In the 1970s, The Chronicle published Armistead Maupin's serial fiction that would become the "Tales of the City" novels, complete with gay characters, sex and profanity — work that most newspapers would not have touched.
As a result of this emptying, the writer becomes the subject; the storyteller becomes the tale.
Then she wrote a letter with pictures to the son of her last governess, Annie Carter, who suggested she turn it into a book, which became "The Tale of Peter Rabbit and Mr. McGregor's Garden".
Later, when Josh came out to her at the age of 16, it seemed it would become the classic tale of a gay male and his best girl friend.
Nobody wants to become the next cautionary tale splayed across the pages of Forbes.
It's the sheer smallness of his place on the stage which has become the essence of the tale.
But despite the success of Brokeback Mountain, starring the late Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal, the author on whose story it was based has complained that the tale has become "the source of constant irritation in my private life".
The tale has become the stuff of legend on the island.
Is it that much of a stretch to say that the celebrity experience has become the modern-day fairy tale?
