We are thrilled to announce an unexpected honour. It involves the Australian Fairy Tale Society’s anthology, South of the Sun – Australian fairy tales for the 21st century. Our subcommittee liaised with the national Arts Law Centre to develop contracts for contributing authors and illustrators, as well as a publishing licence/service agreement with Serenity Press. ALC has a policy called Artists First, and is so pleased with our work – particularly as a not-for-profit group – that they requested to turn us into a Case Study!
After considering the pros and cons, we voted unanimously YES. Our chief illustrator, Lorena Carrington, graciously met their request to present our book’s front cover. This is excellent for our profile. It means AFTS effectively stands as an example for other Arts groups to follow. Law students can study us. Lawyers can refer to our work, and the ALC’s library may well carry the templates we developed together.
We are so glad to be able to acknowledge Lorena’s many gifts though this Award: her unique artwork, her wonderful and enchanting collaboration with Kate Forsyth, her willingness to share her art in AFTS events, and her insights and expertise to the general community, as well as all the wonderful and life-enhancing connections she have made within our Society.
All of our nominees, including authors Serene Conneeley and Juliet Marillier, add lustre to our community by their many successes, and all of us in the fairy tale community have been enriched by their contributions. We thank you all most sincerely for what you have already given us and all that you will create in the future.
The Award ceremony will take place on the final session of the conference, on Monday 8 June 2020, when you will all have a chance to see the gorgeous permanent Award created by Spike Deane. But to do that you will need to register for the conference!
The editorial committee putting together the AFTS anthology “South of the Sun” have finally chosen their winners. It was a truly difficult job – we were inundated with talented submissions and we’ve spent many a long hour short-listing, re-short-listing, arguing and finally agreeing on the following. A big thank you to everyone who sent in their entries.
Congratulations to everyone who’s on the list – and commiserations to those who didn’t make it.
· Anezka Sero ̶ The Snowgum Maiden
· Lindy Mitchell-Nilsson ̶ Jack, the Beanstalk and the NBN
· Yvette Ladzinski ̶ The Lonely Mosque
· Melissa Min Harvey ̶ The Wild Moon Call
· Clare Testoni ̶ The Lyrebird
· Krystal Barton ̶ North Coburg to Flinders St Station
· Rachel Nightingale ̶ Riverbend
· Jackie Kerin ̶ No Horse, No Cart, No Shoes
· Angie Rega ̶ The Tale of the Seven Magpies
· Danielle McGee – The Origami Mother
· June Perkins – Into the Song Wood
· Zoya Nojin ̶ Rubeliya
· Ella Lamb – The Curse of the Swan Prince
· Muriel Cooper ̶ There was something different about him
· Carolyn Alfonzetti ̶ Hundreds and Thousands
· Jennifer Lehmann ̶ Cricket
· Nola Wernicke ̶ If Cinderella lived in Melbourne
8 June 2020 9am – 4.30pm Heffernan Hall, Hannaford Community Centre, 608 Darling St, Rozelle NSW 2039
Please submit your proposal (Subject heading: Conference Proposal 2020) to austfairytales@gmail.com by midnight 14 February 2020.
The imagery of fairy tales is as potent as any spell,
whether through the power of the words to conjure carriages made of pumpkins or
blue bearded villains, or the art that can present those words to our sight in
illustrations, sculptures, jewellery, costumes, photography, paintings, food
decoration, masks, puppetry, automata, garden design, doll houses, toys,
quilts, and all manner of other arts.
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, and Gardens of Good and Evil.
Local Rings gather five times a year to explore specific fairy
tales. We have an irregular Ezine and
are working hard at creating an original Anthology, South of the Sun:
Australian Fairy Tales for the 21st Century.https://www.pozible.com/project/south-of-the-sun-1
In our 6th annual conference we want to look (pun intended!) more closely at these visual and artistic representations in Magic Mirrors: the Seen and the Unseen, and 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.
