown between Gerda and the Snow Queen is exciting. 

It’s hot outside. Freezing inside (I think I’m sitting underneath five air vents in my cubicle). Despite wishing I could wear a parka at work, my mind isn’t on the cold. 

Or so I thought. 

I've got my own retelling of "The Snow Queen" languishing on my computer. At 45k, just short of a novel-length manuscript, Tread Softly had been on Figment.com for a while before I took it down, polished and sent it out, etc. Thinking about Frozen started a chain reaction, I suppose, and I started skimming Tread Softly for my own versions of the princess, Gerda, the crows, and the reindeer. To see exactly what I did with Andersen's beautiful fairy tale.

Brrr. Now I really need to burrow under a blanket. Too bad it's May. 

Deathless Press: Summer 2013 Review

Do you know what's more delicious than dipping your toes in the ocean or going parasailing? Indulging in Deathless Press's summer released chapbooks:

I've never considered myself an eloquent reviewer, but I want to make reviewing Deathless Press chapbooks a tradition. There are never, ever enough fairy tales in the world - and I've been enjoying the ones coming from this press.

Considering that my own chapbook POCKET FOREST was released in this bunch, I'm going to skip over it (of course) and focus on the other two chapbooks.


Catskin by Sylvia Linsteadt

CATSKIN is a retelling of a the same-named fairy tale, where a princess runs away from home disguised in a coat made of cat skins to avoid being married to her own father. This dark tale is a classic - but if you're not familiar with it, you may have read Donkeyskin, which is the most popular variant (at least, when it come to retellings).

Linsteadt breathes new life into her version of Catskin. The story opens with a girl named You (or Yew, as she prefers), living with her father in a lighthouse that demands time and care. When her father, heavy with drink, considers marrying his daughter, Yew runs away to escape him. Her travels take her into the woods where she meets the Mistress of Bobcats. The Mistress of Bobcats offers Yew a new identity and power, but not without payment.

The Mistress of Bobcats is a fascinating character: incredibly wise, yet untrustworthy. I enjoyed how well Linsteadt described the bobcat-who-is-also-a-woman, with shifting shadows and sharp teeth. When Yew becomes Catskin, she gains freedom from her father, and any other man who threatens her, but she also loses her humanity - which is perhaps a good thing, by the end of the tale. Maybe she becomes the best of herself. CATSKIN reminds me of "The Tiger's Bride" by Angela Carter: lush description, shifty characters, and an unforgettable ending.


Throw Down Your Hair and Then Yourself by A. A. Balaskovits

Rapunzel remains one of my top favorite fairy tales. There's something incredibly relatable to me about being trapped or limited in some way, no matter how much your "jailer" loves you. And then... there's always my favorite part, when Rapunzel's tears bring back the prince's sight (yes... I'm a sap. And proud!). However, Balaskovits's retelling, THROW DOWN YOUR HAIR AND THEN YOURSELF, is probably the most twisted and darkly shocking version I've read so far. And that's what made it so enjoyable, despite my penchant for the happier variants, haha.

Our Rapunzel narrator begins her tale telling us what her auntie has always told her: that she's a sharp thing. She's stuck in a tower, surrounded by soft things to combat her sharpness, until one day when a sweet-talking prince convinces her to leave her auntie and become a queen.

Life as a queen isn't easy, especially when her husband starts ordering the deaths of every citizen with a physical blemish. But as her auntie once said, our narrator is a sharp thing. And boy, does she ever strike back against her husband.

Even though this story started out as a Rapunzel retelling, I felt that by the end, I watched the narrator transform into the Evil Queen from Snow White. Did you ever see the movie Snow White and the Huntsman? Frankly, I dislike that movie, especially when people try to tell me that it was better than Mirror Mirror (weird, right? MM is totally better). BUT Charlize Theron played an amazing Evil Queen and her scary-wrathful beauty is quite like the narrator's transformation. Making, of course, a great ending to this chapbook.

So what are you waiting for? Go read these books! ;)

Publication News: Rose Red Review

Hallo! How's October treating you so far?

Although I'm still sweating in my shorts and tank tops, the world is starting to change. Ghosts hang like used tissues on tree branches. The grim reaper watches me as I dump half-price cheese balls into my shopping cart. I wish for bats, remembering how I saw them fly each morning while I wandered the outside hallways of my high school. Gads, I love Halloween spirit.

