ONLINE EVENT — ECO FAIRY TALES
Four Magical Writers Discuss the Climate Crisis
Can fairy tales teach us anything about our current climate crisis? A FREE live panel discussion presented by Orion Magazine & Artist Communities Alliance
Orion Magazine and Artist Communities Alliance present four magical writers in conversation about what we can learn from fairy tales in a time of crisis. Their work appeared in Orion’s Summer 2023 issue. The panel will include Aimee Bender, Kelly Link, and Carmen Maria Machado. Moderating the event will be Kate Bernheimer, editor of the Fairy Tale Review. (Event description)
All these savvy, Wonder women in one place, talking about what fairy tales can teach us that’s directly applicable today? Sign me up! (Confession: I did that before I started typing.)
There appears to be plans for Orion Magazine to record this event but this is not confirmed at this time. In other words, don’t take the chance of missing out — being on live, even just in live chat, with all the fairy tale aficionados already signing up is such a cool thing, it’s a reason all by itself to join. The enchanting writers on the panel are absolutely the big draw here, though. I’ll get to them shortly. Event details first!
When: Thursday, June 29th, 2023
Time: 10am Pacific Daylight Time
Where: Online via zoom
Cost: FREE!
Yep — this event is FREE but you must register to reserve a spot! You can do that HERE.
This panel discussion is inspired by the latest issue, Summer 2023, of Orion Magazine, which you can see details of below. Orion Magazine focuses on “Nature and Culture” and uses writing and art to show the connection between people and nature, inspiring us to be responsible for our natural home (you can read more about their focus here). I’ve linked to the website in case you’re interested in purchasing a copy of this special issue for yourself:
If you click on the above image you’ll be taken to the issue page on Orion Magazine’s website which has a bunch of essays and stories from this issue you can read for FREE, just to give you a taste of the themes and perspectives the panel will have. Also, it’s a brilliant read, so gift yourself a few minutes there and scroll down to read some gems. Here’s a description of what’s inside:
IT’S A NEW TAKE on old cautionary tales. In our Summer 2023 issue, The Deep Dark Burning Woods: Fairytales for the Climate Crisis, we explore the ecology of this ancient storytelling tradition, one rife with lessons, warnings, and hope. Inside, Ken Liu constructs a fairytale with the help of an unlikely sidekick: AI. Anne Frank is a warrior princess in Kate Bernheimer’s close reading of The Diary of a Young Girl. Carmen Maria Machado and Kelly Link discuss horror, fairytales, and why the terrifying is sublime. Kate Lebo eats oysters and remembers selkies. Kapka Kassabova celebrates the impossible survival of a colorful Breznitsan tradition. And much more! (Orion Magazine — Summer 2023 Issue)
The Magical Kate Bernheimer (Moderator)
I specifically want to highlight the work and influence of fairy tale maven, Kate Bernheimer, who is moderating the panel. If you’ve spent any time in fairy tale scholarship, or in writing that uses or is influenced by fairy tales, chances are very good you will have come across the work of Kate Bernheimer (continued below image).
Kate has been processing the world through the lens of fairy tales for most of her life. She’s a fairy tale scholar, writer, and editor, and a World Fantasy Award winner for her work. My Mother She Killed Me, My Father He Ate Me: Forty New Fairy Tale is a standout short story collection for good reason. Her books, anthologies, interviews, and the journal she founded and is the editor for, Fairy Tale Review, have left indelible marks on the lives of anyone studying fairy tales.
She’s also a truly lovely and super cool person, who generously gives her time and expertise to nurture writers and fairy tale aficionados, no matter their background or experience.
My personal favorite of her books remains, after many years, and many more wonderful works, Mirror, Mirror On the Wall. It’s a collection of essays from well-known literary women who answered Kate’s question: What is your favorite fairy tale or tales and why? The book is a wonderfully curated and edited treasure box that explores the personal influence of fairy tales on twenty-eight contemporary women writers (including Margaret Atwood, Fay Weldon, Joyce Carol Oates, A.S. Byatt n many others) and why those tales remain important in their lives. The responses range from personal essays to scholarly deep-dives and vary as much as the women who wrote them. With much of the attention having been on male authorship and scholarship before this was published, there’s no other book quite like it. I’d love to see a second volume with all new, younger writers of every gender, queer included, who grew up under the influence of the many writers in this book! The companion edition, Brothers and Beasts, in which Kate asks the same question to well-known male authors, is fabulous too, and again, is a very unique window into how fairy tales have affected writers today.
Just to prove Kate considers fairy tales in every context, she recently published a book with her architect brother titled Fairy Tale Architecture — a completely unexpected meeting of two disciplines that inform each other in this very unique and fascinating book. The designs take real-world approaches to designing a tower for Rapunzel, Baba Yaga’s chicken-legged house, and many other distinguishing buildings from the fairy tale landscape. It’s contemporary, unexpected, and very thought-provoking.
How can old fairy tales teach us anything about our current climate crisis?
This is currently a huge topic of study and interest in fairy tale scholarship, but don’t worry. Orion Magazine’s event isn’t going to be like listening to Academics discussing the subject, though you can be sure these folks will be solid in their research. The writers they’ve assembled will be approaching the subject from both an artistic standpoint of view and current media — and social media — angles.
The essays on Orion Magazine’s Summer Issue online page touch on a wide variety of areas, from the influence of AI to the need to return to nature for our health. In the panel, we can expect we’ll be looking at the woods in the Grimm’s Tales for some ideas about nature in fairy tales, but what about fairy tales informing us about climate issues?
There have been various “movements” throughout the centuries in which concerns about industrialization, or separation from nature have given rise to new variations of old tales, and brand new tales too. Hans Christian Andersen returned to themes of “ecological devastation” a number of times in his work. Sleeping Beauty — over a number of variations — has a lot to say about nature versus industry too, while indigenous tales from almost every culture address the importance of caring for our planet.
But fairy tales take many forms and can mean many things, depending on who’s telling them and who’s hearing them. It’s not about getting a set of instructions about what to do. It’s about reflecting on who we are right now, how we got here, and what needs transforming in order to make it to the end of our journey, (preferably happily and ever after, though that’s much easier said than done).
I’m looking forward to seeing which fairy tales are discussed, and the different ways these writers feel those tales can inform us about our current planetary crisis. I’m also looking forward to coming away with new perspectives and ideas to give us hope and direction for this seemingly-impossible task of healing the planet.
There is a certain magic that happens when people who see Wonder come together. I’m looking forward to being part of it.
Further reading on ecology and fairy tales:
Beware the Woods: 10 Memorable Forests From Literature — Orion Magazine
How 19th century fairy tales expressed anxieties about ecological devastation by Victoria Tedeschi (University of Melbourne)
We need new fairy stories and folk tales to guide us out of today’s dark woods by Andrew Simms (The Guardian)
Fairy Tales and Ecological Thinking by Dr. Sara Cleto and Dr. Brittany Warman (Carterhaugh School of Folklore and the Fantastic)
Fairy Tales and the Stewardship of Nature by Elliot Blackwell (Into the Forest Dark)
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Gypsy Thornton (she/her) is the Guardian of a chicken-legged coffee cup with a mind of its own. A night owl forced to get up with larks, she often describes herself as liminal and is forever trying to do impossible things before breakfast. She can only be seen in her true form after midnight.
