The woman behind the stories.
Ever since I can remember, I have been enchanted by old stories and fairytales. Now, I have made it my mission to help women discover the mirrors that lie within these tales.
I have been reading and writing for as long as I can remember. As a child, nothing delighted me more than to disappear into imaginary lands. I have never lost my sense of wonder completely, but it did however have to make place for 'serious things'. Slowly but steadily, I distanced myself from my creativity and my passions. Now that I am in my thirties and became a mother a little over two years ago, I am rediscovering the magic world that I created as a child. And the fun part? I'm taking you with me!
La Conteuse
'La conteuse' is French and the literal translation is 'the (female) storyteller': the woman who takes the floor, holds the room, keeps the tale alive. But there's another layer underneath.
Between 1690 and 1709, a group of French women wrote nearly two-thirds of all fairy tales published in France during that period. They were called 'les conteuses'. Women like Marie-Catherine d'Aulnoy, who effectively invented the French literary fairy tale, and her contemporaries: writers who portrayed love as something complicated, with multiple possible outcomes. Who told stories about women who changed shape, crossed boundaries, questioned power. And who were, for the most part, forgotten.
La Conteuse is honoring this movement. Storytelling and fairytales have always been rooted in women who did something with it beyond entertainment. And that is exactly what I intend to do as well.