Month: May 2025

2025 AFTS Award Winner

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Spike Deane

The Australian Fairy Tale Society is thrilled to announce that the winner of the 2025 AFTS Award for outstanding contributions to the field of fairy tales in Australia is Spike Deane.

We greatly appreciate Spike’s contributions over many years as an award-winning mixed media artist, Australia’s only (and best) fairy tale glass artist – and the creator of our AFTS Award trophy.

Spike’s additional contributions, past and present, include:

  • Graphic designer for many of our conference programs, social media banners and slides
  • Our original Website Wizard
  • Executive Committee member in the Society’s early struggling years
  • Canberra Fairy Tale Ring leader
  • eZine committee member and contributor
  • South of the Sun anthology committee member and contributor
  • Founding Member #62
  • Creator of Kathleen Jenning’s gift as 2020 Magic Mirrors keynote presenter.

Congratulations, Spike! We’re delighted you’ll have the trophy to display and enjoy for the coming year, as well as special artwork ‘Little Red Riding Hood’ designed by Debra Phillips.

2025 AFTS Award winner Spike Deane, with artwork by Debra Phillips and the Award trophy

Spike’s co-nominee was president Alyssa Curtayne, whom we warmly thank for all she does for our community!

2025 Sydney update

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AFTS Merch on Red Bubble

With just five weeks to go, we’ve released Helen McCosker‘s stunning artwork on conference merchandise at our Red Bubble store.

While there, browse all the other incredible art from our talented members: Lorena Carrington, Erin-Claire Barrow, Debra Phillips, Helen Hewitt, Sue Khoo, Zoya Makarova and more.

Our keynote speaker Demelza Carlton is an internationally celebrated author, who’ll make her only Sydney appearance at our conference, Over Water, Under Water, Magical Waters of Fairy Tales!

Joining her will be acclaimed fairy tale writers Kate Forsyth and Kell Woods, and a range of authors and academics, storytellers and psychologists, artists and other performers, and all the fairy tale enthusiasts from around the country, at a beautiful ocean-facing site in the water-based city of Sydney.

For the full list of presenters and topics, please visit our conference page.

Register now for our June 14-15 conference at Prince Henry Centre, Little Bay, Sydney. (Please note, sessions run 10am-6pm each day.)

Book either here or via Humanitix – AFTS Sydney for a fabulous time. We look forward to seeing you soon!