Category Archives: Critical thoughts

The Jungle Book and wild children

Posted on 19th April 2016 by William the Bloody

Here’s an interesting article on the new film of The Jungle Book, touching on themes of wolves, wild children, and the opposition of nature and culture much discussed at the Company of Wolves conference (and covered in the forthcoming book, … Continue reading →

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Retelling Fairy Tales: Little Red is Armed by the NRA

Posted on 7th April 2016 by William the Bloody

Here are some more recent fairy tale adaptations, for younger readers this time–thanks, once again, to the excellent Barnes & Noble blog (there is one for teen books and one for children). Fairy tales, of course, are never innocent; their … Continue reading →

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Bram Stoker: The Disappearing Vampire at Dublin Writer’s Museum

Posted on 6th April 2016 by Sam George

When I found myself in Ireland over Easter I headed to the Dublin Writer’s Museum to look for material on Bram Stoker. The museum presents ‘the literary heritage left by writers of the past’ and it was established ‘to promote interest, … Continue reading →

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Fairy Tale Adaptation by Disney

Posted on 6th April 2016 by William the Bloody

An interesting little snippet here about Disney’s recent spate of fairy tale adaptations–the Grimms’ ‘Rose Red and Snow White being the latest, but with an intertextual twist that aligns it with the better-known ‘Snow White’. The writer also describes some … Continue reading →

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Re-imagining Fairy Tales

Posted on 25th March 2016 by William the Bloody

A favourite OGOM topic (well, for me anyway!) is the transformation of classic fairy tales into (mostly YA) paranormal romances and allied genres. Here, the bare motifs of the fairy tale are invigorated by giving novelistic flesh to the characters … Continue reading →

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Generation Dead: The Shiver Workshop

Posted on 21st March 2016 by firekrank

This post is a little late (mainly due to the distractions of moving house and trying to teach myself basic plumbing skills alongside managing a PhD and moonlighting as a tour guide at Shakespeare’s Globe theatre) so apologies for my … Continue reading →

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‘Fire Burn and Cauldron Bubble’: Witches, Magic and Demons @TheJohnRylands

Posted on 15th March 2016 by Sam George

I have been blogging quite a lot lately about witches and magic books. I wrote on the Renaissance magician John Dee in ‘It’s a kind of Magic’ and offered some critical thoughts on ‘Sexualising the Witch’ in response to recent … Continue reading →

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Stan Lee, Spiderman and Troubled Teen Protagonists

Posted on 2nd March 2016 by firekrank

Today I happened to catch this excerpt from an interview with Stan Lee on BBC 5 live in which he was speaking about one of his most famous creations, Spider-Man. He was discussing the fact that when he first suggested Spider-Man … Continue reading →

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Trends in YA paranormal fiction

Posted on 2nd March 2016 by William the Bloody

While procrastinating the other day, I found myself browsing the recommendations that Amazon makes, following a chain of YA paranormal fiction. Three hours later, I recovered from my obsessive frenzy to find £260 worth of books in my basket. The … Continue reading →

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Angela Carter, Fairytales and Adaptation

Posted on 25th February 2016 by firekrank

Yesterday morning I noticed that #UpdateAFairytale was trending on Twitter. Of course I jumped right on board and had a merry time thinking up increasingly bizarre possibilities for contemporary fairy tales. Cinderella as a feminist campaigner against modern day slavery, … Continue reading →

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