6-week online course via Zoom
Tuesdays, October 29 - December 3, 2024
7 - 9 pm ET
$185 Patreon Members / $195 General Admission

All classes will be recorded for those who cannot attend live

Folk and fairy tales have been a form of entertainment, instruction, and healing since before recorded history, and they continue to shape cultures. Prior to the solidifying of fairy tales in written and cinematic form, fairy tales were part of an oral tradition, regularly updated and changed in response to the instincts of the storyteller or the world around it.

The power of folk tales and fairy tales still resides within us. Telling and Re-telling fairy tales can lead to our own self-discovery. They can also serve as commentary on shifting social mores, and express complicated emotional information about our current realities and challenges.

In this class, we will define what makes a fairy tale a fairy tale, and the elements that bring them to life (and why sometimes they fall flat). Using the key rules and responsibilities shared by storytellers across many traditions, we will learn how to deconstruct a tale in order to retell it, and to make it our own. Resources, materials, and tools will provided to empower students to continue writing fairy tales after the course is over.

After laying the theoretical groundwork, classes will get more hands-on. We will workshop ideas together in real-time, so students can see the process in action and ask questions throughout. The class will offer a space to workshop and discuss drafts of students’ own fairy tales, with the final session dedicated to sharing more polished work.

Students will have access to a virtual classroom that will include an archive of all videos, additional resources for homework between sessions, as well as links and downloads of supporting materials and suggested reading.

Ph.D. in Mythological Studies and Depth Psychology, Alicia K. Anderson is a writer, researcher, and storyteller. Her myth and fairy tale retellings have appeared in anthologies by five small presses.  Her dissertation on the Storyteller Archetype studied the roles and rules of storytellers when telling and retelling fairy tales. Alicia is based in the magic of New Mexico’s Sangre de Cristo Mountains.

Images: Kay Neilson, from East of the Sun, West of the Moon, 1914; Harry Clarke, Little Red Riding Hood, 1922