Writing Baba Yaga into the Tasmanian Bush

Describing the process of writing "The House on Legs," a novel in progress featuring a Baba Yaga-inspired protagonist living in the Tasmanian bush, this essay reflects on the production of new writing through a combination of creative exploration and engagement with critical discourse. It explores the contemporary political sensitivities surrounding the installation of an ancient European fairy-tale character in a postcolonial Tasmanian/Australian context and argues that hybridized and multicultural retellings of fairy tales may provide a way to move beyond the apparently entrenched limitation of the use of fairy tales in Australian literature.