Unsettling Wonder

We craft and tell stories because we’ve stood on the uncertain edge between the waking world and our imagination, between enchantment and fear. And we remember other stories that help us build our own stories, scraps of lumber and fragments of narrative we gather together to make stories for ourselves.

Unsettling Wonder is a new fairytale journal dedicated to the retelling and re-imagining of traditional fairytales and folktales.  Not so much putting a new spin on them, as understanding their eternal relevance:

We want to tell these tales, not as deconstruction or subversion, not as nostalgia or sentiment, but in the same way these stories have always been told—spun out and re-imagined by the tale-teller in the moment of telling, for the ones who hear it, to reclaim the magic of story.

Unsettling Wonder has only just been born, and in the way of fairytales parents we, its founders, are still looking it proudly, scratching our heads and wondering what it will make of life. Has it been born in a caul, or under a lucky star? Will its godmother be the Fairy of Good Fortune, or the sinister black-cowled figure of La Muerte?  Is it even a child, or just a bristly half-hedgehog? Anyway, do come to the christening!

The website is live, so please visit to find out more about who we are and what we hope to do.  You'll find an introductory article by me about the long history of fairytales and why we still want to write them.  And I'll keep you posted as Unsettling Wonder grows, develops, and - we hope - finds its place in the world.