“Sleeping Beauty”, fourth issue of Australian Fairy Tale Society’s Ezine, is awakening. Here is her Teaser/Preview, with exquisite design by Gypsy Thornton:

Herewith our announcement to media & arts promoters, presenting our 4th Annual Conference. There are two versions, for your convenience:

1. Simple format for easy copy-pasting: AFTS 2017 Plain Text Press Release
2. Whimsy, for those with a penchant for fey revelry: Curious ElvesAustralian Fairy Tale SocietyMay-June 2017Press Release

Do feel free to download them for sharing hither and thither. Perhaps you live near a library or university campus? A bookshop, gallery or performance cafe? Let your community know about us, and hey… if you haven’t yet joined or renewed your membership, or registered for this event, now is a great time to do so!

The Australian Fairy Tale Society is offering a bursary for attendance at our 2017 Conference, ‘So Many Mattresses:  Truth, Reality, Fiction on a European Bed’, to be held at Glen Eira Town Hall, Melbourne on Saturday 24 June.  This bursary will cover:

• Conference registration
• Transport up to $250
• Accommodation up to $100 per night for 2 nights
• A “fairy godmother/father” as conference mentor.

Here are two ways you can submit the form: Bursary Application Form

(1) print, fill by hand, scan & email to us; or (2) ask Jo or I to email you the word doc as an attachment, so you can type into it, and return that to us: austfairytales@gmail.com

We look forward to welcoming as many of you as possible this year!

Fey regards – from your dedicated committee.

It is with great pleasure, excitement and anticipation that I can FINALLY announce that we have been cooking up (in our cauldrons) an online ezine (electronic magazine) exclusively for our members!

A small yet extremely talented team have been putting together the magazine that will be exclusively for our members, published every other month and aligned with the fairy ring tale. We wanted to create something that was an expansion of the newsletter, so that we can feature content created by our members in order to celebrate their talents and achievements.

Here’s a sneak peek of the first edition’s cover! Doesn’t it look amazing??

Time to get renewing those memberships, or sign up!

Catherine

(AFTS President)

At the Australian Fairy Tale Society, we LOVE to celebrate the achievements and creations of our members. The following watercolours were created as presenter gifts at the recent AFTS Annual Conference by one of our founding members, Debra Phillips. They have clear links to fairy tale and present a magical perspective in watercolour. We are so grateful to Debra for providing the artwork to be given as gifts to our presenters. Wonderful work, Debra!

Once Upon a Time

Cinderella, Belle of the Balle

Little Red Riding Hood, Defender of the Peace

Hansel and Gretel burn the witch

Princess and the peas

Goldilocks and the three bears

Snow White and the witch queen

Rapunzel

Princess of the peas

Gingerbread man, run as fast as you can.

Little Red Riding Hood brings the wolf to visit Grandma

Hansel and Gretel find the cake stall

Little Red Riding Hood, Wolf Slayer

Hansel and Gretel at the table of delights

Cinderella’s Godmother

Little Red Riding Hood and the wolf

Who hears when apples fall into the woods

What waits as we go into the woods

Stories take us into the woods

Once more, into the woods, dear friends

Good afternoon, fairy tale enthusiasts,

Well, yesterday’s conference was simply… ENCHANTING!!!

The quality of the presentations was truly exceptional and the vibe in the room was one of warmth and inclusivity. I couldn’t have wished for a better day!

A HUGE thank you to all of our presenters:

Keynote speaker Jackie Kerin
Catherine Snell
Jo Henwood (who saved the day by offering a story in place of one of our unwell storytellers!)
Angie Rega
Nicola Burke
Robyn Floyd
Louise Fowler-Tutt
Kirstyn McDermott
Jeremy Shub
Diana Lovett

And many healing fairy wishes for our 2 presenters who couldn’t make it due to illness, Roslyn Quin and Eliza-Jane Henry-Jones.

Also, thank you to Lorena Carrington and Zeinab Yazdanfar for their gorgeous display tables (with help from the beautiful Louisa John-Krol, who also enchanted us all with her chiming fairy-scarf-wand!)

Special thanks also go the Glen Eira Council staff, Robyn Floyd and her friend Phillippa for putting in so much work with the catering, photographer Dave Jacobson, and Michelle De Stefani.

We also had our AGM during lunch and elected the next committee – woo! It is my great honour to introduce your 2016/2017 committee for the Australian Fairy Tale Society:

President: Catherine Snell

Vice President: Louisa John-Krol

Treasurer: Catherine Snell

Secretary: Penelope Clay

Ordinary Member: Jo Henwood

Ordinary Member: Gypsy Thornton (our fabulous overseas committee member in L.A, sadly not pictured above due to the giant ocean between us – we love you, Gypsy!)

Ordinary Member: Thang Luong

What a great group of people! I have all the faith in the world in them and I wish them all the very best for the year ahead.

I also wanted to say a huge thank you to the 2015/2016 committee: Catherine Snell, Sue Clancy, Nike Sulway, Jo Henwood, Gypsy Thornton, Joe Vandermeer, and Rebecca-Anne Do Rozario. It has been a true honour to serve on the committee with you all.

You’ll be hearing from the new committee soon with photos from the day and audio recordings of the presentations. Stay tuned!

This is Dr Belinda Calderone… signing off! 🙂