Faery News
Vale:
Djinn died in February 2020 peacefully in my lap at home by mercy of vets, after a valiant struggle with two conditions and 15 years of a beautiful life. Darling Djinn (Genie, Jinn-Jinnee) is the first fairy lion Mark & I rescued together. A child we never birthed, she is also a muse and familiar, profoundly missed, immortally beloved. Please understand that while many folk are brimming with energy on the internet through clubs and courses, I crave solace in seclusion, with gratitude for the time shared with Djinn. Blessings be to Basht (Bastet), Artemis-Diana, Inanna-Ekeshkigal-Ishtar, St Francis, Brigid, such deities who care; also the Whirling Dervishes, dancing Jinniyah, dwellers in the Temples of the Jaguar, my own fey enchantresses like Escalder of Elderbrook, and ailurophiles the world over. Thanks Mark, and Djinn's closest feline friend Dulcinea, who keeps vigil. May the fey ones sing of them afar in the sisterlands. Grace protect you, Djinn. Many are the names of where we may meet again: Elfland, Mag Mell, Elysium, Alam Al Mithal, Isles of the Blest, being a few, whelming worlds the while. We love you forever, Djinn. |
| Djinn with me (Louisa John-Krol) [Taken before she was weened from outdoors! All our fairy lions are now purely indoor dwellers.] |
Recommendations & Commendations:
Kristoffer Hughes, Welsh Druid
Priest of the Anglesey Druid Order
& Author on Llewellyn Books
 |
| all photos with kind permission of Kristoffer |
Recently I read The Journey into Spirit - A Pagan's Perspective On Death, Dying & Bereavement, by Kristoffer Hughes, a Welsh druid priest who has worked at morgues in service to Her Majesty's coroner for a quarter of a century, also at funerals as a celebrant.
I recommend this inspiring, compassionate, compelling, eloquent book, which I received as a gift nearly a year before Djinn's death. The gift came from Adrienne Piggott, founder and singer/ songwriter of South Australian mythic rock band Spiral Dance.
After more reflection, I'll attempt a review. The philosophical complexities (with which I mostly agree, if not entirely) deserve more than a rushed, gushy response.
Publisher's website, Llewellyn Books
 |
| Kristoffer Hughes |
Reilly McCarron opens Meadowlark Soundscapes
Congrats to folklorist, musician, playwright and quintessential faerie bard Reilly McCarron for opening her new production business Meadowlark Soundscapes and releasing her exquisite soundtrack for three audio books in a series read by fairy tale doyenne Kate Forsyth. Read more about their collaboration later in this posting, together with a review of the concomitant books.
First, let's explore Reilly's sonic realm. Her new website at Meadowlark Soundscapes opens with this introduction:
'Welcome to the realm of the Orchestrina!
Providing bespoke boutique audio production, Reilly McCarron is a musician, composer, sound recordist, and audio mixer with over 10 years experience creating tailor-made soundscapes, soundtracks, songs, stories, sound effects, and bewitching mixing to suit your audio requirements.
Let's bring your soundscape to life.'
 |
| Reilly McCarron with her fairy tale harp |
I was fortunate to meet Reilly through the Australian Fairy Tale Society, of which we each served as president. (She is its co-founder.) Since then I've had the pleasure of listening to her music, which carries a range of subtle changes in tone and characterisation, from mystery to whimsy, ghostliness and vaudevillian capers. One moment she plays a gypsy with sensual, come-hither charm; the next, a wise crone or a willowy sprite. Her subject matter ranges from spinning wheels to goblin feasts; if called to hobnob with silver spooners on their yachts, beware! A tang of wit is likely to perch on her musical cocktail glass.
Reilly McCarron is accredited with the Australian Storytelling Guild. Further, she gained a Graduate Diploma in Australian Folklife through Curtin University, and has presented academic papers at the National Folklore Conference, and the inaugural Monash Fairy Tale Salon.
 |
| Reilly McCarron |
She is a Bard with the Order of Bards, Ovates, and Druids.
Her magical life has included traversing the Fairy Tale Route through Germany with her husband, recording interviews and taking photos for her journal along the way.
In her business 'faerie bard', she performed retellings of folk and fairy tales designed for adult audiences, and made personalised story CDs. (She also creates works for children.)
Reilly has published stories, articles and poems, including with 'The Griffith Review', 'Timeless Tales Magazine', and Museum Victoria's journal 'Play and Folklore'.
It is with delight that I announce her participation - via lyrics - in our forthcoming national anthology South of the Sun - Australian fairy tales for the 21st century - as well as in another project I'm engendering involving music and a book, North of the Moon, announced elsewhere in this post.