This month is also proving to be one full of, well, my stories.

This may be a late announcement, but the lovely Rose Red Review has published my short story called, "Scissors & Thorns." Hurrah!

You may want to read this story if you:

• think scissors are magical
• never underestimate the danger of thorns 
• are partial towards clumsy boys with fishing traps

"Sleeping Beauty's Dream" by Catrin Welz-Stein

If you've been reading along, you already know that I have a thing for Sleeping Beauty. It's one of my favorite fairy tales. There are so many angles to explore, ideas to follow... and I feel like, one day, I'll end up with a giant pile of short stories and novellas that all center around it. After all, just look at "Tick-Tock Beauty," the short story I had written for Mossyhearth. I can't get enough.

In this case, the idea of what caused and sustained the thorny barrier in the original fairy tale was what started "Scissors & Thorns." Even if the good fairy had cast the spell to cover the castle in thorns, how could the thorns stay alive for a hundred years? Maybe by feeding on the all the boys that weren't the princess's true love... or maybe, well, the thorns weren't purely thorns at all. Hmm. Hmm. Go read the story.

In other news: two more stories will soon be published this month.

The first is a flash fiction piece that will appear in the first issue of the White Ash Literary Magazine.

The second is the first segment of an audio serial featured on the Tripod Cat.

Believe me, I'm excited to share these stories with you.

Concerning Female Protagonists

Last summer, I joined a casual summer workshopping group. We met at a coffee shop near campus every other week with one goal in mind: be productive. Write. It was last summer that I came up with an idea for my big grad project; a nautical story about a girl who searches for a way to bring the sea back to her decaying town (because, of course, the sea up and left one day). I remember typing up the first chapters like I had a fever. I couldn't wait to have it looked at. My main character was rather passive, unsuspectingly quiet and weird. 

And apparently, that became a problem. Real fast. 

We sat around the table, wiping the sweat off our drinks, and a discussion started about where I failed with my character. Because I was told that she couldn't possibly hold the story together as she was. She needed to be strong, loud, and snarky. She had to kick butt. 

I went home for weeks, revising those chapters, trying to please because I fell under a lethal spell. Thinking too much about what other people want and expect our of books. The trends. Ohhh, the trends. And I lost the simple desire to write the story I wanted to tell. 

I lasted the whole summer with that story, but it broke like glass as soon as school was in session again. I couldn't touch it, for fear I'd slice open my fingers with the boring setting, lackluster love interest, and mediocre lead female. If I tried to piece it back together again, it would splinter further into something unrecognizable. 

This had never happened to me before while working on a project. It scared me and I think I was haunted for a while by the metaphorical ghosts of what to write. 

I bring this up for a few reasons. With the end of the school year on the horizon, my imagination is soaring again. Ideas are attacking me on the daily drives to and from work. I rush home to boot up my computer and type up notes. 

The story above that I thought had been lost forever came back to me, glowing with hope. I've been plotting it out for a rainy day, when I have time to work on it, but I'm loving the revamp so far. A new love interest and new goals. The missing sea is wilier than ever. But one thing hasn't changed. My female lead is still herself. 

And I'm proud of her. 

I recently saw the movie Mirror Mirror and basked in the lovely, wild adventure of seeing Snow White on screen. Snow White has always been one of my least favorite fairy tales, but I've been blue lately and the cheer that oozed off the trailers captured me utterly. I had to see the movie. And it was glorious. 

Movie reviews, when I attempt them, are pretty sloppy. So I'm not even going to pretend to try. But I can honestly say that a part of me will be humming with impatience for the DVD release, so I can immerse myself in Mirror Mirror all over again. It's just what the doctor ordered, haha. 

Tarsem Singh was the director, having filmed other such movies as The Cell and The Fall (both movies displayed proudly on my shelf). I hadn't realized straight away that he was the one working on Mirror Mirror, until, of course, I saw the opening sequence. Ohhh. Woah. I can't even. 

But here's where things get ugly. 

Like anyone who's ever enjoyed a good film, book, or whatever, I went searching for images. And what I found, to my utter horror, was a ton of movie reviews written by bloggers that pretty much flayed the movie alive. I was shocked. Good thing I had been sitting down at the time (though I nursed a nasty stomach ache for some time, just thinking about what those reviews said). 

