Merry Wanderer of the Night [Search results for short story collection] 

I picked up No One Belongs Here More Than You

by Miranda July because it had a cool cover, it was desperately on sale, and I'd read some great reviews of it. I went through my bookshelves and this is actually the only short story collection I own now, and it's possibly the only short story collection I've ever read. That being said, it usually takes me quite awhile to get through collections, but I gobbled up Miranda July's stories in just a few days. And it seems like this collection is everywhere! A few weeks ago I did a post about my favorite book covers, and someone commented saying they loved the cover of this collection. About a week ago I posted the books I read in July (including this one) and two people got in a conversation about Miranda July's artwork. It seems like this collection has become a part of my generation's cultural footprint, and I can understand why, because the stories in this collection speak to me in a very generational manner.

I always find collections difficult to review and therefore usually avoid doing reviews of them at all, but this didn't really even seem like a short story collection to me. It just seemed like a series of stories about humans changing, not changing, failing, and learning. The first story that really caught my attention was the third, Majesty, with it's beautiful one liners, "We come from long lines of people destined to never meet" and "That day I carried the dream around like a full glass of water, moving gracefully so I would not lose any of it." Miranda July as this amazing way of staggering her phrasing and then tucking a little gem, golden sentence in the middle of everything. This makes the stories easy to read and also a bit of a treasure hunt.

My only complaint with these stories is that towards the end she seemed to lose a bit of momentum. There were a few stories in a row where I was just not intrigued and I felt like she was relying too much on sexual intrigue to make her plots move forward. I can see that that was a theme in this collection, but it was just a little too much all at once for me. I felt like she should pick a different method. Overall though I found the collection enjoyable, funny, and sad, so I am giving it a B.

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To close the shortest month of the year, Wendy asked Weekly Geeks for a short post on short books, and offered several possible angles on the topic:

• Do you prefer reading short books or chunky books? Why?
• Do you enjoy novellas? Tell us about some of your favorites.
• Are you a short story reader? Tell us about some of your favorite short story authors. Is there a favorite collection of short stories you've read and can recommend?
• What makes a good short story?
• Do you shy away from short stories? Why?
• Review a book which is less than 200 pages long.
• Go through your TBR stacks and come up with five short books you can't wait to read - tell us a little about them.
• Write a unique post of your own ... as long as it in some way relates to short stories or short books.

A short story contains all the elements of a novel but in a compressed manner. A great story teller can mesmerize us and also tickle us with his short stories. I find short stories great for the in between reads as well as when there is short attention span.
Melissa Pilakowski’s recent reading has been the opposite of short:

In the past few months I’ve read The Instructions by Adam Levin, The Lay of the Land and Independence Day by Richard Ford, Anthology of an American Girl by Hilary Hamann Thayer, Tales of a Madman Underground by John Barnes, and Delirium by Lauren Oliver. All of them range from 400-1000 pages.

While I’m not about to tell Pulitzer Prize Winner Richard Ford that he should edit down his writing, I think that over-writing is an issue in many of these long stories.
Lifetime Reader noticed a common thread in some of her favorite short stories:

Occasionally it occurs to me that these authors echo the voices of my family members when I was growing up in the South...As I write this post, I also see that these three stories are all about women who separate themselves from their home--either physically or culturally--and then have to grapple with their relationship to that home. The characters see themselves as superior, but in each case there is something in the stories that knocks them off that attitude.
Lauren chose to review a book less than 200 pages long:

As a kid, I was never one for survival or wilderness stories, which is why it has taken so long for me to get around to The Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O’Dell. But when I saw the beautiful new 50th Anniversary Gift Edition, complete with gorgeous watercolors by Ted Lewin, I knew it was finally time to read this classic children’s novel.

My conclusion is this: O’Dell’s novel is a much, much better version of Daniel Defoe’s plodding stranded-on-a-desert-island novel.
Thanks to all of this week’s Geeks for keeping it short and sweet!

February is fast coming to an end - the shortest month of the year, and the only month with less than 30 days in it. It's short and sweet.

