I spent my college years unpublished. I wrote a lot of stories and even spent a year writing a novel, most of which never saw the light of day. This isn’t necessarily notable, a lot of young people toil away unpublished for years, but I thought I would be different. I attended Clarion at the age of eighteen. I hoped to publish early and often. But my career didn’t quite work out that way.
I went to the Academy of Art University in San Francisco. As part of my final project in art school, I designed and wrote my own literary magazine. It would be all retellings of some kind, since I’ve been fascinated with the form for a long time. I did the artwork, the coding, and wrote the stories. I called the site, “The Purple Curtain” off a line from Edgar Allen Poe’s The Raven.
Those stories turned out to be one of my most successful run of stories. Of the five that ended up on the site, I published three of them. The first of which was “Ophelia And The Beast,” which is now available for the first time online as a reprint in the latest issue of Truancy Magazine.
“Ophelia” has the honor of being my first published piece of fiction and therefore holds a special place in my heart. It was published by a group of fellow Clarionites who called themselves The Ratbastards and the chapbook it was on was chock full of talent, many of whom have gone to publish novels and numerous short stories. Good company indeed!
Here’s a shot of the cover:
When Nin Harris, editor at Truancy, put out a call for reprints for her retellings magazine, she said she was specifically looking for things that were out of print, forgotten, lost in the ether of published words that come out every year. I immediately thought of “Ophelia” and sent it off to her. Thankfully, she loved it!
The story is a mashup of Ophelia from Hamlet and Beauty and the Beast. Who knew my love of Shakespeare and Disney movies would come together in such a wonderful way. I always felt like Ophelia was one of the saddest characters in all of fiction. Her supposed boyfriend (who isn’t really her boyfriend at all) kills her father in an accident, although she doesn’t know that. She’s so stricken with grief and heart-ache, she drowns herself, initiating another series of bloody conflicts with Hamlet and her brother, Laertes, who Hamlet kills as well.
The famous Beast is also a very sad character. I always thought the adaptions that showed him less gruff and mean and more troubled and lonely were more understanding of his character. By putting these two sad characters together, I thought it would create an interesting story.
From the Purple Curtain series, the other published pieces were “Rapunzel Goes Mad”, published in one of the popular early online magazines, pindelyboz, and archived here: http://theliteraryunderground.org/pindeldyboz/ehrapunzel.html. And the modern day sequel “A Beauty, Sleeping” in the now defunct online magazine The Fortean Bureau.
Finally, I wanted to share some typographical fun I had with the Purple Curtain stories when I was working on that project:
“A Beauty, Sleeping” published in 2004 in a shuttered magazine. No online archives.
“Rapunzel Goes Mad” Published in pindelyboz, archived here. Note: the MAD is written in a font called Twigs I designed for another school project.
“The Problem with Purple” This was an Alice in Wonderland retelling, unpublished.
“The Vampire Drug” No specific story retelling here, just a quick take on vampire stories. Unpublished.
“Ophelia and The Beast” reprinted in Truancy 6.
“Ophelia and the Beast” is now available to read with a gorgeous cover art at the new Truancy website here: http://www.truancymag.com/2019/10/18/truancy-6-september-2019/
Elad Haber 