Showing posts with label FT community. Show all posts
Showing posts with label FT community. Show all posts

Friday, May 2, 2014

You Know You're a Fairy Tale Blogger When...

Graphic by Gypsy using Dore's illustrations & Debbie's vintage dust jacket project from Confessions of a Plate Addict
(text is the opening lines of Le Chat Botté)

I got tagged by Kristin from Tales of Faerie, so now it's my turn:

Gypsy's list:

You feel it's your job to watch ALL THE FAIRY TALE SHOWS every week (and movies too)
You get annoyed that googling "fairy tale" leads to sports stories at least half the time
You feel over saturated by Disney stuff/content and yet you have to read it/check it out just in case...
- Any time you have to buy shoes you get very self conscious that someone will think, that you think, that you're really a princess
- You have always owned, and will always own, a red hoodie
- ... and feel a little bit self conscious/rebellious every time you wear it.
You find ways to relate every conversation to fairy tales
You're pretty sure you wouldn't be too surprised if an animal came right out and spoke to you
You have multiple copies of Grimm's, Andersen's & Perrault's tales but cannot get rid of a single volume
You have a dream to own the complete AT index one day
You always have the urge to add a witch when making gingerbread houses
- ... and feel guilty eating gingerbread men.
- Your TBR pile is actually a mountain
You regularly have 14 tabs (or more) open at once for articles and stories you MUST blog on
- Your drafts folder is full of placeholder topic titles with one-liners/single paragraphs and half-complete essays on fairy tale issues so you won't forget to blog on them... (-sigh-)


Now tagging... HEIDI at SurLaLune!

Fairy tale bloggers' confessions so far (updated as they appear...):
What is this? From Kristin, of Tales of Faerie:After having a fairy tale blog for years, it really starts to bleed into the rest of your life. Gypsy from Once Upon a Blog and I have been enjoying sharing some of these unique results of our bloggerhood and thought some of you might also have some funny and interesting things to share as well!

The Australian Fairy Tale Society Awakens After a Hundred Year Sleep!

AFTS logo by Regan Kubecek
The world has a new Fairy Tale Society. In Australia! (Woot!!) *fistpump*

It's called, coincidentally, the Australian Fairy Tale Society. (The temporary online home, until the official launch in June, is HERE.)

Welcome to the world AFTS!

But the creation of this society is really a continuation of work that began one hundred (ish) years ago...
"One hundred years ago (or thereabouts) the eminent folklorist and fairy tale collector Joseph Jacobs might have been Australia’s answer to the Brothers Grimm. Jacobs was born, raised and university educated in Sydney but he moved to England in the late 19th Century to gather and publish fairy tales there. Meanwhile our rich tapestry of tales grew, yet there was no comprehensive endeavour to collect, analyse and preserve Australian fairy tales... until now."
To help make the organization the best possible resource for the collection and preservation of Australia fairy tales and to support current and new work, the new Australian Fairy Tale Society launched a crowd funding project on Monday April 28 to help them get off the ground.
As well as collecting folklore, the AFTS national website* will promote current events, share fairy tale news, inspire new works, and encourage a strong network of fairy tale lovers across the land. The society will hold annual conferences and encourage discussion groups to form across the country. (*To be launched at the conference.)
by Regan Kubecek
With a crowd funding project that launched on Monday April 28, an inaugural conference on Monday 9th June, and a new national website, the Australian Fairy Tale Society (AFTS) has broken the
spell."
But they don't just want your monetary help. They looking to launch an active and ongoing collection of fairy tales in Australia:
Does Grandma tell a bawdy version of Little Red Riding Hood? Did Cinderella make her way into your childhood rhyming games? Know any good Beauty and the Beast jokes? We're searching for Australian fairy tale folklore for our new collection.
Take a look at the video to see more about the new Australian Fairy Tale Society and what they (we!) hope to do with the support of contributors (and, like most crowd-funded projects, there are some great gifts and perks, according to your donation amount - see website for details HERE).
Being a long way from home myself, I am keeping my fingers crossed that there will be a way for supporters afar to participate or spectate but nothing has been confirmed as yet. If this changes and the conference participants (or attendees) jump on Twitter, Skype or Facebook for any panel or presentation (and I get a heads up) I will definitely let you know ASAP so you can plan your live participation with the time differences etc.