So, I thought it would be fun to talk about skinny books and short stories...the kind of reads we turn to when time is of the essence or we want to savor a great story in just a few pages.

This week's Weekly Geeks post is all about keeping things short. Write about any, some, or all of the following:

• Do you prefer reading short books or chunky books? Why?
• Do you enjoy novellas? Tell us about some of your favorites.
• Are you a short story reader? Tell us about some of your favorite short story authors. Is there a favorite collection of short stories you've read and can recommend?
• What makes a good short story?
• Do you shy away from short stories? Why?
• Review a book which is less than 200 pages long.
• Go through your TBR stacks and come up with five short books you can't wait to read - tell us a little about them.
• Write a unique post of your own ... as long as it in some way relates to short stories or short books.

I bought Getting Out of Town

used while I was in Chicago. I'd been having this feeling for awhile that I really wanted to find a book no one had heard of. Something different and awesome from what you read reviews of all the time. I think I do an okay job of reviewing lesser known titles on my blog, alongside more well known books, but wanted something totally different. Getting Out of Town looked like it might be that book. The back cover says it's a short story collection, but I look at it more like The Imperfectionists, a series of stories that are all connected. It is short though, just over one hundred pages. I'm counting this as part of the November Novella Challenge. The story takes place in a small town in Canada and mostly focuses on Nancy McKinnon, a woman in love with a drunk.

Most of the book is about wanting to get out of a small town and starting a new life. I was interested in the treatment of women throughout this book. In this small town everyone's business is everyone's business, and if a woman has multiple sex partners everyone knows it. And she gets labeled a slut. There is not escaping that, it's branded on her as long as she stays in the town. This is one example of many brands people in the small town get stuck with. It's as if it's impossible to change in a small town because everyone knows of you as the slut or the drunk or the pervert.

While I enjoyed that aspect of the book, I have to say I was extremely disappointed overall. I felt the characters lacked depth, I didn't really know much about them outside their personas in the town. I found the narrative structure to be extremely difficult to follow, one story starting off at a completely different point from where the previous one ended. The language felt contrived. I hate the saying "Show don't tell," but reading this was very difficult because most sentences were just telling me "We did this... then we did that... I saw this... then I thought this." Very frustrating to read.

I know I'm being really hard on this book, and part of it might have to do with the fact that I was somewhat offended by the portrayal of small town life. Most of the characters in this book were in there thirties but they all acted like they were sixteen. And while this might be true for some people who live in small towns, it's also true for some people who live in suburbs or cities. I felt like the characters became caricatures, which is one of my biggest pet peeves. I feel a little bad being so harsh on this book considering I haven't found a review of it anywhere else, and I don't think anyone has read it on Goodreads, but I call them like I see them.

I give this book a D. It does have a very nice cover though, so kudos to the publisher for that.

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I got If You Lived Here You'd Already Be Home

at the Twin Cites Book Festival for two reasons, it had an endorsement from Chuck Klosterman and the cover had stomach with random stuff in it.* Based on those two things I knew there would be something interesting in this book. Turns out it's a short story collection with story titles like Everyone Prank Calls the Clown, The Bog Body, and The Deadsitter. If you're not intrigued by any of those titles then there simply is no hope for you. The stories are mostly quick and quippy. The characters are most unlikeable, but relatable-- and the world they live in is our own, so when they get barnacles on their butts it's easy to believe. At times it is hysterical and other times pensive. Essentially these stories are the perfect balance of strange and realistic.

The story that sticks out in my mind the most is The Deadsitter. The premise is that a young boy died and his mother hires a boy who lives in her neighborhood to come to her house after school and pretend he is her son. Except the kid in this story isn't the first boy to do it, he's following in his brother's footsteps and he is getting a little old to play the part. His parents tell him he can't quit until he finds a replacement, and that is what he intends to do. Creepy, sad, bizarre, and kind of funny. I don't know why, but the image of a mother watching a child she knows is not her own but convinces herself is her child really resonated with me. I apologize for that confusing sentence.