Reilly’s 2012 one-woman multimedia play Sleeping Kingdom, Waking Beauty toured interstate, including at The Butterfly Club in Melbourne and Sydney’s Fringe Festival. Reviewers praised the production for its artistic complexity, humour, and insight.
Nowadays can be found at Meadowlark Soundscapes.
Lorena Carrington wins a national Fairy Tale award
 |
| Lorena Carrington |
Eugen Bacon, doyenne of phantasmagoria
Congrats on fey speculative fiction doyenne Eugen Bacon (pictured below) on being elected to the Board of Directors at the Australian Society of Authors.
Eugen is my favourite Australian writer, who comes across to me as a kind of literary alchemist mixing genres of magic-realism, sci-fi, fairytale and fantasy, spiced with phantasmagoric romance.
She has won countless awards and fellowships, along with the Katharine Susannah Prichard (KSP) Emerging Writer-in-Residence 2020, presents workshops with Writers Victoria, and has a PhD in Creative Writing.
 |
| Eugen Bacon |
Eugen's published books include Writing Speculative Fiction - Creative and Critical Approaches (Macmillan International) and Claiming T-Mo (Meerkat Press), both of which I fervently recommend. More books are en route into publication over the next year.
Her gorgeous poetry collection Love Struck has already reappeared in a new edition with a new title, Her Bitch Dress at Ginninderrapress Press, available here
[Eugen's writing featured in detail earlier at this blog, Australian Fairy Review]
Eugen's website
News from Spanish ethereal singer-artist Priscilla Hernandez
 |
| Priscilla Hernandez |
Congrats Priscilla Hernandez on the sonic-visual beauty she continues to exude in videos. I received her news with these exquisite photos from her this year, when I invited her to contribute news.Yes, it was Spring in Spain - and who sweeter to represent it?
Then the pandemic landed, and... well, I'm now in a panic as to how all my friends/listeners/collaborators in Europe are faring, but for now let's delve into these offerings from talented Priscilla, who is a composer, multi-instrumentalist and illustrator:
She now has her discography and latest singles on bandcamp, an excellent platform, here
Her patreon page
A single by Priscilla on spotify (also on bandcamp) - look out for a video on it too!
Or try her youtube channel.
You can also find Priscilla on Facebook and other social media.
Wishing good health to our friends in Spain, France, Italy, Germany, Belgium, Greece and other parts of Europe & beyond... I miss you. And I will come back to you in this fairy blog.
In my soul, you bloom evermore.
My own Faerie news:
Our intercultural anthology South of the Sun - Australian fairy tales for the 21st century with illustrations by 13 visual artists with 40 tales, songs or poems for YA & adult readership, has moved through content-editing and copy-editing. Chief illustrator Lorena Carrington has assigned select tales to illustrators, while a lovely draft Foreword has come from Robyn Floyd. Due to the pandemic, our release date moved from Spring 2020 to Autumn 2021. Additionally, I can report that I've finished sequencing written pieces into the agreed order, and for the next fortnight will continue cross-checking every doc, line by line, word by word, letter by letter, before it goes to my fey comrades for further perusal. Contracts are being drawn up and the last protocols finalised with surprise inclusions yet to be announced, hopefully by Spring. Then it's off to proofreading and typesetting. Thanks to our patrons for your generosity and goodwill.
Independently of that, a little trio is compiling an album entitled North of the Moon, music by three minstrels from three Australian States - Reilly McCarron (New South Wales), Adrienne Piggott (South Australia) and me, Louisa John-Krol (Victoria) - with thematic focus on fairy tales - of the ancient, elemental kind. Our range of instruments spans harp, mandolin, guitars, dulcimer, accordion, keyboards, sansula and our voices, to name a few.My new Louisa John-Krol website is in creation by Kimberly Brown (designer of my Elderbrook digipak and Elderbrook portal), for compatibility with mobile devices.
The current site's designer is abiding with a critical illness in Belgium. We love his art! So once the newbie is ready, we'll retain the earlier creation with minimal text as a serene parallel archive in respect for Karl's legacy. And gratitude. Oceans, mists and mountains of it. Yes, I mean the site (pictured below) by Belgian artist Karl Delandsheere (Made by Karl) with its silky dragon waterfall and golden feline eyes in the sky, shifting in antique viewfinder style:
 |
| Louisa's current website - image by Karl Delandsheere, Made by Karl, Belgium |
Review of
Wiser Than Evening
- Quotations From Fairytales, Poetry And Literature
illustrated by Lorena Carrington (Serenity Press)
Introduction to Lorena Carrington:
Publishing with Serenity Press (a West Australian firm), Lorena illustrates books by Australia’s leading fairytale authors such as Kate Forsyth and Sophie Masson, along with her own book of illustrated fairytale quotations, Wiser Than Evening.
