It wasn't until I was an adult reader that I began to fathom the influence of fairy tales on writers I was in love with over the years, from Louisa May Alcott to Bernard Malamud to John Cheever to Anne… — Kate Bernheimer Copy Share Image
As I read more and more fairy tales as an adult, I found massive collusion between their 'subjects' and those in my fiction: childhood,… — Kate Bernheimer Copy Share Image
In the old fairy tales, often a 'moral' was tacked on at the end of the story - say, if a book was going to be marketed to young readers. And the morals don't really suit the stories at all, which makes them super weird - part of why I love the tradition so much. I do play with this,… — Kate Bernheimer Copy Share
“Doll-less, invisible friend-less, finally more comfortable in fear than in gladness, Astrid began to live in her head. Or rather inside a small tunnel… — Kate Bernheimer Copy Share Image
Well documented, the relationship of literature to myth in the Western world has undergone much change over the millennia, as first the age of… — Kate Bernheimer Copy Share Image
When I wrote the eight fairy tales that appear in 'Horse, Flower, Bird' I was working toward a completely new form of artistic expression,… — Kate Bernheimer Copy Share Image
When humans become gods, when our wings grow so great as to beat about the very edges of the earth, no one can answer… — Kate Bernheimer Copy Share Image
“Beer bottles, whiskey bottles, brown glass, green. They fell to the lawn and I'd feel serene. Adam was king to my stilted queen.” — Kate Bernheimer Copy Share Image
I have been writing fairy tales for as long as I can remember. Not much has changed in terms of my natural attraction to… — Kate Bernheimer Copy Share Image
I often visit Maria Tatar's 'The Grimm Reader' for a cold dose of courage. Her translations come from the Brothers Grimm, whose now-famous collection… — Kate Bernheimer Copy Share Image
When I first read Anne Frank's 'Diary of a Young Girl,' I saw for the first time that a girl could be a writer and that it had something to do with survival and with ethics and fighting against evil. I admired her, though her diary remained terrifying and mysterious to me. She was a character in a real fairy… — Kate Bernheimer Copy Share
People tend to think of fairy tales as 'archetypal.' They are also extremely sensual, something which translates well over the ages. — Kate Bernheimer Copy Share Image