That is just what John Jodzio's writing is like though (not confusing, the other thing). "Some forget that the sky is an easy option for violence, that the heavens can open upon you at a moment's notice. When it happens you'd like to think that God had something to do with it, that there is a plausible explanation, that if you looked up there would be someone there waving and yelling 'My fault!' (38)." This is a quotation from another of my favorite stories, Gravity, in which the main character finds dropping things on people's heads therapeutic. I had to stop and read this passage at least three times because it provided such great mental imagery and forced me to think about the humor of my own inevitable demise. So there you have it, Jodzio made me laugh about death.

*And the people who worked at Replacement Press were super nice and friendly.

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Since Haiti has been in the news lately, this week's Weekly Geeks theme was to talk about the country in a positive light.

The topic was proposed by Softdrink, whose own post in response to it discussed an essay about Haiti written by Truman Capote in 1948, and included a link to read the essay online.

Care of Care's Online Book Club talked about Tracy Kidder's book Mountains Beyond Mountains, which tells the story of Dr. Paul Farmer. Dr. Farmer has spent his entire life working in Haiti, and is the founder of Partners in Health, one of the nonprofits working hard to help in the aftermath of the earthquake.

At everything distils into reading, Gautami spotlighted Haitian author Edwidge Danticat's first novel, Breath, Eyes, Memory. Laura of Musings also talked about this author, as she is currently reading her short-story collection The Dew Breaker, which features tales of Haitian immigrants in New York City.

Shannon sought out some Haitian stories and posted an original drawing of a Haitian child on Confuzzled Books.

Thanks to everyone who joined in this week! Be sure to check back for our new Weekly Geeks topic, which will be posted tomorrow.

With us today we have the lovely Elizabeth C. Bunce, author of A Curse Dark as Gold, a fantastic retelling of Rumplestiltskin (set in the Industrial Revolution! Brilliant!) and the "Thief Errant" series, which is about Digger, a spy and thief who unwittingly finds herself at the center of a magical rebellion. The first book, StarCrossed, is out now, and the second, Liar's Moon, comes out in November!
Make sure to stick around till the end of the interview for a chance to win your own copy of StarCrossed!
Without further ado, I give you: Elizabeth C. Bunce!

~What inspired you to set the tale of Rumplestiltskin in the Industrial Revolution?
A couple of things, actually. First, I wanted to set the novel in the time and place of fairy tales—that imaginary Fairy Tale Country—and thanks to classic artwork by Dulac, Dore, and others, for me that's the 18th century. Second, it was a natural extension of the decision to set the story in an ailing textile mill, because the social and economic changes of the Industrial Revolution presented an existing set of realistic obstacles and conflict for the plot. And, to be perfectly honest, I was in love with the clothes of the era, and just couldn't imagine Uncle Wheeler dressed any other way!

~What was the research process like for the story, both on the fairy tale front and the historical front?
On the fairy tale front, I read as many traditional versions of Name of the Helper tales as I could—not just early "Rumpelstiltskins," but also pieces like England's "Tom Tit Tot" and Scotland's "Whuppity Stoorie." But my goal was always to focus on the story of the girl who bargains away her infant son, so I did stick pretty close to the "Rumpelstiltskin" framework. The rest of the research—oh, mercy! I dug into everything from everyday life in the 18th century, to traditional folk magic and ghost stories, and, of course, a huge amount of research (both book learnin' and the hands-on kind) into the woolen textile industry. I have monographs on wigmaking, esoteric economic histories of individual mill towns, even the journals of period woolworkers. For me, research uncovers not just the things you know you're looking for—but almost more importantly, the things you had no idea you needed.

~Will we ever see more stories set in Charlotte’s world?
Yes! I have one published now, a ghost story called "In for a Penny" in the Scholastic anthology Bones, edited by Lois Metzger (July 2011). And I have a few more ideas—including more retellings—up my sleeve, as well.

~Why fairy tales? What is it that calls to you, personally,as a writer, and why do you think readers connect to them the way they do?
As a reader, I'm even a bigger fan of retellings than I am of the original tales. I am fascinated by the ways authors expand and adapt the source material while keeping the stories fresh and accessible to today's readers. There's so much potential in the fairy tales, and I find it really comes to life in a brilliant retelling. I'm particularly drawn to the fairy tale landscape—the dark woods, the impenetrable briar hedge, the castles. But as a writer, I like the challenge of re-imagining those classic settings; expanding the borders of Fairy Tale Country, as it were!

