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Once upon a time, a girl
walked into a library

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and found a story.

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She found many stories.

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And she brought them
home and read them

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with the attention and open
heart of any writer's best

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reader.

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The stories became
part of who she was.

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The pure form of the story
coursed through her body

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like a scent might, filling her.

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Then this girl grew up.

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And she went to the
University of Arizona.

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Actually, she'd already
gone to Wesleyan University

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and had already begun
to spin her own tales.

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Writing and reading
are twins, of course.

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Asked about the first of
her three children's books,

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The Girl in the Castle Inside
the Museum, she responded,

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"I wrote it as I write
most of my fiction,

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to get lost in a story, that
is to evoke the sensation I get

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when I'm reading any book that
I love, that it's storybook

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world, which can live
in a picture book,

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a collection of prose poems,
a comic, or difficult novel

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is the whole world."

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A good tale is a whole world.

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The girl knew this.

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And yet in the bildungsroman
we call the adult world,

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it became increasingly clear
that one, things were not

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always fair.

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And two a kind of story,
a particular kind of story

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that had made the
girl's heart soar,

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was being at least, ignored.

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The girl turned woman
now, became in service to

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the story, a warrior.

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Or in a gentler mode,
you could call her

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a patron, for one aspect of Kate
Bernheimer's power is kindness.

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She has written a genre
redefining trio of novels--

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The Complete Tales
of Ketzia Gold,

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The Complete Tales of Mary
Gold, and The Complete Tales

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of Lucy Gold.

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As well, she's the author of two
collections of stories, "Horse,

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Flower, Bird," and
the forthcoming,

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"How a Mother Weaned Her
Girl From Fairy Tales."

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In the stories and
novels both, her writing

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is provocative,
witty, and meaningful,

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opening up new vistas and
how we think of fiction.

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But that's not all.

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See how many stories
Kate has lovingly

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collected in the pages
of The Fairy Tale Review,

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the journal she founded
in 2005, and in her three

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major anthologies,
most recently,

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the World Fantasy award winning,
My Mother, She Killed Me,

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My Father, He Ate Me:
40 New Fairy Tales.

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In addition, Kate
has on more than one

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occasion, rode out alone or
in very small groups of lady

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knights and gentlemen knights
to fight for artistic freedom.

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One example of this
is her campaign

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against the National Book
Award Foundation's stipulation

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that quote, "collections and/or
retellings of folktales, myths,

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and fairy tales are not
eligible," for the award.

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This important fight has come
to a new stage, thanks in part,

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to her efforts.

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With her own writing, her
editing projects, her teaching,

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and her daily acts of advocacy
and aesthetic generosity,

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Kate gives stories from the
immeasurable imagination,

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a more evident lasting and
righteous place at the table.

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As she says in a manifesto on
the subject, "in fairy tales,

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every thought is as
real as every rabbit."

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I welcome that simple
truth, especially

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here in the MFA program
and in the Poetry Center,

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meeting places of
expansive creativity.

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So here she is.

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Please welcome this fiercest
of readers and writers,

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Lady Knight and champion of the
imagination, Kate Bernheimer.

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