Join us in Melbourne for two magical days exploring fairy tales from an Australian perspective. Our keynote speaker, internationally celebrated author, oracle deck creator and witch Lucy Cavendish, will make a rare appearance, and will be joined by acclaimed fairy tale writer Kate Forsyth and an eclectic selection of artists, authors, storytellers, musicians, psychologists, academics and fairy-tale lovers.
There will be fun performances, thought-provoking presentations, fascinating panels and creative workshops, and lots of time to chat with like-minded people from around the country.
In Part 2 of our interview, 2026 keynote speaker Lucy Cavendish discusses her deepening understanding of fairy tales as she grew up, what connects people to them today, and the magic within them. Her even deeper dive will be shared at ‘Witches in Fairy Tales: Wise Women or Evil Enchanters? – our August 15-16 conference in Melbourne.
Book cover for Magickal Faerytales, by Lucy CavendishFaerytale Oracle – by Lucy Cavendish
What draws you to fairy tales today?
In my twenties I discovered the writings of Angela Carter, and her fairy tales. I was so captivated and inspired. They helped me to manage my feelings and my wounds and my confusions at being a young adult woman. The Company of Wolves, the 1984 Neil Jordan movie based on her short story, is an adaptation of Little Red Riding Hood, and is still a favourite. I loved, still love, magickal realism, and I think that is what fairy tales are, to an extent. The magick is often centred in the everyday in the tales. Spinning, but make gold from straw. Grow antlers. A horse’s head that speaks.
Writers like Angela Carter and Marina Warner had a strong hold on my mind, and on beginning to contemplate who the tellers of the tales were, and how the teller shaped the tale, and how the tellings were shaped and reshaped by the cultures they arose from and each era they are told within. I love that so many tales are almost eternal thematically, but they illuminate very different aspects of ourselves and our relationship to nature, to death, to ageing, to desire, to mystery and beauty.
I think fairy tales are the framework for so many stories. I guess I think they are a cultural framework for us too. Tales we all know, but have very different imaginings of within our own imaginations. There is within so many tales a sense of kingdoms and royalty, and the psychology of families, and power relationships. The telling reveals as much about us as the tale.
I don’t know how to articulate it and I am no expert, but they seem to me to shape our thoughts about the world and our place within it. They inform the way we live, as if a life was a story, and we are presented with challenges, and we can draw strength and inspiration from the tales. I think they have influenced my sense of what is good and what is wrong. Yet they have an ambiguity which is beautiful and mysterious and keeps us a little uncertain in the world.
How do you feel about the way witches are perceived in fairy tales, even today?
I accept that part of the archetype of the witch is to be something of an outsider and feared. I think the trope that we are all obsessed with – stealing the life force or beauty of others, like Snow White’s “evil stepmother” – is a little tedious though. I suppose the witch is a kind of repository of all the things we find unacceptable about being a woman. Old? Witch. Want Power? Witch. Impatient and cross at royalty stealing your herbs from your garden? Witch. Irritated at children eating your shelter? Witch.
You, the conference artist, two of the conference organisers and some of the people who will attend are witches. How do you feel the craft is perceived in 2026?
Well, I thought we were on a fairly auspicious trajectory and then… everything changed. Right now, I think we are in a very dangerous place with the rise of Christian nationalism and the spirituality/conspiracy crossover, and I have noticed the word witch being used as an insult more frequently – again. It had faded out slightly. I’m also concerned at a revival of the Satanic panic. It’s scary out there on the internet. I recently had a discussion with a long-term friend about my dislike of the word satanic for criminality and child abuse, as abuse and child sex trafficking occurs across cultures and religions, and it certainly happens within western religious institutions. I think unfortunately people use “witch” and “Satanic” quite interchangeably when what they mean is “wrong” or “evil”. Scapegoating is making a comeback.
