The Carterhaugh School of Folklore and the Fantastic Wins AFS Dorothy Howard Prize! + Sign-Ups Open for 'Folklore of Halloween' Mini-Course

Huge congratulations to Brittany Warman and Sara Cleto for winning the 2019 Dorothy Howard prize for The Carterhaugh School of Folklore and the Fantastic!

The prize recognizes excellence, relevance, and innovation in folklore education; essentially saying that Sara and Brittany are doing awesome and important work in their area of passion, which is, making excellent folklore education available to everyone. What wonderful confirmation that all their hard work and effort is worth it. To be recognized by your professional peers for a unique initiative is truly fantastic!

"The committee called Caterhaugh School “a folklore school for the digital age” that brings the scholarly study of folklore to a “global audience” online ." (from @BriarSpell's Twitter account)

Congratulations ladies!

We look forward to seeing what Carterhaugh is busy teaching folks for many years to come.

As for our readers, if you'e been sitting on the fence, wondering whether taking one of Carterhaigh's courses is worth it, hopefully, this helps convince you it is. Not only are the courses intriguing, beautifully presented, accessible to anyone with an interest, and taught with humor and magic, but they are also excellent in their content too.

Here's a quick overview of what they've offered to date:

“An Eerie Tale to Tell…”: Folklore for All Hallows’ Eve
[OCT 2016 – Complete]

The Fairy Tale
[WINTER 2017 – Complete]

The Legend
[SUMMER 2017 – Complete]

Witches in Folklore and Literature
[FALL 2017 – Complete]

Myth and Mythic Adaptation
[SUMMER 2018 – Complete]

Find Your Fairy Tale
[FALL 2018 – Complete]

Seeking the Witch: Traditional Tales and Everyday Magic
[FALL 2018 – Complete]

Live Lectures and Workshops:

[Click here to see live lectures and workshops]

And they're busy finishing up preparing a new big course which will be released very soon. In the meantime, they have something special for the season...

They put together a special new mini-course on Halloween Folklore (a very popularly requested topic) which will go live on OCTOBER 28.  It's being offered at a SUPER LOW PRICE of $25, (a one-time offer!) with a whole lot of benefits and a great way to sample the sorts of things Brittany and Sara put together.

Let us assure you, Sara and Brittany, are here for the fun on all aspects of Halloween as well as ready to impart sme serious lore, tales and hints for dealing with everything from lost spirits and Halloween fairies to useful rituals (and where those rituals came from). They've been posting some very fun content on the Carterhaugh blog, such as:

• Witchy Playlists (music to get you in the mood)
• Vampire Stories (to help you get the shivers, despite the unseasonal heat!)
• Gothic fashion (it's the season for trying new looks and costumes after all)

Our favorite, though, is Sara's article on the witch Watho, from George MacDonald's fairy tale The Day Boy and the Night Girl. See the author's description:

“THERE was once a witch who desired to know everything. But the wiser a witch is, the harder she knocks her head against the wall when she comes to it. Her name was Watho, and she had a wolf in her mind. She cared for nothing in itself — only for knowing it. She was not naturally cruel, but the wolf had made her cruel. She was tall and graceful, with a white skin, red hair, and black eyes, which had a red fire in them. She was straight and strong, but now and then would fall bent together, shudder, and sit for a moment with her head turned over her shoulder, as if the wolf had got out of her mind onto her back.” – George MacDonald (images from a 1988 edition)

Yep - she's a shape-changing witch, a werewolf witch, really, but not just that. She's not only mystically but had a (mad)scientific mind. In fact, the fairy tale begins with her deciding to do an experiment... She's not your average antagonist!

(And now we'd like to see all the suggestions for a Watho Halloween costume please!)

You can read all about the course HERE, including what will be taught and all the exclusive downloads, access and opportunities.

But be quick.

Places close at Midnight on October 27th!

Fairy Tale Oscar Watch 2018

One thing you may have missed in the all the Oscars advertising hype:

Best Picture is (very likely) between two fairy tale related films:

"The Shape of Water" and "Get Out".

The 90th Academy Awards  have quite a large representation with regard to folklore and fairy tales this year. With the Beauty and the Beast-like The Shape of Water up for a slew of awards (13!), including Best Picture and Best Director, the 'flipped' Beauty and the Beast/Bluebeard thriller/horror Get Out also up for Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay (4 in all), the not-at-all-revolting Revolting Rhymes putting fairy tales front and center in the short film category, Disney's live-action Beauty and the Beast getting noms for costume and production design, and the highly folkloric Coco up for best animated feature, fairy tales are likely to be a strong theme at the awards show this year. 

There's a good possibility there will be lots of water and beast type imagery, musical numbers, spoofs and jokes...

