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The Newsletter of the Sussex Centre for Folklore, Fairy Tales and Fantasy

Oct-Nov 2014

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Contents

Preorder Gramarye issue 6 now ... 3

Events at the Centre, 2014-15 5

Wonderlands PGR conference 8

Other Upcoming Conferences 11

Online Folklore Collections 14

Other Events and Exhibitions 15

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Preorder Gramarye issue 6 out now ...

We are delighted to announce that Gramarye issue 6 will be available in mid-November. You may have inferred from our recent survey that we lost our funding to print Gramarye; however, we are lucky enough to keep the designer and the only changes are to the format (now slightly narrower at A5) and to the print run.

This issue will be released as a very limited print run, along with unlimited ebook pdfs and Kindle mobi files. The print edition is funded by advertising and will primarily go to sales through bookshops. If you prefer to receive a printed copy, please pre-order from our online store by Sunday 9 November to ensure you receive one.

Subscribers are guaranteed their printed copy.

This issue’s contents include:• ‘The Case of the Ebony Horse’ (Part 2), Ruth B. Bottigheimer• ‘The American Fantasy Tradition’, Tom Shippey• ‘The Mythology of the Dark Tower Universe’, Robin Furth• ‘Child Roland’, Steven O’Brien

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• ‘Magic Mirrors and Shifting Skin: An Ecocritical Reading of Cornelia Funke’s Reckless’, Joanna Coleman

• ‘My Life with Fantasy Literature’, Colin Manlove• A review of Brian Attebery’s Stories about Stories: Fantasy

and the Remaking of Myth, Tom Shippey• A review of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Fall of Arthur, Dimitra Fimi• A review of Nancy Marie Brown’s Song of the Vikings: Snorri

and the Making of Norse Myths, Jacqueline Simpson • A review of Jennifer Garlen and Anissa Graham’s The Wider

Worlds of Jim Henson: Essays on His Work and Legacy Beyond The Muppet Show and Sesame Street, John Patrick Pazdziora

• A review of Andrew Teverson’s Fairy Tale, Cristina Bacchilega• A review of John Lindow’s Trolls: An Unnatural History,

Katherine Langrish

Gramarye 6 will also be available from:• Atlantis Books (London)• Byre Books (Wigtown)• Emporium Bookshop (Cromarty)• Foyles (London)• Kims (Chichester)• Nemetona (Montrose)• Practical Magick (Knaresborough)• Transreal Fiction (Edinburgh)• Treadwells (London)• Waterstone’s (Chichester)• Way Out There And Back (Littlehampton)• White Witch (Waltham Abbey)• Word Power (Edinburgh)

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Dr Darren Oldridge, 'Fairies, Imps, Goblins and Bogies in Early Modern England'Thursday 23rd October 2014, 5.15-6.30 p.m., Cloisters Dr Darren Oldridge teaches History at the University of Worcester. He is a specialist in early modern religious history, with a particular interest in witchcraft and the Devil; his most recent books are The Devil: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press: 2012) and The Devil in Tudor and Stuart England (2nd edition: History Press 2010). At present he is writing a study of the supernatural in early modern England, to be published by Routledge next year.

Tickets £5/£3 concessions, free to University staff and students.

Events at the Centre, 2014-15

Our events this year are kindly sponsored by:

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Jacqueline Simpson, 'Folktales of England'Tuesday 4 November, H149, 3-5 p.m.

England's foremost living folklorist, Folk-lore Advisor to Terry Pratchett and the Centre's Visiting Professor of Folklore, Jacqueline Simpson will present an introduction to England's folktales. England has rather more folktales than people assume, including many local and migratory legends, though they are mainly Sagen not Märchen.

Tickets £5/£3 concessions, free to University staff and students.

