http://www.salon.com/books/literary_prizes/?story=/books/laura_miller/2010/11/16/fairy_tales

Laura Miller weighs in on Salon.com about the NBA’s exlusion of retellings of folk-tales, myths, and fairy-tales. I liked her illustration but I think Maxfield Parrish’s princess contemplating a frog works even better to alert readers to her subject.  Kate Bernheimer and I are hoping that the NBA Committee will respond to our petition soon.

Bernheimer and Tatar point out that the NBA rules don’t exclude “retellings of the Bible and Shakespeare’s plays,” or, for that matter, retellings of any other literary form. The singling out of fairy and folk tales belies a long-standing uneasiness with the form, its vaguely disreputable air. The fairy tale plays havoc with the premium we moderns place on originality.