Illustrator Yoshitaka Amano (famous for character design of Final Fantasy) created a collaborative art piece for The Shape of Water, directed by Guillermo del Tor. Amano commented "I imagined he wraps himself in his cloak of water".
(Click for full size)

Fairy tales and fantasy have been in high demand the past year, meaning that in a year of great social unrest and confusion in the US (and inevitably, due to being a major world power, the rest of the world), fairy tales (and fantasy) are being turned to for many and varied reasons. They're a source of distracting - and positive - entertainment, they're used as a method for processing confusion and challenges and as a medium for expression for hope, anger, despair, and a call to change. From newly-desperate wishes for a happily-ever-after in a time of extreme difficulty and stress for many, to reflecting on simple truths that can cut clearly through a swath of fake news, to a beacon of creative inspiration that connects to human truths, fairy tales are surfacing everywhere. Fairy tale themed ads on TV tend to be split between sorting truth from fiction and being an inspirational element of hope despite various circumstances. Fairy tale based books, while always prolific, this past year have been hitting the bestseller lists when exposing their teeth, their dark underbellies and their smart, wily and take-no-prisoners heroines. 

Fairy tale films, in particular those with a happy ending, have caught the imagination and attention of the general public. While a film like The Shape of Water would be considered excellent at any point in history, we believe it's appearance at this time, has helped boost its profile, as this is the type of triumphant story of love winning over all odds, and the little people beating 'the big machine' that has resonated so strongly. It's the inspiration - and reassurance - people are searching for. Once again, a film's popularity has risen to meet its excellence in filmmaking, and it's a joy to see that being recognized at the Academy Awards - doubly so because its not at all shy about its fairy tale roots.

Here's the rundown of fairy tale and folklore-related films that are in the running, and for which category:

Film: The Shape of Water

Fairy Tale/Folklore Tie-ins:

• Beauty and the Beast
• The River God of the Amazon (Brazilian folklore meets The Creature From the Black Lagoon/Gill-man pop culture/urban legend)
• The silent heroine/hero and those keeping secrets [ATUs: 451 (eg. Six Swans), 442 (eg. Old Woman in the Forest), 533 (eg. Goose Girl),  945 (eg. Princess Who Couldn't Laugh/Speak), 923 (eg. Love Like Salt), and The Little Mermaid/Undine/The Fisherman and His Soul]
• There are even parallels that can be made with Sleeping Beauty (ATU 410) 
• There's even a little of the Moses story - both fishman and found in a river, grows to become savior of enslaved people, *spoiler* (highlight to view) disappears behind a wall of water to destiny *spoiler over*

Nominated for:

• Best Picture
• Best Director
• Best Actress
• Best Supporting Actress
• Best Supporting Actor
• Best Original Music Score
• Best Original Screenplay
• Best Cinematography
• Best Costume Design
• Best Film Editing
• Best Sound Mixing
• Best Production Design
• Best Sound Editing

Oscar Favorite? Yes - especially for Best Picture, Best Production Design and possibly Best Director

Film: Get Out

Fairy Tale/Folklore Tie-ins: Beauty and the Beast, Bluebeard

Nominated for:

• Best Picture
• Best Director
• Best Original Screenplay
• Best Actor

Oscar Favorite? Yes - contender for Best Picture, Favorite for Best Original Screenplay (Note: this film appears to have Maria Tatar's vote)

Film: Revolting Rhymes

Fairy Tale/Folklore Tie-ins: 

• A mix of classic fairy tales
• Red Riding Hood
• Snow White
• Three Little Pigs
• Cinderella
• Jack and the Beanstalk (etc)

Nominated for: Best Short Film (Animated)

Oscar Favorite? Yes

Film: Disney's Beauty and the Beast (live action)

Fairy Tale/Folklore Tie-ins: Beauty and the Beast (Villeneuve as well as Disney's animated classic)

Nominated for:

• Best Production Design
• Best Costume Design

Oscar Favorite? No

Film: The Breadwinner

Fairy Tale/Folklore Tie-ins: Afghan storytelling and fables

Nominated for: Best Animated Feature

Oscar Favorite? No

Film: Coco

Fairy Tale/Folklore Tie-ins: 

• Mexican Day of the Dead/Land of the Dead
• Mexican spirit animals
• Dante (dog's name)
• Aztec gods
• Alebrijes (Mexican folk art imaginary creatures - newish 'lore' dating back to 30's)

Nominated for:

• Best Animated Feature
• Best Music (Original Song)

Oscar Favorite? Yes - both for Best Animated Feature & for Best Song

Fairy Tale Bonus of the Day:

Check out this wonderful essay by Dr. Jeana Jorgensen:

Strategic Silences: Voiceless Heroes in Fairy Tales

This essay (available to read online for free) explores the use of silence in fairy tales, for both female and male heroes, discussing the many aspects of silence/mutism (voluntary, non-voluntary, tasks, spell-breaking etc) and looks at the variations from different cultures and eras.

