flax-golden tales
If you are a dreamer, come in,
If you are a dreamer, a wisher, a liar,
A hope-er, a pray-er, a magic bean buyer…
If you’re a pretender, come sit by my fire
For we have some flax-golden tales to spin.
Come in!
Come in!
— Invitation, by Shel Silverstein
flax-golden tales
stories by erin morgenstern
photos by carey farrell
Each flax-golden tale consists of a photograph by Carey Farrell accompanied by an original ten-sentence short story by Erin Morgenstern. New tales are posted each Friday.
All flax-golden stories are tagged for ease of reading.
About the Artists
Erin Morgenstern is the storyteller, weaving little bits of word whimsy and sending them off into the wilds of the internet with photographs to keep them company. She also writes novel-shaped tales, paints pictures, wrangles kittens, confuses people by changing her last name and burns easily. Currently, all of this is accomplished in Salem, MA with copious amounts of tea.
Carey Farrell is the person behind the camera. When not being a photographer, she is a singer, a writer, a redhead, a pirate, a guitarist and a pre-school teacher. Not necessarily in that order, and usually not all at the same time. She sails the windy seas of Chicago, and elsewhere on the internet you can find more of her photographs here on Flickr and on careyfarrell.com
Just wanted to let you know that I’m teaching a Community Education course in fairy tales next semester and plan to have my students read some of these flax-golden tales alongside the Shakespeare, H.C. Andersen, Perrault, Karen Russell, Angela Carter, Gene Wolfe, A.S. Byatt, Yeats and C. Rossetti. Thank you for writing them.
I adore these short, whimsical tales. Each one is a little nugget of beauty. I look forward to reading many more in the future.
I found you through NaNoWriMo and was attracted to your awesome little email motivating us all to write, write, write.
I am not a novel writer. I am a writer nonetheless. That is the first time I’ve said it “out loud.” haha.
Anyway, this Shel Silverstein poem is something I painted around my dining room walls when we first bought our house 17 years ago. Its still there, though it is now the living room, or “lounge”, as we have so aptly named it. We love to lounge on the comfy couches drinking coffee in the morning or wine in the evening. I love to sit there and write.
So thanks for this lovely little Shel Silverstein connection today. I’m soooo looking forward to reading your book! Congratulations!
Just wanted to say I hope you changed your last name because of S. Morgenstern of “The Princess Bride.” Did you?
I also wandered on to your site here from the NaNo pep talk. I think this is such a great idea, to have a 10 sentence short story based off of an image. What a great writing prompt! I hope you don’t mind, I’ll try it out myself
Always in need of some creative endeavors!
Hi Erin! I too wandered here from the NaNoWriMo peptalk. I loved the pep-talk, and I’m loving your website even more. I’m seriously considering splurging on a purchase for myself (eeh, gads, right before the holidays) and pre-ordering your book, it sounds like it’s right up my alley, as I too am fascinated with fairytales and magical worlds. What’s a girl to do, right? Anyway, thanks so much for your encouraging (and entertaining) words.
I adore your flax-golden tales, they are as if spun from sugar, delicate and sweet. But full of implications too, that make your mind twist and makes you procrastinate while pondering, as if trying to figure out how to eat that sugar-spun delicacy.
I’m afraid they’ll disappear, they have a dreamlike quality.