On the Eve!

After months of mostly zoom meetings, a couple of weeks ago we gathered in a cafe to reflect upon and celebrate that we are about to host a national conference in Brisbane – in person.

We realised that we had almost reached our goals and felt that it was timely to pause to be thankful, grateful and discuss the reasons we all agreed to do this in the first place – Fairy Tales.

Our passion to understand them, wherever they originate from in time, the world, the fossils of storytelling antiquities and camp fires, brought us together to bring them into flesh – into being, reality, and telling in our families and community.

We filled out thank you cards thoughtfully, colourfully, even poetically.

We connected with some of the presenters and storytellers who have inspired us with their submissions to contribute their knowledge into the conference. They have become friends along the way.

There is something about collaborating in a team to make something a reality that can create life long bonds.

Tomorrow the Australian Fairy Tale Society conference begins. Today the interstate arrivals commence. Welcome! The weather, touch wood, is looking great! And it is with great happiness we gather the storytellers, artists, creators, thinkers, of diverse cultural, and creative backgrounds together.

Acknowledging and paying our respects always to the First Nations people – and looking forward to a day when we will sit around camp fires, kitchen tables, and more sharing stories that together we all find strength, courage, truth and love in keeping – we start with a walk on country.

It has been a total joy to prepare for the Australian Fairy Tale Society Conference in Brisbane. Especially witnessing the expansion of connection and deepening understanding with First Nations and diversity within the Brisbane area.
June

Many thanks to Shirley, Bettina, Alex and Kathryn for making this journey of organising, such a tremendous experience and to the Australian Fairy Tale Society for entrusting us to host this event for you. Looking forward to tomorrow! There are many others to thank, but all that in a future post.
June

Things I have been learning

As part of this semester have been learning how to do more with the interactivity of my websites as part of a Masters in Education.

Crowd signal is easily embedded into word press.

Here is a short quiz. I’d like to do more of these, now I have seen how easy they are to do.

We also added polls to our group assignment and they were a lot of fun to design and I found myself quite curious as to what the effect of adding polls and quizzes to sites I already have might do to engagement.

Look out for poetry quizzes and polls!

Registrations closing this week!

If you want to attend please visit this link

The AFTS Conference is on its way!

It’s been wonderful working with some fantastic storytellers in the lead up to the Australian Fairy tale Society’s National Conference.
June

Behind the scenes we yarn.

As we talk, we’re looking for significant moments in our storytelling journeys – and the moments we became entranced by fairy tales and folk tales.

Looking at lineage and diaspora, digging into the past, but seeing it with the eyes of the present, and a sense of the ever present Australian landscape; we are inspired by the mysterious, and hear more clearly perhaps, the songs of homelands, motherlands, and storylands.

I cannot tell you SPOILERS – for we prepare panels, and storytelling for you.

Our conversations will go live, October 1st, 2022, and the stories we unearthed will be shared.

Talking to our families, and communities, we bring them on this journey with us too. Remembering grandmothers, and thinking on our children and what stories we will tell them it’s not something where we walk alone, or even just each other. Will we let the next generation only absorb stories that have no traces of their cultural lineage? No, that we cannot do. We are the keepers who want to give.

There is something about being with sisters from the diaspora

America, Botswana, Philippines – that inspires us all to understand where we are from and where we are going. To see the beauty in the ghosts we carry with us, shaking off the traces of internal barriers to strength.

To join us check out the Australian Fairy Tale Society Conference site – and make sure you book by September 18th 2022 the closing date.

With many thanks to the sponsors of the Conference! Look out too for podcast and radio shows featuring some of our upcoming presenters, and storytellers.