Angela Slatter and GennaRose Nethercott have both written fairy tale and fairy-tale-adjacent novels and short stories. I asked them to chat with me, and each other, about those choices and why authors and readers enjoy them and the tropes being explored.

YOU ARE BOTH CLEARLY INTERESTED IN FAIRY TALES AND FOLK TALES, BROADLY UNDERSTOOD, AND USE IDEAS AND THEMES FROM THEM (AS WELL AS SPECIFIC CHARACTERS) IN YOUR WORK. WHAT DO YOU THINK GIVES SUCH TALES CULTURAL ENDURANCE AND RESONANCE?

Angela: For me it starts with my memories of my mother telling me stories as a kid, bedtime reading was frequently Grimms’ fairy tales and Hans Christian Anderson’s works, as well as books of myths and legend. So that kind of created a rich treasury of stories in my mind and I still draw on those things today, and all the weird ideas that have percolated there in the years since.