Heidi Anne Heiner's Blog, page 153

Fairy Tale by Bead Treasures at Hobby Lobby

Fairy Tale by Bead Treasures is a line of jewelry pendant and charms--in the beading section--currently available at Hobby Lobby in the US. The pieces are 50% off in stores this week but not online from what I can see. The selection in store is also much larger. I will try to photograph the extras that I purchased to share with you although many of my favorites are online and were easy to capture images for on the Hobby Lobby site.
There was something similar to this at Joann Fabric much earlier this year but by the time I saw it none of the remaining pieces were very fairy tale related nor did the empty slot descriptions appear to be fairy tale related. These from Hobby Lobby are without a doubt fairy tale inspired although there is more in the line that is not. Click through the link above to see what is available online. And if you live near a Hobby Lobby, I recommend going in next week to save the 50% discount.

 

Meagan Kearney's Beauty and the Beast

Megan Kearney has launched her new web comic of Beauty and the Beast online.
Here is also the teaser trailer which has been languishing on my blog to do list. (Regular readers would probably want to cry over this list even more than me. And that's just the stuff I copied or wrote down the last several months. Aargh!) But better late than never and since this just launched, I'm not even that late, at least on this one, thank goodness. (Congrats Megan on launching your product. Feels great, right?)



From the site:

Raised with a healthy love of books and storytelling, and an unhealthy love of comics and cartoons, Megan's twin passions led her to earn her BA in visual arts, with an English minor, from the University of Windsor (during which time she also self-published her first comic) and then to Sheridan College, where she earned her BAA Honours in Animation, and produced her fairy-tale inspired short film, Once Upon a Winter Wood.

Megan has been fascinated with the story of Beauty and The Beast since she was a teenager, living in at the edge of the forest in a small town, surrounded by rosebushes. She currently resides in the equally enchanting Toronto, with her fiance and at least one rabbit.

and

The power of the tale [Beauty and the Beast] comes from its evolving meaning. what was born as a story discussing arranged marriage has mutated and grown with each retelling, finding relevance in many social climates. It continues ot change and rearrange itself today. Just as the women of Louis XIV's court spoke of their own lives through fairy tales, this comic is one woman's exploration of what Beauty and The Beast means to her.

BBC Radio: Authors to celebrate 200th anniversary of Grimms' tales

 
First, A few loyal SurLaLune readers shared this with me. Thanks to Spike and Christine!

Since this is more press release than article, I'm copying the entire thing here. From Authors to celebrate 200th anniversary of Grimms' tales:

Five leading writers are to celebrate the tales of the Brothers Grimm in a series of readings and insights to be broadcast on BBC Radio 3.

Philip Pullman, John Agard, Sir Terry Pratchett, Carol Ann Duffy and Michael Morpurgo are participating in the week-long series for the In Tune programme.

Grimms' Fairy Tales, written by brothers Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, was first published in 1812.

The five authors will discuss the influence of the stories on their work.

Interviewed by presenter Suzy Klein, author Philip Pullman, creator of the His Dark Materials trilogy, described the Grimm brothers' tales as timeless.

"They take basic human situations - wife, husband, father, son, king, subject, life, death - and illustrate them with such simplicity and clarity that they can't help resonating throughout the ages."

The Grimm brothers collected their folk tales from friends and old books, and many date back thousands of years.

They are available in more than 100 languages and have been adapted for the screen in films such as Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Sleeping Beauty, and Cinderella.

Pullman will read an extract from one of his new tales, The Three Snake Leaves, which appears in his book reimagining the stories of the Brothers Grimm.

He will also reflect on how Grimms' Fairy Tales has had an influence on his celebrated His Dark Materials trilogy.

Radio 3 audiences will also hear from playwright and poet John Agard, who wrote the poetry anthology Goldilocks on CCTV, which transforms the romantic German heroines of the Grimms' tales into adventurers and troublemakers in a contemporary, multicultural society.

And Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy will explain how the Grimm brothers' heroes and villains have appeared in many of her collections, including The World's Wife and Beast and Beauties.

The interviews will be broadcast on BBC Radio 3's In Tune, beginning on Monday 3 September.

