Fairy Tale News New Year's Bumper Edition: End Notes & Recap

Sleeping Beauty Mucha Style
by freaksmg

I hope you've enjoyed the giant catch-up on news.

If you're just joining us, I've done a special set of posts today:

A Fairy Tale News 'New Year's Stories' Bumper Edition!

Once again, here are the 'newspaper sections' for you to browse through (the first one is the earliest post in the day, of course) - now with extra 'linkage'!:

INTRO & CONTENTS
General (& latest) fairy tale news headlines (that I haven't seen posted elsewhere)
Blog posts and/or articles discussing/using fairy tales
Friends and other fairy tale people online
Fairy tales in performance arts
Fairy tale artists & illustrators (past & present)
Fairy tale journals/magazines/online 'zines
Fairy tale films & movies
Fairy tale influenced books (and reviews)
Newly discovered online fairy tale retellings
Fairy tale fashion news
Home & garden fairy tale style
Fairy tale sports
Fun fairy tale finds
Fairy tale funnies
Fairy tale weather & the natural world
Fairy tale music/audio
Food and dining fairy tale news
Classifieds/ads for fairy tale people
Careers - fairy tale knowledge required!
From the archives: fairy tale articles to read again (or for the first time)
End notes & recap

Please do let me know any comments you have here or on the posts. I'll even publish 'Letters to the Editor & Fairy Tale News Hound' if you email fairytalenews AT gmail DOT com!
Beauty and the Beast
by wdkimmy

I'll be back to daily blogging as soon as my commitments allow, so keep checking back for more news. In the meantime, happy reading and happy new year.

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UPDATE - 2PM:

I've just linked each content title to it's respective post to make navigation a little easier.

Also, as I was posting this morning, Cabinet Des Fées went live with their 9th Issue. More fairy tale reading - yay! More details will be added to the Fairy Tale Journals/Online 'zines post. In the meantime, the link is HERE.

Enjoy! :)

Fairy Tale News New Year's Bumper Edition: From the archives: Articles to read again (or for the first time)

• Fear of fairy tales - The glossy sanitized new versions of fairy tales leave out what matters: the scary parts (Article particularly using Rapunzel in the discussion of the importance of unsanitized of fairy tales and the problem with the prevalence of Princesses)

• The Trouble Clef: Hans Andersen and His Alter Ego - Bringing HCA's Little Mermaid to the stage. Lera Auerbach talks about being commissioned by the Royal Danish Ballet to write a full length ballet based on the story. He (?) talks about Andersen's fairy tales in general, looks closely at the story of The Little Mermaid and talks about how amazingly adaptable HCA's works are for bringing to the stage and screen. Very interesting/thoughtful article.

• The fairy tales and fairy tale artists that influenced Tolkien - Tolkien and the New Art. Gives examples, excerpts and shows illustrations. Very interesting!

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Fairy Tale News New Year's Bumper Edition: Careers - fairy tale knowledge required!

• Father Frost & Snegurochka training, skills required, pay possibilities and job varieties/options - very interesting article about a very real job option for fairy tale people in Russia, even in lean economic times.

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Fairy Tale News New Year's Bumper Edition: Classifieds/ads for fairy tale people

• Heidi at the SurLaLune blog is looking for Graduate Programs information for fairy tale and folklore studies. Details at the post.

• Enchanted Conversation is open for submissions for the next issue - topic is Beauty & the Beast. Deadline is February 15th, 2010. Paid market for accepted pieces - fiction, non-fiction, poetry and artwork! Submissions info at the link.

• Check out the call from Cinderella's Closet (in the Fashion section) for gently used prom dresses.

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Fairy Tale News New Year's Bumper Edition: Food and dining

• Young Chef's Academy will be hosting a Princess & the Frog themed event (& themed cuisine course too) on January 23rd in Warren County, Cincinnati, USA.

• What to feed a princess and a castle full of people after a 100 year nap - Cecelia Myers has put together a great first banquet for Sleeping Beauty's waking castle, complete with recipes so you can indulge and feast in your own castle. A Royal Awakening comes with stories and recipes to delight your mind and body. This is one of the awesome new offerings from new blogazine Enchanted Conversation.

• "Human, It's What's For Dinner", "Yum: Cannibalism", "I'll Take Cannibals for $200, Alex","Garden of Eden and Fairy Tales" - all student guest posts (links take you to each article separately) at Diamonds and Toads on the darker side of eating in fairy tales. Very interesting range of writing and ideas! (My apologies if I missed a post.) Please note: there are many other excellent guest student posts worth reading too - take some time to browse and go back a few pages to see the range of topics.

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Fairy Tale News New Year's Bumper Edition: Music & Audio

• The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus - original soundtrack by Mychael & Jeff Danna - CD review . Excerpt: "...they’ve wrapped it into a seemingly traditional fairytale score sound of tinkerbells, lilting violins, soaring symphonies and Eastern European instruments. Except musically here it’s a sexy, LSD-influenced Grimm’s fable, preying on adult precepts of what “fairy tale” music is supposed to sound like..."

