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)