 
You can also read more at The Guardian:

The writers on the Radio 3 shows offer their own interpretations of the tales. Terry Pratchett said his work was heavily influenced by the Grimms and his story, The Amazing Morris and his Educated Rodents, is a retelling of their Pied Piper of Hamelin. "They [Grimms' tales] hang in the ether. We probably first met them at school," he said. Because of this he used the tales extensively in his work; "knowing that we all know the fairy tales means that someone like me can play a lot of tunes with them knowing that I don't have to explain an awful lot to people".

 
And on Graeme Kay's blog.

It seemed a simple idea. Take five of the country’s leading writers, put them in a studio and ask them to read their version of a Brothers Grimm story. What better way to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the most beloved fairy tales in the world? How exciting, to place these great writers side by side and spot all their many differences.

The Grimm Tales, Sir Terry Pratchett told us, ‘seem to exist in the ether’: Goldilocks, Cinderella, Snow White, Rapunzel, Sleeping Beauty, Little Red Riding Hood, in paintings, stories, films, songs, plays, operas, twisted versions without the happy endings, cleaned up stories for children with all the blood and gore removed, strongly moral retellings, dusty books with illustrations and plates, ballets, fashion shoots, Disney, Disney, and more Disney. The Grimm’s Fairy Tales are everywhere, and in each re-imagining they are enormously different.

Like most children, I read the Grimm Tales and loved them, confusing them in my mind with all the other stories and legends I came across. I first discovered the Grimm Tales rewritten through Carol Ann Duffy’s The World’s Wife. Her poems led me to Angela Carter and Marina Warner, and from there I was hooked. Then this spring Penguin announced that Philip Pullman would be producing a new volume for this anniversary, I discovered that In Tune presenter Suzy Klein also loved the Grimm Tales, and this miniature series was born.

I haven't quite figured out the listening options for those in the UK and those outside it, but here is a list of the upcoming episodes (this link won't archive for those reading this past this week).

Bargain Ebook: The Frog Princess (Tales of the Frog Princess) by E. D. Baker

The Frog Princess (Tales of the Frog Princess) by E. D. Baker is bargain priced to $.99 in ebook format. This is a repeater since this book has been discounted previously, I believe most recently was last December. The recent drop is most likely in anticipation of Baker's upcoming October release, Unlocking the Spell: A Tale of the Wide-Awake Princess, the sequel to The Wide-Awake Princess. But that book will get its own post closer to release date.

Book description for The Frog Princess:

Princess Emeralda isn't exactly an ideal princess. Her laugh is like a donkey's bray rather than tinkling bells, she trips over her own feet and she does NOT like Prince Jorge, whom her mother hopes she will marry. But if Emma ever thought to escape her life, she never expected it to happen by turning into a frog! When convinced to kiss a frog so he might return to being a Prince, somehow the spell is reversed and Emma turns into a frog herself! Thus begins the adventure - a quest to return to human form.

Fascinating and hilarious characters ranging from a self-conscious but friendly bat to a surprisingly loyal snake and a wise old green witch confirm that readers won't soon forget this madcap story! A fantastic debut from the talented E.D. Baker.

Look for the other exciting books in this series: A Prince Among Frogs, Dragon Kiss, Dragon's Breath, The Dragon Princess, Once Upon a Curse, No Place for Magic, and The Salamander Spell!

Bargain Book: Dark of the Moon by Tracy Barrett

Dark of the Moon by Tracy Barrett is bargain priced in both hardcover and ebook format. The ebook pricing appears to be based upon the hardcover so it will fluctuate according to the demand and inventory on the hardcover most likely. In other words, don't wait if this one interests you because it's not part of the monthly deals. The ebook went as low as $1.58 this week and has been edging up again to $2.00 this past hour. The hardcover is currently $2.11.

Book description:

Ariadne is destined to become a goddess of the moon. She leads a lonely life, filled with hours of rigorous training by stern priestesses. Her former friends no longer dare to look at her, much less speak to her. All that she has left are her mother and her beloved, misshapen brother Asterion, who must be held captive below the palace for his own safety.