And AI is creeping into the craft, which is dystopian and awful, for too many reasons to go into here. But I would like our path and craft to be a force for creativity, humanity and the kind of magick that doesn’t rely upon theft of art, in all of its manifestations.
But back to the resurgence of the witch fear and the witch wound. Fear always does get a makeover and reappears in extreme times, and scapegoats tend to shapeshift a little, but mouthy older women who are independent seem to be back on the most mistrusted list!
Has this changed over time? Were you nervous about being publicly known as a witch when you first came out of the broom closet as the editor of Witchcraft magazine in the nineties?
It has changed. And I was nervous, for sure, but mostly I was nervous that I was using a word which I wasn’t yet worthy of to describe myself with. I think Witchcraft magazine was when I first came out, although I had thought about it a lot and been involved in spiritual activities for a while – tarot studies, meditation, a circle of witchy people for a year and a day.
How does it feel to be the person breakfast show hosts and TV stations call on when they want to interview a witch?
Oh, they have lots of witchy people to call on who are so clever and learned! It’s an honour, and a responsibility, and one I take seriously but lightly. I do understand the time constraints and the kinds of questions. I like to think I am warm and approachable, and I am most of the time, I think. I want to do my best and be authentic. I also try to be someone who reduces fear and superstition while maintaining that sense of wonder and magick. It always strikes me as so odd when people are scared of me, as they have been at some television stations. I guess, culturally, I am pretty free of that fear, but for other people, there are generations of hostility and suspicion to work through. I just try to do my best.
What is the most important role of a witch right now? (I love that you’re speaking up about predators within political and spiritual circles, and giving clear, science-based information about health etc.)
Thank you! Hmm, that’s a big one, because we are all very diverse and I am not sure I can speak on behalf of so many of us. I think for me, while speaking up and out is important, it’s also keeping that connection to nature very real and alive in everyday life, and not losing that or feeling overwhelmed by the sadness that the human world of conflict is conjuring up within so many of us.
Also, I need to be really mindful that we are powerful as we grow older, and should remember to be visible and open and even loud about growing older. Becoming the crone in a visible, audible way, where I take up space and then share that space, is helpful for me as I grow older and maybe is helpful for others too. I think we as witches have enormous symbolic value as creatures who are able to withstand being outside of communities and thus maintaining our independence, but still connecting and being in service to communities. We are wisdom, truth, knowledge and power. We are history’s disservices to women incarnate.
What are you most looking forward to about this year’s Australian Fairy Tale Conference?
I am nervous! I am feeling quite doubtful that I have any special expertise, but perhaps what I am excited most by is being surrounded by like-minded passionate people in our own little coven of faery tale magick. I love that feeling of being in a lovely, wise, magickal space where we appreciate each other’s obsessions!
Lucy Cavendish – author, oracle deck creator, podcaster, witch, surfer and wildlife carer – will keynote our August 15-16 conference in Melbourne, Witches in Fairy Tales: Wise Women or Evil Enchanters? Until then, review our Part 1 interview, check out her books Magickal Faerytales, Spellbound and Witchy Magic; oracle decks including The Faerytale Oracle, Into the Lonely Woods, The Solitary Witch and The Faery Forest, and podcast, The Witchcast. Connect with her at instagram.com/lucycavendish.
In part two of our interview with artist Cassandra Kavanagh, she reveals her delight at being asked to illustrate our 2026 conference theme, and her further thoughts on ‘Witches in Fairy Tales: Wise Women or Evil Enchanters?’ (August 15-16, Melbourne).
‘Kelpie’, Cassandra Kavanagh‘Face Your Dragon’, Cassandra KavanaghCassandra Kavanagh, ‘Be Tender’
How did you feel when you were asked to create the conference artwork?
I was absolutely thrilled beyond measure to have been asked. I gave a resounding YES! The theme is one of my favourites – Witches in Fairy Tales: Wise Women or Evil Enchanters? It’s such an exciting theme to explore, and I was immediately overflowing with ideas. Local artist Helen McCosker was the artist for the 2025 Australian Fairy Tale Conference, and now I have the good fortune to have been chosen for the 2026 one! The Illawarra Fairy Tale Ring to which we both belong must have magic! I am truly feeling enchanted.
