A Dozen Favorite Mermaid and Selkie Stories
(alphabetically by author, with a soundtrack by New Model Army)
“The Little Mermaid” from Fairy Tales Told for Children by Hans Christian Andersen
“Salt Wine” from The Line Between by Peter S. Beagle
The Folk Keeper by Franny Billingsley
“Driftglass” from Aye, and Gomorrah, and Other Stories by Samuel R. Delany
“Conversations with the Sea Witch” from Snow White Learns Witchcraft by Theodora Goss
“Mermaid in a Jar” from The Middle Stories by Sheila Heti
The Animal Family by Randall Jarrell
The Brides of Rollrock Island by Margo Lanagan
“Robert Greenman and the Mermaid” from All the Names They Used for God by Anjali Sachdeva
“A Touch of Strange” from A Touch of Strange by Theodore Sturgeon
“The Siren” from The Professor and the Siren by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa *
“The Fisherman and His Soul” from The House of Pomegranates by Oscar Wilde
* I’m almost completely alone in preferring this to The Leopard, but I do prefer this to The Leopard.
— February 26, 2021