Lacy Literacy

Welcome back to Short Story Sundays in which I peddle short stories. Today, I will be talking about and recommending some of my favorite short stories that were inspired by Fairytales, Folklore & Mythology Retellings.

Short Story Sunday is a meme/series created by yours truly, which exists to promote short stories/fiction and their writers. Short Story Sundays take a variety of forms like Genre Recommendations or Writer Spotlights. All Short Story Sunday posts include content related to short stories along with where to read the ones I’m talking about for free legally. You can learn more about Short Story Sundays here.

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SYMBOL GUIDE:

In every Short Story Sundays Recommendation post, I will be denoting certain books with the symbols below in order to help you read and support more stories by marginalized writers.

☆ – Written by Author(s) of Color

♢ – Written by Queer Author(s)

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I adore anything to do with Fairytales, Folklore & Mythology Retellings. In an ideal world, it would be my favorite group of genres but a lot of the time they don’t live up to my expectations. This collection stands above the rest. A couple of the short stories below are some of my all time favorite short stories. As per usual, click the title of the short story for a link to read the story, and click on the covers for a link to the Goodreads page!

  

• Red as Blood and White as Bone by Theodora Goss: Red as Blood and White as Bone follows a kitchen girl who is obsessed with fairytales. One day she discovers a woman outside the castle and thinks she’s a princess in disguise. I loved the self awareness of the narrator who even comments that her backstory was the way to start a fairytale. The ending plays into the preservation of stories.

• ☆ / ♢

  Variations on an Apple by Yoon Ha Lee: The short blurb says “For the fairest. Past, present, and future. Again.”, so naturally I liked this one. In this story, Yoon Ha Lee gives a retelling of what happens when the Greek Gods give a certain prince a certain apple. Fate plays heavily into Variations on an Apple. Variations on an Apple mixes in a lot of Science Fiction aspects, so it has a very distinct voice. Also, the apple is given to a city, and Helen is a war general. 

• In the Greenwood by Mari Ness: Words can not express how much I love this story. In the Greenwood is a Robin Hood retelling of sorts from Marian’s perspective. I adore everything about it as it focuses on a childhood friendship between the two, and the creation of a legend (the creation of legends are the basis for all my favorite books). Also, the story never gives them actual names which I loved. The ending is killer.

  

• Midnight Hour by Mary Robinette Kowal: A play on curses, a married couple, and a nameless queen? Yeah, this was written for me. Midnight Hour follows a king who was cursed by a witch in order to stop the plague in his kingdom. Every day he has 3 hours of lucidity while the rest is filled with nonsense. If he calls the queen by name or she leaves the castle before the 7 years are up, the plague will start again.

• ☆ / ♢

  Santos de Sampaguitas by Alyssa Wong: A short story recs list by me would not be complete without a piece by Alyssa Wong. Santos de Sampaguitas involves Filipino Folklore. The heroine gets visited by the dead god in her sleep like her mother and her mother before her. Plots about supernatural inheritance are some of my favorites. I loved how it was portrayed in Santos de Sampaguitas.

• The Ash-Born Boy by Victoria Schwab: The Ash-Born Boy is the prequel to The Near Witch. While I’m not a fan of Schwab’s books, I count this story as one of my favorites. This short story includes one of the many fictional boys named Will who I adore (I honestly don’t know why so many of my favs are named Will). It’s tragic, filled with magic, and reads like a fairytale.

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Have you read any of these short stories? Do you have a favorite fairytale you want to see retold in a short story?