Here are just some of my favourites from my 2021 reading: ‘The Blind Woman Without a Toe’, by Intan Paramaditha, from the collection Apple and Knife Paramaditha’s short story collection reimagines fairy and folk tales, with a dark twist. This particular story is a fun retelling of Cinderella, while the others are tales from the author’sContinue reading “My top 10 of 2021”
Tag Archives: fairy tales
A short story for Halloween
‘A Better Place’ by Ottessa Moshfegh Read it here in less than an hour. Thinking about why it’s unsettling… In the first paragraph, our narrator, Urszula, says she’s not from Earth, but from ‘some other place’. This is a young girl speaking, as indicated by the childish tone, the vocabulary (‘silly people’), and her inabilityContinue reading “A short story for Halloween”
A short story I recently read
‘Sleeping Beauty’ by Laura Demers Read it here in 18 minutes. Thinking about intertextuality… Intertextuality simply means there’s a link between one text and another. ‘Text’ here doesn’t just refer to literature; it could refer to any text, such as art or music or architecture. Some theorists argue all stories are intertextual, because every storyContinue reading “A short story I recently read”
Book review
‘Educated’ by Tara Westover An Extract from the opening is available here. This is the beautiful and shocking memoir of a woman who grew up in a difficult family situation, but escaped (in every sense of the word) through education. She lost a lot in the process, but gained a tremendous amount as well, althoughContinue reading “Book review”
Three of my favourite short stories
The Company of Wolves, by Angela Carter I love adaptations, especially of fairy tales, folk tales, and myths. Adaptations offer endless possibilities for the creation of new worlds and meanings, but within the familiarity of old tales. This particular short story adapts the Little Red Riding Hood oral folk tale, but subverts its original messageContinue reading “Three of my favourite short stories”
Mina Ma 