Highly recommended!

In that vein, we bring you a timely reinterpretation of Oscar statues for a group of people long silenced in Hollywood: women. These re-visioned statues were created this year by A-list artists, especially in the wake of the #MeToo era. (If only we could see more of these on the red carpet as opposed to the 'casting couch' statue, that appeared days before the Oscars*, making a similar, but very differently focused, statement.)

The Oscar Statues Reinterpreted by A-list Artists for the #MeToo Era

*Only to be removed two nights before due to inclement weather. Reports are that it's unlikely to be reinstalled in time for the Academy Awards for the same reasons.

Prof. Roberta Trites Receives International Brothers Grimm Award

Sleeping Beauty by Walter Crane

Press Release (emphasis in bold is ours):

Illinois State University’s Distinguished Professor Roberta Seelinger Trites is the recipient of the 16th International Brothers Grimm Award by the International Institute for Children’s Literature, Osaka, Japan. 

Trites served as the president of the Children’s Literature Association in 2006 and 2007, and as editor of the Children’s Literature Association Quarterly from 2000 to 2004. She worked to shift the association’s focus from a primarily North American view to a more international perspective and to enhance its academic rigor. Her direction of 22 Ph.D. students, including students from India, Jordan, Nepal, Tanzania, and Taiwan, provides testimony to her outstanding expertise and international contributions to the field of children’s literature. 

Professor Roberta S. Trites

...Trites’ work includes Waking Sleeping Beauty: Feminist Voices in Children’s Novels. The International Institute of Children’s Literature describes Trites’ books as ground-breaking in their theoretical approaches to adolescent literature, feminist studies, historical and cultural literary studies.” 

Professor Trites is the third citizen of the U.S. upon which this honor has been bestowed. She has been short-listed for the award several times before and is now being accorded fitting recognition as its 16th recipient. The award was established in 1986 to honor the Brothers Grimm’s centenary and is sponsored by the Kinran-kai Foundation of Osaka.

More information on Professor Trites can be found in the full press release HERE.

Here's the synopsis of Waking Sleeping Beauty. Please note - there have been opposing responses to Prof. Trites' book - some labeling it 'wonderfully feminist' while others call it out as being beholden to patriarchal ideals, with the sentiments included being 'dangerous for young girls today'. We have no copy ourselves and cannot comment, other than to make potential readers aware of the differences in critical response.

Waking Sleeping Beauty

Feminist Voices in Children's Novels

Roberta S. Trites

Publication Year: 1997

The Sleeping Beauty in Roberta Seelinger Trites' intriguing text is no silent snoozer passively waiting for Prince Charming to energize her life. Instead she wakes up all by herself and sets out to redefine the meaning of “happily ever after.” Trites investigates the many ways that Sleeping Beauty's newfound voice has joined other strong female voices in feminist children's novels to generate equal potentials for all children.

Waking Sleeping Beauty explores issues of voice in a wide range of children's novels, including books by Virginia Hamilton, Patricia MacLachlan, and Cynthia Voight as well as many multicultural and international books. Far from being a limiting genre that praises females at the expense of males, the feminist children's novel seeks to communicate an inclusive vision of politics, gender, age, race, and class. By revising former stereotypes of children's literature and replacing them with more complete images of females in children's books, Trites encourages those involved with children's literature—teachers, students, writers, publishers, critics, librarian, booksellers, and parents—to be aware of the myriad possibilities of feminist expression.

Roberta Trites focuses on the positive aspects of feminism: on the ways females interact through family and community relationships, on the ways females have revised patriarchal images, and on the ways female writers use fictional constructs to transmit their ideologies to readers. She thus provides a framework that allows everyone who enters a classroom with a children's book in hand to recognize and communicate—with an optimistic, reality-based sense of “happily ever after”—the politics and the potential of that book.

We've listed the chapter titles for your reference below, and you can find out more - as well as download PDFs of the chapters - HERE:
1. Defining the Feminist Children's Novel
2. Subverting Stereotypes: Rejecting Traditional Gender Roles
3. Subjectivity as a Gender Issue: Metaphors and Intertextuality
4. Transforming Feminine Silence: Pro/claiming Female Voices
5. Re/constructing the Female Writer: Subjectivity in the Feminist Künstlerroman
6. Female Interdependency: Literal and Metaphoric Sisterhood
7. Refuting Freud: Mother/Daughter Relationships
8. Metafiction and the Politics of Identity: Narrativity, Subjectivity, and Community
9. Afterword: Feminist Pedagogy and Children's Literature

Forest Rogers Wins Gold Spectrum Award!