What disturbed me the most pertained to the character of Snow White and how imperfect she was as a "good" female lead. Which I totally didn't get. Sure, Snow wasn't loud, but she was snarky (just not annoyingly so), strong and kicked butt (did I mention she saved the prince and the dwarfs a few times?). Her quiet intensity in the face of danger was what captured my attention - and made me really like Snow as a character. She wasn't puffed up to be a hyper super heroine that people seem to demand these days. She didn't have to be tough and masculine in order to beat her stepmother. In fact, in the ending scene, her final words to her stepmother are jarring and powerful. Gave me the shivers. 

I also read quite a few times that it was "wrong" that Snow ended up marrying the prince at the end. That she essentially went from "one prison to another."

Ugh. 

How bleak is that? 

A few reviewers even suggested that Snow should have gone off to travel the world on her own, leaving everything behind. Hi. Where you not watching the movie? In the very beginning, and all throughout, it's clear what Snow cares about most: the kingdom. She wants to protect the people from harm (especially after the stepmother's tyranny) and rebuild the kingdom to be a place of peace and laughter. It would be irresponsible to run off on hyper super heroine adventures, especially since her heart is with her people. Having met and fallen in love with the prince is just the icing on the cake, haha. 

Yep. Icing. On the cake.

While I am looking forward to seeing the other remake of Snow White, this is the one I was rooting for. And I'm glad that Tarsem didn't back down from making the version of Snow White he wanted to tell. I think it's brave of him, and very admirable, to stick to his guns, haha. 

It reminds me to keep faith in what I believe in: that the world consists of all kinds of people and they all have stories to tell. Some girls (for the purpose of this post) are role models and others give us lessons to learn. We need to read about Bella Swans and we need to read the Katniss Everdeens. Whether loud or quiet, snarky or taciturn, girls of all kinds have inner strength. They can all be brave. 

AWP 2012: The Conference

The time had finally come. The reservations were made. Plane tickets printed. Suitcase packed. I dug around in my closet for anything warm, knowing that I would be flying to Chicago in the bitter cold to attend the AWP conference. AWP, or The Association of Writers and Writing Programs, is the biggest creative writing conference in the country. While I hadn't been able to go last year, I made it a point to experience this time - at least while I'm still a grad student (yay, discounts!). Yes, this year's conference was in Chicago - a place I'd never been before, but I'll save my sight-seeing adventures for my next post. This one will focus on the conference itself. 

The conference this year as sold-out, so that meant that, if you walked the streets between the Palmer House Hilton and the Chicago Hilton hotels, you'd probably see a lot of people with red tote bags and name tags. 

These two key accessories not only got you past security (a lot of hotel workers disguised as friendly, yet stern people), but they were also the best conversation starters. I'm not very social, but I ended up chatting with a bunch of fellow conference goers while waiting for a panel to start or in line for the shuttle. We exchanged a lot of laughs and complained about the weather - though I was so ecstatic about the cold that I only pretended to complain.

I attended around five panels over the course of the two days I was there. I have been to writing conferences before, so the panels, while interesting, weren't terribly new to me. It was refreshing to be sitting in a room with a bunch of eager writers and poets, hands poised to ask the first question at the end of each session. The question and answer periods are always exciting. The last thing I imagine you want to do is read a play-by-play of every panel. So this is, essentially, what I learned from all those panels in a nutshell: 

• Self-publishing is still risky business. It's a great way to get your work out there and, in a way, control your destiny. However, it's still not a medium that is well-respected within academia or the traditional publishing world (something that, yes, I'm well aware of, but there you go). What was interesting about this conversation is that it's the biggest topic this year at the conference. There were plenty of panels about self-publishing and if the panel wasn't about it, someone always found a way to bring it up. 
• Writers of crime fiction are typically male. This is upsetting to everyone (hence, a panel full of feminist ranting. Fun to listen to, but overwhelming). 
• I learned what a "cozy" crime novel  is. Cozies also bring in the most sales with thrillers coming in second. Wow. 
• To my delight, I learned that speculative fiction is growing in popularity - at a wonderfully alarming rate. New literary magazines are popping up that accept strange and whimsical stories. 
• Kate Bernheimer, one of my heroes, gave a rallying speech about the value of fairy tales. Her metaphor about the turnip and honey was very creative. 
• An editor of a new lit mag called Unstuck admitted that he loves Mervyn Peake. Yesssh. His cool points rose exponentially.
• Fiction chapbooks are becoming more popular - slowly, like a turtle, but that's great news. One of the panelists referred to fiction chapbooks as a musician's EP album. Pretty cool. 
• The YA panel I went to was fun, but it turns out that most of the panelists were poets. Surprisingly, none of them talked about verse novels (the genre I find really fascinating) and they spent a lot of time reading their own work instead of discussing writing for YA. 

