The tenth issue of Scheherezade’s Bequest is now live, offering stories and poems by Eric Marin, Claire Massey, Joshua Gage, Sonya Taaffe, Bruce Woods, Alex Dally MacFarlane, Patricia Russo, Rachel Manija Brown and more. In this issue we introduce you to the art of Lucy Campbell, whose work illustrates Olivia V. Ambrogio’s The Handless Maiden (revisited). Lucy captures the fearful wonder of the dark forest in vivid colours and firm strokes, using fairy tales and myth as her inspiration. We’ll be seeing more of Lucy’s art here on the site, as she has agreed to talk with us about our shared love of fairy tales.
We’d like to especially thank Nurul Huda for allowing us to publish her essay The Heroic Journey in Shirley Lim’s Princess Shawl which explores Campbell’s monomyth as it applies to the young Mei Li and why stories such as Princess Shawl serve as important tools in the preservation of Malaysian culture. Nurul Huda Binti Abdul Mutalib received her Bachelor in English Language and Literature at the International Islamic University of Malaysia and is now working on her dissertation for Masters in English Literature at University of Malaya and we hope to see more of her here on CdF. From east to west we go with From Folklore to Literature: The Märchen and the German Romantic Movement by Charles Haddox.
We are also planning a new category on the Cabinet des Fées website, one concerning the interactive connection from storyteller to storyteller. We will offer a fairytale type to invited storytellers in the hopes of fostering a spirit of potluck, a sharing of recipes and spices from their spice-boxes in the creation of a medley of expressions and impressions from different parts of the world. We aim to explore lesser known fairytale types with strong heroines who, like Baubo, know that the truth behind femininity is that of collaboration as well as the complexities underlying characters who are neither perfect, nor altogether good. This is intended to be an adventure in storytelling itself, and is separate from the prose and poetry you’ll find in Scheherezade’s Bequest. We’ll be talking more about this as we solidify our plans to explore the fairy tales of the world.
Our new reviews include James Tiptree, Jr.: The Double Life of Alice B. Sheldon by Julie Phillips, Neverland: J.M. Barrie, The Du Mauriers, and the Dark Side of Peter Pan by Piers Dudgeon, All the Fishes Come Home to Roost by Rachel Manija Brown, The Fairy Tale Tarot by Lisa Hunt and Fairy Tales by Terry Jones.
We hope you enjoy this issue; we’ve got lots more in store.