Over the Rainbow: Folk and Fairy Tales from the Margins

Fairy tales tell us the stories we need to hear, the truths we need to be aware of. Arising from oral narrative, born of imagination, they are constantly being adapted to fit new cultural contexts. They shapeshift just like their characters. Their plots, motifs, and elements often serving as warnings.

Over the Rainbow: Folk and Fairy Tales from the Margins is a collection of adult stories that invite us to imagine new possibilities for our contemporary times. And much is happening in these times! Cultural diversification and increased societal awareness of personal differences is allowing voices that tend to be silenced by mainstream society to come to the forefront.

Collected by seven-time Prix Aurora Award-winner Derek Newman-Stille, these are edgy stories, tales that invite us to walk out of our comfort zone and see what resides at the margins. Over the Rainbow is a gathering of modern literature that brings together views and perspectives of the underrepresented, from the fringe, those whose narratives are at the core of today’s conversations – voices that we all need to hear.

Contributors: Nathan Caro Fréchette, Fiona Patton, Ace Jordyn, Rati Mehrotra, Robert Dawson, Richard Keelan, Nicole Lavigne, Liz Westbrook-Trenholm, Kate Heartfield, Evelyn Deshane, Lisa Chen, Tamara Vardomskaya, Chadwick Ginther, Karin Lowachee, Kate Story, Ursula Pflug, Quinn McGlade-Ferentzy, Sean Moreland.

Derek Newman-Stille is a queer, nonbinary (preferring they/them for pronouns), disabled author, editor, artist, academic, and activist living in Peterborough, Ontario. Derek is a Ph.D (ABD) candidate, and the eight-time Prix Aurora Award-winning creator of the digital humanities site Speculating Canada and associated radio show. They are also the creator of the digital humanities site Dis(Abled) Embodiment, and co-creator of the sites QueerPop and the fairy tale site Through the Twisted Woods. Derek teaches at Trent University in the English Department and Women’s and Gender Studies Department. They have been published in Quill & Quire, Disabled People Destroy Science Fiction, The Canadian Fantastic in Focus, Mosaic: An Interdisciplinary Critical Journal, and Misfit Children: An Inquiry Into Childhood Belongings.