Venetian Harpy  by Forest Rogers

The 22nd Spectrum Awards (for science fiction and fantasy art in all mediums) were recently held and one of my favorite fairy tale illustrators and sculptors, Forest Rogers, won a gold award in the Dimensional category, for her stunning and amazing Venetian Harpy (see above).

Congratulations Forest!!

Note: I should also mention that Scott Gustafson, who has illustrated many a fairy tale picture book, received the Grand Master Award!

Though Forest Rogers doesn't exclusively work on fairy tale subjects she has made, and continues to create, many memorable fairy tale-based pieces, and from little bits I pick up around social media, she's looking at continuing/completing the Vasilissa illustrations she began many years ago (before she got into sculpting) and, off and on, has been researching The Crane Wife, as she'd apparently like to create a sculpture based on the Japanese fairy tale as well. (!!)

Below are some of her other fairy tale works to date, and perhaps you can see why I love her work so.

Baba Yaga

Baba Yaga's Hut

Vasilissa with her mother's doll

Baba Yaga (still being dressed) & Vasilissa

Baba Yaga, Vasilissa and the Chicken-Legged Hut together

Snow Maiden as she melts

Banshee

Yuki Ona - snow spirit

East of the Sun (inspired by Kay Neilsen's illustration)

East of the Sun (2nd sculpt)

Swan child in progress

Hans Andersen's Little Mermaid

Silvershod (aka Silver Hoof) & his friend Cat (Russian tale)

Red Riding Hood in progress

Red Riding Hood & Wolf
(Something about this evokes Perrault and Dore and other early illustrated versions of LRRH to me.)

Vasiliss'a Mother gives her a doll before she passes away

Vaslissa enters Baba Yaga's forest

Baba Yaga tasks Vasilissa with impossible tasks

Vaslissa talks to her doll (and the doll talks back)

Baba Yaga in a rage

One of the horsemen Vasilissa sees on her journey

 You can see much more of Forest Roger's work on her website HERE and follow her on Facebook HERE and Twitter HERE. She also has a great set of boards on Pinterest HERE.

"The Crane Wife" by Patrick Ness Named Notable Book by ALA

The Crane Wife by Katrina Pallon

I will admit I know very little about Patrick Ness, not having read any of his books, but Heidi has mentioned him on SurLaLune a couple of times so I thought I'd bring you notice of his latest folklore-based novel, especially since it was just named as one of ALA's Notable Books for 2015.

(And, as a bonus today I'm adding some lovely illustrations, some of which I hadn't seen before today. Credit is under each image.)

The Crane Wife by Kat Leyh

Refreshingly, this story is based on a little-known-to-the-Western-world romantic Japanese fairy tale (one of the better known ones that's usually included in multicultural collections) and was written by a man, both of which make it notable as well.

The Crame Wife by Janey-Jane

The Crane Wife is based on the fairy tale of the same name and seems to follow key aspects of the plot (at least to a certain point), though the setting is more urban and more modern.

The Crane Wife by Eno Keo

Two critically acclaimed authors who draw on folklore and fairy tales, Eowyn Ivy (The Snow Child) and Ali Shaw (The Girl With Glass Feet), both praise the book, which, despite other mixed reviews, is more than enough for me to put it in my shopping cart straight away!

Here's the synopsis, care of Penguin Press:

A magical novel, based on a Japanese folk tale, that imagines how the life of a broken-hearted man is transformed when he rescues an injured white crane that has landed in his backyard. 

George Duncan is an American living and working in London. At forty-eight, he owns a small print shop, is divorced, and is lonelier than he realizes. All of the women with whom he has relationships eventually leave him for being too nice.  

But one night he is waked by an astonishing sound—a terrific keening, which is coming from somewhere in his garden. When he investigates he finds a great white crane, a bird taller than himself. It has been shot through the wing with an arrow. Moved more than he can say, George struggles to take out the arrow from the bird’s wing, saving its life before it flies away into the night sky. 

The Crane Wife by pageboy

The next morning, a shaken George tries to go about his daily life, retreating to the back of his store and making cuttings from discarded books—a harmless personal hobby—when a woman walks through the front door of the shop. Her name is Kumiko, and she asks George to help her with her own artwork. George is dumbstruck by her beauty and her enigmatic nature and begins to fall desperately in love with her. She seems to hold the potential to change his entire life, if he could only get her to reveal the secret of who she is and why she has brought her artwork to him. 

The Crane Wife by Gennady Spirin (retold by Odds Bodkin)

 Witty, magical, and romantic, The Crane Wife is a story of passion and sacrifice that resonates on the level of dream and myth. It is a novel that celebrates the creative imagination and the disruptive power of love.

And here's the author introducing us to his novel:

Has anyone read this? I'm very curious now!