A Letter from the Editor's Desk

“The forest plays an important role in the Western fairy tale tradition. It is the place where children go astray; where witches, wolves, and monsters lurk; where doves weep tears of blood and deer are princesses under enchantment.”

The Reading Room

Russian Fairy Tales, Part II: Baba Yaga's Domain

by Helen Pilinovsky

“Baba Yaga's domain is the forest, a traditional symbol of change and a place of peril, where she acts as either a challenger or helper to those innocents who venture into her realm. She appears in the fiction of Neil Gaiman, Gene Wolfe, and Orson Scott Card in both of these traditional roles.”

The Path of Needles or Pins: Little Red Riding Hood

by Terri Windling

“Little Red Riding Hood, as we know it today, is a cautionary tale warning little girls of the perils of disobedience-but the older story is more complex, a tale of female initiation and maturation.”

How to Bring Someone Back from the Dead

A Story by Veronica Schanoes

“You will have to take the path of pins and the path of needles. You will walk on the pins and your feet will bleed. This is your body mourning. It hurts to bring someone back from the dead.”

The Gallery

Myth and Magic: Paintings by Kinuko Y. Craft

by Terri Windling

“Craft's paintings range from fairy tales and folklore subjects to Shakespeare, opera, and modern mythic fiction. Whether painting Baba Yaga or Turandot, she conjures the glow of magic at the heart of the world's great stories.”

The Coffeehouse: Poetry

Bone Mother

by Holly Black

Will

by Jane Yolen

What Her Mother Said

by Theodora Goss

The White Road

by Neil Gaiman

Femmes Sauvage

by Johnny Clewell