Charlotte Sullivan - Fairy Tales: A Wish Our Culture Makes

Abstract:

Heard the one about a girl in a red cape? She walks into the woods and meets a wolf? Or about the sooty servant girl who rides to a ball in a magic coach? Certain fairy tales permeate nearly every corner of our culture. But why have these particular fairy tales survived the centuries? Scholars such as Jack Zipes have recently suggested that these tales, originally transmitted through oral storytelling, behave like genes, which lodge in our brains and cultures as memes. Only the best stories that address specific individual and social needs survive. Like genes, these stories evolve in response to the shifts in the cultures that retell them, be they 17th century French aristocrats or 19th century African American slaves.

But recently, Cinderella and Little Red have had to scoot over to make room for the likes of Harry Potter, Lyra Silvertongue, Percy Jackson, and Meggie of Inkheart. These heroes of contemporary children’s fantasy, though frozen in time in literary texts, still reflect characteristics inherited from their fairy tale ancestors. Charlotte Sullivan, a writer of children’s fantasy (and closet fairy tale addict), will suggest culturally specific reasons why these new tales have not only exploded onto the publishing scene, but locked into our cultural DNA, and what this tells us about the stories of our own lives.

Presenter Bio:

Charlotte Sullivan teaches English at Normandale Community College, tutors at the Luther Seminary Writing Center, and critiques children’s fiction manuscripts for The Queue. Her thirteen-year teaching career includes experience in the Bloomington Public Schools, as well as five years as a faculty member at Crown College. She earned an MFA in fiction from Hamline University, an MS in Curriculum and Instruction (writing focus) from MN State University, Mankato, and has published both literary and personal essays and poetry in a number of journals and newspapers. Ms. Sullivan is currently at work on a middle grade fantasy novel, which may or may not include a toothless pirate ghost.