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Once Upon a Lesbian, Or: On the Reclaiming of Fairy Tales | The Sorceryof Love

Once Upon a Lesbian, Or: On the Reclaiming of

Fairy TalesPosted on June 22, 2012

Tonight, I’m thinking about f airy

tales.

I grew up devouring f airy tale

tomes, reading every version of

classic and not-so-classic and not-

so-heard-of f airy tales until my

little brain was steeped in

princesses and gems and f rogs

and gleaming palaces. But evenf rom a little girl, I knew I wasn’t

like the other girls: I was, in f act,

d i f f erent , and over time, it began

to hurt that there were no

princesses or heroines or witches or strong women in these tales that were at

all like me. Because all of the love interests were princes or brave tailors, and

not a single love interest was a woman.

It might seem like a little thing, but if you’re gay, you understand it, and if

you’re not gay, you’ve seen it. It’s a straight, straight, straight, straight,

straight, straight world out there, and f or all of the queer boys and girls,

growing up and searching f or a f amiliar f ace in the old stories…there weren’t

any. There aren’t any.

If f airy tales ever taught me anything (and they’ve taught me many, many

things), one of the most important is this: if the world is not the way you’d



like, try to change it.

My story is a quest story, and–I suppose–a little like a f airy tale itself . Along

the way, I made f riends with a f ew dragons (I’m not the slaying type), and f ellin love with and married a beautif ul princess. I continued to study the f airy

tales and immersed my lif e in them. I even went so f ar as to ink them on my

skin f orever, but something was still not right.

They were still not my stories.

I’ve spoken bef ore about how reclaiming archetypes is one of the most

subversive and empowering things a queer person can do. And, once, my wif eand I had retold our f avorite f airy tales the way we’d always wanted them to

be retold. I wondered…could we do it again? Could we do it on a bigger scale?

Could we tell the stories the way we’d always hoped f or, wished f or, wanted?

So we set out into the world, and we did exactly what our hearts had been

asking us to do all along.

We began the Sappho’s Fables series: f airy tales retold as lesbian.

From the very beginning, we worked our hearts out. We knew the exact

stories we’d always wanted, and we knew we couldn’t be the only people in

the world who’d wished f or courageous women f inding each other and–

through their own courage and tenacity–saving themselves (and, perhaps,

the world). W e took our f avorite aspects of some of the most well known f airy

tales, the heroines that had always haunted our hearts and thoughts, and we

set out to retell their stories.

Now, we’ve done three stories, have a volume of the retold novellas out, and

we’re well into the ambitious project. The response has been at once f ierce

and passionate and supportive: people have wanted these stories, have

waited f or these stories, and the Sappho’s Fables series, thus f ar, has been

overwhelmingly supported by the community, by queer f olk, by straight f olk.

I’m thinking about f airy tales tonight, because I of ten think about f airy tales.Telling these stories, creating these worlds, is my f ull time job, and one that I



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take very seriously, and am very gratef ul f or. It’s almost my birthday, and

every year around this time, I get a little navel-gazey and thoughtf ul, and I

think about the years that have gone bef ore me, of the other birthdays I’ve

had, of the old f airy tale books I was lovingly given by my grandmother andmy mother and my aunts, of the stories that touched my lives, of the heroines

who invaded my heart and never, ever lef t it. I’m thinking about the stories

I’d wished I had that I can’t mourn f or, anymore. Because I’m f inally writing

them.

And that’s the most daunting thought, I suppose. I can no longer mourn the

childhood of lesbian-less stories, because my wif e and I are writing them. But

we aren’t the only ones. There are so many good people, so many brilliantauthors, who are telling their stories the best they know how, pouring their

hearts out onto the pages, changing the world that they so desperately had

wished f or, growing up. Making it anew.

Reclaiming it.

When we have kids (may heaven help the world: they’ll probably be little

hellions ;D), I’m proud to say that they’ll have f airy tales about girls who love

girls, they’ll have stories where heroines save themselves, they’ll have novels

that f eature women like their mothers, and the invisibility so insipid bef ore

will be eradicated.

So I’m thinking about f airy tales, tonight, and a world that supports lesbian

ones.

That, in and of itself , is one of the best happily ever af ters I’ve ever known.

<3



About elorabishop

Author of fantasy, science-fiction and paranormal lesbian

romances.

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