Butterfly Moon

Short Stories

Anita Endrezze (Author)
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Anita Endrezze has deep memories. Her father was a Yaqui Indian. Her mother traced her heritage to Slovenia, Germany, Romania, and Italy. And her stories seem to bubble up from this ancestral cauldron. Butterfly Moon is a collection of short stories based on folk tales from around the world. But its stories are set in the contemporary, everyday world. Or are they?

Endrezze tells these stories in a distinctive and poetic voice. Fantasy often intrudes into reality. Alternate “realities” and shifting perspectives lead us to question our own perceptions. Endrezze is especially interested in how humans hide feelings or repress thoughts by developing shadow selves. In “Raven’s Moon,” she introduces the shadow concept with a Black Moon, the “unseen reflection of the known.” (Of course the story is about a witch couple who seem very much in love.) The title character in “The Wife Who Lived on Wind” is an ogress who lives in a world somewhat similar to our own, but only somewhat. “The Vampire and the Moth Woman” reveals shape-shifters living among us. 

Not surprisingly, Trickster appears in these tales. As in Native American stories, Trickster might be a fox or a coyote or a raven or a human—or something in between. “White Butterflies” and “Where the Bones Are” both deal with devastating diseases that swept through Yaqui country in the 1530s. Underneath their surfaces are old Yaqui folktales that feature the greatest Trickster of all: Death (and his little brother Fate).

Enjoyably disturbing, these stories linger—deep in our memory.

“Endrezze is adept at making her settings and landscape reflective of what is happening in the psyches of her characters and the situations of their lives. She captures her reader with vivid language and some very unique and startling images.”—M. Miriam Herrera, author of Kaddish for Columbus




“Anita Endrezze is a master at orchestrating these worlds (of myth) and bringing them to life. There are poetic sensibilities and strong lyricism working to their finest within these stories. Overwhelmingly original and quite unique.”—Tiffany Midge, author of Outlaws, Renegades & Saints: Diary of a Mixed-Up Half Breed


Butterfly Moon
160 Pages 6 x 9
Published: September 2012Paperback ISBN: 9780816502257
Published: November 2012Ebook ISBN: 9780816599998

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