I sold “Swan Sister” to Corvid Queen, a journal of feminist fairy tales, back in 2024, and was excited to see it come to press this summer.
It’s a Northwest take on the “swan brothers” stories retold by Grimm and Andersen, a meditation on whether I am really doing people any favors when I teach them how to be better at being part of foundationally unjust systems, and a look at the fundamental question I have, nowadays, when I return to the original texts: what about being a princeling could possibly be as good as being a wild swan?
What would stories look like if we didn’t accept the narrative that grown women, particularly educated women, are wicked? What if the stepmother is horrified to discover that her new husband has seven children and has been locking them in a tower? What might she do to get them out? Sometimes, the “solution” one comes up with in the moment isn’t the most graceful and looks strange from other angles.
Then: restoring the social order is a recurring theme in traditional stories, but is it the best outcome possible? What does the younger brother with one wing and a human body do for a living in a feudal society, when he’s literally got the damage of his childhood trauma hanging off one shoulder?