After tackling the panels, I went downstairs to explore the bookfair. If you've ever been to a convention or conference before, you know what a dealer's space is like. Endless rows of booths, all surfaces cluttered with delightful things to buy. Pushing and shoving, wallets ready, plastic bags. For this bookfair, each booth was stacked with books. Literary magazines with their proud editors and staff manned the booths, setting out all kinds of books. As I wandered up and down the rows, I admired the beautiful covers (and at the same time, tried not to drift over and open my wallet. I didn't have room in my suitcase for a lot of books). There were a lot of  ugly covers too - you know, the kinds that look like textbook covers? Brrr. It's interesting to see the aesthetics of each magazine. 

The bookfair was separated into four different rooms; the air was stuffy with people and thankfully the hotel provided jugs of water on either end of the rooms. I guzzled down a lot of water. Bookfairs can be pretty intense. 

One of the booths I was excited to visit was the Fairy Tale Review. As the title implies, this literary magazine focuses on publishing fairy tale-like stories in their issues. They also have a press that occasionally publishes novels, short story collections, and poetry. When I got to the table, it was crowded with people admiring the  books. There were so many choices, and the books were printed with such high-quality - hard to tell when you're just looking at a photo of the covers online, you know? I picked up the books I had planned to buy: the Grey Issue of FTR and the newest novel, Irlanda. 

Kate Bernheimer happened to be at the booth at the time... and I quickly reverted to a five-year-old girl. I can't imagine how I sounded when I spoke with her, but in my mind's eye I was blushing and blabbering about how much I liked her books. I have two of them so far, the anthology of new fairy tales she edited called My Mother She Killed Me, My Father He Ate Me and the children's book she wrote called The Girl in the Castle Inside the Museum with illustrations by Nicoletta Ceccoli. Even as an author and editor, Bernheimer has also been a great fairy tale advocate. If there was anyone at this conference I was excited to meet, it was her. 

So there's me on the left and Kate Bernheimer on the right. We're both completely tired from the long conference day. Still, it was really awesome of her to take a photo with me. She was very nice in person.

So you know how I mentioned the artist Nicoletta Ceccoli? Well, it turns out that the novel Irlanda, written by Espido Freire, has a front cover that has one of Ceccoli's artwork on it. Very cool. Ceccoli is one of my favorite artists, so I knew I had to pick up that book - if only for the cover. The book itself, though, was a remarkable read. I'm going to do a mini-review on Irlanda, just to give you an idea of this novel.

The premise of Irlanda is deceptively simple: after the death of her sister, Sagrario, Natalia is sent away to spent the summer with her two cousins in a decaying country house. She'll help with repairs and get to know the cousins she remembers from childhood - Roberto and the "perfect" Irlanda. The longer she spends in the house, the more it's clear that Natalia has not gotten over her sister's death, along with being haunted by dead animals and braving Irlanda's cold attention. Natalia sees the world through the lens of fairy tales, but it doesn't take long for a sense of unease to settle upon you while you're reading this book. Something's not right. 

Here's a small excerpt so you can get a sense of the beauty of the language:

"There was a house in the middle of the field, surrounded by flowers, water, dark trees, and running children, and a grandmother with amethyst necklaces and coral cameos, and a grandfather with a silver cane. A little fairy tale cottage where the girls were dressed in long gowns and added a pearl to their necklaces each year. And they hosted balls where they slid across the marble floor, their dresses rustling, feather fans in their hands.

At least that's what the grownups who told the stories assured us, and that's what my mother said, too, bringing back from oblivion what her grandparents and their grandparents had passed on to her, long after the dresses, feathers, and laughter behind the fans had faded, because none of us, not even my mother nor my aunt, had lived through those splendid days, and you couldn't tell what really happened from what had been made up each time those stories were told." 