Below: detail from another book in a fairytale series at the same publisher, with stories by Kate Forsyth and illustrations by Lorena Carrington:
Happily, Lorena Carrington's book Wiser Than Evening contains lines by two of my favourite writers, Keats and Wilde, whose words have abided with me since childhood. Wonderful to have them mingling here with the great classic baroque female fairy tale spinners, the conteuses, hailing from French fairy tale salons, as well as the Pre-Raphaelites (such as Christina Georgina Rossetti) who came later.
A striking image of an archer (couldn’t resist that pun) depicts a passage from ‘The Bee and the Orange Tree’ by Marie-Catherine Le Jumel de Barneville, Baroness d'Aulnoy, a French Countess known. Calling her works ‘contes de fées’, d’Aulnoy coined the term of the genre: fairy tales.
Toutebelle, a character from ‘The Yellow Dwarf’, is another treasure by Marie-Catherine D’Aulnoy quoted in this book:
‘I am so happy,’ replied Toutebelle. ‘Pray, permit me, Madam, to enjoy my peaceful indifference.’
This wit encapsulates, for me, the tone of classic fairy tales: a wry wink, a touch of gaiety, a scope of distance, a flatness of form, a casual grace, a potential for extremity free of intensity, and a subtle, elegant subversion of social norms.
Lorena’s illustrations originated in photography, each snapshot a fragment of the final image, overlaid into an assemblage of juxtapositions, as tales are built from impressions and words.
One query: Why is poetry termed as a separate entity from literature, in the title’s subheading and Foreword? Back in the 80’s at university, we studied poems as ‘literature’ alongside novels, plays and short stories. Likewise, fairy tales (or at least ballads inspired by them) turned up in literary discourse, too. Has this grouping changed? This is not a quibble; I’m genuinely curious. I have no idea whether the rift between oral and literary claimants for fairy tales has reached any consensus yet. It just feels that, like poetry, they are no less literary for being aural and visual too. Lorena does touch on this sensory cohabitation in her Foreword.
All up, the selection, tone, arrangement, artistry and eloquence of Lorena’s collection, indeed its very premise, resonates with me with deepening appreciation, every time I open it.
The book’s title alludes to Kate Forsyth’s quotation that concludes the collection. No spoilers here… read and discover! And enjoy the quest.
This jewel of a book had really better grace the shelves of every library and bookshop worth its pink mallee salt, swifter than a magpie’s swoop.
 |
| Fairy Moss Castle by Lorena Carrington |
 |
| Hot Air Balloon by Lorena Carrington (Psst: her dandelion is made of spiderweb & steam!) |
Lorena Carrington is a photographic artist and illustrator. Her book Vasilisa the Wise and Other Tales of Brave Young Women with fairy tales retold by Kate Forsyth, was published by Serenity Press in 2017. The follow-up, The Buried Moon and Other Tales of Bright Young Women arrived 2019. A third, Snow White, Rose Red and Other Tales of Kind Young Women, has now arrived and she has more coming out with Serenity Press (for this series and other fairytale projects) over the next two years.In tandem, I recommend the three audio book productions of this aforementioned series so far, with separate mp3 files, one for each book, featuring Kate Forsyth reading her own writing (re-spun fairy tales) with the ethereal, bewitching music of faerie bard Reilly McCarron, who sings and plays several instruments, especially harp. [More about Reilly's music earlier in this post.] Available at Serenity Press, here
My nomination of Lorena for Australia's national Fairy Tale Award included this appraisal:
Lorena's reputation has sprung, I suggest, from her unique way of engendering new life from decay - moss, twigs, bones, insect wings, shells, bark, fallen leaves and other detritus, mingled with spider webs, steam, mist and coiling ferns - stemming from a combined love of nature, photography and fairy tales. Her illustrations are created from many photographs montaged together (up to 100 in each image), to create works that are rich with light and edged with darkness. Just as a sculptor may find life within stone, Lorena is one of those fairies among us who recognises a face in a wood knot. Her true achievement, therefore, transcends professional accolades; it speaks to an eco-spiritual aspect of fairy tales that many of us hold dear: an ability to approach life and death with childlike wonder, and to let the world enchant us.
Kristoffer Hughes' web page at his publisher's site, Llewellyn
Kristoffer's page at the Celtic Myth Podshow
Adrienne Piggott of mythic-rock band Spiral Dance
Eugen Bacon's Website
Kate Forsyth's Website
Lorena Carrington's Website
Lorena's monthly email Newsletter
Priscilla Hernandez's Website
Priscilla's You-Tube Channel - in closing, I particularly recommend her Forest Meditation.
