Once Upon a Time: New Fairy Tales Paperback Read Free

something about the writing of
    their story and/or what fairy tales meant to them. I think you’ll find the comments introducing each story far more illuminating than
    what I have provided here.
    For the last few months, I’ve been keeping this treasury of wonder,
    if not locked up in a tower, at least all to myself. Now it is time to allow you to experience these wonderful new fairy stories and their
    marvelously varied ever afters.
    Paula Guran
    June 2013
    Online Sources for Fairy Tales Old and New
    Cabinet des Fées (www.cabinetdesfees.com) celebrates fairy tales in all of their manifestations: in print, in film, in academia, and on the web. Also hosts two fiction zines.
    Endicott Studio (endicottstudio.typepad.com) is an interdisciplinary organization dedicated to the creation and support of mythic art.
    Their Journal of Mythic Arts appeared online from 1997 to 2008. Site includes essays, stories, and musings on folklore, modern magical
    fiction, and related topics.
    SurLaLune Fairy Tales (www.surlalunefairytales.com) features forty-nine annotated fairy tales, including their histories, similar tales across cultures, modern interpretations and over 1,500 illustrations..
    Fairy Tale Review (digitalcommons.wayne.edu/fairytalereview) is an annual literary journal dedicated to publishing new fairy-tale fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. The journal seeks to expand the conversation about fairy tales among practitioners, scholars, and general readers.
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    • 15 •

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    This story was originally written in exchange for a donation to
    help survivors of Hurricane Katrina. I was broke then, but I
    could write, and I found someone who was interested in having a
    story written to a prompt of their choosing. At the time I’d never
    been to Louisiana, so I instead wrote about a watery setting. I grew up with Korean folktales of the Dragon King Under the Sea, which
    I remember more from the illustrations in the children’s books than
    the stories themselves, and I have often thought that they are the
    closest thing that Korean lore has to Faerie.
    Incidentally, the treasures in this story owe something in spirit
    to a certain fantastic table owned by my grandmother, which my
    cousins and sister and I would often marvel over: a hollowed out
    bowl of wood with a glass top, within which were souvenirs gathered
    from the many places my grandparents traveled to when they were
    younger.
    Yoon Ha Lee
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    • 19 •
    The Coin of Heart’s Desire
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Yoon Ha Lee
    In an empire at the wide sea’s boundaries, where the clouds were
    the color of alabaster and mother-of-pearl, and the winds bore
    the smells of salt and faraway fruits, the young and old of every
    caste gathered for their empress’s funeral. In life she had gone by the name Beryl-Beneath-the-Storm. Now that she was dead, the court
    historians were already calling her Weave-the-Storm, for she had
    been a fearsome naval commander.
    The embalmers had anointed Weave-the-Storm in fragrant oils
    and hidden her face, as was proper, with a mask carved from white
    jade. In one hand they had placed a small banner sewn with the
    empire’s sword-and-anchor emblem in dark blue; in the other, a
    sharp, unsheathed knife whose enameled hilt winked white and gold
    and blue. She had been dressed in heavy silk robes that had only been worn once before, at the last harvest moon festival. The empire’s people believed in supplying their ruler well for the life in the sea-to-come, so that she would intercede with the dragon spirits for them.
    The empress had left behind a single daughter. She was only
    thirteen years old, so the old empress’s advisors had named her
    Early-Tern-Journeying. Tern had a gravity beyond her years. Even
    at the funeral, dressed in the white-and-gray robes of mourning, she was nearly impassive. If her eyes glistened when the priests chanted their blessings for the road-into-sunset, that was only to be expected.
    • 21 •
    • The Coin of Heart’s Desire