Poetic Artists: Bee Williamson & Erin-Claire Barrow

 

Faerie News

Poetess Bee Williamson, whose eco-ethereal spirit buzzes my bee, has published art & poems ripe on time for Australian Spring. 

Quoting Anne Frank with its title A Comfort for Every Sorrow, it carries Bee's signature blend of humanity, sense of ecological urgency, simplicity ('this is small/but this is our green faith', page 49) and ecstatic wonder. Amid the sensuousness are aching questions ('Why does everything separate me? Fragment me?' page 106), as if the poet has become a receptacle for a universe struggling to understand itself.

A treat for reading under a tree during our times of seclusion.

Here is where I bought my hardcopy that flew swiftly over the garden to my door.  There's also an ebook version.

Comfort for Every Sorrow
by Bee Williamson

Dancer by Bee Williamson

Faerie News 

continued ... 

Fairytale illustrator 

Erin-Claire Barrow 

has launched a Kickstarter to create limited edition prints of fairytale covers, here

In Erin-Claire's words:

'These illustrated book covers for five well-known traditional fairy tales are reimagined with strong, diverse heroines and are full of warmth and life. The illustrations capture essential elements of each fairy tale – such as the way Beauty brings warmth and life to the stillness of the Beast’s castle in Beauty and the Beast – with a modern twist, building curiosity about the story itself. ' 

Erin-Claire Barrow

I recommended Erin-Claire's art and writing in previous posts here at Australian Fairy Review, e.g. her book The Adventurous Princess and other feminist fairy tales (Odyssey Books), a set of cards featuring those pictures, and an illustration she created for the inaugural recipient of the Australian Fairy Tale Society Award. She also features in the new anthology South of the Sun: Australian fairy tales for the 21st century (2021, Serenity Press); notably, of the fifty two contributors, she is one of only two who illustrated their own stories.

As another brilliant Australian illustrator Lorena Carrington put it:

Visit Erin-Claire Barrow's Kickstarter here

I've published a book - and won a fairytale award!

Faerie News

In Australia's misty Midwinter, something munificent shone. Come closer: it's a book. But not an ordinary one at all. Oh no, my friends. It's like that golden ball a frog once found at the bottom of a well, gleaming in the depths.

South of the Sun: Australian fairy tales for the 21st century is an intercultural, illustrated anthology of contemporary fairy stories for grownups. 

Created as a partnership between Australian Fairy Tale Society and WA publisher Serenity Press, it garnered stellar endorsements by leading authors Kate Forsyth, Angela Slatter and Juliet Marillier, and includes tales by other luminaries such as Carmel Bird, Sophie Masson, Cate Kennedy and Eugen Bacon, along with artwork by Kathleen Jennings and Lorena Carrington, who designed the book's cover. 

I'll have more to say about the quest soon - its challenges, joys, surprises and why the resulting concoction is so groundbreaking.

It's been a hectic year, with the Bendigo Writers Festival, Australian Fairy Tale Society conference, at which I co-presented with one of our book's participants, T.D. Luong, and other shenanigans. I hope to catch up on reviews soon. For now, I passionately invite you to support our years of research, fundraising, collaboration, editing, contractual liaison and all other aspects of this publication, by procuring your own copy and buying one for a friend!

Here's the link to order. 

Please help us spread the news. 

It's been such an honour to receive the Australian Fairy Tale Society Award, I still can't quite shake the thrill, like seeds in my hair from gardening during lockdown free of shampoo. 

There was steep competition, with nominees making great contributions to this field: storyteller Jo Henwood, author Serene Conneeley and glass artist Spike Deane. The annual prize means being custodian of a bewitching frog sculpture by Spike herself, for a year. Then it hops over to the next awardee in Australia.

Fairytale Frog by Spike Deane

Numerological magic can be irresistible for faerie folk; I'm the 5th awardee of this prize, awarded in the 5th month of the year, my birth month in which I turned 55; the pentacle (pentagram, apple seedpod) is one of my favourite symbols. So mine is the 5th little plaque on the wooden base. 

A beautiful glass dome rests above, with a copper frog musing behind it in silhouette: a tribute to the AFTS logo, a native tree frog.

It was also a joy to open an enchanting artwork by the previous awardee (photographic illustrator Lorena Carrington) who created it especially for me: hence the cats, forest and a dryad covered in leaves.

I

Dryad by Lorena Carrington

Fey thanks,

Louisa Pentacle

(Louisa John-Krol)

Faerie News

Faerie News

It is an honour to be nominated for the 
Australian Fairy Tale Society Award 2021, alongside three other nominees, each of whom is outstanding. 

If you are a member, please vote. 

