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Sunday, June 5, 2011

Jane Espenson and Liz Tegelaar Join ABC Fairy Tale Drama ONCE UPON A TIME

From Jane Espenson and Liz Tegelaar Join ABC Fairy Tale Drama ONCE UPON A TIME:

Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz (Lost) are talented men. But with the fairy tale drama Once Upon a Time, they’re tackling an ambitious premise that revolves around a young female heroine (Jennifer Morrison), so any help from fellow talent is welcome. According to THR, ABC has wisely hired Jane Espenson and Liz Tigelaar as producers the drama. With credits on Torchwood, Game of Thrones, Battlestar Galactica, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Espenson is the go-to girl for genre fare. Terrific hire — Espenson will be a co-executive producer.

I am really, really rooting for this one!

And while we're here, here is the official synopsis of the show:

And they all lived happily ever after – or so everyone was led to believe. Emma Swan knows how to take care of herself. She’s a 28-year-old bail bonds collector who’s been on her own ever since she was abandoned as a baby. But when the son she gave up years ago finds her, everything starts to change. Henry is now 10 years old and in desperate need of Emma’s help. He believes that Emma actually comes from an alternate world and is Snow White and Prince Charming’s missing daughter. According to his book of fairytales, they sent her away to protect her from the Evil Queen’s curse, which trapped the fairytale world forever, frozen in time, and brought them into our modern world. Of course Emma doesn’t believe a word, but when she brings Henry back to Storybrooke, she finds herself drawn to this unusual boy and his strange New England town. Concerned for Henry, she decides to stay for a while, but she soon suspects that Storybrooke is more than it seems. It’s a place where magic has been forgotten, but is still powerfully close… where fairytale characters are alive, even though they don’t remember who they once were. The epic battle for the future of all worlds is beginning, but for good to win, Emma will have to accept her destiny and fight like hell.

Snow White Movie Wars

From 'Snow White' war: Relativity Media leapfrogs its fairy tale adaptation's release date ahead of Universal's:

Shot No. 2 has just been fired. As we predicted Monday, Relativity Media is moving the release date for its still-untitled, family-friendly Snow White action project ahead of Universal Pictures' fairy tale adaptation, "Snow White and the Huntsman."

Relativity's movie, which will star Julia Roberts as the evil queen, will now come out on March 16, 2012, the same weekend as Sony's "21 Jump Street" and one week ahead of the highly anticipated adaptation "The Hunger Games" from Lionsgate. (Relativity's Snow White film is scheduled to begin shooting next month.)

Tuesday's move comes one week after Universal shifted its Snow White adaptation out of the 2012 holiday season to June 1, nearly a month ahead of Relativity's original June 29, 2012, release date.

Relativity is not stopping with "Snow White." They seem to be engaging in all-out warfare with Universal, dating their Nicholas Sparks romance "Safe Haven" -- which has yet to be cast -- on June 1. That means it will go head to head with "Snow White and the Huntsman" starring Kristen Stewart.

At least for now this means we will be seeing them earlier than planned....

Saturday, June 4, 2011

Scheherezade’s Bequest Issue 13

Scheherezade’s Bequest Issue 13 is now online for your reading convenience:

This issue of Scheherezade’s Bequest, with its companion updates from Cabinet des Fées, is being brought to you live from Deux-Sevrés, a place saturated in folklore and fairy tales. Situated in the Poitou-Charentes region of France, where the landscape alternates between agricultural patchworks and forested hills, Deux-Sevrés is home to the the 16th-century château d’Oiron (pictured below), where Charles Perrault based his story “Le Chat Botte” (Puss in Boots). Mêlusine, a European spirit of springs and rivers, created the city of Parthenay (located in the center of Deux-Sèvres) with a wave of her fairy wand. From the looks of this place, I’d say there are quite a lot of spirits still hard at work around here. The region also hosts the Angoulême Folklore Festival, where performers from all over the world gather to celebrate the traditions of their homelands amidst a bounty of wine and cheese.

It is with a celebratory spirit that we bring you this issue of Scheherezade’s Bequest — it is our 13th issue after all, and thirteen is a number of some import to fairy tales. In the Grimm’s version of Sleeping Beauty, it is the thirteenth fairy who curses the child Beauty after failing to receive an invitation to her christening. In another of the Grimm’s tales, The Twelve Brothers, it is the thirteenth child, the princess, who both seals her brothers’ fates and saves them from it. In the thirteenth issue of Scheherezade’s Bequest, trickster fairies come out in force. Mêlusine herself could be considered a trickster of sorts — you just know that when you tell someone not to do something, that’s the first thing they’re going to do. That’s trickery at its finest. The cover art we’ve chosen for this issue is called “Fighting Fairies II”, and we think it perfectly exemplifies the tricksy-ness of number 13, which contains 13 poems and stories we know will delight you.

And here is the Table of Contents:

Song Before a Quest by Megan Arkenberg

The Fear of Apples by Marta Pelrine-Bacon

In the Fey City by S. Brackett Robertson

Matryoshka by Robert E. Stutts

Fairy Tale Cursed by Alexandra Seidel

A Water Sine by Bruce Woods

Instructions for the Successful Maintenance of Foxglove Bakery by Caroline C. Duda

How to Flirt in Faerieland by C.S.E. Cooney

Apple Cake & Princess Charming by Julia August

A Fairy Tale Princess by Shweta Narayan

The Tall House of Mr. Fox By Caitlyn Paxson

The Robber King's Wife by Caspian Gray

Ribbon, bell by Helen Ogden