~StarCrossed seems pretty different from Curse; did you feel it was a departure for you? How does StarCrossed’s Digger compare to Curse’s Charlotte?
I like to say that Curse was written for my adult literary and fairy-tale scholar self, while StarCrossed and Liar's Moon were written for my inner 16-year-old fantasy fan. So in that way, I can't say the series is a departure, although it did feel very different to write Digger's story than Charlotte's. As characters, Digger is a complete 180 from Charlotte. Charlotte thinks over everything before she makes any move, and Digger is very much more a Shoot First, Ask Questions Later kind of girl. Oddly enough, their goals end up being the same (saving the people they care about), but their methods are a little different. I have a feeling Digger would have taken one look at Shearing and Stirwaters, said, "To hells with this," grabbed everyone, and lit out of there.

~StarCrossed is a series, so I know you’re in the middle of that, but are there any plans to tell more straightforward fairy tale retellings in the future?
Definitely! The first novel I ever wrote was a retelling, I have a collection of short retellings that's been in the works for a while, and I've just started collecting research materials for a Victorian-era fairy tale project I'm excited about.

~What’s your favorite scene you’ve ever written?
I don't know! What a great question. Since we're talking about Curse, let's narrow it down some. I still think that book has some great scenes (I especially love the conjuring of Jack Spinner, the introduction of Biddy Tom, the crossroads, and the denouement)... but today I'm feeling romantic, so I'm going to say Randall's gift of the watch. There's something magical about those rare moments where you can capture everything about a story in just a few lines, and I think this scene between Randall and Charlotte tells us so much about both characters.

Lightning Round!

~Rapunzel is named after lettuce; what odd thing would you be named after if you were in a fairy tale?
Hopefully I'd get a name! But it would probably be something like Donkeyskin or Aschenputtel. Maybe Doghair. Hundehaare. That sounds about right.

~ Using that name, give us 1 line from your life as a fairy tale:
Hard by a great prairie, in a cottage surrounded by mud in all seasons, guarded by a pack of hounds, lived a woman known as Hundehaare, whose back was permanently bent from bending over her books, her fingers gnarled and pricked from the needle. But from her muddy cottage, Hundehaare crafted things of great wonder, and her work was sought by folk from distant lands.
(Ok, that's two lines!)
[The judges confer... Two lines is acceptable, since they are such good lines.:) ]

~Best fairy tale villain and why?
Well, see, I tend to take a longer, more sympathetic view of my fairy tale villains, so it's difficult to come up with a list of inexcusable baddies. The thirteenth fairy in "Sleeping Beauty" is awfully petty, but, then, who hasn't felt wounded at being excluded from a party? And for mismatched dishes? But after giving this some deep thought, I'm going to have to go with The Pea.

~Favorite tale from childhood? Favorite tale as an adult? Least favorites?
My favorite always was and will probably always be "Beauty and the Beast." The least favorite one is hard to answer; it used to be "Rumpelstiltskin," hands down—but I feel kind of bad about saying that now, since the story has actually been very good to me!

~If you could be any fairy tale character, or live through any fairy tale "happening," who/what would it be?
Although it directly contradicts another answer below, I'm going to say I'd like to accompany the soldier as he follows the dancing princesses to Faerie.

~Would you rather:
- — eat magic beans or golden eggs?
Eggs

- — live under a bridge with a troll, or all alone in a high tower?
Tower

- — be forced to spin straw into gold for hours on end, or dance every night until your shoes are worn through?
Spin. Was there ever any doubt?

Thanks so much for stopping by and chatting with us, Elizabeth! For those of you who haven't read A Curse Dark as Gold (was there ever a better title?), Misty and Ashley both highly recommend it! And if you haven't read StarCrossed, here's your chance!

