New Fairy Tales Issue 6

Here is the trailer for Issue 6 of New Fairy Tales.



I have a story in this issue, 'The Ice Baby'.

'The Ice Baby' was illustrated by Scott Nellis who blogs here.

'Happily Ever After' Exhibition

I found a link to Su Blackwell's gorgeous art at The Fairy Tale Cupboard.
Blackwell deconstructs old books and transforms them into gorgeous miniature worlds.
Her exhibition at the Long and Ryle Gallery runs until 18th December and her magical website is worth a visit.

Instruction Manual for Swallowing

I'm supposed to be packing for a short break to Prague, so this will be a very brief entry, but I just had to say how much I enjoyed reading Adam Marek's Instruction Manual for Swallowing. I promised myself that I wouldn't gobble the stories and would try to read just one a day, but I failed - I just HAD to keep reading: it is one of the most compelling short story collections I have ever read.

My favourite of the stories was 'The Centipede's Wife' which was chilling, creepy, humourous and thought-provoking: three days later and it's still wriggling around my head.

Adam Marek Reading

Last night I went to Adam Marek's reading at the Rose Theatre. He read two very funny, surreal stories and I bought his collection 'Instruction Manual for Swallowing'  which he kindly signed for me.

I was invited to read my story 'Just in Case' before Adam read. I was a bit nervous because it's a sad story and I've never read it aloud before, but I think it went okay - phew.

Weird and wonderful stuff.

On Friday sons 2 and 3 had surgery on their mouths at Alder Hey Children's Hospital. I've been concerned about son 2's teeth for some time, but I allowed myself to be fobbed off by his dentist whose attitude can be summed up by 'don't worry your little head about it, dear' (Note to self: be suspicious of anyone who thinks that calling you 'dear' is a substitute for addressing the problem in hand).

Being pathologically polite, I allowed this to go on for two years before a different dentist saw the boys and immediately referred them to Alder Hey. Both boys had tuberculate supernumerary teeth  - a pair of barrel-shaped "teeth" which are often located in the palate and frequently prevent the eruption of the adult central incisors and, in some cases, as with my boys, the falling out of the baby teeth.

The boys were scheduled for surgery to remove their baby teeth, open up the gum/palate in order to remove the tuberculate teeth and to attach fine gold chains to the bottoms of the undescended adult teeth in order to pull them down with braces. Son 3 was extremely excited about the surgery - how bad can a day off school and a weekend of rest be, right? Son 2 however, was little more circumspect.

In the weeks before the operation I wrote a story called 'Vanishing Twins' inspired by the weird ways that bodies are subject to duplication/deletion in utero.  The story wasn't very good and I've shelved it for now, but the research was fascinating.

The boys' surgery took place on Friday afternoon and it appears to have gone well. It's the first time any of my children have had an operation, so I was quite nervous. Son 3 had his surgery first and came round pretty well. An hour and a half later I was told it was time for me to go with the nurse to get son 2 from recovery. Unfortunately, there'd been a bit of a cock up and I walked into the recovery room to find son 2 surrounded by four people in scrubs as he projectile vomited blood. 'Get her out, we're not ready,' one of the individuals in scrubs called. I pretended to be unperturbed and allowed myself to be escorted from the room. The nurse and I made inane conversation for a while, but all I wanted to do was burst back through the doors and find out what was going on with son 2. If I'd been a mother on a hospital drama I'd have fought my way back into recovery and demanded an explanation - sometimes I wish I could bring myself to behave more like a fictional character.

Both boys are making a good recovery. The tuberculate teeth were huge. See the picture on the left of one of the tuberculate teeth next to one of the baby teeth. Aren't bodies fascinating?

Read more about the boys' recovery/treatment here.

All ready for the orthodontist.