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84d2cbe
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It was Joss Whedon's Buffy the Vampire Slayer (the television series, 1997-2003, not the lackluster movie that preceded it) that blazed the trail for Twilight and the slew of other paranormal romance novels that followed, while also shaping the broader urban fantasy field from the late 1990s onward. Many of you reading this book will be too young to remember when Buffy debuted, so you'll have to trust us when we say that nothing quite like..
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joss-whedon
pop-culture
twilight
vampires
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Ellen Datlow & Terri Windling |
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89e6722
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Some years ago I had a conversation with a man who thought that writing and editing fantasy books was a rather frivolous job for a grown woman like me. He wasn't trying to be contentious, but he himself was a probation officer, working with troubled kids from the Indian reservation where he'd been raised. Day in, day out, he dealt in a concrete way with very concrete problems, well aware that his words and deeds could change young lives for..
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myth
fantasy
charles-de-lint
power-of-stories
troubled-backgrounds
magical-realism
childhood
mythic-fiction
folklore
urban-fantasy
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Terri Windling |
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98cda60
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Oh, don't get me started! I love fantasy, I read it for pleasure, even after all these years. Pat McKillip, Ursula Le Guin and John Crowley are probably my favorite writers in the field, in addition to all the writers in the Endicott Studio group - but there are many others I also admire. In children's fantasy, I'm particularly keen on Philip Pullman, Donna Jo Napoli, David Almond and Jane Yolen - though my favorite novels recently were Mid..
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reading
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Terri Windling |
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79ad5ab
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Silence is another element we find in classic fairy tales -- girls muted by magic or sworn to silence in order to break enchantment. In "The Wild Swans," a princess is imprisoned by her stepmother, rolled in filth, then banished from home (as her older brothers had been before her). She goes in search of her missing brothers, discovers that they've been turned into swans, whereupon the young girl vows to find a way to break the spell. A mys..
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folk-tales
hans-christian-andersen
swans
the-wild-swans
tranformation
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Terri Windling |
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4c8a5b3
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Contemporary writers use animal-transformation themes to explore issues of gender, sexuality, race, culture, and the process of transformation...just as storytellers have done, all over the world, for many centuries past. One distinct change marks modern retellings, however, reflecting our changed relationship to animals and nature. In a society in which most of us will never encounter true danger in the woods, the big white bear who comes ..
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fairy-tales
myth
fantasy
shape-shifting
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Terri Windling |
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d43d3e3
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Fairy tales for adult readers remained popular throughout Europe well into the 19th century -- particularly in Germany, where the Brothers Grimm published their massive collection of German fairy tales (revised and edited to reflect the Brothers' patriotic and patriarchal ideals), providing inpiration for novelists, poets, and playrights among the German Romantics. Recently, fairy tale scholars have re-discovered the enormous body of work p..
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feminism
germany
fairy-tales-for-adults
magical-stories
stories
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Terri Windling |
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e3055b3
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There are a number of good books that draw upon fox legends -- foremost among them, Kij Johnson's exquisite novel . I also recommend Neil Gaiman's (with the Japanese artist Yoshitaka Amano); Larissa Lai's unusual novel, ; Helen Oyeyemi's recent novel, ; and Ellen Steiber's gorgeous urban fantasy novel, , as well as her heart-breaking novella "The Fox Wife" (published in ). For younger readers, try the "Legend of Little Fur" series b..
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fox
folklore
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Terri Windling |
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10aac19
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To most people today, the name Snow White evokes visions of dwarfs whistling as they work, and a wide-eyed, fluttery princess singing, "Some day my prince will come." (A friend of mine claims this song is responsible for the problems of a whole generation of American women.) Yet the Snow White theme is one of the darkest and strangest to be found in the fairy tale canon -- a chilling tale of murderous rivalry, adolescent sexual ripening, po..
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fairy-tales-for-adults
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Terri Windling |
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98bee51
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I owe a huge debt to Anais Nin, because I fell into her diaries, essays, and collected letters in my Twenties and Thirties like a fish falling into water. She was, in some ways, a deeply flawed human being, and perhaps she makes a strange kind of hero for someone like me, committed to the ethical and spiritual dimensions of my craft as well as to the technical ones, but a hero and strong influence she remains nonetheless.
