The Troll Issue is here!
- Fairy Tale Magazine
- Nov 1
- 7 min read
We are delighted to present The Troll Issue! The first poem and story are meant as invocation—the call to enter the realm of the trolls. From there, the issue is created as a “choose your own troll adventure.” Once you’ve downloaded the PDF, you may toggle between each section using the Table of Contents to choose which section you want to experience first. Alternately, feel free to read from the beginning to the end. It’s curated to be fun however you choose to experience it.
Scroll down for a list of featured authors and first lines for each piece in The Troll Issue. 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 2025 issue!
What’s inside:
The Moss-Trolls Are Hunting (poetry) – 5
A rush, a hush, a whisper of leaves
Christine Walker is a never-before-published writer. She lives in North Carolina with her mad-scientist husband, where she mostly writes stories about dragons.
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Never Seen One (prose) – 6
They say there’s a troll in the mountains. I’ve never seen one.
Brian D. Doyle lives in Missoula, Montana where he enjoys hiking up mountains and spending time down by the river with a good book to read. He works at the public library, running library programs for aspiring writers and gamemastering roleplaying games where anyone can be somebody else.
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Non Fiction
Don’t Feed The Trolls: A Brief Overview of Trolls in Folklore, Literature, and Popular Culture – 10
If you search for famous words about trolls, you will no doubt happen come across a quotation attributed to Irish poet and playwright Oscar Wilde; “Don’t feed the trolls,” he is rumored to have said, “nothing fuels them so much.”
Kelly Jarvis, author of Selkie Moon, is the Contributing Writer for The Fairy Tale Magazine. Her work has appeared in a moon of one’s own, Blue Heron Review, Corvid Queen, Eternal Haunted Summer, Forget Me Not Press, Mermaids Monthly, Chamber Magazine, and Mothers of Enchantment. Visit her at https://kellyjarviswriter.com/
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Trollcore: Grounding Through Fashion – 15
Have you ever wondered if fey beings are just as susceptible to victimization by stereotyping as humans?
Grace Nuth is a writer, artist, and wonder seeker. She is the 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, you can find her writing tales of her own, or talking with the faeries.
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By Hammer, Torch, and Hand – 18
This is the mostly true story of the Bay Bridge trolls, their makers, and their friends.
Steven "Aelfcyning" Aultman sees the Bay Bridge, though not its troll, from his abode. He’s been seeing trolls under bridges for years, and he crosses them anyway. He’s an occasional amateur blacksmith, and he knows good iron work when he sees it. He hopes you find this tale riveting.
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On the Hunt for Thomas Dambo’s Trolls – 21
They are the villains of fairy tales, the comic relief of epic fantasies, and the monsters of rugged Scandinavian landscapes, but in the hands of Thomas Dambo, a recycle artist from Odense, Denmark whose life mission is transforming trash into treasure, trolls become the wise and peaceful guardians of the natural world.
Kelly Jarvis (bio above)
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For the Love of Trolls
The Rose Woman (prose) – 25
A long time ago on the banks of a riverbend in a great city there lived a poor artist.
Mike Neis lives in Orange County, CA and works as a technical writer for a commercial laboratory. Mike’s fiction work has appeared in The Fairy Tale Magazine and elsewhere. Besides writing, his outside activities include church music, fitness, and teaching English as a second language.
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Troll Bride | True Bride: On Removing Three Drops of Wax from a Fine Linen Shirt (poetry) – 29
Wax is tricky
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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Stars, Moss, and Stone (prose) – 32
Bo grunted, hacking at the edge of the briars that had grown wild through the wood.
Alison Weber is a writer and artist inspired by fairytales and the Golden Age of Children's Book Illustration. Her work is for everyone who still dreams of magic. Alison lives near Seattle with her tiny family and beloved creatures. She is currently building her dream business in writing and illustration.
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Traditional Tales & Poems
Troll Bridge (poetry) – 37
In the old tales, we were fearsome:
Kelly Jarvis (bio above)
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Soul of a Bridge Troll (prose) – 38
Stay away from the troll bridge.
Rae Lori is the award-winning author of the Ashen Twilight series and the recently released fairytale fantasy books, The Beast's Healer and The Pumpkin King's Bride. She can usually be found with her head in the clouds, daydreaming of her next story.
