A post-election fairytale from Catherynne Valente

[sweetloukillbot]

Fantasy and YA Author Catherynne Valente has been a beacon of light post-election on social media. And yesterday she released a new short story inspired by the election and her attempts to come to grips with it. It's a beautiful story that should be read by all...

“Perhaps this is not the end of the story, then,” the Green Wind said kindly, though he wasn’t sure he believed it. It was important to say it to the brokenhearted, to the young, to everyone, even if he didn’t believe his own words. Especially if he didn’t believe it. If no one said it, it couldn’t even start being true.

“It feels like the end,” said A-Through-L with a strangled cry.

“It always does, when you lose.”

Read the whole thing here, and share for free...

http://www.catherynnemvalente.com/the-beasts-who-fought-for-fairyland/

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

1. Great story!

[DonCoquixote]

2. More wisdom than in a thousand newspapers.

" But we…we must say Yes to each other. We must say Yes to the needful, to the suffering, to the lonely, to those the Marquess punishes for saying No to her. We must band together, back to back, and say Yes to everyone who lost today, for we are all family now, and our loss is our new last name. If we must hide, we will hide. If we must flee, we will flee. If we must fight all of this all over again, we will do it and complain the whole time. We must say Yes to the story where, after a long battle, the dark lord is cast down into infinite nothingness or burnt to a crisp or at the very least sent to bed without supper, and everyone cheers and dances and has a party afterward. But most of all, we must say Yes to the truth and the speaking of it. We must say No to silence. And perhaps, one day, a long time from now, something new and extraordinary will happen and the Marquess will be defeated, and she will blow away on the wind, no heavier than a memory.”

[sweetloukillbot]

3. Cat's twitter feed after the election was heartbreaking

She was seriously invested in the election and it crushed her. But even when she was barely holding it together herself she invited her YA readers to tweet her if they needed to talk about the election, and she's spent the past couple weeks chatting with her young fans and reassuring them. And then she wrote this story...

[hedda_foil]

4. What a wonderfully wonderful story.