So when a ship arrives one spring day, bearing a tribute of slaves from Athens, Ariadne sneaks out to meet it. These newcomers don’t know the ways of Krete; perhaps they won’t be afraid of a girl who will someday be a powerful goddess. And indeed she meets Theseus, the son of the king of Athens. Ariadne finds herself drawn to the newcomer, and soon they form a friendship—one that could perhaps become something more. Yet Theseus is doomed to die as an offering to the Minotaur, that monster beneath the palace—unless he can kill the beast first. And that "monster" is Ariadne’s brother . . .

I don't highlight many myth inspired novels here on SurLaLune although they certainly fit in the parameters of the site's purpose. Barrett is also a professor of Italian at Vanderbilt University and active in the Nashville area with the writing community, primarily children's and YA authors. This book is a fine entry into her body of work which has been crossed fantasy, historical and mystery genres. It's hard not to find inspiration for Greek mythology in Nashville with our very own Parthenon and Athena to visit.

September Ebook Bargains

It's September and time for a new list of 100 Books for $3.99 or Less in ebook format from Amazon. There is one heavily fairy tale influenced novel and a few more picks that I chose to highlight here but do browse them all. The prices usually last for the entire month although books have been known to disappear from the list early, so don't wait until the end of the month if you are truly interested in a title.

Darkwood by M. E. Breen is $1.99. This is the fairy tale influenced one although not one particular fairy tale takes center stage.

Book description:

Darkness falls so quickly in Howland that the people there have no word for evening. But for thirteen-yearold Annie, the dark is almost soothing compared to the misery of her cruel aunt and uncle's house. When Annie finally escapes, she finds herself on a journey that will take her deep into the forest-where fearsome creatures lurk-and to the glittering halls of a palace. Hints of the Brothers Grimm add magic to this spellbinding and beautifully told story.

The Extra-Ordinary Princess by Carolyn Q. Ebbitt is also $1.99.

Book description:

Princess Amelia is the least likely person to become queen of the land of Gossling, from her position as the fourth daughter to her non-princessy ways. But when a plague sweeps the land, kills her parents, and leaves her evil uncle in power, it is Amelia who must find the courage to save her kingdom-and her sisters. Readers will be thoroughly enchanted by the coming-of-age of an unlikely princess.

The Farwalker's Quest by Joni Sensel is $1.99. This one is also bargain priced in paperback and hardcover although those prices may not last throughout the month.

Book description:

Ariel has always been curious, but when she and her best friend Zeke stumble upon a mysterious old telling dart she feels an unexplained pull toward the dart, and to figuring out what it means. Magically flying great distances and only revealing their messages to the intended recipient, telling darts haven't been used for years, and no one knows how they work. So when two strangers show up looking for the dart, Ariel and Zeke realize that their discovery is not only interesting, but very dangerous. The telling dart, and the strangers, leads them to a journey more perilous and encompassing than either can imagine, and in the process both Zeke and Ariel find their true calling.

Bargain Ebooks Today Only: Jessica Day George

Dragon Slippers and Dragon Flight and Dragon Spear by Jessica Day George are each priced at $1.99 in ebook format for the Kindle Daily Deal on Amazon today only. I already owned the first one but ordered the second two myself.

This trilogy marks George's publishing debut and she has gone on to write several fairy tale inspired novels, including the upcoming Princess of the Silver Woods (Twelve Dancing Princesses), which will be released this December in the US.

Book description for Dragon Slippers:

DRAGON SLIPPERS, the first of three enchanting DRAGON books from Jessica Day George!

For Creel's continuing adventures, look for DRAGON FLIGHT and DRAGON SPEAR.

Poor Creel. She can't believe her aunt wants to sacrifice her to the local dragon. It's a ploy to lure a heroic knight so that he will fight the dragon, marry Creel out of chivalrous obligation, and lift the entire family out of poverty. Creel isn't worried. After all, nobody has seen a dragon in centuries.

