Red Wolf's Room

You 're probably aware of the trend nowadays where stories are told and retold in new ways; now is the age of story recycling. Look at the super hero films, like Spiderman and Batman. The same thing is happening in the book industry: fairy tales are constantly rewritten from a new perspective, like that of the villain. House of Salt and Sorrows by Erin A. Craig is a fairy tale retelling, but it's one that focuses on a lesser-known tale: Grimm's The Twelve Dancing Princesses . I read this story when I was young; it was part of a book that was paired with a more original telling of Hans Christen Andersen's The Little Mermaid . The Original Story of The Twelve Princesses The King of twelve princesses finds that his daughters' shoes are constantly in tatters and they are always tired, yet he knows they do not venture out of the castle. Even when he locks their doors at night, nothing changes, so the King makes a Royal announcement for any man to spend three ...

After watching Cabaret , the Tin Man series and Instinct , I watched a ton of clips on YouTube of Alan Cumming's interviews and even found his Who Do You Think You Are? episode. Solving his family's mystery seemed to take a toll on him, especially when he reached the climax of the show. It's much worse these days with social media and television so integrated into our lives. We forget that celebrities, both major and minor, are real people with real families. We also forget that the ancestors of our family aren't just history; they, too, were real people. While watching Cumming uncover a family mystery, viewers don't think of what else could be happening in his life as he's filming. As a writer and avid reader, I love stories, and while stories make life interesting and engaging, we sometimes need to remember to lift the dreamy film from stories and come to terms with the realness of said story, turning it into fact. Sometimes, I'm able to do that an...