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Some years ago I had a conversation with a man who thought that writing and editing fantasy books was a rather frivolous job for a grown woman like me. He wasn’t trying to be contentious, but he himself was a probation officer, working with troubled kids from the Indian reservation where he’d been raised. Day in, day out, he dealt in a concrete way with very concrete problems, well aware that his words and deeds could change young lives for good or ill. I argued that certain stories are also capable of changing lives, addressing some of the same problems and issues he confronted in his daily work: problems of poverty, violence, and alienation, issues of culture, race, gender, and class... “Stories aren’t real,” he told me shortly. “They don’t feed a kid left home in an empty house. Or keep an abusive relative at bay. Or prevent an unloved child from finding ‘family’ in the nearest gang.” Sometimes they do, I tried to argue. The right stories, read at the right time, can be as important as shelter or food. They can help us to escape calamity, and heal us in its aftermath. He frowned, dismissing this foolishness, but his wife was more conciliatory. “Write down the names of some books,” she said. “Maybe we’ll read them.” I wrote some titles on a scrap of paper, and the top three were by Charles de lint – for these are precisely the kind of tales that Charles tells better than anyone. The vital, necessary stories. The ones that can change and heal young lives. Stories that use the power of myth to speak truth to the human heart. Charles de Lint creates a magical world that’s not off in a distant Neverland but here and now and accessible, formed by the “magic” of friendship, art, community, and social activism. Although most of his books have not been published specifically for adolescents and young adults, nonetheless young readers find them and embrace them with particular passion. I’ve long lost count of the number of times I’ve heard people from troubled backgrounds say that books by Charles saved them in their youth, and kept them going. Recently I saw that parole officer again, and I asked after his work. “Gets harder every year,” he said. “Or maybe I’m just getting old.” He stopped me as I turned to go. “That writer? That Charles de Lint? My wife got me to read them books…. Sometimes I pass them to the kids.” “Do they like them?” I asked him curiously. “If I can get them to read, they do. I tell them: Stories are important.” And then he looked at me and smiled.


Terri Windling


#charles-de-lint #childhood #fantasy #folklore #magical-realism



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McKillip illustrated by Brian Froud
The Borderland Series New American Library Tor Books Harper Prism 1985 to present: a Young Adult shared-world series featuring the intersection between Elfland and human lands generally populated by teenagers runaways and exiles. She was a contributor to The Oxford Companion to Fairy Tales edited by Jack Zipes. Works


Fiction
"The Green Children" The Armless Maiden Tor Books 1995
The Wood Wife Tor Books 1996 (winner of the Mythopoeic Award)
"The Color of Angels" The Horns of Elfland New American Library 1997
The Raven Queen with Ellen Steiber Random House 1999
The Changeling Random House 1995
The Old Oak Wood Series Simon & Schuster (illustrated by Wendy Froud):

A Midsummer Night's Faery Tale 1999
The Winter Child 2000
The Faeries of Spring Cottage 2001

"Red Rock" Century Magazine 2000
The Moon Wife Tor Books forthcoming 2012
Little Owl Viking forthcoming 2012


Nonfiction
"Surviving Childhood" The Armless Maiden Tor Books 1995
"Transformations" Mirror Mirror on the Wall: Women Writers Explore Their Favorite Fairy Tales (Expanded Edition) Anchor 1998
Co-writer and editor of Brian Froud's Good Faeries/Bad Faeries Simon & Schuster 2000
"On Tolkien and Fairy Stories" Meditations on Middle-Earth St.

As an artist Windling specializes in work inspired by myth folklore and fairy tales. She received the Solstice Award in 2010 which honors "individuals with a significant impact on the speculative fiction field. She was a contributor to The Oxford Companion to Fairy Tales edited by Jack Zipes.

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