Ravenous is Here!
Spend time in food tales—retellings and original tales—from many traditions around the
world: India, Pakistan, the Philippeans, Malta, Canada, and Western Europe and more. Look for Hansel & Gretel and that particular witch with her tempting sugared dwelling more than once within the pages of “Ravenous.” We are here to tempt you with the delights of food, the fear of not enough, the need to savor, and the human impulses toward greed or toward
sharing. Tie a napkin around your neck and reach for your favorite place setting as you open the pages of this issue. We believe consuming it will leave you fully satisfied. Enjoy!
Scroll down for a list of featured authors and first lines for each piece in Ravenous. Click on the PDF to download and read the issue. A donation of $7.00 is greatly appreciated to keep The Fairy Tale Magazine running and able to pay its authors, its hard costs, and create our beautiful PDFs.
Click the box to download and read our Fall/Winter 2026 issue!
Contributors
A LOVE LETTER TO THE WITCH OF THE WOODS
Dear Forest Witch,
I came upon your garden of evening primrose and moonflowers
one night while I was lost. Drawn in by the smell of vanilla,
Brittani Jenee’ Cal is a multiracial writer, poet, and performer. She is relentless in her
pursuit of poems and stories, seeking them in haunted cities and forest paths. She has an
MFA from Emerson College. Her work has been published in Enchanted Living, Witches
Magazine, The Fabulist, and The Fairy Tale Magazine.
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THE HANDLESS MAIDEN RE-MEMBERS
And when she does marry the King of Pears, he gifts her a set of silver hands
Kristen Baum DeBeasi writes poems, stories and music. She has poems in Blue Heron
Review, The Muleskinner Journal and elsewhere. She is a Best of the Net nominee and Editor-in-Chief of The Fairy Tale Magazine. As a composer, she loves setting fairy tale poems to music.
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MOTHER THE WITCH (inspired by Hansel & Gretel)
I’m going to eat you from the inside out
I taste like everything you hate about yourself
Lena Hadley is a British poet and actor based in London. She regularly performs at open
mic events around London and has recently been published by Voicemail Poems, The Hooghly Review and The Third Eye. She loves reimagining existing stories and characters through her poetry. You can find her on instagram @1enahadley.
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MINERVA AT THE YARN SHOP
The fire in The Guild Yarn Shop’s woodburning stove had burnt down to embers that
pulsed like a heartbeat in the back workroom.
Liz Husebye Hartmann/Tessa Kjeldsdottir is a Midwest dabbler in fiction, fairy tales,
and poetry. Her writing can be found scattered along forest trails, in tiny galleries, in
chapbooks/anthologies, and online magazines (though some have disappeared into the
liminal space of the internet). Please find more on her flash blog: ValleyoftheTrolls.blog
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PORRIDGE
Who else will teach the children respect
for bears (or any wildlife, for that matter)?
Kathleen Hellen is the author of three collections and three poetry chapbooks, most
recently from Lily Poetry Review Books, young girl in the flower of time. Hellen’s writing has
appeared in Four Way Review, The Journal of Compressed Creative Arts, PANK, The Rumpus, SmokeLong Quarterly, and elsewhere.
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BE OUR GUEST; FEASTING AT THE TABLE OF FAIRY TALE
We’ve all heard the warnings: if you find yourself in the realm of Faerie, do not eat the food.
Kelly Jarvis teaches writing and literature at Central Connecticut State University and works
as the Contributing Writer for The Fairy Tale Magazine. Learn more about her books, Selkie
Moon, a coming-of-age novella, and Sea and Stars, a Gothic historical reimagining of Beauty
and the Beast, athttps://kellyjarviswriter.com/
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THE SMELL OF WITCHCRAFT IN THE MORNING
The gingerbread loaf cooled on the windowsill, releasing its molasses scent into the morning
air. The kitchen table creaked as the old woman reached toward a bowl of brown sugar.
Kelly Jarvis (see above)
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THE GIRL WHO WAS FED BY THE HOUSE
Our house was made of sugar,
or so my mother said,
and she never let me lick the walls.
Pravy Jha is a writer from India. Her work has appeared in Solarpunk Magazine, Brilliant Flash
Fiction, Blue Marble Review, and elsewhere. She won second place in Writers' Hour Magazine's “The Doorway” contest.
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SHAHZĀDA OWES PICHHAL PAIRĪ DINNER
cheeni burns somewhere
behind the floor, a bare foot
tails off beside mine
Hannan Khan is a nefelibata, poet, fiction writer, editor, and scholar of literature &
linguistics from Pakistan. He is the winner of the Native Voices Award 2025 for his poetry
collection Isn’t Cooked Is Cursed, and a finalist for the Rhysling Award 2026. He is longlisted
for the erbacce-prize for Poetry 2026.
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THE HUNGER THAT LIVED BENEATH THE HEARTH
Once, in a kingdom where the king had seven kitchens,
the hungry were forbidden to smell the cooking.
David Anson Lee is a physician and poet whose work explores memory, transformation,
mortality, the ordinary and the mythic. His poems appear in literary journals and anthologies,
including The Sunlight Press, Gyroscope Review, Plainsongs, and Still Point Arts Quarterly. His first chapbook, The Body Keeps Its Inventory in Shadow, is forthcoming from Kelsay Books.