I think it's safe to compare Irlanda to an Edgar Allen Poe story - there's such beauty and depth to the language, but nothing is as it seems. There's some dark mysteries in this book and when you get to end, you'll probably go back to the beginning to start picking out the puzzle pieces again. If you're up for a spooky, twisted story full of lush imagery, then I completely recommend Irlanda. 

To finish off this chain of related events, I'd like to show you a picture I took while exploring the gigantic Macy's in Chicago (something I'm saving for the next post). On one of the many floors, I spied a Ceccoli piece of art on display:

You'll notice that Macy's blotted out one missing piece of this - the girl! Check it out:

I can't believe they didn't keep the girl in. Still, I had only to look at the insect in the picture to know that this was Ceccoli's work (and, yes, I have seen this one before anyway). 

So, in a walnut shell, this was my overall experience at the conference itself. The conference is huge in many respects, so I feel like everyone's experience is probably vastly different. Mine happened to be full of fairy tales and illustrations, haha. 

On Writing: Jelly, Nail Clippings, and Sad Endings

Over the past few weeks, I've gotten some more questions from you all on Formspring. *Puts on hard hat* I think it's about time I answer them. 

How do you find your inspiration? And how do you come up with such creative plots?

Like a freak lightning strike, inspiration hits me at the most random moments. Perhaps too often – sometimes I have to check my head to make sure my hair hasn't burnt to a crisp! But when I go hunting for a story, as deadlines make you do, I become a scavenger.

I cast my net as wide as it can go.

Anything weird or quirky gets caught in my net; a broken music box, an abandoned baloney sandwich, the boy in the corner who wears too many keychains, the little bottle in the bathroom with beach sand and seashells inside. My taste in music is all over the place, I read tons of YA and children’s lit, and I still have a child’s heart. Which is why I still think that Mickey Mouse is still da bomb.

When I find these ideas, they are usually fragments. Strange thoughts. Adding up to nothing. I like to combine ideas in a way that makes sense – turning the mundane magical. Making impossible ideas believable is a fun challenge.

Also, how do you continue writing? How do you finish something and move on to the next?

I’m not perfect as far as this goes; there are a few projects I started that I’ve put on hold for one reason or another. Continuing, I think, is difficult for anyone. 

My advice for sticking with a story usually involves a few strategies:

1) Find a few readers you trust (Figment is great for that, haha). When you feel stuck or confused, it’s their cheerful, encouraging voices that will keep you going. Writing is, at its core, a solitary job. But it doesn’t have to be. A little support goes a long way. 

2) Take a breather. Kick your feet up and watch a favorite movie. Play golf. Order pizza. Clip your toenails. Do your laundry. Giving yourself a break will help you feel refreshed and ready to write another chapter.

3) Know your roots. Remember why you’re writing this story in the first place. Find its pulse. 

4) Do some research! If you’re writing about pirates, raid your library for books, documentaries, and movies – and go for the historic accounts (you’ll be more inspired by reality sometimes, than, for instance, Captain Jack Sparrow). If you have access to college-level databases and journals, read those too. It’s amazing what kind of interesting perspectives and ideas you can find buried within stuffy, academic articles. Immerse yourself in your idea. The more you know, the more tools you have to continue your story. 

In regards to finishing a story and moving on… 

Finishing a story is incredibly rewarding – and also gut-wrenching. When I finished Birdcage Girl, I literally had to cool off my brain. And I felt like crying a few days afterwards. It was an unexplainable sadness wrapped around the jolly pride of having finished. I think it has to do with finally reaching the goal. For most of the journey, you keep looking ahead and, chapter by chapter, the big finale keeps getting closer. But you always think, in the back of your head, that you’ll never get there.

Until you do. You’ve just written The End. 

That odd melancholy arises, I think, out of that finish line goal. When you finally reach it, it seems almost unreal. I’ve spoken with some of my writer-friends about the finishing blues and a lot of them had experienced it too. Glad I’m not the only one. I don’t cry much. Unless I’m watching an oddly touching commercial. Weird, right? 

Being able to move on to another project may be hard at first, especially if you feel like beginning revisions on your finished story (and you should, if you feel up to it). Concentrate on feeling refreshed and energized before jumping onto the front seat of another writing project. You will be able to write another – it’s just a matter of shucking off that sadness and beginning the journey again. 