Misty's review of A Curse Dark as Gold | Ashley's review of StarCrossed ***GIVEAWAY*** Thanks to the awesome people at Scholastic, we have a beautiful finished hardcover copy of StarCrossed to give away to 1 winner!
To enter, answer this question: If you were to retell a fairy tale, what would it be and where/when would you set it?
Then, fill out this form.
International
Ends May 5th May 8th!

Kaoru Mori's Shirley is a collection of short stories about maids in Victorian London. The main story is about Shirley, a thirteen-year-old maid for young old maid Bennet Cranley. Bennet places an ad in the newspaper for a maid because she runs a diner and has no time to clean. She comes home from work one day to find Shirley on her doorstep. Shirley is young and chose Bennet because there was no age requirement in her ad. Bennet takes to Shirley quickly; Shirley works hard and makes the home spotless. Bennet begins to treat Shirley almost like a daughter. She purchases her a doll, but then questions if it is too childish for her. She finds Shirley making clothes for the doll and discovers that Shirley is a very able fashion designer.

Shirley admires Bennet for her beauty and intelligence. She wants to be exactly like her and you can begin to see this taking shape from the beginning of the story. She defends her against those who treat her wrongly and becomes a little possessive of her.

The second story is called Me and Nellie and One Afternoon. This is about another young maid named Nellie whose child master wants to play with her. His parents are gone and Nellie is the only person close to his age. She has to make him happy even though he is a complete brat. She is able to feel empathy for him when she finds out about his mother's alcoholism from another maid.

The final story is about Mary Banks, who is a maid for an unruly old man. He loves to play pranks on all of his help and makes things extraordinarily difficult for them. While most maids don't last a day there, Mary Banks is able to stick it out until the old man's death.

I didn't enjoy this one as much as Emma: A Victorian Romance Volume One. The story was nice and sweet, but it didn't deal with as much of the cultural and societal issues as Emma did. This isn't a bad thing, I did enjoy it, but I just enjoyed Emma more. If you've never read anything by Karou Mori then I would suggest readivng that before this, although if you're looking for something nice and simple that takes place in Victorian London then this is a good one to check out.

Pub. Date: July 2008

Publisher: DC Comics

Format: Paperback, 208pp

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I'm currently sitting at the library in Amsterdam, which is beautiful and amazing. It's white with hardwood floors and very streamlined and techno. I could defnitely get lost here for awhile. We stopped here because we found out today that they have free Internet for anyone. Jason and I both agree that this is Amsterdam's best kept secret. If you're ever here and need to use Internet it's one of the easiest places to get some-- and you don't have to buy anything. Fantastic.

Today we went on a bike tour with this place called Mike's Bike Tours. It was a great way to see the city and get some ideas for places we want to go. Since so many people ride bikes here it was obviously nice to see the city in the way a local would, except with a tour guide pointing things out along the way. Jason and I enjoyed it since we ride bikes at home quite frequently, although the style of bike we rode here is very different from what we are used to. The bike tour took up most of the day and when we got home we had leftover Indian food from last night, which was delicious.

Tomorrow we are going to try and take a day trip to Zandvoort because that is where my family is from. I'm not entirely sure what we are going to do there, probablys just see what happens. There is a sort of nature resevoir there we might try to visit. We'll still have two days left in Amsterdam after that and we only have one day of definite plans. We will try to visit Anne Frank house, go to this bar with a windmill, and a market in the area our tour guide recommended. Some of these things a little far away from where we are staying so we're considering renting bikes for at least one day yet. It's a great time to try and cycle right now because there are fewer tourists and fewer locals cycling than there are during the summer, so it's relatively safe if you're used to cycling in congested areas, which we are.

As far as reading, I fnished a whole book on the plane ride over here. It was actually a short story collection I got at the Twin Cities book festival called If You Lived Here You'd Already Be Home, which was really fantastic and quick read.

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When I'm stuck writing one of the first essaysists I look to for inspiration is Joan Didion. I reviewed her collection Slouching Towards Bethlehem recently, and while I only gave it a B I really loved it. As a collection I just thought it moved rather slowly. While reading that collection I found another essay by her called In Bed. The version I'm linking to is a little different from the version I read in The Art of the Personal Essay: An Anthology from the Classical Era to the Present

, but you'll get the idea. It's very short-- just about four pages. I was drawn to this essay because I've been experiencing some medical issues recently that are outside of my control. I could really relate to Didion's story about migraine, an illness she has struggled with her entire life and has absolutely no control over.