You said you love the theme – what does it mean to you?
I love the duality of it. Fairy tales reveal that morality, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. The concepts of good and evil are not always inherently obvious, but depend on perspective. Sometimes the protagonist acts on the belief that any means taken to achieve their goal or complete the quest is acceptable, but would the witch agree? I love that witches are often agents of transformation or revelation and of truth-telling. They often hold the dual power to help or harm, depending on the hero or heroine’s true heart.
Often witches represent the secret wisdom of the elder and of wise women who teach and show the way – but they can also appear as agents of destruction, revenge and chaos; forces of nature and of consequence! The role of the witch in a fairy tale is often to challenge the hero or the heroine, so they pay the price for their folly or reap their reward, or achieve their quest. They also hold important evidence of attitudes towards women and women of difference.
How do you feel about real-life witches?
As a woman, I have always felt very passionate about the fate of witches and women. The word “witch” carries power and is often weighted with judgement. Witches can be good and bad, leaning to the light or drawn to the dark, and often hovering in-between. Witches are often cast as either sacred healers, helpers and holders of ancient wisdom, or as wicked women who bring harm and misfortune.
I was hugely excited by the theme because I absolutely identify with the women who were practising witches, and also those named witch simply because they were different; women who held ancient wisdom and had healing hands and hearts, herbalists and those for whom the wild green places were sacred, and who had a connection to Mother Earth. Stories of witches reveal a lot about the historical perceptions of women and the historical struggle they have faced in society, and in particular against the patriarchy.
You, the keynote speaker and two of the conference organisers are witches – how do you feel about the craft today? Have things changed over time?
I think the solitary witch is gaining a resurgence, although covens exist. I think the elements of the craft have become more fluid and inclusive, and there is often an overlap between the once distinct paths of Paganism, Wicca and the Occult. I think the modern witch can choose to embrace the elements that call to her soul. I personally lean deeply towards paganism enhanced with warm well-wishing Wicca, and embrace the creed of “Do no harm”. Nature and healing are my primary focus.
Witches often inhabit the forests and woods. Forests represent the wild within us and without. They are places of temptation or redemption with thresholds into the unknown, places of sanctity and transformation or of risk and danger. Often, the underlying theme behind the witch is the “wild woman” in her true form, unpredictable and potentially dangerous, who must be tricked, tamed, appeased, or destroyed. The witch is in effect a force of nature.
Do you have a favourite fairy tale witch?
This might surprise people, but I truly love Baba Yaga. Aside from the fact that her stories hint at origins with both a dawn and a forest goddess, Baba Yaga is an extraordinarily morally complex witch and an ancient force of nature. She can be benevolent, helpful and even loving, or vengeful and truly terrifying, depending on what you deserve. She is a witch who delivers consequences for actions taken, and Baba Yaga has very distinct correlations with the fairy godmother/good witch archetype in the story Cinderella, which fascinates me.
Do you have a least favourite?
As a child, I was haunted by the Sea Witch in the tale of The Little Mermaid. I could not understand why the sea witch made the little mermaid suffer so much for love. The price she paid was too steep. The curse of being unable to speak, and to feel the pain of knives cutting her at every step, seemed to doom the little mermaid to failure. Much, much later, I wondered if the sea witch was in fact warning the little mermaid that true love does not always prevail, perhaps even hoping the little mermaid would decline her services? The message here is that if you sacrifice yourself to be something else for the person you love, the love you seek is not worth it. However, the sea witch was a powerful being and could have granted the little mermaid’s deepest desire to win the love of the prince if she chose to.