What's your writing process like? (for B&B or any other novels)

Because each project has its own personality, my process tends to vary. However, every story usually starts for me with one particular image or idea. 

For Boys and Bees, I started out with the concept of love letters. Having written a love letter or two in my own time, I know how it feels when those carefully-crafted letters are ignored. But what excuse does the receiver of the letters have for not answering back? Those were the thoughts that started Boys and Bees; Hedda came first, the girl with the love letters, and Lorabeth quickly followed after with her bramble-like hair. 

The bees came about because, well, I’ve always been fascinated by them. A few years back, I saw a television special while at Disney (on the hotel’s Japanese channel) that featured beekeepers. I loved the cozy, delicate world I saw – quite unlike the scare-tactics that American shows use when featuring a beekeeper’s job. I wanted to create, alongside Lorabeth and Hedda, a bee world that wasn’t one to be feared. Love and bees seem to be going well together so far, I think, haha. 

Another question - how do you first develop and plan out your stories?

For me, developing and planning have a lot to do with tinkering. It’s about the only kind of tinkering I can do, especially since I lack the skills needed to put together IKEA furniture (despite the idiot-proof directions). 

I like to mash ideas and concepts together. Use glue to make them stick – or make sense. Say I start with a boy who has an obsession with grape jelly. So much so, that he’s sculpted a living dog out of jelly. Well, I’ll string another idea – fish don’t like cats – and another – Tuesdays are blue – and then fill in the gaps between them to make them work. And sometimes they don’t. But when they do, it makes for an exciting story to write. 

Each idea, in other words, is connected to another. Plots and subplots intertwine like threads. 

I try not to plan too much in advance because sometimes the planning itself gets overwhelming. You get bored when you have every scene, every piece of dialogue perfectly laid out. There’s no room for change or innovation. I use Microsoft OneNote for what planning I do; I have pages for each character where I put pictures and bits of information as it comes to be. And I do basic outlines, usually for the beginning of the stories – though I have a pretty concrete idea of how each story ends. 

Hi Kim! So, I am one of your ghost readers--I've only made one comment on your various brilliant stories. I'm considering coming to Figment to post my own fairy-tale-esque things. Anywho, the question: Where did you get the inspiration for writing your fa

Hello, ghost reader! I’m glad you decided to take off your bed sheet skin to send me such a nice comment. I always know a ghost reader is nearby when my laptop screen goes suddenly cold. Shhh, my new chapter is being read. 

Oh, you should! And please let me know what your username is so I can take a look at your stories. Gads, the question got cut off on Formspring. I wonder what you meant to ask. Well, since you were talking about fairy tales, did you mean to ask where I got my inspiration for my fairy tale stories? I’m going out on a limb here, haha. A phantom limb. 

Fairy tales are very much a part of me. Their stories race through my blood (or something equally poetic). Ever since I was a child, I soaked up any kind of fairy tale. Mythology too. With each retelling – whether picture book or film – the stories only got better. I felt like I was a part of one big secret: after all, fairy tales have a lot of human truth to them. I guess I sensed it. 

My mom says she used to play Disney’s The Little Mermaid for me every day – and as far as I’m concerned, I’ve suffered no delusions. It didn't take long to get my grubby little hands on the Anderson version, but it wasn't a smooth transition. My parents rented me an anime version and sat me down in the basement to watch it by myself. It was - and is - a beautiful adaptation. But I didn't see the tragic ending coming. When the little mermaid burst into sea foam (with, I might add, an eerie, warbling backtrack), I burst into violent tears. I cried so loud that my parents rushed downstairs. They couldn't quite comfort me. I had to get over the sad ending on my own. I had connected the mermaid's death with the passing of a dear family member... and I think, to this day, the whole event reflects how real these tales are. How there's always a way to relate. On a lighter note, it was probably at this point that I developed a taste for happy endings. Yeah. 

So I'm not sure how to answer how fairy tales influence and inspire what I write. They kind of go together. The enchanted bears, wise women, poison apples, mirrors, dresses of sun and moon, a tinderbox with saucer-eyed dogs. After reading so many fairy tales and myths, the oddness of life isn't so surprising. 

