Daniel Mallory Ortberg

Harvard Book Store welcomes DANIEL MALLORY ORTBERG, co-founder of The Toast and author of Texts from Jane Eyre, for a discussion of his latest book, The Merry Spinster: Tales of Everyday Horror. He will be joined in conversation by librarian and podcaster MARGARET H. WILLISON. 

Update

This event has been canceled. We apologize for the inconvenience, and we hope to reschedule!

About The Merry Spinster

From Daniel Mallory Ortberg comes a collection of darkly mischievous stories based on classic fairy tales. Adapted from the beloved "Children's Stories Made Horrific" series, The Merry Spinster takes up the trademark wit that endeared Ortberg to readers of both The Toast and the bestselling Texts From Jane Eyre. The feature has become among the most popular on the site, with each entry bringing in tens of thousands of views, as the stories proved a perfect vehicle for Ortberg’s eye for deconstruction and destabilization. Sinister and inviting, familiar and alien all at the same time, The Merry Spinster updates traditional children's stories and fairy tales with elements of psychological horror, emotional clarity, and a keen sense of feminist mischief.

Unfalteringly faithful to its beloved source material, The Merry Spinster also illuminates the unsuspected, and frequently, alarming emotional complexities at play in the stories we tell ourselves, and each other, as we tuck ourselves in for the night.

Bedtime will never be the same.

Praise

"A collection of stories delectable, formidable, and nimble. As a fantasist and short story writer, Mallory Ortberg is without peer." ―Kelly Link, author of Get in Trouble

"Dear Reader: It would, truthfully, be simplest to call the stories in The Merry Spinster ‘retellings,’ but that word does not adequately capture their dark alchemy. Mallory Ortberg has created a Frankenstein’s monster of familiar narratives . . . [that swings] between Terry Pratchett’s satirical jocularity and Angela Carter’s sinister, shrewd storytelling, and the result is gorgeous, unsettling, splenic, cruel, and wickedly smart. I’ve never read anything quite like them, and I bet, Dear Reader, that you haven’t either." ―Carmen Maria Machado, author of Her Body and Other Parties: Stories

"Mallory Ortberg has a voracious appetite for poison apples and a genius for finding the places in fairyland where all the bodies are buried. The Merry Spinster will ruin your most-loved fables, in the best possible way." ―Charlie Jane Anders, author of All the Birds in the Sky