We craft and tell stories because we’ve stood on the uncertain edge between the waking world and our imagination, between enchantment and fear. And we remember other stories that help us build our own stories, scraps of lumber and fragments of narrative we gather together to make stories for ourselves.

Staff

Masthead
General Editor: John Patrick Pazdziora
Folklore Editor: Katherine Langrish
Fiction Editor: Defne Çizakça
Poetry Editor: Josh Richards
Associate Editor: Jenna St. Hilaire
Social Media Guru: Cayt Addison
Publisher: Papaveria Press

Bios

Cayt Addison is a Master’s student in literature and feminist theory, and a writer of essays, short stories and occasional poems. Her work has appeared in Great Minds of Cheshire and has been featured on spacefem.com. Her interests include depictions of gendered mental illness, traditional handcraft in literature and children’s morality tales. She grew up in England but now lives in Scotland with her partner, her spinning wheel and a small mountain of sock yarn.

Defne Çizakça was born on a beautiful divided island and grew up in Turkey in the company of seagulls and stray cats. She is currently completing a creative writing PhD at the University of Glasgow in Scotland where she is writing a historical novel about 19th century Istanbul. Her creative work has appeared in such journals as DECOMP, Fractured West, Spilling Ink Review, Sein und Werden, and Time Out Istanbul among others. Her critical work focuses on the Ottoman storytelling tradition and has appeared in Anti-Tales: The Uses of Disenchantment (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2011) and Navigating Space and Place (Inter-Disciplinary Press, 2012). With John Patrick Pazdziora she is the co-editor of the forthcoming New Fairy Tales: Essays and Stories (Unlocking Press, 2012), and with Louise Welsh, Geneva Sills and Henry Bell of the forthcoming Tip Tap Flat: A View From Glasgow (Freight, 2012). She is, together with Shehrazade Garcia Rangel, Nikki Cameron and Celaen Chapman, writer in residence at the Hunterian Museums, Glasgow. In her free time, Defne reads coffee cups, teaches creative writing, wanders into hidden collections, and works with refugees.

Katherine Langrish is a British author of children’s and YA fantasy. Titles include her critically acclaimed Viking trilogy, Troll Fell, Troll Mill and Troll Blood, recently republished in one volume as West of the Moon (HarperCollins), as well as Dark Angels (US title The Shadow Hunt, HarperCollins), a tale of elves and ghosts on the Welsh border in the twelfth century, nominated for the ALA’s Best Fiction for Young Adults 2011, and Forsaken, (FranklinWatts/EDGE), a short re-imagining of Matthew Arnold’s classic poem “The Forsaken Merman.” Her writing is strongly influenced by British, Celtic and Scandinavian folklore and legends, and has been compared with that of Alan Garner. She has a story appearing in the Windling/Datlow anthology After (DisneyHyperion, October 2012), and is currently working on a YA post-apocalyptic fantasy. Katherine’s website is www.katherinelangrish.co.uk, and she blogs about folklore, fairytales and fantasy at Seven Miles of Steel Thistles.

John Patrick Pazdziora (PhD, St Andrews) is a writer, editor, and literary critic. He researches Scottish literature in the nineteenth century, with particular interest in children’s literature and the ballad tradition. His poetry and short fiction has been published in Enchanted Conversation, Jabberwocky, New Fairy Tales, and Scheherezade’s Bequest. His academic articles have appeared in VII: An Anglo American Literary Review (2012) and various collections including Anti-Tales: The Uses of Disenchantment (Cambridge Scholars, 2011) and Harry Potter for Nerds: Essays for Lit Geeks, Academics, and Fans (Unlocking Press, 2011). Together with Ginger Stelle and Christopher MacLachlan, he is the co-editor of Rethinking George MacDonald: Contexts and Contemporaries (ASLS, 2012). He lives in Scotland with his wife and daughter.

Josh Richards (PhD, St Andrews) is a poet, writer, emerging scholar, and bore. He is currently Assistant Professor of English at Palm Beach Atlantic University. His scholarly and creative interests center around T. S. Eliot, Christian mysticism, contemporary Japanese manga, and mythological intertextuality. Raised on the island of Sulawesi, he spent his childhood in the jungles of Indonesia and his adolescence accompanying his father on archaeological visits to Greco-Roman ruins. He now resides in Florida after several years of scholastic penury on the eastern coast of Scotland.

Jenna St. Hilaire writes mythic speculative fiction as well as essays, various blogstuff, and songs, which are sometimes about one or the other of her favorite novels. Over twenty-five-plus years of reading and storytelling, she has developed a voice for new and re-told fairy tales in the style of Shannon Hale and Robin McKinley. Her novella Elina Evenfair, a retelling of Hans Christian Anderson’s Thumbelina, has recently been accepted for publication with Unsettling Wonder. Her critical writing has appeared in Harry Potter for Nerds: Essays for Fans, Academics, and Lit Geeks (Unlocking Press, 2011), as well as the popular Harry Potter fan site TheHogsHead.org. She blogs about books and the artistic life at jennasthilaire.com. She lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband, a cat named Maia, a garden-in-the-making with which she hopes to attract the fair folk, and a lot of houseplants and books.