Dr Steve O'Brien, 'British and Irish Folktales'Wednesday 21st January 2015, 5.15-6.30 p.m., Room H144Editor of the London Magazine, Visiting Fellow of Creative Writing at Chichester, and Senior Lecturer at the University of Portsmouth, Steve O'Brien will be presenting his retellings of British and Irish folktales. His poetry collections include Dark Hill Dreams and Scrying Stone.

Tickets £5/£3 concessions, free to University staff and students.

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Kate MosseSpring 2015, tbc

(Image credit: The Telegraph)

Kate Mosse is the multi-million bestselling novelist whose book Labyrinth was #1 in UK paperback for six months and was named one of the Top 25 books of the past 25 years by the bookselling chain Waterstones. Translated into thirty languages and adapted as a major television film on Channel 4 at Easter 2013, it was followed by the equally successful Sepulchre and Citadel, and several short story collections.

For all events, e-mail h.robbins@chi.ac.uk for more information or to book your tickets.

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Wonderlands: Reading/Writing/Telling Fairy Tales and Fantasy

PGR Symposium, 23 May 2015, University of ChichesterTimed to coincide with the 150th anniversary of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, this event is primarily aimed at postgraduate students and early career researchers, although other scholars and the general public will be welcome.

We are delighted to announce that Professor Diane Purkiss of Oxford University, who is also a creative writer of fantasy fiction (under the pseudonym ‘Tobias Druitt’), will give the Keynote Lecture, five years after her inaugural lecture at the Sussex Centre in 2010. Other speakers may include Alice illustrator John Vernon Lord and creative writer and storyteller Steven O'Brien. The day will close with a series of performances from professional storytellers which engage with the theme of wonder lands.

Call for PapersWe are seeking papers which explore all aspects of reading, writing, and telling fairy tales and fantasy. In particular, we invite discussion of wonder lands in fantastical literature, classic and modern fairy tales, and contemporary oral storytelling. Possible topics of focus include, but are not limited to:• Other worlds, otherworldliness, Wonderland, and wonder lands • Relationships between reading, writing, and/or telling fantasy

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• Contemporary scholarship in children’s and adult’s fantasy literature

• Storytelling as a vehicle for the fantastic • Practice and performance of fairy tales• Fantastical non-fiction• Relationships between real and imagined wonder lands• Meta-textual conversations with classic fantasy literature• Imagining the fantastical world through illustrations and

picture books We also welcome paper submissions or panel presentations which include a creative or performative element.

Please submit abstracts of no more than 300 words (or panel proposals of 1,000 words) and a short personal bio to the organisers, Joanna Coleman, Joanne Blake Cave, and Rose Williamson at wonderlands.symposium@gmail.com. The deadline for submission will be 31 January 2015. Registration dates will be announced on the Sussex Centre website in the near future at http://www.sussexfolktalecentre.org.

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Other Upcoming Conferences

New Folklore Researchers Conference20 November 2014, The Warburg Institute, LondonFolklore Studies remains a minority discipline, even in countries where it has had a stronger academic recognition than it has in Britain. This event aims to discuss and consider tactical ways for academics coming to our subject to remain working within it. It is intended to create a forum and network to share the problems confronting newer Folklore scholars and discuss ways of overcoming those problems. For more information visit The Folklore Society's website.

West Country Folklore Symposium21 February 2015, The Eden Project, CornwallA day of presentations, debate and conversation celebrating various aspects of tradition, custom and culture from across the West Country, plus stalls, crafts and exhibitions. For more information see the flyer on Twitter.

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CfP: The Once and Future Antiquity: Classical Traditions in Science Fiction and Fantasy27-9 Mar 2015, University of Puget Sound (Washington, USA)What roles has classical antiquity played in visions of the future, the fantastic, the speculative, the might-have-been? How have works of science fiction, from Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein to Ridley Scott’s Prometheus, imagined ancient traditions in relation to the modern world, whether at present or in the days after tomorrow? What might it mean to consider antiquity – its art, history, literature, philosophy, and material culture – through the lens of fantasy, a genre traditionally associated with medievalism?

