When once upon a time is a choice, not your fate . . .
*
“What does the rose during wintertime? She dreams a bright-red dream.”
-Mascha Kaléko
The strangest thing happened in my garden this year. I have seven rose bushes planted in the front, and for some reason, two of them refused to bloom this summer. My yellow and red rose disdained the premier enticements of fresh garden soil and Miracle-Gro pellets. Eventually toward the fall, the yellow rose grudgingly yielded a few blossoms. But the scarlet petal beauty? Not a ruby singleton. My red rosebush had glossy, healthy leaves and appeared to be pest-free, so I don’t understand why it wouldn’t offer a crimson bud even once.
Sometimes, once upon a time won’t ever happen unless you make the choice first.
And sometimes, one simply must create their own blossoms in life. I’m excited to share an Artweaver project I’ve been working on since early November (*special thanks to my friend Anna for giving me the perfect name for it). Presenting the “Hidden Roses” cover edition of my fairy tale retelling, A Fair Account of the Traitors Snow White and Rose Red.
How many roses can you count in the picture? It kind of depends on what you count as a rose.
In this cover edition, I purposefully chose not to show Snow White’s face, because this isn’t truly her story, it belongs to Rose Red. The oft-overlooked sister gazes over her shoulder at readers, inviting them to come along for her misadventures!
I am keenly aware that I still have so much to improve upon with my skills, but considering where I started in June, I’m happy with the progress I have made in learning how to use Artweaver. Also, I’m truly grateful to my family, friends, and writing group for letting me bombard them with various drafts and giving me splendiferous feedback on how to improve my work. (Otherwise, I wouldn’t have recognized that Snow White’s original skirt design did in fact look like a pile of marshmallows . . .)
2025 has been a year full of unexpected surprises, some good, some bad, and all leading me to a fork in the road with my creative ink. At the start of the year, my co-editor Elizabeth and I decided it was time to end the run of Young Ravens Literary Review after a decade. All 21 issues are now available to read in the Young Ravens Archive. It was important to us to find a way to preserve all the fabulous work of our contributors rather than let it wink out with the website.
In the summer, I started my adventures with Artweaver and The Luniferous Gazette. Both endeavors scare me as I don’t know what I’m doing. I’m blazing forward with exploring digital artscapes and the peculiar vulnerability of creative nonfiction, and troubleshooting as I go. This was also a year of realizing what I didn’t want anymore. I’ve quit Twitter and put Instagram and Threads on (maybe permanent) hiatus. I felt worn out trying to stay up to speed on every social media platform and risking a severe case of “tileface,” aka scrolling like a mindless zombie. Also, after reading this wonderful post “The Artist’s Rebellion: Breaking Up with the Content Machine” by Ekaterina Popova, I’m truly done trying to please the Almighty Algorithm, too.
Being more protective of my time has allowed me to focus on creative projects that are closer to my heart, like a Fairy Tale Poetry playlist on YouTube that will feature around ten of my favorite fantasy poems that I’ve inked over the years. In celebration of the Hidden Roses cover, I’m resharing a poem that pairs perfectly with the novel:
Reddest
—Inspired by Snow White
Sweet incarnadine
Like a deer’s heart
Freshly cut.
I gaze away, blood blind,
Every hue draining into
The pit of my stomach.
All the world hollows coreless
Next to the apple’s
Ruby-given flesh.
I close my eyes against the after
Image of nectarous star, cursing
Those weaker orbs—
No summer-warm sun
Will ever satisfy
Me again,
No moon can appease
My luminous
Ravening.
My lips burn to taste this bright,
Unnamed succulence and
Make it my own.
I’m just a brittle, snow
White shadow
Without it.
*“Reddest.” (July 2014). Star*Line, 37(3), 45. Science Fiction Poetry Association.
In summary, this year has been about breaking out of a creative rut and exploring new ways to enjoy/engage with the world. This little jeweled apple featured in the YouTube video is one such delight.
I bought this humble wooden fruit for just 99 cents at the thrift store because I could taste the possibilities sparkling in its bare core. I just needed a lot of glue and rhinestones to reveal its full potential!
May you all find the hidden gems glistening within your own core. They’re there, even if you can only dream of their glint at first.
~*~
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