My Favorite Things with Courtney Bates-Hardy

They might not be raindrops on roses or whiskers on kittens, but that doesn’t mean that we love them any less. Welcome back to My Favorite Things, the weekly column where we grab someone in speculative circles to gab about the greatest in geek. This week, we sit down with Courtney Bates-Hardy, whose poetry collection, House of Mystery, is available from Kelp Queen Press!

What does Courtney love when she’s not writing poetry about monsters, mothers, witches, and mermaids? Spoiler alert: fairy tale adaptations through poetry, film, and fiction that intrigue and inspire, and a woman who is completely dissectible. Wait, what? Trust me on this one, and read on to learn more!

When I was working on my first book of poetry, House of Mystery, I spent a LOT of time reading fairy tale adaptations. So, I’d like to talk about a few of my favorites. There are so many amazing fairy tale adaptations out there that it made it hard to narrow down this list!

The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter: Of course, I can’t talk about fairy tales without mentioning Angela Carter. I adore her, and I love love love The Bloody Chamber. I read my copy so much that it completely fell apart, and I had to tape it back together. Many of the poems I wrote for House of Mystery were heavily inspired by the stories in this collection. Her lush, purple prose drips from the page and feeds the magic in my soul.

The Company of Wolves (1984): The Bloody Chamber always leads me to the wonderful film adaptation of three of the stories in the collection: The Company of Wolves directed by Neil Jordan. The film script was co-written by Angela Carter and Neil Jordan, and it is chock full of dream sequences and sexual symbolism. I have the movie poster hanging in my house, and I love the werewolf transformation sequence it depicts.

Through the Woods by Emily Carroll: Through the Woods is both the creepiest and most beautiful depiction of unique, horrifying fairy tales I can think of. The writing is bone-chilling, and the way that she uses black space on the page suspends her art in darkness, so that the monsters jump out at you. I just read her newest book, When I Arrived at the Castle, and I am continually stunned by her work.

Beauty by Robin McKinley: Beauty was one of the first fairy tale adaptations that I remember reading as a child. I borrowed it from the library multiple times, and I remember being absolutely enchanted by McKinley’s extended version of Beauty and the Beast. I loved her descriptions of the magic in the castle, the invisible servants, the beautiful gowns, the lush garden. I can close my eyes and still see the jewel-like rose seeds in Beauty’s hands as she plants them around her cottage. Shout out to Spindle’s End for being my second-favorite Robin McKinley novel.

My Mother She Killed Me, My Father He Ate Me edited by Kate Bernheimer: This anthology is jam-packed with forty fairy tales from authors such as Aimee Bender, Joyce Carol Oates, Neil Gaiman, and more. One of my favorite stories in this collection is “The Mermaid in the Tree” by Timothy Schaffert. It’s gothic, it’s weird, and it’s gorgeous.

Fairyland Series by Catherynne M. Valente: This might be cheating a bit, because this is a series of five books, but I don’t think I can choose just one book out of the series. This is the book series I wish I had read as a kid, even though it didn’t exist at the time. Portal fantasy is probably my favorite subgenre of fantasy, and this series solves the “Susan Problem” from the Chronicles of Narnia. Almost every woman who read fantasy growing up knows that Susan was not allowed back into Narnia because she loved “nylons and lipstick and invitations” too much as an adult. For those who haven’t read the Fairyland books, I don’t want to spoil it, but I am a huge fan of the way this series breaks all of the rules we associate with traditional portal fantasy books.

The Anatomical Venus: I wanted to wrap up by talking about something I’ve been researching a lot for my next book of poetry. The Anatomical Venus is a wax figure of a woman who is fully dissectible. These figures were used to teach anatomy before the use of a refrigerator extended the life of a cadaver. I first read about them in Joanna Ebenstein’s book, The Anatomical Venus: Wax, God, Death, and the Ecstatic. I began writing poems about this beautiful and unsettling object, and researching other anatomical models, anatomists, and death rituals in general. I find the Anatomical Venus fascinating because they were made to make death look beautiful. I wanted to talk about the juxtaposition of beauty and death in every woman’s life — the ways that we hide our pain, the ways we perform beauty, and the pressure we feel to look or act perfect in the face of injury, illness, and death. The Anatomical Venus has been leading me into a whole new body of work, and I’m excited for the moment when I can unveil it.

Courtney Bates-Hardy is the author of House of Mystery (ChiZine Publications, 2016). She holds a Master’s degree in Creative Writing from the University of Regina. Her poems have been published in Room, Carousel, and On Spec, among others. She’s currently working on her second poetry collection, which is tentatively titled The Anatomy of a Monster. She lives in Regina with her husband and their cat. For pictures of her cat, you can follow her on Instagram. For everything else, you can find her online at www.courtneybateshardy.com or on Twitter.

Author Photo by Ali Lauren

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