Slipper Talk

I made you many and many a song,

Yet never one told all you are --

It was as though a net of words

Were flung to catch a star;

It was as though I curved my hand

And dipped sea-water eagerly,

Only to find it lost the blue

Dark splendor of the sea.

- Sara Teasdale, "The Net"

I always view grocery shopping as an adventure. I love finding a new flavor of potato chips, admiring stunning packaging designs, and rolling my cart as if I were a tulle-trimmed skater along the tile floors. This past weekend had been particularity exciting; I found a pair of Hello Kitty shoes. Now, I like Hello Kitty, but other characters are more appealing to me (I'm not much of a pink person, besides). These shoes were black flats, with Hello Kitty's face sewed on as a patch over the toes.

I stopped the cart, gawked at them, and then check the sizes... children's shoes! Don't worry, dear readers. I was no deterred! The beauty of being short is that I can, on occasion, put my small feet to good use and do impossible things. I found the biggest size - four - and managed to slip them on with no problem. As I looked down at my feet, I was reminded of the Cinderella fairy tale. Her stepsisters tried to fit into her glass slipper but their feet were too big. I believe, in some variants, they even cut off parts of their feet to try to fit them into the slipper. I couldn't imagine cutting off my toes for these Hello Kitty shoes. But still, remembering that fairy tale put me in a bittersweet mood for the rest of the day.

Besides the small feet, I never used to associate myself with Cinderella. I didn't have stepsisters, or a stepmother, and probably did less chores than most children my age. One set of grandparents left the world early, so the remaining set, well, provided me with a grandmother who was better at finding coupons than changing a pumpkin into a coach. I wouldn't expect a stranger to crawl in through the window and change me into a girl ready for the ball. And - this is embarrassing - I never made friends with talking birds or mice.

But now that I'm older, I've found that I can understand Cinderella a little better. And acknowledge that, yes, I've done something that she had done.

Would you believe me if I said I left my glass slipper for the prince?

"She then rose up and fled, as nimble as a deer. The Prince followed, but could not overtake her. She left behind one of her glass slippers, which the Prince took up most carefully." - Cinderella

I've always felt that she left the slipper on purpose. Unless you're wearing flip flops, it's hard to just lost a shoe (without tumbling down the stairs and breaking a nose). She must have realized that, no matter how well of a time she had with the prince, she could never have hope of meeting him again without leaving a piece of her behind. You could say, in effect, that the glass slipper was a piece of her heart.

If you do believe me, then I'll tell you this: I made my slippers. Glass is too fragile, too transparent. Fur is too thick and soft. So when I reached for the materials that, I thought, would surely catch the prince's eye, I turned to paper and ink. I wrote until ink stained my fingers, until the text on the page transformed into a story wild with whale-song, lonely planets, and singing stars. The images shivered in the air like holograms, delicate as smoke, as I fashioned the tiny story-shoes around my feet. As Sara Teasdale writes, I had cast my net as best I could.

Rain drenched the walkways leading to the palace. I knew that if I wore the slippers, they would melt away like abandoned ice cream. So I kept them safe and warm inside my bag and trudged to the castle with sneakers. Water ran down my cheeks, clung to my hair, and when I stepped inside, no one paused to look at me. Unlike Cinderella, I had no gossip to precede me.

"There was immediately a profound silence. They left off dancing, and the violins ceased to play, so attentive was everyone to contemplate the singular beauties of the unknown new-comer." - Cinderella

I didn't dance with the prince either. After all, he was the one making the music. Bodies crowded the ballroom, bringing heat to the chilly, rainy evening. The music flowed into my veins and it felt, sometimes, like his voice whispered into my ears. When the ball ended, I stepped outside into the humid air; the rain passed away, leaving a trail of blurred lights and mirror-puddles. And I made sure, while holding my breath, to leave my slipper outside the castle gates. I kept the other one in my bag. A memento. Something to compare the other by if I woke up one morning the rhythm of a knock on my door.

I slept peacefully that night, awakening with the rags still clinging to my skin. The magical night seemed to be nothing but a dream, replaced my peasant thoughts like finishing homework, making breakfast, and finding quarters for my laundry.

The most important number in fairy tales is three. I've left paper-and-ink slippers twice. Perhaps the third time will be the charm.

First Photo from We Heart It, Last from SurLaLune.