It wasn't until I was an adult reader that I began to fathom the influence of fairy tales on writers I was in love with over the years, from Louisa May Alcott to Bernard Malamud to John Cheever to Anne Frank to Joy Williams.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
I loved fairy tales growing up.
As I read more and more fairy tales as an adult, I found massive collusion between their 'subjects' and those in my fiction: childhood, nature, sexuality, transformation. I realized that it wasn't by accident that I was drawn to their narrative structure and motifs.
On that other novels followed: but I still wrote fairy tales and dreamy poems of another world.
I was a great reader of fairy tales. I tried to read the entire fairy tale section of the library.
I have very happy memories of fairy tales. My mother used to take me to the library in Toronto to check out the fairy tales. And she was an actress, so she used to act out for me the different characters in all these fairy tales.
Fairy tales and folk tales have always played a role in my writing in one way or another.
As a child, I loved fairy tales because the story, the what-comes-next, is paramount. As an adult, I'm fascinated by their logic and illogic.
In course of time my first novel appeared. It was a love story.
I came from a family of incredible storytellers, but I didn't start writing children's books until I was 41 years old.
I never grew up reading or fantasizing about fairy tales. I was always too busy, like, outside being a kid.