V is for Vegetables

        (My A to Z Blog Challenge theme this year is Beyond Pomegranate & Thorns, my brand-sparkly-new collection of short stories, poems, and art inspired by, reimagining, and riffing on fairy tales, myths, and folklore.  All through the month I’m sharing excerpts of art, stories, and poetry, as well as some reflections on the power of the traditional stories that inspired me.  And don’t forget to check out my fellow bloggers at the A to Z Master List.)

        One of the most widely known and best loved fairy tales in the world is “Cinderella.”  I’d be surprised if you don’t know it, but if you want to read the iconic version written by Charles Perrault in the seventeenth century, you can find it here.  Being so well known, “Cinderella” is also one of the most retold, adapted, reimagined, and parodied tales in the world, not to mention that many elements of the tale have become downright proverbial.  In Beyond Pomegranate & Thorns, however, this is one of the tales that I represented only by a piece of art unaccompanied by a story or poem.  The part of the story that struck my fancy was how Cinderella’s fairy godmother made her a coach from a pumpkin.  I started to imagine fairy godmothers all over the kingdom helping out their own favorite goddaughters by creating all manner of coaches out of all kinds of vegetables…

        The level of detail in this rubber block print was quite a challenge for me and I struggled a bit to get everything legible.  True confession: I’ve done a little bit of digital clean-up on this version, which is how it appears in the book.  Also, I added the color digitally to draw more attention to the vegetables.  But despite having a little more trouble than I’d like with the carving, I was very pleased with the palace and other scenery, and I did enjoy coming up with a number of different veggie carriages.

        The moral of Cinderella is that if you plan to wear glass slippers you are definitely going to need some kind of coach, because even a pumpkin will be better than having to walk in those things.

        But also, I suspect that the fairy godmother may have grown up in the Enormous Turnip village.

        What’s your favorite vegetable?  And would it make a good vehicle?

        And here’s a reminder that if you want to hear me read an excerpt from Beyond Pomegranate & Thorns, you are cordially invited to join me live, on-line at Strong Women-Strange Worlds on May 1, just after the A to Z Challenge is wrapping up.  It’s free, it’s fun, it’s relaxing, and it’s an excellent mental health break!  (Remember how much you used to love Story Time?)  But you do need to pre-register to get the Zoom

link, so register right now and be sure not to miss me and 5 other authors of speculative fiction sharing bite-sized snippets of our diverse work.

[Picture: The Fairy Godmothers Have Been Busy, rubber block print (with digital color) by AEGNydam, 2026 (Image from Beyond Pomegranate & Thorns).]