We are looking for:
Talks of 20 minutes talk with an option
for 5 minutes Q & A. It is possible
that, if we receive many high quality submissions, we may invite several people
to collaborate in a joint presentation.
Please indicate if that would not be acceptable to you.
Performances of storytelling, puppetry,
theatre, singing, music, dance, etc, of no more than 10 minutes performance
with an option for 5 minutes Q&A.
Please include either a video or audio clip of your performance or the
name of an AFTS or Storytelling Guild member who can act as a referee for your
performances. We could also arrange an
audition time.
Panel presentations or discussions of no
more than 25 minutes total including Q & A.
Workshops (eg art, writing, storytelling,
puppetry, gardening, cake decorating etc) of no more than 30 minutes total
including set up time. These might be
for a family audience if Inner West Council wants to open these sessions to the
public, or might be exclusively for the adults attending the conference.
Displays of your books, art, puppets,
toys, costumes, etc for sale, or to decorate Heffernan Hall.
Feel free to contact us with a new idea!
Here are some possible themes you could explore:
Art
How Australian and international artists have
interpreted fairy tales.
How Australian artists (of all formats, of all
cultures) could interpret fairy tales.
The use of Australian imagery in fairy tale
interpretation.
Perceptions of
Character and identity.
Relationships – between characters and
archetypes in stories; fairy tale family dynamics; relationship of Australian
fairy tale arts to international works and to multicultural Australian arts.
Truth, deception, unreliability.
Future – hope and fear, beauty and destruction.
Scenes (as well as Seen) – how stories have been
and can be structured and arranged to shape responses, how perceptions can be
changed.
Reflections
The heart as a mirror.
Seeing ourselves, our families, our cultural
representations, in classic and contemporary fairy tales eg representations of
people with disabilities, various cultural backgrounds, LBGTI representations,
age, “beauty”, etc.
Past – negotiating our history in representing
what is Australian.
Reversals of fortune and perception.
Duality
Binaries in fairy tales: male and female, young and old, life and
death, good and evil, light and dark, world and underworld etc.
Multicultural identities in Australia and
Australian arts and stories.
Costumes, masks, theatrical representations of
fairy tales and fairy tale characters.
False representations in fairy tale creators eg
the Grimms and their ”folk collections”, Andrew and Nora Lang, Australian fairy
tale writers using English or Aboriginal sources.
Fairy tale mirrors
Eg In Snow White, Beauty and the Beast, Snow Queen, Mirror
of Matsuyama (Theodora Yei), The Magic Mirror (a Turkish version of The
Firebird), The Three Brothers (Arabian), and how
these relate to Australian culture.
Australian fairy tale retellings
How Australian fairy tale re tellings have or could reflect self, nation, the world.
SUBMISSIONS
As always, and in accordance with our Objectives, our focus
is on the Australian interpretation of fairy tales, particularly
contemporary multicultural, diverse Australia.
Including any elements of participation will be positively
regarded.
Please submit your proposal (Subject heading: Conference Proposal 2020) to austfairytales@gmail.com by midnight 03 February 2020:
A summary of 100-200 words of what you will
communicate and how you will present this.
Bio of max 150 words
Your experience in communicating or investigating this material.
Any special needs for your presentation or expectations of what we
should provide including AV.
WHAT HAPPENS NEXT
If your presentation is accepted for the conference we will
ask you to provide:
A colour photo in high
resolution, preferably a close-up of your face, suitable for inclusion in a
printed programme.
An introduction which
can be used by the MC.
Permission to use the
material you have given us, including your photograph, in any conference promotions.
If this includes interviews with radio stations or other media we will discuss
this with you first.
Permission to use
elements from your presentation eg photographs, summaries, links to your
publications in future AFTS publications, such as the Ezine. We will discuss these needs as they arise.
Your conference registration will be discounted to $75
including your annual AFTS membership fee for 2020-2021.
We intend to respond to your submissions by the end of February in order to announce the program in March 2020.