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reading
writing
inspiring
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Terri Windling |
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2504cee
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These days I live in a magical little village on Dartmoor in Devon, England, and my "special spot" is a moss-covered rock in a circle of trees in the woods behind my house.
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nature
inspirational
get-away
rural-setting
urban-setting
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Terri Windling |
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44c490d
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Back in the "leather and lace" eighties, I was the fantasy editor for a publishing company in New York City. It was a great time to be young and footloose on the streets of Manhattan--punk rock and folk music were everywhere; Blondie, the Eurythmics, Cyndi Lauper, and Prince were all strutting their stuff on the newly created MTV; and the eighties' sense of style meant I could wear my scruffy black leather into the office without turning to..
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fantasy
80s
80s-nostalgia
new-york
nostalgia
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Terri Windling |
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9daf1f9
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Like many of the kids I write about, I once was a runaway myself--and a few (but not all) of the other writers in the series also come from troubled backgrounds. That early experience influences my fiction, no doubt, but I don't think it's necessary to come from such a background in order to write a good Bordertown tale. To me, "running away to Bordertown" is as much a metaphorical act as an actual one. These tales aren't just for kids who ..
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writing
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Terri Windling |
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81b5535
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I've been very influenced by folklore, fairy tales, and folk ballads, so I love all the classic works based on these things -- like 's 19th century fairy stories, the fairy poetry of , and 's splendid book . (I think that particular book of hers wasn't published until the 1970s, not long before her death, but she was an English writer popular in the middle decades of the 20th century.) I'm also a big Pre-Raphaelite fan, so I love earl..
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fairy-tales
reading
folk-ballads
folklore
influences
pre-raphaelite
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Terri Windling |
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fb1b8ff
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I find myself most drawn to: art that has arisen from a deeply personal conversation between the artist and the work at hand. It is art that walks perilously close to the Edge, that crosses the river of blood into Faerie, that flies so high it is scorched by the sun, and then returns to tell the tale to us. It is art that
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creating
artists
creative
inspirational
making
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Terri Windling |
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0d7be9f
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I lived in New York City back in the 1980s, which is when the Bordertown series was created. New York was a different place then -- dirtier, edgier, more dangerous, but also in some ways more exciting. The downtown music scene was exploding -- punk and folk music were everywhere -- and it wasn't as expensive to live there then, so a lot of young artists, musicians, writers, etc. etc. were all living and doing crazy things in scruffy neighbo..
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young-adult
fantasy
bordertown
urban-fantasy
ya
young-adult-urban-fantasy
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Terri Windling |
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10014eb
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I love so many books and authors that it's hard to name just a few, but I'm always particularly excited when new books by and come out. (And, of course, books by , and , and the rest of the Bordertown crew!) I'm impatiently looking forward to
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reading
favorites
interests
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Terri Windling |
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20e07eb
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In England in the 19th century, advances in printing methods, combined with the rise of a prosperous middle class, engendered a booming new industry of books published just for children. Casting about for cheap story material, English publishers laid hands on the subtle, sensual adult fairy tales of the Continental tradition and revised them into simpler stories instilled with Victorian values. Although these simplified versions retained mu..
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feminism
fairy-tales-for-adults
magical-stories
stories
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Terri Windling |
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15050a6
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It's my latest," Goldy concluded, "my best, and the one which the New York Times recently described as 'thrilling, sad, heartbreaking' and 'packs a huge wallop.' Entitled The Goldilocks Syndrome, it's currently available in the lobby at a today-only discount of $21.95. And if you act now, I'll sign and date this sucker at no extra charge."
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Ellen Datlow & Terri Windling |
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39e4818
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I only laid the cobbles for the streets of Bordertown; it took all of us, an entire community, to bring the city to life. And that's as it should be. Community, friendship, art: stirred together, they make a powerful magic. Used wisely, it can save your life. I know that it saved mine.
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Terri Windling |