The other witch that always struck terror into my heart was the “Gingerbread Hag” in Hansel and Gretel. As a child, I was always wandering in the woods, and I have an absolute passion for gingerbread! I would certainly have been tempted, but I like to imagine that I would have been brave and fierce like Gretel. As a child, I often wondered if the witch might have been transformed by love if she had had the chance. (But that would be another story! Perhaps I will write it!)
For ‘Witches in Fairy Tales: Wise Women or Evil Enchanters?‘, we invite you to submit presentations in a diversity of forms, as this is one of the delights of an AFTS conference. How will you weave a fairy tale witch – male or female, wicked or wonderful – into your presentation?
Talk of 25 minutes, including optional 5 minute Q&A
Performance, 10 minutes max, with optional 5 minute Q&A. For example, storytelling, puppetry, theatre, singing, music, dance.
Panel discussion, 30 minute maximum, including 5 minute Q&A
Workshop, 45 minute maximum including set-up time. For example, art, writing, storytelling, sand sculpture, puppetry, gardening, cake decorating
Case study (or poster display) of a creative process of staging a fairy tale performance
Games or participative activities, 10 minute maximum
Launch of your book, video game, performance
Sales and/or displays of your books, art, puppets, toys, costumes, etc.
New ideas or formats welcome!
Stuck for ideas? Here are suggestions to pursue or inspire!
Create your own original fairy tale of witches and wisdom set in Australia – as a story, song, play, poem, artwork, or other creative medium.
Examine the pagan roots of a fairy tale, before it was re-written by male tellers such as Perrault or the Brothers Grimm. Our keynote speaker Lucy Cavendish has done this in brilliant ways in her book Magickal Faerytales: An Enchanted Collection of Retold Tales.
Map the parallels between the real-life minimising of women’s power to the way it has happened in a fairy tale, such as Cinderella’s magical helper changing from wise and powerful witch to sweet and bumbling fairy godmother.
Weave together a mini-workshop to help people connect with their own fairy-tale witch archetype, or to draw a magical character, write their own tale, or perform a group ritual.
Re-imagine a supposedly powerless princess, who has an animal familiar (very witchy!) and the power to face impossible tasks, with the help and intervention of kindly creatures.
Consider how a powerful fairy-tale witch is showing up in your own life to help you heal, provide wisdom as you approach cronehood, or strength as you become a protector.
Explore the origins of Baba Yaga, often a stereotypical wicked witch in modern tales, whose roots can be traced back to old winter goddesses, and who is connected to deities of the dawn and springtime.
Chart the journey of Jack, of Beanstalk fame, as one who travels to another realm to bring back magical treasure.
Argue the case of a fairy-tale villain. What changed Sleeping Beauty’s Maleficent from one of the good fairies into an evil sorcerer? What motivated the sea witch to agree to the Little Mermaid’s request? Why could the much-maligned ogre not defend against the thief who kept stealing his magical treasures?
Or something completely different! Witches and other magical folk contain multitudes! The sky is the limit, so reach for your broom, because we want to hear from you!
The Australian Fairy Tale Society was established to investigate, create and communicate fairy tales from an Australian perspective. Local Rings and our Magic Mirror (Zoom) gather several times a year to explore specific stories, like a book club for fairy tales. We have an irregular eZine, a YouTube channel, Redbubble merchandise store and an original anthology, with another in progress.
Chat with us, ask questions, read conference blog posts (like this one!) or engage with us on Facebook and Instagram.
Witches in Fairy Tales as gloriously depicted by Cassandra Kavanagh, our 2026 conference artist
Come August 15-16, we’ll be Melbourne-bound for our 2026 conference, Witches in Fairy Tales: Wise Women or Evil Enchanters, as gloriously illustrated by Cassandra Kavanagh. Learn more in part 1 of our interview with this magical creator.
What drew you to fairy tales as a child?
