Terri Windling is an American writer, an artist as well as an editor of fantasy for both children and adults. She is generous with praise for her guidance in American fiction, and she is also an excellent judge. Terri has edited many writings such as ‘The dark passage of childhood,’ ‘The green man,’ ‘The Faery Reel,’ and ‘The Armless Maiden and Other Tales for Childhood’s Survivors.’
Terri puts her fiction in ‘The Wood Wife’ which won Novel Award in the year 1996. She also pictures her fiction in other novels such as ‘the rabbit-girl,’ ‘Owl Boy,’ and ‘Crow.’ She thinks that Spirits can change the life of immortals through interactions.
Moreover, Terri is the founder of Endicott studio which mainly focuses on discussions as well as practices of mythic fictions and arts. Terri has more than 30 years championed re-told fairy tales as a literary art form.
In her Stories such as ‘The Armless Maiden,’ she portrays an understanding of weak and desperate efforts that children put forth in their quest for advancement. Children are portrayed as a happy, innocent lot who does trust adults. Children do interact with the adults with open minds and even share stories of their families oblivious to the fact that they could be exposing themselves to ridicule by the adults. For instance, the writer of the blog says that during childhood, she trusted adults and used to visit an old lady called Mrs. Oliver. Mrs. Oliver usually inquired about the writer’s parents, sisters, and brothers. She could comment that the writer’s family was a ‘happy’ one. This was ridicule since the writer's mother was the second wife to her father her brothers and sisters were step-children. In fairy tales, step-mothers get a bad deal. Step-mothers are portrayed as brutal mothers who are heartless in the way they treat step-children. Fairy tales depict a world that is hostile, full of stupid giants, heartless people who abandoned their children in forests as well as the presence of perilous castles around the world. Terri, in her story ‘Surviving childhood’, she indicates only the brave ones, and the lucky ones can find a way out of the terrible wood.
Young children are portrayed to believe in magic. One night Terri says that out of miserable life in childhood that never seemed to end, she squatted down on the grass in the gravestones of her grandfather’s church conjured a portal to the magic realm by a sheer force of will. She believed that through force of will, the church door could be opened for her. In fairy tales, children understand that if they can only wish in all their strength, effort and will, then they could get what they want.
Moreover, the spiritual quest is also a more significant aspect of childhood. Children always get themselves in a dilemma as they try to figure out how to fit into the surroundings around them. Children sometimes may think that through the power of imaginations they can easily cross into another world and surroundings that better suits them.
However, the things those children desires are way beyond their power and capabilities. The childhood period is only transient and an uprooted one which leads to self-realization where a person can find his or her place, energy, and home. (Langrish)
Work Cited
Langrish, Katherine. "Seven Miles of Steel Thistles." Reflections on Fairy Tales
(2011).
