Opinion › Kristine Starling

The Power of Short Stories

Kristine Starling January 4, 2026 January 5, 2026Blog, Literature, Opinion

As a fantasy writer, I spend a lot of time in long-form worlds: histories, legacies, slow-burn tensions. But short stories offer something else entirely. They don’t expand outward; they press inward. And I think that’s why we love them. Why Do We Love Short Stories? Short stories don’t ask for a long commitment, but they do demand full attention. They drop us into a moment already in motion and trust us to keep pace. There’s no easing in, no excess explanation, only what matters. That immediacy creates intimacy for the reader and requires discipline from the writer. What makes short…

Popular Fantasy Tropes: Why These Classics Never Get Old

Kristine Starling March 15, 2025 December 30, 2025Blog, Literature, Opinion

A nostalgic look at the popular fantasy tropes that define the genre and why they still seize our imagination. You ever hear a story and think, I’ve heard this before? The farm boy who turns out to be the lost prince. The scrappy orphan who, surprise, is the key to saving the world. The reluctant hero, the wise old mentor, the ancient prophecy that may or may not be nonsense—fantasy is full of these. And yet, no matter how many times we read them, we keep coming back for more. It’s not because we don’t know better. We do. We…

Exploring The Metamorphosis: A Perspective Beyond Gregor

Kristine Starling March 13, 2025 December 31, 2025Blog, Creative Writing, Literature, Opinion

Transformation is often imagined as something poetic, something endowed with purpose. But what of the changes that bring only ruin? What about the slow unraveling, the spaces left behind, and the silence that settles like dust? For a recent humanities course, I was assigned to write a passage from Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis—not through Gregor’s eyes, but from the perspective of someone left in the wake of his transformation. I chose to give a voice to his sister, Grete, who has watched a beloved brother slip into something unrecognizable in form and in spirit. This passage explores grief as a…

The Last Unicorn: Why This Fantasy Classic Still Matters

Kristine Starling February 15, 2025 December 30, 2025Analysis, Blog, Literature, Opinion

“The unicorn lived in a lilac wood, and she lived all alone. She was very old, though she did not know it, and she was no longer the careless color of sea foam but rather the color of snow falling on a moonlit night. But her eyes were still clear and unwearied, and she still moved like a shadow on the sea.” Peter S. Beagle, The Last Unicorn There are stories that entertain, stories that thrill, and then there are those rare few that burrow into the soul, leaving marks that never fade. The Last Unicorn is such a story…