I could read at age four, and the first books I was given were fairy tales. I believed every word. As I was a rather odd child with endless annoying questions, I was constantly sent down to the back of the garden to find the fey folk. I always took a fairy tale book with me to read out loud to the fairies. But the big golden event that was an everlasting shining moment in my life was being taken to an antique bookshop for my fifth birthday. The wonderful, enchanting old woman who owned this magical place showed me her favourite book. It was vast, heavy and old, stitched with gold thread, and the jewel-bright illustrations were protected by sheets of transparent rice paper, edged with gold. Fey-folk, fairies and old gods and goddesses wove their way through the pages like an enchantment. They felt familiar, as if in some other time and in some other life I had sat around a fire and heard these stories that seemed to still sing in my blood and had once warmed me over winter. The book beckoned like a doorway into another realm I belonged to.
What draws you to them now?
Fairy tales tell us who we are, how to be, and, more important still, how not to be. Fairy tales hold powerful reminders that resilience, true love, transformation and redemption are possible. They teach us that actions have consequences, often unforeseen. These time-upon-time tales that are passed down over hundreds, even thousands of years, hold ancient wisdom and warnings. They connect us to people in the past who had important things to tell us that still resonate now.
Do you have a favourite fairy tale?
Such a hard question. I love so many! However, I have always been drawn to Beauty and the Beast, and the numerous variations of the animal bridegroom in fairy tales. In particular, I adore the European stories featuring grey, white or silver wolves.
Friend Not FoeSelkie’s DaughterWolf Within the Woman
Do you have a least favourite?
I received Bluebeard for my seventh birthday and remain traumatised to this day. The story shook me to my bones! The illustrations were oddly beautiful, in stark contrast to their subject matter. The artwork depicting six murdered brides in long flowing gowns hung on meat hooks, while their blood pooled in swirls of pink and crimson beneath their pretty shoes, was truly horrifying. And as an incredibly curious child, I knew I would have disobeyed Bluebeard and opened the forbidden door with the mysterious key!
Tell us about the Illawarra Fairy Tale Ring*
Our Fairy Tale Ring meets on the last Thursday of every month. If I had more powerful magic, I would make it every week! It’s my favourite day of the month. Our amazing Ring Maidens, Pat Simmons and Helen McCosker, make it a truly magical experience. We pick a theme and an artist to study every month, and I am excited and enthralled every time. We all get along, and we are all a bit naughty in the nicest sense of the word! I have finally at long last found my tribe, and the experience is magical and enchanting. The Ring is like a magical box, with all the women-folk as the treasures.
Has being part of the Fairy Tale Ring inspired your art?
The members have been super supportive of my art, but the best is yet to come! I’m so inspired. Expect to see a lot more fairy-tale-inspired art from me! I am definitely going to paint more witches, and I have many that include fairy tale motifs and animals.
How long have you been painting?
I’ve been painting since the age of two, really as soon as I could hold a pencil or a paintbrush!
What inspired your early work?
I was inspired in equal measure by nature and by fairy tales, folklore, myths and legends. My birthday and Christmas presents were always books about these things. I was seriously bullied at school, so I would take my books and my sketch book and paints into the woods behind our house and sit by the stream. There I felt free to be me.
How has your art changed over time?
What has changed is my greater passion to put beauty and light back into a world that seems challenged by dark times. I have a new motivation to spread ancient and time-worn tales to a wider audience through my art – and I have become more passionate about reflecting paganism in my art, because the belief system honours the earth and her seasons while revering the natural environment and everything upon it. The smallest stone is as sacred as the forest.
What are you most looking forward to about this year’s Australian Fairy Tale Conference?
I’m most looking forward to the magic! Gathering with a community that shares and understands your passion is always so exciting, inspiring, heart-warming, soul-stirring and nurturing. The kinship with kindred spirits is a true blessing! I’m looking forward to indulging in my passion for all things fairy tale and witchy! I am also thrilled to extend my interest and learn from others, and of course, share my art.
