.jpg)
Happy September Fairy Tale Friends!
We're so excited to announce that
The Fairy Tale Magazine's
September issue is here!
Tales from the
Night Queen's Realm
There are stories that exist
where dreams become reality
and reality becomes the landscape of dreams.
This is the Night Queen’s landscape
A place where light and shadow mingle to dance upon stardust,
and the place where she weaves her stories of happiness and sorrow
into the velvet fabric of forever.
The Night Queen has many tales to share,
and she is beckoning you to enter into her realm of Eternal Night….
This issue is packed with
original fairy tale stories, poems, art, articles,
and an interview with author, Alice Hoffman!
FEATURING WORKS BY
Ella Arrow - Amanda Bergloff - Cecilia Betsill - Tish Black
Sarah Cannavo - Jayne Cohen - Sara Cleto - A.J. Cunder
Sofia Ezdina - Alyson Faye - Hannah Grace Greer
Kelly Jarvis - Rosanne E. Lortz - Leila Murton Poole
Deborah Sage - Marcia Sherman - Margaret Fisher Squires
Laren Stover - Brittany Warman
AND TO CELEBRATE,
you can read the
Grand Prize Winning Poem
from our Poetry Contest
by author
Margaret Fisher Squires
that's included in this September issue
below!
AND VERY LITTLE STONE
by Margaret Fisher Squires
They built the palace together. They used dreams and glass and very little stone. She did not notice the lack, distracted as she was by the motes of glamour that sparked the air around her prince. Perhaps she is not to be blamed. Perhaps he is not to be blamed either. The Fair Folk cannot help what they are. The Elf Lord quite enjoyed the playful labor. The woman’s flights of fancy matched his own as few other mortals’ had. Her dreams served for timbering and floors, fine-grained and richly hued like mahogany or teak. The pair were dazzled by their reflections in the ballroom’s mirrors. “We’ll give a ball!” he declared. She answered him, “Yes!” and he conjured fragile chairs of gilded wood, rich brocade draperies, candles of fragrant beeswax. The dainty cakes were real, with currants in them. He stole them by magic from the bakery in the nearest town. It did not seem to matter that the palace had no kitchen. Candle flames lit the ballroom and burned again in gilded mirrors, in guests’ jewels, and in his mortal lover’s eyes. Dancing with her was a joy at first. The time came when her every kiss, her every hand-brush felt like the peck of a small, hungry bird. Her eyes, bright with hope drained him. Besides, the party seemed to last almost a whole night or almost a whole year. (Despite long interludes with mortals, he still tended to confuse the two.) He knew, or believed in his fine ivory bones, that if he stayed a whole night or a whole year in one place, time would enspell him, stiffen his flesh until he was trapped in panicked immobility, an Elf Lord shaped entirely of something like mahogany or teak. Her chatter carved a numb hollow in his chest, He felt approaching dawn. He left her while the dance swirled all around them, slipping away through one of the tall glass doors into the darkness. He left her dancing with his reflection. Outside, he paused, and glanced back through the glass at the bright-eyed comely woman circling alone in her graceful dance. He heard a distant fiddle swinging into melody over the hill. He felt the music fill his chest with fire. His heels barely touched the earth as he crossed the hill but he remembered the woman for almost as many years or hours as it took for the palace’s timbers to collapse into dust.
Margaret Fisher Squire’s poems have appeared in brass bell: a haiku journal, The Ryder Magazine, and the Five Women Poets’ chapbook, Birds of a Feather. Some can be heard in the archives of WFIU’s program “The Poets Weave” https://indianapublicmedia.org/poetsweave/ .
You can find
TALES FROM THE
NIGHT QUEEN'S REALM
single issue HERE
and
check out other past issues HERE