New Stories For Old: Royal Society of Literature, Courtauld Institute

As long as there have been societies, there have been fairytales: witches, giants, curses, humanity has long been beguiled by the fantasy that we share the earth with stranger beings than ourselves. These stories far precede the written word, passed on from generation to generation, embroidered and altered with each telling.
This process of evolution is ongoing; writers still find ancient hand-me-down tales fertile ground for modern storytelling. On July 1, novelists Helen Oyeyemi, Natalie Haynes and Dubravka Ugresic will discuss the ways in which the fairytale tradition has influenced their own work, along with acclaimed mythographer Marina Warner.
Each of the writers have written books with ancient folklore at their core: Oyeyemi's Boy, Snow, Bird reimagines Snow White as taking place in a segregated 1950s America, while Haynes' The Amber Fury lets five troubled teenagers loose in the brutal world of Greek tragedies. Ugresic's Baba Yaga Laid An Egg turns the Croatian tale of old crone Baba Yaga into a contemporary reflection on the way society treats Old Women. 
Marina Warner's Once Upon A Time: A Short History of the Fairy Tale was published last year to great reviews.