My Book Is Here!

“Goodbye,” originally published last January, is not only available for the first time in six months as a physical book, but also available for the first time ever as an ebook! Order now, and share it with someone you love this Valentine’s Day.

Order Here

Real Life Stuff

Well, first of all, I think I have one now.

So over the last week I've started a job at Barnes and Noble and moved into an apartment. And since I've been at my new job almost constantly since I moved, there are fragments of furniture everywhere, the cats probably think they've been abandoned, and I'm living out of a suitcase and off of ramen noodles and Goldfish.

Tomorrow I shop. And update my LinkedIn profile.

Also, I'm starting my final semester of college next week. And I'm writing my final big research paper, which is, of course, about folklore. Specifically transformation stories.

So the blogging will probably be even more haphazard than ever, given my recent acquisition of a life, but expect lots of rambling about beasts and mermaids and snake people. And Oz. I think I'm going to have a lot to say about Oz in the near future, for reasons I'll get into another time. And brace yourselves for that, because once I get started on Oz, it's hard to get me stopped.

In the meantime, this is your weekly reminder that I write books.

Book News

My first book, Goodbye and Other Words I Should Have Said, has been re-released. Hard copies available here, Kindle edition coming soon.


Fifty one poems on love and loss, and a gorgeous new matte cover, perfect for Valentine’s Day this year.

My second book, Avalanche, is also matte now, and can still be purchased on Amazon.

And as long as we’re here, let’s not forget Beast, the short story collection I worked on with author Iona Gale. Seven great fairy tale retellings you don’t want to miss, also available on Amazon. And keep an eye out for more news from Io; she’s been working on an exciting new project this winter.

The Beard and the Bird

Can we talk about Bluebeard? I hate Bluebeard, okay? But you know what I love? Fitcher’s Bird. So let’s look at the differences.

Bluebeard is French. Perrault. Fitcher’s Bird is German. The Brothers Grimm. So let’s put away the idea that the Grimms are the most horrifically sexist fairy tale people of all time, shall we? Historically, they’re a major improvement.

You probably know the story of Bluebeard. Man with peculiar facial hair marries girl, tells girl not to enter one particular room while he’s out of town, gives her a key to said room, and leaves. Girl, full of insatiable curiosity, enters room, finds corpses of all Man’s previous wives, and in her shock, drops the key in their blood. She leaves the room quickly, but the key has been stained, and try as she might, she cannot wash away the blood. Man returns, inspects key, and prepares to kill another wife. She begs for time to say her final prayers, and during this time her brothers arrive, kill Bluebeard, and rescue her. The girl proceeds to live happily ever after, but the two morals of the story, as provided by Perrault, are:    

1.       Curiosity will get you in trouble       

2.    Real life guys aren’t nearly as bad as Bluebeard, so chill.

On, then, to Fitcher’s Bird. I’ve always pictured this bad guy with a silver nose, but I might be mixing up my Bluebeard variants. Someone has a silver nose. Anyway, we have a sorcerer.  He just straight up kidnaps his girls, and for some reason I find that sort of comforting. If you’re gonna be evil, just own up to it, you know?

So he kidnaps a girl, brings her to his fancy house, goes on a business trip and leaves her home alone with the forbidden key and an egg, which she mustn’t let out of her sight. Why an egg? Beats me. Spoiler alert—it never hatches.

Girl number one opens the murder closet, drops the egg, stains it, and gets chopped up and added to the mix as soon as the sorcerer gets home. He goes and kidnaps her sister. Same thing. And it’s down to the youngest sister.

Now this girl, she’s got some brains on her. She leaves the egg sitting safely on the kitchen counter when she goes exploring. Finds the murder closet, doesn’t drop anything in the blood, and begins carefully putting together the chopped up bodies of her sisters. And since this is a fairy tale, they promptly come back to life. Of course, the fragmented bodies of a dozen other girls get left behind, but hey, two resurrections in a single story? You’re already getting more than your money’s worth.

Sisters get stashed up in the attic or something. Third girl presents clean egg to the sorcerer. The test passed, he proposes to her immediately. And boy is she ever wearing the pants in this relationship.

Yeah, she says, whatever. But while I plan the wedding you gotta haul this huge basket of gold to my parents, ‘kay?

So she dumps the sisters in the basket, sprinkles some gold on top for appearances, and sends the man off, with strict instructions not to stop and rest, because she’ll be watching him from her window the whole time.

Dude gets tired. Sits for a minute. “And just what do you think you’re doing?” asks a zombie sister. “I thought I told you not to stop.”

Surprised at how close his bride’s voice sounds, he gets up and starts walking again. Meanwhile, she’s inviting all his friends over to celebrate the engagement.

