Editor's Note

Abstract

17 Editor’s Note1  Many people in the world read pink fairy tales, or have pink fairy tales read to them. This includes adults and children alike. Pink fairy tales are read in Japan, Korea, and South Africa. In Greece, Egypt, and Germany. France, Spain, Italy, Denmark, Pakistan, Mexico, Syria, Turkey, and even in the United States, people read pink fairy tales. One finds pink fairy tales in print in Poland, Russia, and Afghanistan, and the stories are apt to have likeness to one another everywhere, and also to have many variations. A child who has read TheCompleteTalesoftheBrothersGrimm will find some old friends with new faces in The Complete Stories of Hans Christian Andersen or Pantheon’s Chinese Fairy Tales and Fantasies. An adult who has seen a retrospective of Kiki Smith’s art or Dorothea Tanning’s or Carrie Mae Weems’s will find some old friends with new faces in a Samantha Sweeting or Kimiko Yoshida exhibit if she examines and compares. Yet there will always be pink fairy tales that are new to a reader, whether young or old, for the imaginary creature beloved in Kenya may have a different word for itself than the imaginary creature beloved in Peru. The fairy godmother in Morocco may take a different form than the fairy godmother in Vietnam, though on the other hand, both may dress in pink sartorial style. The young student, whether hither or thither, will still remark that Angela Carter over-adorns her pink stories and is trying to make fun of men, and he will rebel against her pink punk feminism. Everywhere we encounter stories that ought not be read to the very nervous adult, one keen on preserving unequal axes of power, an anti-pink if you will, as these stories border on blasphemy in that regard, and this can include pink ghost stories. Some pink fairy tales are very frightening—yet never much more horrid than the news, and oftentimes far less so, we find. Particularly in the language of women, whom, as history tells us, were not a nervous or timid people. However, the pink fairy tale “The Hare Bride,” which if you don’t know it I recommend it, is horrid, and also one of my favorites. I am quite sure that this pink story is not true though it truly is pink. Many other pink stories are less alarming, and you can find them as well if you look, since there are still libraries hither and yon. Unfortunately, they are not many of 18 them translated into English, for those of you who read only in English; yet some pink fairy tales (of the poetry and prose variety) appear in The Pink Issue in their English language originals, for your perusal. Please note that some of these pink works were filtered first through the African, or the Catalan, or the Latvian, or the Zambian, or the English-language variations from many years past (or more recently) which our esteemed and debut authors have researched or merely enjoyed, as if enjoyment were mere; and you will find the rosiest of influences, if you choose to look for these. Our authors have drawn monsters and mothers, sisters and brothers, babies and lions, as well as fancies brought from all quarters. Behind The Pink Issue is a pressing question of mine, which is this: How has Antigone, a creation of man, become a feminist icon? Are you certain? Are we so certain we have gone back far enough to respond? No! We are not so certain! Backwards, backwards we must fearlessly go. Please read and write pink fairy tales to answer this question and please send your answers to the Editor via correspondence . Thank you. I tuck that in here for you to consider. Yes, courage, youth, beauty, kindness, in-between girls, pink peonies, clouds: these have many trials, and these do not always win the battle; while unfriendly cruel people seem not to be on the losing hand often enough! Depending on where it is that you look and how you look there, of course, but I believe, unpopular as my vision might be, such is the case. So it ought not...