the well written - catherynne m. valente

And so he made his way home, discovering the second truth of
Quests, which is that, mysteriously enough, the path homeward is a
great deal shorter than the path deedward.  The sun slips easily
through the sky, as if on a golden rail, and earth seems to positively
skip by under one's feet.

- Catherynne M. Valente, In the Night Garden

By LaLaMiMiSaSa

the well written - catherynne m. valente

She stayed in the ground for no more than a quarter of an hour -
but in her memory it was all day, hours upon hours, and her father
didn't come until it was dark.  Memory is like that.  It alters itself
so that girls are always trapped under the earth, waiting in the dark.

- Catherynne M. Valente, "Thirteen Ways of Looking at Space/Time"

By Mao Hamaguchi

on writing... difficulty

I am irritated by my own writing. I am like a violinist whose ear
is true, but whose fingers refuse to reproduce precisely the sound
he hears within.  - Gustave Flaubert

Writing is not a genteel profession. It's quite nasty and tough and
kind of dirty.  - Rosemary Mahoney

A writer is a person for whom writing is more difficult than it is
for other people.  - Thomas Mann

From Becoming Jane

photo stories - richard burbridge

These mask photographs by Richard Burbridge in the latest issue
of Livraison Magazine illustrate how angles, proportions, and
textures can dramatically change the moods of an otherwise similar
set of faces.  One reads as heroic gladiator, another as fairy
warrior, a third - the last in the series - makes me think of a
sci-fi queen or Zeus' mistress.  The individuals who designed
these are storytellers in their own right.

A huge, monstrous thing, the mask sits on her head like the prow of
a broken, overturned ship, carved over with etched eyes and fins.
Yellow reeds and sea-stones hang from its tricorn-points. She is
looking at me, but all I can see is the wooden grotesque she wants
me to see instead of her face.

- Catherynne M. Valente, Silently and Very Fast

photo stories - gregory crewdson

Ultimately, I’m interested in this ambiguous moment that draws the viewer
in through photographic beauty, through repulsion, through some kind of
tension.  I have always been fascinated by the poetic condition of twilight.
By its transformative quality. Its power of turning the ordinary into something
magical and otherworldly. My wish is for the narrative in the pictures to work
within that circumstance. It is that sense of in-between-ness that interests me.   

– Gregory Crewdson

Many writers also manage to strike this balance between beauty and repulsion.
Valente and Angela Carter strike me as two great examples.  See here:

They fell on me, which is pretty much how zombies do anything...  But they 
didn't bite me, and finally my father threw back his head and bellowed. I know 
that bellow. I've always known it, and it hasn't changed. They pulled away, panting, 
exhausted... And my father limped over to me, dragging his broken left foot-they 
don't die but they don't heal. I tried to set it once and that was the closest I ever 
came to getting bitten before that night on the river.

He stood over me, his eyebrows crusted with old fluid, his eyes streaming tears 
like ink, his jaw dislocated and hanging, his cheeks puffed out with infection. He 
reached out and hooted gently like an ape. To anyone else it would have been just 
another animal noise from a rotting zombie, but I heard it as clear as anything: 
Caitlin, Caitlin, Caitlin. I had nowhere to go, and he reached for me, brushing my 
hair out of my face. With one bloody thumb he traced a circle onto my forehead, 
like a priest on Ash Wednesday. Caitlin, Caitlin, Caitlin.

His blood was cold. 

- Catherynne M. Valente, " The Days of Flaming Motorcycles" 

And a great example from Carter can be found here.

illustration - the well written - catherynne m. valente

I often enjoy fairy tale retellings, especially when a writer completely turns
the story on its head, from an angle of far left field.  "Bones Like Black Sugar"
(Hansel & Gretel years later) by Valente is one of those.  She basically writes
about the phenomenon of victims bonding with their kidnappers through the
medium of fantasy - amazing.  Have a read (link soon to follow) if you haven't
already.  And enjoy some illustrative takes on the tale below.

The moon slashes windows into the black soil, and he sleeps behind me,
sleeps dead and sweat-pooled. My steps grin on the pine needles and I
need no breadcrumbs, never needed breadcrumbs, north into the forest, the
wood, the thicket of breath and branches that pricks my skull hours on hours,
that tangles my lungs in sap and sweet. It is not that I remember where it is,
but my feet have learned no other path than this, this crow-hung track slinking
through the dark. They turn and point with the eagerness of a girl in pigtails,
a girl in braids, a girl with ribbons streaming like oaths behind her.

- Catherynne M. Valente, "Bones Like Black Sugar"

By Heidi Hanninen

By Marie Josee

resources - free short stories

Mallow yearned to know everything.  Curiosity was part of her, like her short
blond hair and bitten fingernails.  The best thing in the world was not her
luckfigs or her whiskey lake, not her weeping-orchid garden or the cast-iron
ducks that thudded heavily on her windowsills every morning, hoping for a
bit of onion oil to moisten their bills, not even her friends or her little country
house, but having curiosity satisfied, feeling the warm, sure spread of
knowledge through her body.

- Catherynne M. Valente, The Girl Who Ruled Fairyland - For a Little While (Tor.com)

Many authors post their short stories on their websites, or at least the links.
Two such authors are Catherynne M. Valente and Kij Johnson.
Click to see the lists of available reads.

By Ana Juan

illustration - joana

Illustrator Joana's art reminds me of Catherynne M. Valente's fantasy and science
fiction.  Ex. Silently, Very Fast, one of her short science fiction works - with its
strange, but brilliant, imagery, metaphors, and character dynamics.

The light-motes trace arcs over the globe of my heart, reflecting softly on her belly,
green and gold. Her hair floats around her like seaweed, and I see in dim moonlight
that her hair has grown so long it fills the lake and snakes up into the distant
mountains beyond. Neva is the lake. One by one, the motes of my heart zigzag
around my meridians and pass into her belly, glowing inside her, fireflies in a jar.

- Valente, Silently, Very Fast

on reading - catherynne m. valente

But no one may know the shape of the tale in which they move.
And, perhaps, we do not truly know what sort of beast it is, either.
Stories have a way of changing faces.  They are unruly things,
undisciplined, given to delinquency and the throwing of erasers.
That is why we must close them up into thick, solid books, so they
cannot get out and cause trouble.

- Catherynne M. Valente,  The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of 
Her Own Making

By Tae-Eun Yoo

the well written - catherynne m. valente

The world always changes.  Wishes get slimy, and their colors fade, and soon they are just mud, like all the rest of the mud, and not wishes at all, but regrets.  The trouble is, not everyone can tell when they ought to launder their wishes.

- Catherynne M. Valente, The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making

By Julia Filipone Erez