He stops to rest. “Slacking again?” says the zombie sister. “My parents are waiting, dear.”

He hurries on. His bride fetches a skull from one of the skeletons in his closet, dresses it for a wedding, and props it up in the window.

“Hurry up,” her sister tells him in her voice. She coats herself in honey. He drops the basket on her mother’s porch. She slices open his feather bed and rolls in it. He walks home. She walks home. 

Paths collide—no problem. Why should he suspect anything, when his bride is right up in the window there, smiling down at him. Crazy humanoid birds aren’t that unusual, I suppose, where he comes from.

He enters the house. Bird girl’s friends and family, alerted by her sisters, meet her out back, and they set the house on fire. Evil sorcerer, evil sorcerer’s evil friends, all up in flames.

So here’s a girl who knows what she wants and finds a way to get it. Sensible and determined. Sneaky. Persistent. Smart. She saves her sisters, she saves herself, and she finds a way to bring down countless bad guys. Not to mention all the gold the sorcerer carried home with the zombie sisters. This family is set for life, just like in Bluebeard, but in this version, the girl wasn’t stupid and careless and she didn’t have to rely on her brothers to save her. They helped, sure, but she orchestrated the whole show. Got the world wrapped around her little finger, that girl. She’ll go far. Just as soon as she washes all those feathers off.

The Christmas Play

            The angels are crying. This is probably because Joseph has been pulling their hair. Again. I put him in time out. Again. I would threaten to recast him, but the show is tomorrow, and you can’t ask seven year olds to memorize new lines in a single afternoon.

Besides, no one else wanted to be Joseph. No sense in punishing some poor Wise Man who’s behaved perfectly all month.

Last year I was only helping with the play. Granted, this meant memorizing the entire thing and putting on a silly angel costume, clothes hanger wings and all, so I could follow kids around the stage and whisper the lines they inevitably forgot, but I’ve been doing that for years. It may be tedious, and occasionally embarrassing—imagine being the only seventeen year old on a stage full of toddlers, wearing a pipe cleaner halo. Now imagine your crush sitting in the front row, watching his baby sister play Mary. But at least I knew where I stood. I had my job, and I did my job, and I moved on. Someone else was there to handle all the real work, to tell me what to do, and to put a stop to wrestling matches between the shepherds.

Now I’m in charge—completely, single-handedly in charge—and if I hear one more sheep scream because his shepherd pinched him, I swear, there will be bloodshed. And it won’t be mine.

It is occurring to me that I may not have been the best person to put in charge of twenty three little kids. I’ve never been exactly patient.

And how seventeen children can collectively forget the words to “Away in the Manger” after four weeks of rehearsal, this year alone, is completely beyond me. Everyone knew it on Sunday. Everyone knew it five Sundays ago, before we even started practicing. But today. Today they forget.

Six children have also each grown or shrunk since the costume fittings last week, and I won’t be sleeping tonight. Why? Because I have to take in two angel costumes, lengthen the hem for one of the shepherds, swap two Wise Man outfits, take in the hem for one, and widen the collar of Mary’s dress, because apparently she can’t breathe. After that, I get to make new crowns for two of my three Wise Men, because they broke them this morning, make four new sets of angel wings for the same reason, wash the angel costume a little sheep threw up on, and find a new box of myrrh. Ours went missing, by which I mean Joseph probably stole it last week and left it at his grandma’s house.

Celebrating Jesus’ birth? Forget about it. I’ll be too busy praying the angels don’t set the church on fire with those stupid candles someone’s mom insisted they hold.

Christmas is my favorite time of year.

Book Review

So, big news for the day: An absolutely awesome person has written an absolutely awesome review for my book Avalanche. She has like a zillion blogs, so I'm not sure exactly where to direct you, but I'll go with the blog where she posted the review: https://amandadbat.wordpress.com/

She is very, very cool and you should all go and see all of her many great blogs. Also, this one here: writingsiren.tumblr.com. This is a good one.

Anyway. There is a book review. It is here: https://amandadbat.wordpress.com/2015/11/27/avalanche/#more-1875

You guys should all go and read it. Then you guys should all go and buy the book. That one's over here: http://www.amazon.com/Avalanche-Portrait-Verse-Jenny-Prater/dp/1515305325/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1450143462&sr=8-1&keywords=jenny+prater




Also, I know I've barely blogged in the last month and a half. And when I show up on here, it's mostly links. Like today. Sorry. But I am finally back home in the United States, so things are getting a little less crazy and I'm hoping for some time to rant about some fairy tales soon.

Lille Havfrue