Celebrate the launch of this groundbreaking anthology with Carmel Bird, Cate Kennedy and Sarah Hart, in a panel chaired by Lorena Carrington, as they discuss fairy tales for grown-ups in contemporary Australia.
Sat., 3 July 2021
10:00 am – 11:00 am AEST
Castlemaine Library
212 Barker Street
Castlemaine, VIC 3450
Read the Fairytales for Grownups article in the Midland express here
Download 3 designs for your Zoom background created with Helen Hewitts art here – just right click and save image!
Little Red Riding Hood: A Discourse of Disciplinary Punishment by AFTS member Claudia Barnett can be read in the next issue of Gramarye -The Journal of the Chichester Centre for Fairy Tales, Fantasy and Speculative Fiction.
Claudia is also presenting a paper entitled Inside Her Skin: Gendered Violence In Ex Machina & Bluebeard at the Popular Culture Association’s Conference on the 5th June, 2021.
Session Information: FAIRY TALES VI: FEMINISM AND GENDER IN FAIRY TALES
Date: Saturday, June 5, 2021
Time: 12:30pm to 1:50pm
Congratulations Claudia!
South of the Sun: Australian Fairy Tales for the 21st Century is an enchanting illustrated book of fairy tales – but not the kind you read to children at bedtime.
They are strictly for grown-ups. Often dark, the stories visit places where things don’t end happily ever after, where a single decision can haunt you forever.
But there are also tales to make you laugh out loud, stories of sweet revenge and scenes of sheer delight in the work of magic and the fey.
Discover stories from emerging talent and leading award-winning Australian writers including Carmel Bird, Sophie Masson, Cate Kennedy and Eugen Bacon, along with artwork from foremost illustrators such as Lorena Carrington and Kathleen Jennings.
So if you’re ready – once upon a time…
We are made by the stories we are told and by the stories we tell. Reading this collection reveals that we are bold, funny and inventive. We are nourished by history, and face the future with poetry in our hearts. This is a triumph of an anthology that truly captures the 21st Australian Fairy Tale –
KATE FORSYTH, AUTHOR OF BITTER GREENS AND ACCREDITED MASTER STORYTELLER
Wicked and wise, amusing and unexpected. Fresh fairy tales from some of Australia’s finest voices, both established and new.
ANGELA SLATTER, AUTHOR OF THE WORLD FANTASY AWARD-WINNING THE BITTERWOOD BIBLE AND OTHER RECOUNTINGS
Reading South of the Sun feels like collecting shells or pebbles or feathers: the stories belong together but are strikingly individual. Here you will find the hilarious and the bittersweet, the poetic and the in-your-face brash, the historical, the contemporary and the futuristic. And each is brimful with magic. This anthology is a delight from start to finish.
JULIET MARILLIER, AUTHOR OF AWARD-WINNING BLACKTHORN & GRIM SERIES
Six AFTS fairies from our book South of the Sun are guests of Bendigo Writers Festival!
Along with their own sessions, several are on a fairytale panel ONCE UPON A TIME: Fairy tales for our times.
Claudia Barnett, Lorena Carrington and Sophie Masson with host Eugen Bacon Friday 7 May 4.30pm-5.30pm Capital Theatre $20 / $16 concession
Who tells fairy stories? And who gets to listen? The tales handed down through the generations are worked and reworked by inventive writers and new stories are added to the store. What’s their lasting appeal and why have they been so necessary to different cultures? Eugen Bacon is joined by Claudia Barnett, Lorena Carrington and Sophie Masson to bring us up to date with the fairy world.
We are also delighted to be celebrating with these authors the publication of South of the Sun: Australian Fairy Tales for the 21st Century.
Sophie Masson and Eugen Bacon present additional sessions Sat and/or Sun, Rachel Nightingale joins Eugen, and Carmel Bird presents on Saturday night.
To read their profiles and/or book tickets: https://www.bendigowritersfestival.com.au/all-writers
Join us to celebrate the official launch of South of the Sun: Australian Fairy Tales for the 21st Century.