Here are some event details confirmed to date (more details on papers & panels below the poster):



  • Best selling and award-winning author Kate Forsyth will present her paper 'Rapunzel in the Antipodes' and be on our discussion panel looking at 'Cultural Editing: How some fairy tales get lost in the woods'.
  • Sarah Gibson - Jungian analyst, creator of Re-enchantment and the Fairy Tales Re-imagined Symposiums - will address the 'Ways of Interpreting Fairy Tales', with a focus on Australian visual artists.
  • Rebecca-Anne Do Rozario, who researches and teaches fairy tale, children's and fantasy literature at Monash University in Melbourne, will break open the definition of fairy tale in her exploration of 'Baroque in Oz: From Giambattista Basile to Shaun Tan'.
  • Belinda Calderone, who runs the Monash Fairy Tale Salon and is completing her PhD on motherhood in fairy tales, will present her paper 'Strange Lands: The transportation of European fairy tales into the Australian landscape'.
  • Jo Henwood, storyteller and co-founder of the AFTS, will tell 'An Australian Thumbelina' replete with "dingoes, wombats, echidnas and lorikeets" at the June conference.
  • Vasilisa Fair by Regan Kubecek
      Jenni Cargill-Strong - storyteller, singer, and founder of The Storytree Company - will share her research on the Little Red Riding Hood tale on our discussion panel looking at 'Cultural Editing: How some fairy tales get lost in the woods'.
    • Griffith University Honours student Sophie MacNeill will complete our discussion panel looking at 'Cultural Editing: How some fairy tales get lost in the woods' with her extensive knowledge of Snow White.
    • Storyteller and researcher, Tobias Eccles, will look at a common thread weaving through locally collected tales in his paper 'Stealing from the Sky, Stealing from the Underworld: The heroic thief in Australian fairy tales'.
    • Danielle Wood, who is working on her second collection of original fairy tales, will present a reading of her latest book 'Mothers Grimm' at the conference.
    • Robyn Floyd will be presenting her paper 'Constructing Australian Fantasy from a Grimm Perspective: Olga Ernst' followed by a storytelling performance of one of Olga's stories.

    There will also be some fairy tale artists and writers present for panels, meet and greets and signings of their works and books.

    If you're not in Australia, but still want to show your support for this new (and huge!) fairy tale endeavor, please feel free to contact the lovely and very friendly duo who got AFTS off the ground, Reilly McCarron and Jo Henwood, either via the AFTS Facebook page HERE or the crowd funder site HERE.

    Although I dearly wish I could be there in person, I will most definitely be there in spirit. 

    Note: all the art shown is, as credited below the images, by Aussie illustrator Regan Kubecek, who both created the AFTS logo and is the (unofficial at this time) AFTS artist. Ms. Kubecek also recently created a set of fairy tale illustrations which you can see HERE.

    Monday, April 14, 2014

    Aaaand here's the OUABlog OUAT Forum (Just in Time to Discuss Last Night's Episode)

    Next up on the Once Upon A Blog Forums for fairy tale folk: the OUABlog OUAT forum! (Heh.)


    If you haven't been following recently, as you can see from the banner above, the Wicked Witch of the West has taken over the second half of this season and, at this point, we're kind of grateful she did. Overall, the Oz factor is a plus.

    Since I wasn't on such a huge learning curve this time around in creating a forum, I took a little extra time to start off some topic threads and pose some questions, getting ready for you all to talk about Sunday night's episode "Bleeding Through".

    I know it's always hard to be first on the scene but we'd love to see what you have to say. I know there are a ton of OUAT fans among my readers and now's a chance to show your love, share your wishes and express your "if only!" bugaboos.