South of the Sun is an illustrated anthology of Australian Fairy Tales, produced by the Australian Fairy Tale Society in partnership with Serenity Press.
What is an Australian Fairy Tale? This is a question South of the Sun explores. We are challenging assumptions that fairy tales are for children, are European, and must contain fairies and pale, passive heroines. Through stories, flash fiction, poetry and illustrations we are producing inventive, intercultural new Australian fairy tales for young adults and older fantasy readers.
We are also soliciting work from new and emerging writers and illustrators, with submissions from writers closing on 13 December and from illustrators early next year. We plan to pay all contributors. If you are interested in participating, please see further details on the anthology website: https://australianfairytales.com/
Spring is stirring, along with our forthcoming Anthology, South of the Sun – Australian fairy tales for the 21st century. Due on Serenity Press (in WA) in 2020, it’s suitable for YA + adult readership, rated G.
Featuring original contributions by internationally acclaimed guest authors, with a sprinkle and twinkle of illustrations, it reflects vibrant, intercultural inventiveness.
Stay tuned for our general call for submissions opening 17th September, and crowdfunding campaign on Pozible commencing 15th October, both concluding together on 14th November, to top up the generous seed funding from The Australian Fairy Tale Society.
Introduction: The state of play in Australian fairy tale: Where to now? – by three fairy tale scholars who served on AFTS committees: Dr Nike Sulway, Dr Belinda Calderone (a former AFTS President) and Dr Rebecca-Anne Do Rozario, writer of our Anthology’s foreword:
Congrats Dr Robyn Floyd on winning the 2019 Australian Fairy Tale Society’s national Fairy Tale Award! The prize acknowledges contributions to the fairy-tale field in Australia. Robyn is an expert on Australian fairy tales, exploring the history and impact of their publication, with her PhD thesis and blog, Early Australian Fairy Tales: https://robynelainefloyd.blogspot.com/
She’s served on our Committee, presented seminars and frequently contributed to our Ezine.
Australian Fairy Tale Society members are cordially invited to nominate individuals for the AFTS annual award. Nominations will be accepted until 5pm EST Monday 30 April 2018.
Only two weeks remain to enter our AFTS short story competition! Submissions close on 17 April, 2018 for short fiction on the theme of ‘Cunning & Cleverness’.
Maybe you’re deliberating about the merits of entering a writing comp? Our AFTS ezine #6 article ‘Writing Competitions: Are They Worth It?’ by author Georgina Ballantine is here to help. Or maybe you write for children and you’d like a little advice and motivation from author Pat Simmons: check out her ezine #6 article ‘Writing Stories for Children’.
Need some motivation to put fingers to keyboard? We have prizes galore! All three winners will be published in the AFTS ezine #7 (winter edition). Signed copies of books by celebrated Australian authors and illustrator are also up for grabs. Whet your fairy tale appetite with our #6 ezine excerpts from fairy tale retellings in Vasilisa the Wise and Other Tales of Brave Young Women by Kate Forsyth and illustrator Lorena Carrington (1st prize), original fairy tale The Stolen Button by Marianna Shek and illustrator Leila Honari (2nd prize), and upcoming novel The Beast’s Heart by Leife Shallcross (3rd prize). The ezine #6 also includes book reviews of all three titles. Our illustrious judges are celebrated authors Sophie Masson, Monique Mulligan and Nike Sulway.
Although the comp is members-only, don’t let that put you off if you’re not a subscriber. For the AU$25 annual membership fee you’ll receive copies of our fabulous ezine, access to our enlightening Fairy Tale Ring meetings, discounted entry to our AFTS conference on 10 June, 2018, and the opportunity to submit work for publication in our ezines.
So channel that fey vibe and wow our judges with your wondrous, far-fetched tales of
scheming selkies and brainiac boggarts, or whatever floats your fairy tale boat!
Register over on our events tab or click this 
Australian Fairy Tale Society 