I love fairytales. As a child my favourite one was The Twelve
Dancing Princesses, who got locked in their room but escaped through a magic
door to a place where they danced till dawn, then returned in the morning to be
found in their beds, their shoes mysteriously muddy and torn to shreds. As a
little girl I was also "locked" in my room, bed-ridden, unable to
move, recovering from injuries I sustained in an experimental orthopedic
surgery gone wrong. When I eventually learned to walk I tore my own shoes to
shreds. When I read the story as a young teen, I was in the story, I was the
thirteenth dancing princess, together with them I too made my escape.
Very special to this journal is the section devoted to fairy
tales. We are especially in search of new tellings of traditional Caribbean
folk tales with a womanish twist. (Anansi as a woman, anyone? Did Brer Rabbie
have a sister? What's she up to these days? Did the Gaulin Wife leave a
daughter behind when she turned into a big black bird and flew away? And we
love brand new tales too, with new characters and quests entirely of your own
imagining, as long as they are full of the wondrous magic that exists only in
the world of fairy tales, folk tales and myths, and "take us on a descent
to find something that was lost and bring it back to consciousness again."
What have we lost as Caribbean women in the patriarchy? What do
we have to do to get it back? We're calling for the fairytales and myths by a new generation of writers that
show us the way for the upcoming WomanSpeak.
Please send your stories and art in an email attachment to lynnsweeting@gmail.com. Deadline for submissions is April 30, 2013.
I cannot wait to read your wonderful stories.
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