Topic Brainstorm

There are plenty of fascinating options for storybooks or projects, but here are four of my favorite that I found fascinating:

The Greek Underworld

Charon, ferryman of the Underworld.
Courtesy of Hartwig HKD. Source: Flickr.

I would love to focus on the Greek Underworld. I do know quite a bit about this subject, and it fascinates me because of all the different characters and the various realms of the region. For a project like this, I'm thinking about having each page of my storybook be an obituary for some famous figure in the Underworld. Each obituary could tell the stories of someone's death, but also talk about what their soul is doing post-death (this style could even be used to explore some of the different areas of the Underworld where souls can end up like the Elysium, the Mourning Fields, or the Asphodel Meadows). The tributes could be penned by Hermes, who escorts the dead to the Underworld.

Indian Ghost Stories

Ghost stories are fascinating to me, and as I read around, I realized there are a plethora of stories about haunted places in India and Indian ghosts. I love what this project did by exploring different haunted Indian spots in a Ghost Hunters-esque format, and I'd love to research and write about the most renowned haunted places in India. I'm thinking of portraying Indian ghost tales like classic campfire stories, and maybe even having the storyteller be a bhoot himself.

Women Saints

I actually know almost nothing about female saints, but browsing this topic fascinated and inspired me. I would love to modernize both the language and setting of some of these stories, and focus on some of the martyrs in the unit like Saint Juliet or Saint Christine (Christine's story is especially incredible). I'm not sure about a format for these stories, but there are enough of them that I have some great choices. 

Dragons

This topic, though I know little about it, was also fascinating to me as I searched the UnTextbook. I hadn't thought about the fact that there are so many cultures with dragon tales or myths, so this topic seems full of possibilities. I think I could certainly focus on dragon stories from one country (Korea seems especially full), but I'd love to tie together several different countries with this common theme. I'm not sure how I'd tell these myths, but there are plenty of origin stories associated with dragons that could work, and dragons across cultures are so different and varied.