It seems that fairytales and myths are all the rage these days, which is incredibly great news for me and some friends – I'll tell you why in a sec. Have a peep at this first:
From folk tales to Greek myth, ‘old stories’ are fuelling a fantasy boom. In a recent discussion chaired by Marina Warner at the Royal Society of Literature, four authors explored the reasons why.
A week after Midsummer night, the Royal Society of Literature brought together four writers for an event billed as a discussion of revamped fairy stories, but that turned out to encompass modernised myths, too. Introducing the forum, chair Marina Warner provided a typically scintillating tour d’horizon of a contemporary fantasy boom in which novelists such as Margaret Atwood, AS Byatt, Philip Pullman and Ali Smith rewrite myths and folk tales, Hollywood increasingly borrows its heroines and child adventurers (explicitly or ultimately) from the same sources or revisits legendary ancient history, and Greek drama about “the home life of the gods” is back in fashion. What was it about these “old stories” that attracted her panellists, as children and now, she asked, and why do they seem to connect with the 21st-century zeitgeist?
Which brings me to why this is great news. Together with some #author friends, I am proud to be part of a group called The Collective SciFi. We'll be bringing you all manner of great sci-fi tales, and our first major project is a collection of sci-fi retellings of fairy tales.