I'm Chris, a publisher at Coffee House,
and I couldn't be happier to have
the honor of introducing one of my favorite writers, Kate
Bernheimer.
Kate's essay, "Fairy Tale is Form, Form is Fairy Tale,"
was named by Flavorwire as one of the 10 greatest essays
on writing ever written, where she sits alongside such giants
as Susan Sontag, Joan Didion, and TS Eliot.
When I was considering the manuscript of what wound up
being her first Coffee House story collection,
Horse, Flower, Bird, she sent it to me,
because she thought it would help me understand her work.
It did, and it, alongside Victoria Nelson's Secret Life
of Puppets, has also fundamentally influenced
the way I think about fiction, especially
work in a nonrealist or speculative tradition.
It's the latest in an impressive list of literary output.
Her most recent collection is How a Mother Weaned Her Girl
from Fairy Tales.
She's also edited two seminal anthologies, My Mother She
Killed Me, My Father He Ate Me: Forty New Fairy Tales,
and XO Orpheus: Fifty New Myths, and is
the author of the wonderful trilogy, The Complete Tales
of Ketzia Gold.
And she's the editor-publisher of the wonderful and singular
journal and press, The Fairy Tale Review which, to my mind,
is one of the most interesting and important journals
of the past 20 years.
Lastly, as you know, she teaches right here in Tucson
at the University of Arizona.
In a recent review of How a Mother Weaned a Girl From Fairy
Tales, the reviewer wrote, "In transporting ourselves
into the world of the fairy tale,
we continue to place value in sharing experiences.
Throughout the book, Bernheimer skillfully and subtly
illuminates the necessity of this literary tradition.
She maintains a delightful hope in the darkest, most isolating
encounters of our existence.
If someday you find yourself in the unfortunate situation
of being held captive in a cage waiting to be fattened in order
to be eaten by a cruel witch, what else can
you do but try to break loose, push the witch
into her own oven, flee and then have a laugh and a smoke."
[LAUGHTER]
Welcome Kate Bernheimer.
[APPLAUSE]