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BANNOCK, TWO WAYS
When sending one’s son or daughter off to seek their fortune, it is traditional to offer them a
big bannock with a curse or a wee bannock with a blessing.
Ella Leith (she/her) writes fiction, creative nonfiction, and occasional poetry. A folklorist by
training, her work explores how the past and uncanny exist in the present and mundane.
Recent publications include Ekphrastic Review, Abhartach and Kitchen Table Quarterly. Originally from the English Midlands, she now lives in Malta. www.ellaleith.com
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THE BEGGAR-WOMAN (after Tatterhood)
Why do we swallow these
ugly things
i say, and wait,
Max Maclean (he/him) is a musician and poet living in Vancouver, BC. He studies creative
writing at UBC, and was recently published for the first time in Contemporary Verse 2.
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MARIA TANGDO-AN ON HOMONHON ISLAND
There was a time when Homonhon Island
was thick with green.
Forests climbed the hills.
Fhen M. has received multiple recognitions, including second place in the 1st Chito Roño
Literary Awards in the Waray poetry (siday) category and several daily wins in the DYVL
Siday Contest, a radio-based poetry competition. His published works include “Bamboo
House” and “Homing” in Horseshoe Spring 2024 and Fall 2025, respectively.
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SIX RIPE CHERRIES
"Where do you go, Boireannach?" a strange voice called to me from the left side of the dirt
path, using the word for woman from the old tongue. I closed my eyes, trying to steady the
tremor in my heart.
Grace Nuth is a writer, artist, and wonder-seeker. She is coauthor of The Faerie Handbook and former senior editor of Enchanted Living Magazine. When she isn’t matchmaking readers with stories in her day job, she is writing tales of her own, or talking with the faeries. Find more of her work at http://www.gracenuth.com
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THE SUGAR TAPER
My grandmother's gingerbread house was not a house. It was a trap, and I knew it from the moment I bit the windowsill.
Matteo Preabianca is an Italian-born Australian linguist, lecturer, and translator now based
in Scotland. His work explores displacement, memory, and the politics of language across
poetry, fiction, and experimental music. He writes in English and Italian.
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CUNNING COOKERY
Because I could not feed his unclean hunger for
Berry-ripe lips and soft flesh, I fled, carrying with me
Deborah Sage is a native of Kentucky, USA. She has been published in Eternal Haunted
Summer, Literary LEO, Fairy Tale Magazine, the 2022 Dwarf Stars Anthology, Amethyst Press All Shall Be Well anthology for Julian of Norwich, Eye to the Telescope, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, and Otherworld Magazine among others.
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GREEN FAIRY SALAD & DRESSING
The forest fairies are mostly vegan or vegetarian. They won’t eat fish, because some fish may
have swallowed a fairy or might be fairies who magically transformed into a fish.
Lorraine Schein, a NY writer, has published in Strange Horizons, Scientific American, Michigan Quarterly, and the anthologies Underland Arcana and Tragedy Queens: Stories Inspired by Lana del Rey & Sylvia Plath. The Futurist’s Mistress (poetry, Mayapple Press) and The Lady Anarchist Cafe (stories), are from Autonomedia and Amazon. https://autonomedia.org/product/the-lady-anarchist-cafe/
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THE CHEF AND THE MIRROR
That night, in the great kitchen of the royal court, I sat alone. The copper pots hung from their hooks like old bells that had stopped ringing years ago.
Dr. Farbood Shokouhi (b. 1969) is an Iranian writer and poet known for literary short
fiction rooted in realism and existential themes. Widely published in Persian-language
journals, he received the 2026 Derang Short Story Award and the 2026 Ferdowsi Literary
Award. His work blends poetic sensibility with disciplined storytelling.
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COOKING THE WOLF
She chops the meat very fine
Wolf is gamey, she is told
Lissa Sloan is the author of Glass and Feathers, a transformational continuation of the
traditional Cinderella tale. Her poems and short stories have appeared in The Fairy Tale
Magazine, Niteblade Magazine, Corvid Queen, Three Ravens Podcast, Eternal Haunted Summer, and anthologies from World Weaver Press. Visit Lissa online at lissasloan.com.
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I CRAVE THE RAMPION IN THE WITCH’S GARDEN
When the window’s open I can almost smell it, earthy funk
cut with new green. The night my husband fed it to me,
Marjorie Tesser has authored two poetry chapbooks “The Important Thing Is,” a
Firewheel Award winner, and “The Magic Feather.” Her debut full-length poetry collection,
Unquiet, is forthcoming from Cornerstone Press (2027). Recipient of a prize from Academy
of American Poets and a 2026 Poets & Writers GTWO Poetry Fellow, Marjorie is editor-in-chief of MER-Mom Egg Review.
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SEVEN BRIGHT OF SUN, SEVEN DARK OF MOON
Kavita sighed and put down her knife before sucking on her thumb. The sharp blade had slipped and cut into her skin, rather than the rainbow that had been her actual target.
Shveta Thakrar’s work has appeared in a number of magazines and anthologies, most
recently Brian Froud’s Green Women. Her debut novel, Star Daughter, a 2021 Andre Norton
Nebula Award finalist, was followed by The Dream Runners and Divining the Leaves. Her
novella, Into the Moon Garden, is available from Audible.
