Dante's Heart
OUR MISSION
Dante's Heart offers an online venue for established and new
writers and artists to share creative work that explores how myth and
fairy tale define and are defined by the human experience(s). We
want to celebrate the shock, wonder, bewilderment, suffering, and
enchantment of myth, of the fantastic; we want to hear about rivers
running with wine and ghosts jumping the Mississippi on motorcycles.
We're concerned with the neglect of myth, with the blindness of a
culture determined by myths it hasn't thought about; we demand (beg,
entreat, scream) that myths be thought about, made and remade,
handled with a delicate & angry/sad/ desperate/joyous exuberance.
Dante's Heart has no investment in being either traditional or avant-
garde, in genre or trans-genre, academic or popular; our whole
commitment is to discovery, to surprise or be surprised.
WHAT YOU'LL FIND IN DANTE'S HEART
Welcome. Come in, sit by the fire, put up your boots, rest from the
road.
Dante's Heart is designed as a venue. Here you are in the main room
of our inn, where storytellers, poets, film-makers, artists, musicians,
reviewers, and essayist share in the delight and wonder of each
other's work. Dante's Heart publishes an issue celebrating the
creations of our mythworkers twice a year (subject to change). You
might find poetry there, paintings, a film featurette, a fiction piece.
On an ongoing basis, our editors publish interviews with artists and
writers, so that you can listen in on a closer chat with some of the rising
stars in our community of mythworkers. Elsewhere, in that shaded
corner by the chimney, our editors spin their own stories, serializing
their editor bios in short installments. Their bios do not list their
credentials or state dryly where they live. Instead, Andrew's bio tells
the parodic tale of his transformation into a dragon; Jessica's
captures scenes from a dryad photographer's work in her forest;
Daniel's, cantos in an epic quest. Come in and take a read, and you
will get to know our editors better. They are kind and vigorous
people. You will like them.
Dante's Heart will also be lauching archives. Each archive will be an
ongoing gallery of stories, art, poetry, and other mythwork exploring a
question or a topic. Our first archive will open its main room this
September, and will stay open for future submissions. That archive
is Full Moon Night, and it showcases the work of folklorists, fairy tale
tellers, and fantasists who are urgently exploring what wolves and
werewolves and stories or depictions of them mean to us here, today.
Other archives will follow.
Beyond our inn's common room and beyond the gallery rooms for
our archives, you can join Facebook group, stop by our message
board, enjoy our active blog, or sign up for a free biweekly e-
newsletter. For more information on getting connected, go here.
Please take your time visiting us and enjoying all that you find here at
our inn.
If you would like to support our efforts, please spread the word
about us and read our page on offering gifts.