Episode 182: The Wistful Wild

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Today on Fable and the Verbivore, we’re speaking with author Stephanie Ascough about her collection of poetry The Wistful Wild.

Stephanie is an active member within the Instagram writing community, where we first connected with her. Her independently published fantasy debut novel A Land of Light and Shadow was released in May ‘20 and a collection of fairytale retelling short stories were published under the title Flower and Cloak in January ‘22.

This collection of fairytale inspired poems was released on February 1, 2023 under the title The Wistful Wild: Fairy Tale Poems of Longing and Ferocity and also features poems from authors - Stephanie Escobar, Caitlin Gemmell, Cortney Joseph, Jess Lynn, and our own Fable - Beth Stedman.

This poetry collection includes pieces inspired by The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Cinderella, White Bear King, Valemon, Iron Henry, The Twelve Dancing Princesses, Bluebeard…and many others. Interspersed throughout this episode, several of the authors read short selections from their poems.

In this episode, we touch on:

  • Setting expectations up front when working together as a collective and creating a smooth process that allows for cheering each other on and gathering useful feedback

  • The value in variety and diversity of perspectives and lenses, and the ways that some of these specific poems in this collection dialogue with one another

  • The skeleton nature of fairytales and how these stories lend themselves to being reinterpreted again and again.

  • Normalizing and exploring having layered and complex feelings about a story, and recognizing that we may feel conflicting things

  • Stepping back and asking questions of our stories. Things like: Who gets to decide what’s beautiful?, Who says that beauty is linked to goodness?, Why is ugliness punished?

  • The self-publishing process and unique things to consider when taking a project like this on

  • Giving yourself a generous timeline, so that projects have the space to coalesce and reach a boil

We hope you enjoy this episode! It was a great pleasure to be a part of this conversation and to get to hear the different authors share their work with their unique and individual voices. 

Keep reading, writing, and putting your voice out there!

Into the woods,

Fable & The Verbivore

Notes:

Stephanie is an active member within the Instagram writing community, where we first connected with her. Her independently published fantasy debut novel A Land of Light and Shadow was released in May ‘20 and a collection of fairytale retelling short stories were published under the title Flower and Cloak in January ‘22.

This collection of fairytale inspired poems was released on February 1, 2023 under the title The Wistful Wild: Fairy Tale Poems of Longing and Ferocity and also features poems from authors - Stephanie Escobar, Caitlin Gemmell, Cortney Joseph, Jess Lynn, and our own Fable - Beth Stedman.

Stephanie is an active presence within the Instagram writing community and you can connect with her on Instagram at @author.stephanieascough and on her website at StephanieAscough.wordpress.com

In this episode, we touch on the following previous podcast episode where we interviewed Stephanie Ascough:

Interspersed throughout this episode, several of the authors read short selections from their poems. Here are the names of the poems and the authors names, along with the timestamps:

  • “Once Upon a Time” by Jess Lynn - 12:06

  • “The Mermaid’s Sacrifice” by Beth Stedman - 17:24

  • “Mirror, Mirror” by Cortney Joseph - 22:06

  • “Three Women” by Stephanie Ascough - 27:39

  • “Vigil” by Stephanie Escobar - 30:12

Books and Movies Mentioned:

Music from: https://filmmusic.io
‘Friendly day’ by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.com)
Licence: CC BY (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

interviewBethany Stedman