I’ve had the privilege of introducing many students to the fairy tale’s strange history, so carefully studied by such scholars as Maria Tatar and Jack Zipes, who teach us that originally fairy tales were not directed toward children, though they were overheard by youngsters around the hearth, and that they function in an almost totemic way for both young and old. My love of fairy tales drives all of my writing, whether a novel, a short story, or a book for children. I have the honor of making my day-to-day work the celebration of fairy tales. All of this — the journal editorship, the teaching of craft, the casual conversations, the life of a writer — reflects back to me that fairy tales are simply essential, and I want to share that with you.

But odd things, too, led me to gather this volume.

I have a sense that a proliferation of magical stories, especially fairy tales, is correlated to a growing awareness of human separation from the wild and natural world. In fairy tales, the human and animal worlds are equal and mutually dependent. The violence, suffering, and beauty are shared. Those drawn to fairy tales, perhaps, wish for a world that might live “forever after.” My work as a preservationist of fairy tales is entwined with all kinds of extinction.

I was also inspired to collect this volume based on my experience in the community of writers and readers. A few years ago I presented a short manifesto about fairy tales to a large audience of creative writing professors and students. I was on a panel dedicated to nonrealist literature. I made an argument that fairy tales were at risk — they had been misunderstood, appropriated without proper homage by the realists and fabulists alike.