Robuta

Welcome! I'm a writer of novels, short stories, essays, and poems. You can read more about me on my Press page. The Novels, Stories, Essays, and Poems...

The poetry blog of Theodora Goss

I am not a revolutionary. I am far too introverted, too much inside my own head most of the time. I went to a march once, back in 2017, and found it both...

Roam through the captivating stories of World Fantasy, Locus, and Mythopoeic Award winner Theodora Goss (the Athena Club trilogy). This themed collection of ima

Welcome to the Fairytale Heroine’s Journey project! When I first started teaching fairy tales at the university level, I noticed that certain tales had a...

One of the first fairy tales I analyzed using the structure of the Fairytale Heroine’s Journey was “Snow White.” At the time, I was still...

Nov 15, 2025 - Guest post on writing as witchcraft by speculative fiction author Thedora Goss with a book giveaway of her collection LETTERS FROM AN IMAGINARY COUNTRY.

In the last few days I’ve been reading Breakfast at Tiffany’s, which is about as far from The Chronicles of Narnia as one can get, although Holly...

I have four months. Sometimes I envy people who just write. They can get up in the morning, get in their writing, do the other things they need to do —...

This page contains a list of the blog posts I’ve written by year. It’s a work in progress as I go back and link to older posts. Feel free to...

Little Apples by Theodora Goss I gathered the little apples even though the wasps told me the apples were theirs. They would alight on an apple, a ripe one of...

Nov 19, 2025 - Reading Letters from an Imaginary Country felt like stepping into a cabinet of curiosities—full of literary lineage and speculative wonder.

The Headless Jesus by Theodora Goss There was a tomb in the Fiume Road Cemetery in Budapest, on which a headless Jesus sat between two angels holding up their...

Nov 13, 2025

In summer, while I was in Budapest, I went into a DM store. I think DM means drogerie markt? It’s a German chain of what in the United States we would...

Novels Published The Sinister Mystery of the Mesmerizing Girl (Extraordinary Adventures of the Athena Club Book 3), Saga Press, 2019. Mary Jekyll and the...

Reviewed by Helen Parry I’m very fond of Theodora Goss’s short stories, so when I saw that she was publishing a novel I was excited and ordered a copy...

Fairy Gifts: The Magic of Generosity in Fairy Tales by Theodora Goss Have you noticed that fairy tales aren’t really about fairies? J.R.R. Tolkien points...

Reality is both objective and subjective, but what if reality could be fundamentally changed just by enough people thinking about it really hard? Author...

If you need information on me for an article or interview, this page contains a short biography as well as basic biographical information. It also photographs...

Sorrow Song by Theodora Goss Sorrow, Sorrow, come to me, comb my hair, lay out the dress I planned to wear. Let it be my wedding dress or my shroud. Luckily,...

In the article I wrote for Faerie Magazine on the Fairy Tale Heroine’s Journey, I described the full journey, as I had finally worked it out in my head,...

Hungarian Songs by Theodora Goss I want to tell a story about the hills that Hungarians call mountains known as the Mátra, which is a mountain range or a...

Essays, poems, and random thoughts on living a magical life in our contemporary world. Click to read Living a Magical Life with Theodora Goss, a Substack...

I left my apartment in London (paid for by the university) in an Uber (paid for by the university) and flew on British Airways from Heathrow to Liszt Ferenc...

When I was in college, the task of the researcher was to find information. When I was in graduate school, it was to sort through information. This spring, when...

On to my second fairy tale: “Sleeping Beauty.” Let’s see if the structure works . . . This is the version by Charles Perrault, translated by...

The Pond Beneath the Willows by Theodora Goss I found a secret pond beneath the willows where the ground was carpeted with creeping charlie. Reeds grew around...

Reviewed by Lory Widmer Hess When I close a book I’ve been living in, I often feel bereft. It’s as if I’ve been watching a master juggler, who abruptly...

The essays of Theodora Goss

The Dragons by Theodora Goss One day, the dragons came. It was on a Tuesday, she remembers. It was the sort of thing that would happen on a Tuesday, which is...

Read 16 reviews from the world’s largest community for readers. Roam through the captivating stories of World Fantasy, Locus, and Mythopoeic Award winner T…

As I continued developing my ideas about the Fairytale Heroine’s Journey, I decided to present an academic paper at the International Conference on the...

THE COLLECTED ENCHANTMENTS by Theodora Goss and LIKE SMOKE, LIKE LIGHT by Yukimi Ogawa have both made the latest LOCUS MAGAZINE Recommended Reading List, which...

The first stage in the Fairytale Heroine’s Journey is “The heroine receives gifts.” This seems to happen in almost all the tales I’m...

When I was in sixth grade, I had a French teacher called Madame. All French teachers are called Madame, unless they are called Mademoiselle, and the Madames...

When I first started developing my ideas about the Fairytale Heroine’s Journey, I wrote an article for Faerie Magazine describing that journey and its...

The Myth and Magic of Narnia by Theodora Goss When I was a child, I searched for a way into Narnia. Didn’t you? There were no wardrobes in the modern...

Here is a list of all the essays included on this website. You can find information on where they were originally published on the individual essay pages. If...

Oct 8, 2025 - This themed collection of imaginary places, with three new stories, recalls Susanna Clarke’s alternate Europe and the surreal metafictions of Borges.

Would you like to buy a book I wrote or edited? Here is a list of my books, with links to where they can be purchased. Of course, you can also always order...

Recently, I read two quotations about home. The first is from Katherine Mansfield, written in her diary: “I want so to live that I work with my hands and...

Collections Published Letters from an Imaginary Country, Tachyon Publications, 2025. Roam through the captivating stories of World Fantasy, Locus, and...