• Asian Folk and Fairy Tales Told by Christine Price (1973 LP) (Album cover pics + download link for the audio: three stories from the album - 1. The Valiant Chattee Maker 2. The Boy Who Drew Cats 3. The Great Stone Fire Eater)

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Fairy Tale News New Year's Bumper Edition: Weather & the natural world

• Act now to save our birds Birds have always been endowed with symbolic portent – from Chekhov to Hitchcock to Twitter. We ignore their decline at our peril. There are glimmers of hope, but only if we act now (Article by Margaret Atwood on the importance of birds from myth, to history to today, their decline and what we can do. She originally wrote the essay On Souls As Birds' from Mirror, Mirror On the Wall, which this article echoes. Again, via The Fairy Tale Cupboard)

• Cleveland Metroparks Zoo (Ohio, USA) is having a "Fairytales & Frogs" themed event on February 15th, 2010 - kids under 12 in costume have free entry to the Zoo and Rainforest that day. "Not only will guests learn about the importance of frogs, but they’ll also celebrate the special role these amphibians have played in fairytales and legends throughout history. " (I wish I could go to this!) Additional info: "Everyone can get nose-to-nose with frogs during Get-Close Encounters and decipher myth from reality by talking with the Zoo’s frog keepers. Other activities include a frog craft, storytelling and an interactive life-size “Frogger” game that teaches the importance of frogs in our ecosystem and addresses the perils that frogs face in the wild due to pollution, climate change and habitat loss."

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Fairy Tale News New Year's Bumper Edition: Fairy tale funnies

• Drawing Naveen - by the animators of The Princess and the Frog - showing how 'small' adjustments to a characters appearance can really change things.

• Disney New Judgemental Fairy Tale: The Jewish American Princess. I'll say this really clearly, in case people get the wrong idea - THIS IS A PARODY - A JOKE - NOT REAL. This may bother some people, just because parody tends to do that, but I found it very funny and think it's worth sharing (especially having worked in the animation industry, which is also makes fun of). It also pokes some gentle fun at the Disney Princess film formula. It's like a very well done Saturday Night Live sketch, without the language or smutty humor. Again, this is a parody. A very well done one. Please view accordingly if the idea appeals and skip if it doesn't.

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Fairy Tale News New Year's Bumper Edition: Fun fairy tale finds

• Crankbunny's Paper Puppets, Pop Up Cards and Other Paper Novelties (Etsy find: Including flying Monkey Lady, A very weird Humpty Dumpty, Key To One's Heart, Girl Pops Out of a Fish, Lady Fish Paper Puppet [mermaid] and much more)

• ADOPTABOT - The World's first robot orphanage! (Very cute characters created from found objects and looking for new homes... Just like a modern fairy tale, complete with Gepetto-type character, a,k,a, Brian Marshall, who makes unique creations, each with their own distinct personality. Also see more characters at Mr. Marshall's Flickr account HERE.)

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Fairy Tale News New Year's Bumper Edition: Sports

• Sedan Chair Race for Charity with Fairy Tale Characters - I missed this announcement back in August (the event was in November) but as you can see from the poster, it looks like a lot of exhausting fun. Apparently this organization has raised over 52 million $HK via sedan chair races for charity to date!

• The Emperor (of Clubs) Isn't Wearing Any Clothes! Kate Wolford, university lecturer and mastermind behind both the Diamonds & Toads blog and the new blogazine Enchanted Conversation, made reference to a notorious (and very sad) recent news headline involving a certain sports celebrity with some interesting observations. Make sure to read both the post and the many comments.

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Fairy Tale News New Year's Bumper Edition: Home & garden style

• Toon Town-ish style furniture by Dust Furniture - via Super Punch

• Alice in Wonderland style furniture by Coolkids - also via Super Punch

• Animated Furniture by Jake Cress - also via Super Punch

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Fairy Tale News New Year's Bumper Edition: Fashion

• Wild at Heart (Fall fashion slideshow feature by ZoomZoom) In this fall fashion feature, Erik Almas takes 1930s paintings, taxidermy animals, and the modern woman to create diorama-like images of fashion in the wild. The result is an amalgam of the fairy tale and the mythological muse. The images conjure narratives of the heroine who can talk to animals, live amongst the brown bears, and rule nature itself.

• Ko Ara's Fairy Tale Shoot in Korean Singles Magazine 2008 (Thumbelina, Red Riding Hood, Princess and the Pea, Bremen Town Musicians, Peter Pan, Hansel & Gretel)

• Cinderella's Closet, which provides dresses to under privileged teens for their proms, is calling for gently used prom dresses.

• Fairy tale themed jewelry by LunarraStar (Alice in Wonderland, Snow White, Little Red Riding Hood, Wizard of Oz and more) Etsy find.

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Fairy Tale News New Year's Bumper Edition: Newly discovered online retellings

• "Elegance" by CMShaw - a modern retelling of Beauty & the Beast. This story has also been tagged 'steampunk'.