* The AFTS has many Rings around Australia, including Adelaide, Brisbane, Perth, Sydney and Victoria, plus ‘Magic Mirror’ (our online Ring) that all members can attend. More details here, or E: austfairytales<at>gmail.com.
Around two years ago, I (Melanie Hobbs) volunteered to try designing a logo for the Perth Ring of the AFTS. Members suggested kangaroo paws, black swans, whale sharks or numbats as ideas. I thought it might be a fun project. I dabble in drawing and painting as a hobby, but trying to create a logo with just the right composition and appropriate pigmentation that fits the oval shape while looking cohesive alongside the other Ring logos turned out to be harder than I anticipated! Many months and sketches later, I still had nothing we could use.
When my good friend and artist Alex Myer visited Perth last year, I asked her if she would like to attempt a design for us. Alex came up with four fantastic draft designs (pictured below).
Alex Myer’s draft designs for Perth Ring logo
After discussing with fellow Perth Ring members Alyssa Curtayne, Debs Chaliha and Christine della Vedova, we felt the swan represented us best, being the animal that represents the state of Western Australia. There are several fairytales about swans too, so it felt right. We also loved the presence of wildflowers as Western Australia is known for its unique flora.
Alex got to work on the final design and when she sent it through we were blown away. The level of detail in each element and the layering is just exquisite. I had a chat with Alex about her art and the process she went through to create our logo pictured below. Isn’t it beautiful? Scroll on to read our conversation about her art and how the Perth Ring logo came into being!
Perth Ring Logo design by Alex Myers
Thanks for chatting with us, Alex. Tell us about your art or creative practice.
I am an avid urban sketcher, meaning I love to draw on location with the materials I have on hand to capture the essence of the place in real time, as it happens around me. The decisions around composition: to abstract, to remove, to emphasise, are the most difficult parts of sketching and I never know what the end product will look like. Once I leave a location, the artwork is deemed ‘finished’ and cannot be worked on later. This practice has helped me build a stronger way of ‘seeing’, building a visual vocabulary and ‘being’, that is, grounding myself in a space.
I’ve recently started experimenting with rendering abstract landscapes using mixed media and live portraits using watercolour and ink. Urban sketching has helped build up the visual reference points in my mind that I think helped me to become better at making creative decisions and to be able to work with fewer reference points.
What do you do outside of art?
My day job is to convince students that tests, marks, and grades are not as important as being a human being who can think creatively, collaborate, communicate and think critically. I am an educator. I teach grades 7-12 and I am currently teaching engineering in an independent school in New York City. I hope that through demystifying technology, that I can empower students to be curious about their world. AI and the robots are here! How do we do a better job at teaching kids the very few benefits and very large costs of engaging with these new technologies?
When I am not making art or planning lessons you will find me cooking with friends, relaxing in a yoga class, or stumbling my way through learning a new language (I’m studying French at the moment after levelling up to “intermediate” in Spanish) while planning my next international adventure.
When I first floated the idea of designing a logo for us, what came to mind? Tell us about your first ideas and drafts.
Mel, you floated the idea to me when I was visiting home in Perth and you showed me a sample from another ring to give me an idea of what might align with the other logos. I completed my high school and university education and have spent the majority of my education career in Perth. I drew upon memories of being a Bush Ranger in high school to get me started! As a student I worked on many conversation projects from water-testing and planting native flora around the lake near my high school to rehabilitating sand dunes in a marine park. I also coded my first website as a Bush Ranger and sketched native animal illustrations that were the very first graphics on it. These formative experiences also included trips to Rottnest/Wadjemup, bushwalking on the Bib, caving in Yanchep and visits to the Aquarium of Western Australia (AQWA). My first drafts really did come from memory and a few reference photos I’d taken myself and maybe a few from Google images.
After we decided on the swan, what was your process for turning the draft into the final logo? How long did it take?
