I think it’s really hard to draw a hard-and-fast line and say ‘Grimm’s Fairy Tales’ doesn’t count as science fiction or fantasy. Or at what point do we say mythology is not fantasy, so reading mythology when you’re young does not count as an exposure to fantasy?
When I was little, I made up my own fairy tales, and the ghostly echo of ‘Once upon a time’ shapes all the fiction I’ve ever written.
I loved fairy tales when I was a kid. Grimm. The grimmer the better. I loved gruesome gothic tales and, in that respect, I liked Bible stories, because to me they were very gothic.
I grew up with a lot of fairy tales. And they had an essence of darkness to them.
The universe has a much greater imagination than we do, which is why the real story of the universe is far more interesting than any of the fairy tales we have invented to describe it.
Fairy tales and folk tales are part of the DNA of all stories and great fun to write.
People don’t like the true and simple; they like fairy tales and humbug.
We may have forgotten how to feel. Nobody is teaching us how to live happily ever after, as we’ve heard in fairy tales.
I was born and raised in Ohio. During my childhood, I spent most of my time drawing and reading fairy tales and myths.
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