If not, please consider joining & voting. 
Here's a glimpse of my fairy-ing these decades:

Within the Australian Fairy Tale Society:

• Founding Victoria's Fairy Tale Ring
• Several committee roles including President
• Co-founding & co-editing the AFTS Ezine, now in its 9th volume
• Co-editing the AFTS Anthology, South of the Sun: Australian fairy tales for the 21st century 
• Performing in and/or co-organising national conferences
• Liaising with the national Arts Law Centre to formulate Artist First contracts

Before / Beyond AFTS:

• Releasing eight solo albums and as many collaborations exploring fairytales, myths etc, mostly on fairy-world indie label Prikosnovenie in France, generating acclaim through reviews and interviews in several nations
• Storytelling at Wonderwings Fairy Shop, first of its kind in the world, inspiring AFTS co-founder Reilly McCarron along her fairytale path
• Festival performing (e.g. Moomba, Royal Melbourne Show, Lit Fest, Midwinter in SA, Faerieworlds in Oregon USA, Trolls et Legendes in Belgium) & in castles, town halls, ballrooms, historic homesteads, botanic gardens and legendary venues such as La Loco in Paris
• Publishing a fairy tale & essay in a peer-reviewed journal, TEXT, and fables, poems, reviews etc. in other mags & books
• Supporting The Monash Fairy Tale Salon, Storytelling Australia Vic / Guild & other fey groups, e.g. sponsoring a resident fairy storyteller of Midsummer Faerie Rade (Golden Owl Events), co-hosting my own events such as Phantosea x 3 & Feline Faery Fest x 3, and helping other fairies find collaborations, opportunities etc.
• Pitching a fairytale edition of Victorian Writer to Writers Victoria, resulting in several of us publishing articles/ tales
• Liaising with Bendigo Writers Festival to put together a fairytale panel involving some of our book's participants, and representing them in a major regional newspaper Bendigo Advertiser

Louisa John-Krol 2020

Please vote this week, from Monday 10th May 2021

To join AFTS ($25), go to the Membership page 

Full details of nominees here

Thank you

 

Invitation - Date TBA (possibly postponed due to shipment delay)

Bendigo Writers Festival: Strewth !

Congrats to the participants of Bendigo Writers Festival who are also in our anthology South of the Sun: Australian fairy tales for the 21st century. 

Four of these six talented, fey women gave stellar spiels in a fairytale panel focusing on discussion points around the book. Here is a photo I took just before they exited the stage afterwards:

Claudia Barnett, Lorena Carrington, Sophie Masson, Eugen Bacon

Claudia Barnett, Lorena Carrington, Sophie Masson, Eugen Bacon

Above: On stage at the Capital Theatre, Bendigo, Bendigo Writers Festival 2021 Photo by Louisa John-Krol

Below: more happy snaps from participants of South of the Sun. Many had additional sessions in the programme, to discuss their other books. 

Louisa John-Krol, Rachel Nightingale, Eugen Bacon

Rachel Nightingale & Eugen Bacon

Louisa John-Krol & Anne E Stewart

Left & Below Right: Outside the Capital Theatre, grouping for the fairytale panel, from left to right: Lorena Carrington, Claudia Barnett, Sophie Masson & Eugen Bacon

Photo: Bendigo Writers Festival

Carmel Bird
on steps of Capital Theatre
Bendigo Writers Festival 2021
photo by Brian Nankervis

North of the Moon - Three Australian Faerie Bards

Faerie News

North of the Moon: Three Australian Faerie Bards
Introducing our new digital album at Bandcamp

In Tree Time, three Celtic-Australian minstrels united to bring you some of their most fairytalish songs. Together they wove music with myth and fairytale. Instruments on this collection include flute, mandolin, accordion, charango, guitars, harps and bardic vocals, from folklorists honed in storytelling, mythology, poetry and Druidic / Pagan / Fae paths.

The Mermaids by Ferdinand Leeke, 1921

From Druidic circles to taverns, carnivals, fey indie labels, fairy shops, storytelling guilds, castles and audiobook soundtracks, they've fostered links between folklore and eco-spirituality. Hailing from three States of Australia, they joined webs at the Equinox, north of the moon. Let these whimsical balladeers carry you through seas and groves of Faery lands.

We warmly welcome you to visit us: 
Bandcamp & You Tube

Adrienne Piggott of Spiral Dance

'Under the Dock Leaves' by Richard Doyle, 1878

'The Children of Lir'
by John Duncan, 1914

'In a time of bards and chieftains, 
when the bright ones walked the land
And beauty slipped from silver strings 
touched by a minstrel’s hand 
In a time when giants held the hills 
and stone circles rang with song
And the Lia Fail stood in the soil 
and Tara’s walls stood strong.'