I took my roughly A6 size draft and scaled it up to A4 on premium cold-pressed, Arches watercolour paper, my favourite surface to work on! I started with a rough pencil sketch then erased the darkest lines so that they were barely visible then I used a minimum of 4 watercolour layers, working wet on dry with a size 12 round brush. This means that I would wait until each layer was dry before going back into work on the next layer. I dug out the reference photos to zoom into to see the finer details and put the final touches such as the gloss on the swan’s wings in with a white Posca marker. This process took about 4-6 hours.
Wow, what a labour of love! Do you have a connection to the flora and fauna you’ve included in the logo?
I do! I was 12 years old when my family first moved to Perth and we used to visit a pair of black swans at Hyde Park after school everyday. I continued to live near there for almost 20 years and saw the family grow, leave and return, over and over again. It was a delight to see the fluffy, grey signets grow up every year. Now, my Perth home is near the hills, so I’ve swapped black swans for black cockatoos and my front garden is full of banksias, bottle brushes and kangaroo paws. I selected these to have a water-wise garden and because they bring me so much joy!
That is so special. Thank you for sharing your love of Western Australian flora and fauna with us. Do you have a favourite fairytale?
Despite how tragic the original version is, I love The Little Mermaid. Before I moved to Perth I grew up on small, coastal town where I could hear the sounds of the waves from the beach at night from our house. I played in rock pools, boogie-boarded and got dumped countless times by large waves. I spent many, many hours and days at the beach swimming with my family. Something that stuck with me was the day of a king tide, specially at low-tide. This is a semi-rare event where the gravitational pull on the tide is out so far that it reveals hidden reefs and exposes all the submerged sea critters to dry land! As a child, it felt like I was in the scene from “Under the Sea”, where all the sea creatures are dancing in the reef. We rented Disney’s The Little Mermaid VHS tape many times from the local video store and it still remains a favourite fairy tale for me.
The Little Mermaid is actually the next fairytale the Perth Ring will discuss! What is next for you? What are you hoping for your art or creative process in the future?
I just got accepted into a course called ‘Machine Language’ run by the School for Poetic Computation based in New York City. The course is focused on computation as a medium for critical and artistic expression. I am interested in learning about what it means to interact with machines at the hardware level and assembly language. The class will culminate in a collaborative project, so I’m excited to contribute to whatever that ends up looking like. The course is fully online and will run for 10 weeks starting at the end of January.
For my off-screen creative practice, I want to explore memoir through comics/graphic storytelling. I tend to represent my reality in a semi-realistic style, adhering to traditional composition techniques and playing it safe so I am hoping to branch out into a more whimsical and playful expression through learning how to distil and abstract reality. I am a huge fan of the Spanish urban sketcher, Maru Godas, and hope to be able to attend one of her gouache and mixed media workshops at the Urban Sketcher’s Symposium in Toulouse, France this July.
Thanks, Alex, for a stunning logo. You can find her on Instagram @alexmyer
Melbourne will host our 2026 Australian Fairy Tale Conference on August 15-16.
Theme: Witches in Fairy Tales: Wise Women or Evil Enchanters?
Venue: Arrow on Swanston, 488 Swanston Street, Carlton, VIC 3053
We’re excited to share this with you, as there’s so much to explore! Big thanks to conference artist, Cassandra Kavanagh.
Who’s your favourite fairytale witch? Are they portrayed as the stereotypical evil enchanter, like Maleficent from Sleeping Beauty or the Evil Queen in Snow White; or more nuanced like Baba Yaga, who is often portrayed as the guardian between life and death, or the magical helper rather than a straight-up villain; or is it one of those sweet helper witches who morphed into a fairy over time, like Cinderella’s fairy godmother?
Fairy tales are a slippery genre to define – the borders of definition are made of seaweed rather than coral, with different characteristics drifting in or out?
Instead of saying that for a story to be a fairy tale, it must have ‘x’ characteristics, it can be more useful to look at a range of characteristics and then measure any given story against them to determine to what extent it is a fairy tale.