Proposals of no more than 300 words should be sent to classicalreceptions@gmail.com no later than 15 December 2014. For the full CfP, go to the Mythgard Institute's website.

CfP: International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts18-22 March 2015, Marriott Orlando Airport Hotel (USA)

Join the IAFA as they explore the possibilities and intersections of science and imagination – from Faust and Frankenstein, through the Golden Age and the New Wave, to steampunk and mash-ups. Deadline 31 October 2014; find out more here.

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CfP: Charms, Charmers and Charming15-17 May, the Pécs Committee of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Hungary

The conference welcomes proposals in the following areas: 1) Comparative and historical approaches to verbal charms at the boundaries of Eastern and Western Christianities2) Charms as a genre: the genre's characteristics and borders; charms and related forms – prayers, divinations, curses, etc.3) The micro-analysis of a particular charm-type4) Charmers as workers at (and over) boundaries – ethnic, religious, linguistic, etc.

For more information, download the pdf.

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Online Folklore Collections

Ireland's National Folklore Collection now online

Dúchas.ie is a project to digitise the National Folklore Collection of Ireland, one of the largest folklore collections in the world. 98% of the material from five counties in the Schools’ Collection (c.110,000 items) is available here. New material is being added on a phased basis. To find out more visit http://www.duchas.ie/en

Open Folklore Web Archive Collection grows past 100 sites:The Open Folklore Web Archive is a searchable collection of archived copies of websites that are of research value or institutional importance to folklorists.

Visit http://openfolklore.org/news for more information.

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Other Events and Exhibitions

Hallowe'en events at the Scottish Storytelling CentrePart of Edinburgh's TradFest.Events include 'Exploring Celtic Traditions' with George Macpherson; ' The Coming of the Unicorn and other Tales of Wonder' with Linda Williamson; and 'Meeting the Fairies' with David Francis and Rachel Newton of The Shee. Visit the Storytelling Festival's Events page to see all upcoming events.

'Terror and Wonder: the Gothic Imagination'British Library exhibition, 3 Oct 2014-20 Jan 2015Discover the UK’s biggest ever Gothic exhibition: two hundred rare objects trace 250 years of the Gothic tradition, exploring our enduring fascination with the mysterious, the terrifying and the macabre. Visit the British Library's Exhibitions page for more information.

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'King of the Cats', Lancashire folktales exhibition4 Oct-9 Nov 2014

Come and meet Boggarts, Haunted Hares, and Talking Cats, and be immersed in windswept moorland, snow capped hills and icy becks. Taking its inspiration the folktales of Lancashire it

responds to them with 21st century wit and wonder. Spectral cats, unearthly black dogs and shape changing girls will haunt the exhibition as will earthenware geese and of course the King of the Cats himself. Vist the Whitaker's website for more information.

The C.S. Lewis Festival, Oct-Nov 2014The Northern Michigan C. S. Lewis Festival welcomes you to our annual celebration of the life and works of the man who created Narnia. Events including music and theater performances, school and library programs, scholarly lectures, community discussion groups, and more. Visit http://www.cslewisfestival.org/.

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A Storytelling Supper 7.30 p.m., Thursday 6 November, Kemis Pontcanna, CardiffThe first Storytelling Supper will be on Thursday 6 November and will be 'Fool's Gold' with Francis Maxey and Steve Killick.

Marina Warner – Voices in the Dark: Fairy Tales in our TimeThursday 27th November, Oxford Story Museum

What is a fairy tale? Where do they come from and what do they mean? What do they tell us about morality, sexuality, and society? Marina Warner explores fairy tales through the ages, and their appearance on page, stage and screen. From the Grimm’s Cinderella to modern films such as Pan’s Labyrinth, Warner investigates the best of the genre, and demonstrates how fairy tales affect human understanding and culture. More information at the Story Museum's website.

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If you have any queries or feedback about this newsletter, please contact Heather Robbins at

h.robbins@chi.ac.uk