    Here's the link: OUABlog OUAT Forum and you should see a OUAT Forum tab at the top of the page, under the header, that you can access any time. 

    And here's what it looks like at time of writing... again with some extra text and arrows to show you around.

    What are you waiting for?

    Let's chat!

    Sunday, April 13, 2014

    Welcome to the Debut of OUABlog Fairy Tale Forums (Don't worry the OUAT one is coming...) Let's Chat!

    Since I had such a good response (especially via email) to the idea of a chat room/forum for TV series and more that...
    Ta da!
    Welcome to the launch of Once Upon A Blog Forums for fairy tale folk.

    First up is a fan and viewer forum for NBC's GRIMM, fairy tale community edition, but I'll be adding a forum for each of the major active series or movie sensations of the season as we go along. (In the list so far: OUAT, Maleficent movie, Cinderella movie, Into The Woods movie... Ever After High?? General Forum for Fairy Tale Films?? Suggestions welcome.)

    There's a bunch of topics set-up to get you going and all are welcome to join in. Active and lively discussion is encouraged! I only ask that you use common sense and courtesy in posting (additional guidelines are posted below the forum box but they're about the same as every other forum you've seen - no surprises).

    Here's the link >>>> OUABlog GRIMM Forum and you should see a GRIMM Forum tab at the top of the page, under the header, that you can access any time.

    And here's what it looks like in it's brand new baby forum... with some extra text and arrows to show you around.

    To answer your question, yes I will be participating in discussions fairly regularly. I have a lot I'd love to discuss that I don't feel is appropriate to be creating whole posts on, so please, come, join in, chat with me and let me know your thoughts! We have a lot to talk about. *claps hands - can't wait!*

    See you on the forums!

    Sunday, November 20, 2011

    The "Re-enchantment" (Hidden Meanings of Fairy Tales) Project DVD Now Available!

    (I'm so excited about this!)

    A DVD is now available and they will ship to anywhere in the world!*

    Rather than try to explain the Re-enchantment project I'll let it speak for itself:
    Re-enchantment is an immersive journey into the hidden meanings of fairy tales. Presented as an interactive multi-platform documentary project exploring why fairy stories continue to enchant, entertain, fascinate and horrify contemporary adult audiences.

    The Re-enchantment DVD features a series of 10 x 3-minute animated documentaries (interstitials), which explore the themes at work in fairy tales. Each episode offers a rich visual design and presents a new way of thinking about these familiar and much loved stories.
    The presentations include beautiful and thought provoking fairy tale illustrations (both classic and new), animations, clips from many different films and interview snippets throughout with some of the most respected fairy tale scholars today (eg Jack Zipes and Marina Warner).

    Here is the trailer to give you an overall taste:



     Each episode centers on a common fairy tale theme - Ever After, If The Shoe Fits, Wicked Stepmother, Princess Culture, Into The Woods, Dark Emotions, Beastly Husbands, The Forbidden Room, Fairy Tale Sex and Re-imaginings. (from the Press Release).
     You can order it HERE. Outside Australia, the DVD costs $34.95 and shipping is free. Australian orders are $29.95AU with shipping also free.


    And highly recommended (especially while you're waiting for the DVD to arrive) is spending a while exploring "Re-enchantment" online HERE. The site is interactive which is awesome. You can explore whatever aspects or images appeal to you and discover all sorts of goodies. You can also join in the fairy tale community there, take part in discussions of what you've explored on the website, add your thoughts and/or questions, even contribute to an online gallery with your own creations and artistic interpretations (photos, illustrations, collages and more).

    There are also art postcards from the project available for purchase.

    "Re-enchantment" is also on Facebook where they post snippets and updates.

    What are you waiting for? Go!

    * I don't know if they are producing 'differently-region-ed' DVDs or if  you would need an all region player to view it on but I'm guessing if the DVD is only compatible with the Australian region,  you should still be able to view it on any computer that has a DVD drive.