This essay is really more personal than most of Didion's other work-- The Year of Magical Thinking

removed from that statement. She does very little "journalism" in this piece, although she does have a good paragraph of research about migraine and what causes them. Research is something I really admire about Joan Didion's writing, and it's something I wish I could incorporate into my writing more. Through research Didion is able to give us a whole new understanding of what a migraine is, and then when we have the scientific understanding of it that makes our understanding of her personal experience that much stronger. I also love that she includes others outside herself who experience migraine. She doesn't describe anyone directly, but lists off other kinds of people who are challenged by migraine, including "unfortunate children as young as two years old." She weaves herself into these people as well though; directly after the previous quotation she mentions her first migraine happened when she was eight.

And of course this essay is about migraine-- but it's also about having no understand of something that effects you every day. It's a universal problem, and it transcends the "simple human experience" and moves to our experience as a nation. War effects some people every day, they cannot even begin to understand it or control it, but it comes. This is an extreme example, but when Didion says, "We do not escape heredity. I have tried in most of the available ways to escape my own migrainous heredity... but I still have migraine" --- I'm led to think that it's more than just medical history we try to escape, it's our connections with anything we'd rather not be a part of.

This video is really interesting in regards to Joan Didion. She kind of describes her love of writing in this short interview.

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This is my first edition of a post I hope will go on for quite awhile, and one that all of you might be able to get something out of. When I first started this blog I was kind of pulling away from something that I really, really love. The essay. This summer I have taken a strong return back to my old favorite and now I'm hoping to talk about one essay I love every week. To start us off I decided to go with First by Ryan Van Meter which originally appeared in the Gettysburg Review, but I read it in The Best American Essays 2009. If the anthology is any actual gage of the best American essays published in 2009 then I would argue that this is actually the best essay, because I've returned to it about six times in two weeks and every time I grow to love it more. It's the only essay from the anthology that has left such a huge mark on me. And I didn't even know this until exactly this moment, but apparently he teaches at the University of Iowa (my school!). I honestly didn't know this, I don't want you all to think I'm biased or something.

This essay is the story of a five-year-old boy's thoughts on love, which he gains from watching soap operas with his mother during the summer. "What I enjoyed most about soap operas was how exciting and beautiful life was. Every lady was pretty and had wonderful hair, and all the men had dark eyes and big teeth and faces as strong as bricks..." (178). He believes that love is possible and beautiful and wonderful, and he believes that he is in love with his best friend who is possibly named Ben (being that he was five at the time, it's a little difficult to recall). "What I know for certain right now is that I love him, and I need to tell him this fact before we return to our separate houses, next door to each other" (177). They are riding backwards in the back of a car, with their dads sitting in the front seat together and the moms in the back. One of my favorite observations in the essay is "that when mothers and fathers are in the car together, the dad always drives" (178).

By the end of the essay young Ryan has proposed to Ben, only to be told by his mother that this is not okay. This shatters everything he knows or thought he knew about love, and with it some of his hope is also lost. This, of course, deals with homosexuality and the acceptance of it, even within your own family. I think this essay really transcends that though. To me it's more about growing up and learning that what you think as a child may not actually be how the world works. I was just thinking about how as a child death would happen in stories, but I never gave much thought to it. Now I'm obsessed with death in children's stories and how children react to it. Beyond the message of this story, it is beautifully written. I can see everything happening with such precision, it reads like a dream. One great example is right after Ben and Ryan let go of hands and he says, "I close my fingers into a loose fist and rub my palm to feel, and keep feeling, how strange his skin has made mine" (179).