- from 'The Children of Lir' by Adrienne Piggott

'The Hesperides'
by Arthur Rackham, 1913

'The Garden of Hesperides'
by Edward Burne-Jones, 1877

Reilly McCarron
of Meadowlark Soundscapes

'Crystal drops and dragon stones are hidden in the maze

The green isle of apples awaits your longing gaze'

- from 'The Isle of Apples', by Reilly McCarron 

Louisa John-Krol
Elderbrook

Blue Tree by Karan Wicks

'Tig, Tag, Toe, and wouldn't you know?
Nimble my ride to Ramble Row'

- from 'Gwyllion' by Louisa John-Krol

North of the Moon:
Three Australian Faerie Bards

You Tube

Bandcamp

Fey thanks

Louisa, Reilly, Adrienne

Two great bands whose names begin with D !

Faerie News

Two of my favourite bands have been up to magic. From one hemisphere to the other, Dandelion Wine and Daemonia Nymphe are giving time a shake.

Dandelion Wine

Dandelion Wine - ethereal electro-medieval band

Saturday 10th April, one of my fave bands, ethereal electro-medieval luminaries Dandelion Wine, play their first live show since Dec 2019. Their concert beams in simultaneous livestream via Darkstream Festival (Deutschland) at 1.00 DE time, or 9pm EST AU. If you’re lucky enough to be in Melbourne, you can experience the full pageant at The Alex Theatre, St Kilda. Seek their albums & vids on the web too; instruments include lute, bowed psaltery, flute, bell cittern, sansula, cello, keyboards, electronics, various guitars, dulcimers and avant-garde vocals. And oh! Never, ever underestimate lyrics by artists who read books with lobster pincers by the glow of a lava lamp.

Dandelion Wine - Australia

Bandcamp

Website

Facebook 

(for festival virtual link)

Daemonia Nymphe

Daemonia Nymphe
performing music for Shakespeare's play Macbeth
at the National Theatre of Northern Greece

Here is my adaptation of Daemonia Nymphe's news. As is my custom, I never represent anything in such detail unless I love it! So consider this a rave review:

Daemonia Nymphe have revisited their haunting 'Witches' Lullaby' at Bandcamp. Having composed this music for Shakespeare's supernatural masterpiece, which thaumaturges traditionally called The Scottish Play for fear of invoking bad luck, Daemonia Nymphe staged their own masterwork at the National Theatre of Northern Greece, directed by Anastasia Revi. 

This melody represented the Shakespearean witches, enigmatic and dangerous beings who manipulate Macbeth and make us wonder if they truly are the Fates. 

The lullaby is a melody that symbolises birth: new life. In many cultures, life's loom has trembled under the hands of the Fates. In ancient Greek mythology their names were Clotho, Lachesis and Atropos; the first represented the present, the second the future and the third the past, all that has happened and cannot be changed. 

Lullabies have their own inner strength that can follow a soul into this world. Yet lullabies change depending on who sings them, when the protective force they emit has another starting point and carries different dreams … 

So, based on their melody of the original lullaby (the dark lullaby of Shakespeare's witches), the composers set out to create four original lullabies. Each of the five artists involved had freedom to create a unique lullaby, imparting their own idiosyncratic meanings.  Japanese Hattis Noit, Spanish Priscilla Hernandez, British/Portuguese Victoria Couper in collaboration with British/Turkish Reyhan Yusuf and Greek Evi Stergiou, convey through their voices a memory of their own tenderness, strength and hope. 

Listening to the results at Bandcamp is like sipping an exquisite, rare nectar (I might say ambrosia of the gods, if it were not hubris), with varied piquancy at each listening, like altered consciousness.

Evi Stergiou and sisters of Daemonia Nymphe

Spyros Giasafakis with beloved muse, Evi Stergiou
Daemonia Nymphe
Instruments by Nikolaos Brass

Bandcamp

Daemonia Nymphe You Tube Channel

Acrobat in Daemonia Nymphe concert

Daemonia Nymphe

Evi Stergiou of Daemonia Nymphe

So there you have it! Dandelion Wine and Daemonia Nymphe! Two distinctive bands whose names start with 'D', each carrying two words. Their founders are all literary, vibrant and daring. All are friends with whom I've sung over the past two decades. And yet for all the parallels ... an enticing contrast with each other! Like I said. Magic.

Afterword from the blogger, Louisa John-Krol:

Please support our international ethereal music scene. We are small, our genres are diverse but we often overlap in unexpected ways, sonically, thematically, eco-spiritually, poetically or philosophically. Despite our abiding communal spirit, it is practically impossible to maintain studio recording, touring or publishing if listeners do no more than affirm a social media post or cycle through the web without considering how - or even if - any revenue reaches the artists. There is a reason many of us have gone over to Bandcamp. I highly recommend this platform and hope more people will join us there.

Yours in curiosity and respect 

- Louisa John-Krol, Australian Fairy Review.