• "Cages" (my steampunk retelling of Grimm's Jorinde & Joringel) got a review & recommendation. :)

• Enchanted Conversation's Sleeping Beauties. The princess gets a whole lot of different perspectives and tales in Enchanted Conversation. The new online blogazine, had Sleeping Beauty as their theme for the first issue and has published some awesome new retellings. Eg, The 13th Fairy Confesses (yep - it was HER fault Sleeping Beauty slept for 100 years, not the bad fairy at all), The First Queen's Maid (Hint: remember how Sleeping beauty's mother-in-law was part Ogre?), The Dilemma of the Spindle looks at the decision this household object had to make and many, many more.

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Fairy Tale News New Year's Bumper Edition: Books (and reviews)

• "Four Generous Fairies" by Diana Liiv, Illustrated by Reti Saks (2005) - Tchaikovsky's "The Seasons" told as a fairy tale with illustrations, which also educates about music and instruments - an Estonian book-with-CD, also available in English translation.

• "A Fair Maiden" by Joyce Carol Oates - (review) plays with the conventional Cinderella story in a modern setting - not a retelling. You'll find this on of the 'literature' shelves.

• "The Girl With Glass Feet" debut novel by Ali Shaw - soon to be released in the US (if it isn't out already) using European fairy tales. Very promising reviews from the UK, including The Guardian. I'm currently reading this and will review it for Once Upon A Blog soon too.

• "Tempest Rising" by Nicole Peeler - fairly new urban fantasy using the Selkie myths and fairy tales as well as other European tales. Very promising first novel in a trilogy.

• "Red" by Jordan Summers - Not new or faultless but I've been wanting to mention this one for a while because it's quite different. It's a 'futuristic' (not quite sci-fi) retelling of Red Riding Hood. Premise: what if Little Red Riding Hood and the bad wolf turn out to be the same person? I'm not sure if it belongs under the an urban fantasy label or a very-edgy-paranormal-romance label but it's a unique and interesting retelling. Please note - contains very graphic descriptions of violence as well as explicit sex.

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Fairy Tale News New Year's Bumper Edition: Films & movies

• The Snow Queen Russian animated movie 1957 - three entries of stills/screen captures posted (Lovely layout and animation, though personally I'm not wild about the character designs. This movie is well loved for nostalgic reasons and by animators for the techniques used. I have yet to see this myself...) 1st post, 2nd post, 3rd post.

• Hansel & Gretel - The True Story - A very dark, traditionally animated, short film currently in development & production in Macedonia. Trailer available for viewing at the link.

• Behind-the-scenes of "How To Train Your Dragon" (in theaters March 26, 2010) - not a fairy tale but will be of interest to many of you anyway - see some of the desings, a little of the story and some concepts behind the film (footage from network).

• Debbie Allen's 'dansical' "Alex in Wonderland" coming to DVD in February. "Written, directed and choreographed by Debbie Allen, with an original score by Debbie Allen, Diane Louie and three-time GRAMMY Award winner James Ingram, Debbie Allen's ALEX IN WONDERLAND is a re-imagined fairytale that has been contemporized, funkified and stylized for a new generation."

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Fairy Tale News New Year's Bumper Edition: Fairy tale journals/magazines/online 'zines

• ** NEWLY ADDED AT 2:30PM ** Cabinet Des Fées Issue 9 is live! (Cabinet Des Fées in an online magazine offering new fairy tale fiction and poetry three times a year. The 'zine is known for it's excellence and scholarship and provides many wonderful fairy tale resources. You can see the wonderful range of tales and treatments just by glancing at their main page, which has enticing 'snapshots' [mini previews] of the contents.)

• Goblin Fruit's Winter 2010 Issue is live! (Goblin Fruit is a fairy tale/mythic poetry 'zine that now includes an audio component. This issue features an 'Editor exchange' with Mythic Delirium so 'diabolical guest Editor' Mike Allen is in charge of the offerings at Goblin Fruit while our talented GF Editors are reeking havoc - I mean, taking the reins - at Mythic Delirium. The topics for the Issue are darkly delicious...)

• Enchanted Conversation continues to draw readers and interesting comments on the subject of Sleeping Beauty, and don't forget a thoughtful comment of a couple of paragraphs enters you into a contest too!

• Fairy Tale Review 2009 Aquamarine Issue is available for purchase. (Fiction, non-fiction and poetry on fairy tales and their continuing influence today, helmed by the amazing Kate Bernheimer who has edited some of the best essay collections on fairy tales to date.)

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Fairy Tale News New Year's Bumper Edition: Artists & illustrators (past & present)

• Coco Miles, a props and sculpture artist, has fairy tale pieces in her portfolio, including Baba Yaga and Rumpelstiltskin.

• "Jack and Jill Return to the Hill" A too-late entry to the Sci-Fi Fairy Tales contest held by Super Punch during December 2009. This entry came with a complete story about Jack and Jill in a sci-fi context too. See link for a summary.

• Little Red vs Wolves - LOTS of wolves! by woohyun Nam. see more of his work at the link.

• Belarus beautiful fairy tale coins - Fairy tale designs include The Stone Flower, The Twelve Months, The Nutcracker, Turandot, Alice in Wonderland, Alice Through the Looking Glass, Thousand and One Nights, Symon the Musician. Simply gorgeous!

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