This is by far my favorite essay I've read this year and if you'd like to read it you don't even need to get The Best American Essays 2009 (in fact, I'd probably skip it since I wasn't overly impressed by the collection as a whole, more on that later). You can check out this essay at The Gettysburg Review. It's very short, just three pages printed and I obviously think it's worth a read and reread. Ryan Van Meter also has an essay collection coming out April 2011 entitled If You Knew Then What I Know Now. I wait with baited breath.

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Author Bio: Jocelyn Koehler grew up in the wilds of Wisconsin, but now lives in a tiny house in Philadelphia that is filled with books, tea things, and places to read, sleep, and write. She has worked as a librarian, bookseller, editor, archivist, cubicle drone, popcorn popper, and music store clerk. Her books are available through Amazon or through her publisher, Hammer & Birch. Her new book The Way through the Woods, a collection of fairy tales based in the mythical land of the Nine Kingdoms, will be available May 1.

Interview:
What do you make of the resurgence in popularity for fairy tales? (Once Upon a Time, Grimm, Mirror Mirror, Snow White and the Huntsmen, all within a very short time)? Do you see it as a trend that will sort of peter out, or is it just getting started?

There sure have been a lot of movies and TV shows with a fairy tales theme lately. Partly, I think that cynical marketing types do work in cycles. Ten years ago it was all angels, all the time. Then vampires got big. Then zombies stumbled in (I fondly remember a time when not every classic novel had a "zombie" version). So fairy tales might be getting a "what's next?" push. However, I don't believe that fairy tale retellings will vanish next year. Whether it's books, film, or TV, people like these stories, which means that there will always be a market for them.

What impact do you think fairy tales have on society (especially with the same tales popping up in various forms in every society)?

No question... the impact is huge. The themes and messages from fairy tales are absolutely everywhere. During March Madness, the sportscasters drool whenever they get to talk about a "Cinderella" team that makes it to the "big dance." I think it's clear that almost everybody wants to live in a fairy tale of some sort, whether they recognize it or not.

Book in a Tweet: Your fairy tale in 140 characters or less?
Cindrelle defies her stepmother to attend a mysterious ball, falling in love with the prince who gives it. But who is he? Can he be trusted?

Favorite fairy tale:
Picking a single favorite is impossible, but I have to admit that Cinderella is right up there. When I started writing my retellings, the first one I completed was Ashes, Ashes, which is based on the traditional (pre-Disney) Cinderella story, complete with the three-night-long ball and the wish-granting hazel tree.

Most underrated fairy tale?
East of the Sun and West of the Moon doesn't get the attention it deserves. Where's that movie? Come on, one of the main characters is a bear.

Most overrated fairy tale?
I won't name names, but it rhymes with "schmilight."

Last year we asked everyone’s fairy tale hero/heroine name; this year, we want to know your fairy tale villain name:
My best friend once drew a picture of me and titled it Baroness von Blissblok. I'd wear all black, of course.

Using that name, give us a line from your villainous fairy tale:
The Baroness von Blissblok appeared in a cloud of swirling grey mist. "Fools! My tea was lukewarm today. I had to put it in the microwave for thirty seconds. As punishment for slightly inconveniencing me, I vow no one shall smile again!"

If a genie granted you 3 wishes, what would they be?
1. the total extinction of centipedes
2. world peace
3. a long and happy life with my beloved (that one's half-granted already)

Best way to read fairy tales? (i.e. location, snacks, etc)
Think of all the things you should accomplish today. Write them down on a piece of paper. Burn the paper. Then grab your book of fairy tales and a fluffy blanket, curl up on your favorite couch or chair, and start reading. If you find yourself getting hungry, enchant a dog to be your servant (ineffective on cats, trust me). Have the dog make you a cup of tea or cocoa hourly, as needed.

If one of your books was being turned into a movie and you could cast 1 character, which character would you cast and who would play them?
I'd cast Tilda Swinton as the evil stepmother in Ashes, Ashes. Nobody does cool, competent scary like her!

Giveaway: Jocelyn has been generous enough to donate five copies of her book, Ashes, Ashes, to giveaway! It's only available as an ebook, which means that this giveaway is also international! Just leave a meaningful comment on this post and tell us what you liked best about the interview, or why you want to read her book! And, make sure you've filled out the giveaway form!

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