Virtual launch party: Friday 2nd, Saturday 3rd and Sunday 4th of July 18:30 AEST
BYO: You bring the Fizzy and we will bring the Fairy Tales. You can join us on Zoom (link posted before the event on facebook) or watch live on Facebook
Two former AFTS presidents (Reilly McCarron & Louisa JohnKrol) have joined mythic-rock legend Adrienne Piggott of Spiral Dance to compile an Autumnal album:
North of the Moon – Three Australian Faerie Bards
Three fey Celtic-Australian minstrels unite at the Autumn Equinox to bring you some of their most fairytale-ish songs. They hail from three States: Victoria, New South Wales and South Australia. Instruments on this album include flute, mandolin, accordion, charango, various guitars and harps, and of course bardic vocals, from folklorists honed in storytelling, mythology, poetry and Druidic / Pagan / Faery paths. Let these whimsical balladeers carry you through seas and groves of the Faery Lands.
Please join/follow/endorse us at our new shared sites at Bandcamp https://northmoon.bandcamp.com/releases& You Tube: https://youtu.be/c9EJKoGTFEg
https://northmoon.bandcamp.com/releases
| In Tree Time, three Celtic-Australians wove music with myth and fairytale. From Druidic circles to taverns, carnivals, fey indie labels, fairy shops, storytelling guilds, castles and audiobook soundtracks, they’ve fostered links between folklore and eco-spirituality. Fey wishes Louisa✨, Reilly ✨ and Adrienne ✨ |
Three Australian Fairy Tale Society women feature in an exhibition/book/album presentation at Castlemaine State Festival in historic Buda House 19th March to 18th April: Reilly McCarron’s debut CD ‘Il était une fois’ (Once Upon A Time) is a soundtrack for Sophie Masson’s book ‘French Fairy Tales’. Lorena Carrington illustrated both. All three fey women are in our intercultural anthology ‘South of the Sun – Australian fairy tales for the 21st century’ due this Autumn.
details at Australian Fairy Review. https://australianfairyreview.blogspot.com/
And here is a link to the exhibition, where the book, CD & artwork will be presented: https://budacastlemaine.org/event/secret-garden/
Call For Presentations
2021 Australian Fairy Tale Society Conference
Enchanting…music, magic, spells
Saturday 12 June 2021 9am – 4.30pm Zoom
Monday 14 June 2021 9am – 4.30pm Newtown Hall
To en-chant…
To en-thrall…
This is the ancient rhythm of storytelling,
a rhythm passed down from the so-called “spinsters” spinning their yarn and chanting their refrains
so that words and music were twined together to draw in the shared circle of story.
This is the magic we want to make this year, as we come together after being distanced for so long – the magic of shared performance and connection.
The real fairy tale magic is how the words of stories transform the audience by bringing us together so we invite you to share your own magic of
relating fairy tale, performer, audience, and venue.
What are the differences between written and performed stories?
How are the layers of meaning in fairy tales represented and expressed when the stories are staged?
How can we transform fairy tales for Australian audiences
so that performance reveals truth?
The Australian Fairy Tale Society was established to investigate, create, and communicate fairy tales from an Australian perspective. Our previous conferences have been on The Fairy Tale in Australia, Transformations, Into the Bush, So Many Mattresses, Gardens of Good and Evil, and Magic Mirrors: The Seen and the Unseen. Local Rings gather five times a year, and our Magic Mirrors gather by Zoom almost every month, to explore specific fairy tales like a book club for fairy tales. We have an irregular Ezine and will soon publish an original Anthology, South of the Sun: Australian Fairy Tales for the 21st Century.
We invite you to submit proposals for what you could present at our conference in a variety of forms, because diversity is one of the delights of an AFTS conference.
Please submit your proposal on our online form here by midnight 26 January 2021. Enquiries: austfairytales@gmail.com
We are looking for
Feel free to contact us with a new idea. We want to celebrate your creativity not stifle it!
Some themes you could choose to explore:
Enchanting words
Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, The Little Mermaid, Rumpelstiltskin, The Juniper Tree, The Golem of Prague, Tatterhood, The Girl Who Pretended to be a Boy, The Snow Queen, Snow White, Aladdin
Enchanting music
Enchanting performances
eg Cinderella, 12 Dancing Princesses, The Red Shoes, Ali Baba and the 40 Thieves, The Little Mermaid, Dancing with the Birch Fairy (Czech), The Little Bird Who Loved to Dance (Mali), The Fairy Dance (Irish).
Enchanting communication
How can fairy tales be adapted to suit:
– Cultural heritage
– Impairments and abilities – sensory, mobility, intellectual, language
– Ages
SUBMISSIONS
As always, our focus is on the Australian interpretation of fairy tales, particularly contemporary multicultural, diverse Australia.
Please submit your proposal on our online form here by midnight 26 January 2021. Enquiries: austfairytales@gmail.com
Australian Fairy Tale Society 