Bewildered

Are you ready to wander into the woods?

Bewildered is Jessie Ulmer’s collection of Hansel & Gretel reimaginings. These prose and poetry pieces explore the different ways in which people experience, remember, and process trauma, and the different ways fairy tales themselves are retold and recycled. Starting with two erasures of Maria Tatar’s early translation of Hansel & Gretel, Ulmer illustrates how Hansel and Gretel interact with the witch, the woods, and each other. Bewildered is a little sad, a little funny, a little queer, a little gross, and (hopefully) a little magical.

Featuring a beautiful cover designed by Theo Young, this book contains 36 different pieces in a mix of prose and poetry that explore Hansel and Gretel's journeys into and out of the woods.

Content Notes: blood & gore, body horror, cannibalism, child abandonment. 

Meet the Creators

Jessie Ulmer (Author) is a queer writer and editor, an identical twin, and a swan by birth. She uses aspects of speculative fiction to explore themes of ability, physical and mental illness, gender, sexuality, and the intersections of identity within her work. She loves ghosts, impossible forests, the carnivorous sea, and believes in magic. She delights in editing for Sword & Kettle Press and her work has been featured in Gordon Square Review, Gingerbread House, Syntax & Salt, Corvid Queen, 3Elements Review, Yellow Chair Review, Sweet Tree Review, Dose of Dread, Rune Bear, Pins & Needles: A Journal of Contemporary Fairy Tales, Translunar Travelers Lounge, and Washington’s Best Emerging Poets Anthology. In 2020, her work was nominated for a Best of the Net Award. 

Theo Young (Artist, they/them) is a genderqueer artist living and working on Algonquin Anishinaabe land (Ottawa, ON). They are often inspired by folklore, horror, and nature. Recently, Theo has been reconnecting with their Slavic heritage and using their art as a means to do that. 

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