MOTHERS GRIMM

Sly, cheeky and blackly comic, Mothers Grimm tells of mothering, heartache, heartbreak, desire, love and death.

In the fairytales of the Brothers Grimm, Rapunzel's mother trades her firstborn child for a handful of leafy greens, and Hansel's step-mother abandons him in a clearing in the forest. In 'The Goose Girl', the queen sends her daughter away to her fate with a bloodied handkerchief tucked in her bosom, and in 'Sleeping Beauty', Mama's best efforts cannot prevent one little prick from having disastrous consequences for the heroine. Danielle Wood's Mothers Grimm brings characters from these stories into the modern world in a collection of four long stories that interrogate contemporary womanhood and motherhood. Happy endings not guaranteed. Danielle Wood was born in Hobart in 1972. Danielle has an Arts degree from the University of Tasmania, and a PhD from Edith Cowan University. She has worked as a journalist, as a producer with ABC Radio, and as a media officer for Tasmania's Parks and Wildlife Service. Her first novel, The Alphabet of Light and Dark won the 2002 The Australian/Vogel's Literary Award, was the winner of the 2004 Dobbie Literary Award, commended in 2004 in the FAW Christina Stead Award for Fiction, shortlisted for the 2004 Commonwealth Writer's Prize in the Best First Book category for the SE Asia and South Pacific Region, and nominated for the 2005 IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. Her latest novel, Rosie Little's Cautionary Tales for Girls was published by Allen & Unwin in 2006. Danielle is currently teaching creative writing at the University of Tasmania.