We can start by broadly defining genres by saying that
MYTHS are cosmic, describing origins and creations of various kinds.
LEGENDS are local, starting with specific places and times, with plausible situations that might have happened, but are now expressed as larger-than-life victories, betrayals, and defeats.
FAIRY TALES are individual following the lives of character archetypes that can represent aspects of humanity. They work as a psychological codes telling eternal truths about human nature in dream imagery – truthful rather than realistic.
FOLK TALES can be distinguished from fairy tales, because the one essential of fairy tales is that they must contain something magical or supernatural, often involving some sort of transformation, whereas folk tales have started with a realistic anecdote or joke.
But when we get into specific stories, it can be trickier.
The Pied Piper of Hamelin happened in Hamelin, As there’s a statue there linking it to a historic event, it’s definitely a legend… except it has magical elements, thereby making it a fairy tale.
Little Red Riding Hood has no magic at all, so it’s simply a talking animal story… but the world acclaims it as a fairy tale because the transformation is psychological, not magical.
Bamboo Cutter’s Daughter has a magically-born child found by a childless couple. As she ends up being taken up to heaven with other Chinese gods, is it a myth or a fairy tale?
As the purpose of a fairy tale is to unite that which is divided to reach a satisfying (psychological) cohesion, fairy tales ‘should’ end with a Happy Ever After… but nearly all of Hans Christian Andersen’s and Oscar Wilde’s fairy tales have bittersweet endings.
If we assembled common fairy tale characteristics, there would be some that are more central:
Magical transformations
Archetypal characters
Third person narrative
Non-specific time
Vanquishing evil
Achieving power
Plus other characteristics that are less essential but very common:
Coming of age
Finding a home
Union of Masculine and Feminine in marriage
Non-human characters
Happy endings.
Any of these characteristics may or may not be present in any given story, like a Venn diagram, so when we examine any story against those criteria, we can say that it is a fairy tale to such a degree, or in such a way, but not in others.
From these ingredients, we can have an infinite number of variations or patterns within all the fairy tales in the world, as well as the many stories that sit in the liminal space between fairy tale and myth, or legend, or animal story.
Then again, lots of people just get it wrong. Alice in Wonderland is a fantasy novel. Robin Hood is a legend. Three Billy Goats Gruff is an animal story. Bloggers including them in lists of fairy tales doesn’t make them fairy tales.
It’s equally wrong to think that real fairy tales must be European. Yes, it’s a European art form, starting with Straparola and Basile in Italy, and being named and published by the French Salonnieres in the 1690s – but just because it started there doesn’t mean it ends there. After all, many of our families started in Europe too, but that doesn’t stop us from evolving into our own (multi-) culture. So we can look at stories in India or Peru or Zimbabwe and say to what extent they can be called fairy tales too.
And … we can continue to create new fairy tales – new magical tales of Once Upon A TIme and Happily Ever After – right here and now.
We can also continue to discuss and debate just what a fairy tale is. This is just to get the conversation rolling!
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.)
We invite all lovers of story to an afternoon of live storytelling to celebrate World Storytelling Day. Thrill to tales of ‘Deep Water’ from Christine Carlton, Jill Webster, Jo Henwood, Kiran Shah and Liz Locksley, our performers from the AFTS Sydney Fairy Tale Ring and Australian Storytellers.
When: Sunday March 23, 1-4pm Where: Kirribilli Neighbourhood Centre, 16-18 Fitzroy Street, Kirribilli, NSW 2061 Tickets: $15 members (AFTS or AS), $20 non-members
Scan the QR code for details and bookings, or visit humanitix.
Brought to you by:
World Storytelling Day celebrates the power and joy of storytelling around the world. The 2025 theme, Deep Water, matches beautifully with our 2025 Australian Fairy Tale Conference theme, Over Water, Under Water, Magical Waters of Fairy Tales. For June 14-15 details, visit our conference page.
Australian Fairy Tale Society 