But when the beast actually appears, Creel not only bargains with him for her life, she also ends up with a rare bit of treasure from his hoard, not gold or jewels, but a pair of simple blue slippers-or so she thinks. It's not until later that Creel learns a shocking truth: She possesses not just any pair of shoes, but ones that could be used to save her kingdom, which is on the verge of war, or destroy it.

Jessica Day George makes a memorable debut in this enchanting tale of dragons, betrayals, and the power of friendship.

Price Drop and Deal on ABC's Once Upon a Time DVD Set

Once Upon a Time: The Complete First Season has dropped to $29.99 on Amazon this week. If you preordered, you should receive a refund if you paid more than that.

Also, there is a way to save more on it through a special deal on ABC TV DVD sets.

Save $10 on Hot New ABC TV Titles

Order two eligible ABC television titles like Once Upon A Time: The Complete First Season 5-Disc DVD or Castle: The Complete Fourth Season 5-Disc DVD to save $10 on your total purchase. Offer ends September 30, 2012.

There are several DVD sets to choose from--my personal pick would be Castle, of course, since there have been a couple of fairy tale inspired episodes from them over the years.

Grimm's Fairytale Food by Bee Wilson

 
Here are the covers for Fairy Tales from the Brothers Grimm: A New English Version by Philip Pullman. So which cover do you prefer? The first is the US edition and the second is the UK. And this time I have to admit I am drawn to both since they are just so very different from each other and their strengths are polar opposite. But these are still a month away from release but I wanted to share a recent article about the book. The book will be released in September in the UK and in November in the US.

From Grimm's fairytale food by Bee Wilson:

Grimm's Fairy Tales, first published in 1812, are about many things: magic and families, wickedness and talking animals. But running through many of them is a brutal obsession with food. The Brothers Grimm (Jacob and Wilhelm) collected stories of hunger: what horrors it will drive some people to and how sweet it feels to satisfy it.

The end of September sees a new version of 50 of the tales from Philip Pullman, Grimm Tales: For Young and Old (Penguin, £20). Pullman has wisely changed the tales very little. But he does sprinkle them with new imaginative details, and he has fleshed out many of the meals. In one story the Brothers Grimm say that a greedy stepsister brings bread and cake on a journey. Pullman changes this to chicken-liver pâté sandwiches and chocolate cake.

In another tale ('One Eye, Two Eyes and Three Eyes') a girl meets a magic goat who can summon up delicious meals for her. Pullman imagines exactly how delicious: 'leek soup, roast chicken and strawberries and cream'. What Pullman doesn't change is the utter fixation of the Grimms with hunger.

****

Jacob and Wilhelm knew the pain of an empty belly. Despite a comfortable background, they were plunged into hardship when their father died of pneumonia in 1796. By the time they were writing their collection of folklore in the early 1800s they were depriving themselves of food to support younger siblings. At breakfast they drank a single cup of coffee. Their only meal was a five o'clock dinner, three portions shared between five people. To add to the misery, Jacob wrote of how he missed the 'order' of mealtimes at his mother's table (she died in 1808).

Part of what gives these tales such enduring power is their sense of home, intimately connected to the security of being fed. There is a voice that pops up repeatedly in Grimm. It says, 'I'll tell you a secret and you won't be hungry anymore.' This is still a magical thing to hear before you go to sleep.

American Folklore Society's 2012 Annual Meeting

The American Folklore Society's Annual Meeting is coming soon and the deadline to register at a discounted rate is August 31st. "The Society's 2012 annual meeting (its 124th such gathering) will be held on October 24-27 at the historic Hotel Monteleone in New Orleans, Louisiana." My own attendance is still undecided but I highly recommend attending as well as becoming a member of AFS if you are not already.

I've pulled the fairy tale related papers from the 60 page program. There is always plenty to hear and see at the meeting but highlighting fairy tale discussions is SurLaLune's purpose.