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Grendel's mother (poetry) – 41
I was a woman monstered, bred in a cycle
JV Birch is a British-born Australian poet living on Kaurna land (Adelaide). She has four chapbooks and a full-length collection with Ginninderra Press. Her latest, ice cream ‘n’ tar, was a winner of the James Tate International Poetry Prize 2022 and published by SurVision Books.
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Alva and the Troll-Prince’s Bride (prose) – 42
Far away in the northwest lands, there is a village at the foot of a mountain so tall it scratches the sky, on the banks of a fjord so deep it knows no fathom.
Rosie Forsythe is a writer from New Zealand, who has begun to suspect it may be too late to outgrow her lifelong fascination with folktales and fairy stories.
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Trow Magic (poetry) – 46
Wild as the windswept shores of Orkney,
Deborah Sage lives in Louisville, Kentucky. She has been published in Eternal Haunted Summer, Fairy Tale Magazine, Literary LEO, the 2022 Dwarf Stars Anthology, Amethyst Press All Shall Be Well anthology for Julian of Norwich, Eye to the Telescope, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, Ephemeral Elegies, and Aphelion among others.
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The Modern Troll
The Troll in The Stacks (poetry) – 48
Not for me the mossy lair,
nor dank dark caves where bats convene,
Jane McCarthy recently wrapped five years as a co-founder of a deep-tech company, wrangling ideas, words, and the occasional engineer, in her role leading communications and marketing. Originally from the UK and now based in Portugal, Jane’s pursuing ghostwriting and voice-over work while writing her debut novel. https://janemccarthydna.medium.com
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Modern Troll (poetry) – 54
She wraps her moss around her necklike a forgotten heirloom,
Veronica Tucker is an emergency and addiction medicine physician and a writer. Her work has been published in ONE ART, Medmic, and Red Eft Review, with additional work forthcoming. She writes about themes of identity, resilience, and transformation, often drawing on her experiences in medicine and motherhood.
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A Love Story by Any Other Name (prose) – 56
This is not a fairy tale. This is a love story.
Except for that one time she ran a haunted inn, Laurel Hanson has been a long-time educator and theater director. Her stories have appeared with Havok, The First Line, Moonday Magazine, and in the latest anthologies from Read on the Run and the Best New England Crime Stories.
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The Troll, The Bridge, and the Business Plan (prose) – 60
Hawkett, the human embodiment of a meeting that should have been an email, presided over his desk at the ‘Consortium for Intangible Assets’ - a place where logic came to have a nervous breakdown.
Dimitry Partsi specializes in finding the absurdity in modern corporate and social life. He is a frequent contributor to multiple humor-adjacent online and offline publications such as The Haven, Daily Drunk, Little Old Lady Comedy and many others. He is currently working on a collection of short stories.
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Foodways
Mushroom Stew (A fairy recipe, with notes from a troll) (poetry) – 64
In a cauldron forged by dwarves, suspended over dragon fire
Jo de Groot lives in the Canadian prairies, where she spends far too much time reading, dreaming, and thinking about writing, and not enough time going on adventures, eating cake, or actually writing. She has had poetry published in Tales from Fiddler’s Green Vol. 2 and The Fairy Tale Magazine.
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A Troll's Feast (poetry) – 66
You say we eat your children
Rebecca Buchanan is the editor of the Pagan literary ezine, Eternal Haunted Summer. Her poems, short stories, and novellas have been published in a wide variety of venues, including Abyss & Apex, Cosmic Roots and Eldritch Shores, Eye to the Telescope, and Faerie Magazine.
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Troll Kitchen (poetry) – 67
The trolls are making pies
out of ghost apples
Allison Burris grew up in the misty Pacific Northwest and currently lives in Oakland, California. She received her MLIS from San Jose State University and her whimsical poetry appears and is forthcoming in various journals, including Passionfruit Review, Hoxie Gorge Review, Heartlines Spec, and Metphrastics. Connect with her via https://linktr.ee/allisonburris.
The Fairy Tale Magazine is made possible in part by the generosity of our Fairy Godparents Club. Our staff members volunteer their time. If you enjoy this issue and giving feels good, we welcome your donation! A donation of $7.00 helps keep The Fairy Tale Magazine running and able to pay our authors, our hard costs, and create our beautiful PDF Issues.
