WEBVTT

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I've been told that we have
time for a couple of questions,

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a couple of minutes of
questions, five minutes

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of questions before the buzzer.

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Does anybody have any
questions for anybody

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who read tonight about
the fairy tale they

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worked from or about
fairy tales generally

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or just any questions?

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Yes?

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I have a sort of comment.

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When I was a little kid, my
favorite book of fairy tales

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was The Happy Prince
by Oscar Wilde.

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That's a great collection.

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Do you reread it now--

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The Happy Prince?

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Yeah?

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[INAUDIBLE]

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That's an excellent collection.

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Other favorite fairy
tale collections

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from your childhood?

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We could hear some of those
instead of taking questions.

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Yeah.

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Yes?

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Classic Faerie Tale Theatre.

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Shelley Duvall--
Faerie Tale Theatre.

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Yeah, I know.

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Do you have a favorite episode?

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I actually liked
the [INAUDIBLE]..

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That's great.

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You had a favorite one too?

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I actually just had a question
for one of the writers here.

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I just wanted-- what was the
most surprising thing that you

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encountered in your writing?

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[INAUDIBLE]

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Can you hear me now?

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(SINGING) How do you solve
a problem like Maria?

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How do you-- um.

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I had been having a very,
very hard time with a novel

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and, having been asked to
write a fairy tale, resisted

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and resisted because I was
struggling with this novel

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that I have now since
abandoned entirely and took,

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for the very first
time, the advice

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I would so eagerly
give to my students.

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If you're stuck with
something, put it aside

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and do something different.

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And the writing
of the fairy tale

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just completely opened
the door to the book

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I'm working on in a way that I
never anticipated would happen.

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So, I mean, it was not just--

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it was not just surprising.

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It was like my life got saved.

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There you go.

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Fine, my dear.

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No.

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And I go for Peter Rabbit.

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[INAUDIBLE]

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That's great.

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Peter Rabbit.

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Peter Rabbit?

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I love Peter Rabbit too.

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That's my answer.

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Any more questions?

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We can probably take
one more, or we can just

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call it a fairy tale night.

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I've got one.

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OK.

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When you're editing
these books, how do you--

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where do you draw the line
on what's a fairy tale

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and what's not?

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The question was,
when I'm gathering

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a collection like this or
editing Fairy Tale Review,

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where do I draw the line on
what's a fairy tale or not.

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And I guess the
corollary question

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to that would just be, well,
what is a fairy tale, right?

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And the wonderful
thing about fairy tales

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is there really is
no single definition.

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A fairy tale is a story with
an element of wonder in it.

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Some would argue,
and I would agree,

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Nabokov said, all great
novels are great fairy tales.

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I would say the same about
so many different forms

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of writing.

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But I think you can find
certain technical elements

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across the board in a fairy
tale poem, story, novel, film,

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piece of drama.

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But you can find them
in almost any two--

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but you can find them and their
elements like abstraction,

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depthlessness, everyday magic,
and a sort of a logical illogic

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or an intuitive logic.

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However, you don't always
see them very clearly.

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They're sometimes very, very
thinly there or faintly there,

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almost like a shadow.

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What I think identifies
a fair-- what I do

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is, if something has a
fairy tale feel to it, then

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I know it's a fairy tale.

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So I think that when
you go to a movie

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and it's sort of like maybe
the curtains are drawn

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and it says, "once
upon a time," you feel

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like you're in a fairy tale.

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There might be just
some little breadcrumb

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on the path that tells you
you're in a fairy tale.

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But if you think, oh, this
feels like a fairy tale,

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it probably is one.

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But when I was editing
the book, writers

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would often ask me, well, I
don't know if this counts.

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I want to write
about X, Y, or Z,

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and I don't know if it counts.

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And I just always said, yes.

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I mean, I always just
say yes to the story.

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That's kind of the way I do it.

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But I think that we are
so weaned on fairy tales,

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whether we know it or
whether we love them or not,

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that they just become part of
the way we tell things and say

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them.

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And I could probably, if
you gave me any story,

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I could probably find
the fairy tale in it.

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I'm sort of that
dedicated to the art form.

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So I like that challenge
too when somebody says,

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well, this doesn't have
anything to do with it.

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And I'll say, well
here are 73 instances

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in this 10-page story that are
directly hewn from fairy tales.

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I think it's all there
and it's because it's just

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hundreds of years of narratives
from really when books

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were starting to be
read to children.

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And it's fascinating history.

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But, usually, if you think
you're in a fairy tale,

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you are.

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So I just trust that.

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Thanks for coming, everybody.

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