Once Upon a Time Today is my new collection of contemporary fairy tales. The prelude to the collection includes three short stories that are loosely based on my own life: The Girl Who Watched for Elves, The Girl Who Dreamed of Red Shoes, and The Girl Who Couldn't Sing. Although they're each fictionalized to a degree, their essence tells the story of a girl (me!) who believed in fairy tales and how that has helped her (me!) navigate the journey we call life.
I thought telling those stories would make a fun prelude because I don't just love fairy tales, I kind of believe in them too. I've been reading Bruno Bettelheim's The Uses of Enchantment almost the entire year and it has helped me understand that my love for and fascination with fairy tales is rooted in my other passion which is depth psychology. Depth psychology believes, trusts, and values the unconscious. I do too!
The novellas in the collection will be retellings of popular and obscure fairy tales, The first one is Beautiful Beautiful and it's a retelling of the Hans Christian Andersen tale, Beautiful. Please visit the following blogs to discover the girl-who-couldn't-sing's musical influences, the Beautiful Beautiful soundtrack, dream casts, excerpts from each story, and to see what the bloggers are saying about the collection! There's also a giveaway. The-girl-who-couldn't-sing produced a CD in 2000, so one of the giveaway prizes will be:
Exclusive vintage t-shirts from the-girl-who-couldn't-sing's Indie Coffee House Tour
Groovy pink & blue Happily Ever After bracelets
And the always awesome $25 Amazon gift card!
Billie at Billie's Pink Reviews performs her book blogging magic as she interprets each of the stories in the Once Upon a Time Today collection.
The next novella in the collection will be a retelling of The Little Mermaid. At A Backward's Story there's a guest post on what else? Mermaid Research!
Jessica at The Big Book Blog loves The Girl Who Watched for Elves, The Girl Who Dreamed of Red Shoes, and Beautiful Beautiful!
At Dazzled by Books, Ali's favorite story in the collection is The Girl Who Dreamed of Red Shoes.
At Katie's Corner the favorites are Beautiful Beautiful and The Girl Who Couldn't Sing.
MichaelSciFan asked me what I would change about Beautiful Beautiful (I told him!) and there are more excerpts from the collection.
alwaysjoart has a great post featuring the collection Dream Casts and Playlists!
And there's another music showcase at Much Loved Books!
The next novella in the collection will be a retelling of The Little Mermaid. At A Backward's Story there's a guest post on what else? Mermaid Research!
Jessica at The Big Book Blog loves The Girl Who Watched for Elves, The Girl Who Dreamed of Red Shoes, and Beautiful Beautiful!
At Dazzled by Books, Ali's favorite story in the collection is The Girl Who Dreamed of Red Shoes.
At Katie's Corner the favorites are Beautiful Beautiful and The Girl Who Couldn't Sing.
MichaelSciFan asked me what I would change about Beautiful Beautiful (I told him!) and there are more excerpts from the collection.
And there's another music showcase at Much Loved Books!