Bookings are now open for the 2020 virtual conference of the Australian Fairy Tale Society! This year’s theme is Magic Mirrors: the Seen and the Unseen.
Schedule for the conference at the bottom of this post.
This will be a conference unlike any other because we will be able to have people from all over Australia – all over the world! – attend our Zoom conference. We really couldn’t have chosen a more appropriate theme than “Magic Mirrors: the seen and the unseen” for such a visual interaction.
We will not be having an eight-hour/one-day conference, all sitting in front of our screens. Instead we will take advantage of being on the long weekend and have six sessions over the three days: 9.30-11.30am AEST and 2-4pm AEST on Saturday 6, Sunday 7, and Monday 8 June.
All this for a flat rate of $30 (around US$20), about a third of the usual cost, for nearly a third more content.
We are so looking forward to having our “biggest” conference ever. In the words of Robin Williams’ Genie: “Phenomenal cosmic powers! Itty-bitty living space!”
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.
In our sixth annual conference we will look (pun intended!) more closely at these visual and artistic representations in Magic Mirrors: the Seen and the Unseen.
SCHEDULE
FRIDAY NIGHT 8-9pm
Cocktail Party! – A chance to get used to Zoom and meet each other.
SATURDAY MORNING 9.30- 11.30 am
Kathleen Jennings: Keynote address
Monika Diak: Show & Tell art
Lindy Mitchell-Nilssen: storytelling
SATURDAY AFTERNOON 2-4pm
Magic Mirrors Discussion Panel
Kathy Smart: Show & Tell game design Panel: artists
SUNDAY MORNING 9.30- 11.30 am
Sarah Hart: Academic talk – Women in contemporary fairy tales
AGM – think about nominating yourself or someone else for the Committee!
Panel: multi modal storytelling
SUNDAY AFTERNOON 2-4pm
Renee Dahlia & Philippa Borland: Academic talk – Queer retellings
Livonne Larkins: Show & Tell: role play
Fiona Price: book launch The Ivory Tower
MONDAY MORNING 9.30- 11.30 am
Dr Kate Forsyth: Academic talk – Kind and Unkind Girls
Lindy Mitchell-Nilssen: storytelling
Spike Deane: Show & Tell – glass sculptures
Serene Conneeley: book launch The Swan Maiden
MONDAY AFTERNOON 2-4pm
Donna Cameron: Academic talk – landscapes of Australia and Ireland
Patsy Poppenbeek & Kathryn Gossow: Panel – The Anthology
Award giving ceremony
Kate Forsyth: digital storytelling
Conference artwork by Erin-Claire Barrow.
Really enjoyed Fiona Price’s book launch of ‘The Ivory Tower’ today, and the other presentations I’ve caught so far. Looking forward to Serene Conneeley’s book launch of ‘The Swan Maiden’ tomorrow. Thanks for all the inspiration, fey folk!