Here they are:

09-12
Fairy Tales I: Uses and Reinventions
(See also 17-16)
Bienville
Corrie M. Kiesel (Louisiana State University), chair
8:00 Robin Parent (Utah State University), From Martyr to Hero: Exploring Young
Adult Agency in Dystopian Stories Through the Intersection of Fairy Tale and
Feminism
8:30 Anne E. Duggan (Wayne State University), Fairy Tale and Melodrama:
Rewriting "Sleeping Beauty" and "Cinderella" in Lola and The Umbrellas of
Cherbourg
9:00 Danielle M. Roemer (Northern Kentucky University), Sara Gallardo's "The
Bluestone Emperor's Thirty-Three Wives": The Toxicity of the Fairy Tale Ideal
9:30 Corrie M. Kiesel (Louisiana State University), Restaging Blame: "Female
Curiosity!! and Male Atrocity!!!" in Victorian Bluebeard Dramas

17-16
Fairy Tales II: Study and Translation
(See also 09-12)
Ursuline
Esther Clinton (Bowling Green State University), chair
8:00 Miriam Shrager (Indiana University), Pagan Origins of Russian Fairytales
8:30 Christine A. Jones (University of Utah), Charles Perrault's Patois: On
French Fairy Tales and the Art of Translation
9:00 Esther Clinton (Bowling Green State University), Roland as Helper in the
Female Hero's Flight

18-10
Grim(m) Monsters: Revising Fairy Tale Monstrosity in Fantastic Literature
Sponsored by the Folk Narrative Section
Royal A
Linda J. Lee (University of Pennsylvania), chair
10:15 Brittany B. Warman (The Ohio State University), Sleeping Monsters:
Reclaiming the Scandalous History of "Sleeping Beauty"
Updated 7/18/12
10:45 Linda J. Lee (University of Pennsylvania), Grim(m) Metamorphoses: Shape-
Shifting Heroes in Fantastic Fiction
11:15 Sara Cleto (The Ohio State University), Beauty and the Beast Within: New
Visions of Monstrosity in an Old Tale
11:45 K. Elizabeth Spillman (LeMoyne College), Revising "The Robber
Bridegroom": Stepmonsters and Murderesses

12-04
Transgressive Tales I: Grimms' Bad Girls and Old Women
Sponsored by the LGBTQA Section and the Folk Narrative Section
(See also 13-04)
Royal B
Pauline Greenhill (University of Winnipeg), chair
1:30 Andrew Friedenthal (University of Texas, Austin), The Lost Sister: Lesbian
Eroticism and Female Empowerment in "Snow White and Rose Red"
2:00 Kay F. Turner (New York University), Rising in Flame: Lesbian Anticipation
in Grimms' "Frau Trude"
2:30 Kevin Goldstein (New York University), The Wise Woman as Type in "The
Goose Girl at the Spring"
Updated 7/18/12
3:00 Cristina Bacchilega (University of Hawai’i, Mānoa), From Fool to Trickster:
"Clever Else" Is No Joke

13-04
Transgressive Tales II: Transforming Transgressions
Sponsored by the Folk Narrative Section; LGBTQA Section
(See also 12-04)
Royal B
Kay F. Turner (New York University), chair
3:45 Kimberly J. Lau (University of California, Santa Cruz), Sleeping Beauty's
Queer Double: Narrative Hauntings and Vampire Longings in Angela Carter's
"The Lady of the House of Love"
4:15 Margaret Yocom (George Mason University), "Who are You Really?":
Ambiguous Bodies and Ambiguous Pronouns in "Allerleirauh"
4:45 Jennifer Orme (Ryerson University), Happily Ever After...According to Our
Taste: Jeanette Winterson's Twelve Dancing Princesses and Queer
Possibility

05-06
Classic Folklore Genres: Folktale, Proverb, Lament, and Epic
Royal D
Dan Ben-Amos (University of Pennsylvania), chair
3:45 Eila Stepanova (University of Helsinki), "I Would Sue the Gods, but I
Cannot": The Creativity of Karelian Lamenters
4:15 Mr Frog (University of Helsinki), Contextualizing Creativity in an Archival
Corpus: The Case of Kalevala-Meter Mythology
4:45 Wolfgang Mieder (University of Vermont), "To Build Castles in Spain": The
Story of an English Proverbial Expression
5:15 Dan Ben-Amos (University of Pennsylvania), Old Problems Never Die,
Neither Do They Fade Away: The Diffusion of Tales