New Fairy Tales vacancy

New Fairy Tales is seeking an assistant editor:

• You can live anywhere in the world as long as you have a reliable internet connection.
• You must be passionate about fairy tales and related fiction.

Duties will primarily involve reading submissions and discussing them with the editor although there may be opportunities to do some marketing work too. Time-wise it shouldn’t take up more than a couple of hours a week, with perhaps a little more time required close to submission deadlines.

Unfortunately we can’t pay - the magazine run on a voluntary basis and tries to raise money for charity - but you will gain valuable experience from working on a growing online magazine.

Please send an email to Claire at editor@newfairytales.co.uk detailing a little bit about yourself, your creative experience, and what you love to read.

Deadline:
15th February 2010

The image is a postcard which uses an illustration the lovely Cate Simmons did for 'La Chureca' in Issue 4.

The Filigree - a fairytale newspaper!

The Filigree is a quarterly fairytale newspaper packed with articles inspired by fairy tales, folklore and myth. You'll find everything inside you'd expect in a 'normal' newspaper - including gossip columns, sports, horoscopes, obituaries and classifieds. There are some brilliant adverts too (and some of the goods like 'Sailors N Sirens soap' are actually available to buy in The Fairy Tale General!).

The Spring 2009 issue is currently available as a free download, and you can flip through the Winter 09 issue too, so you can get a taste of all the lovely things inside. The level of detail is amazing, and the whole thing - all of the art dolls, photography, illustration and text - is produced by a husband and wife team in Nashville. Here are some pictures from the paper:


'More Mermaidens Arrested in Concordia Sinking', from Spring 'o9












'Rare Cloud Inspires Lamplighter to Set Sail' from Winter 'o9







'CandyTroll', from Spring 'o9


The Filigree is available as single issues or by subscription (for a very reasonable price) from their store and there is a fantastic gallery to explore on their site too. I'm definitely going to subscribe, I'm really excited about it, so I just wanted to help spread the word!


(all images from The Filigree, used with permission)

Auditions for a fairy tale film

Please see the information from the fantastic Chagford Filmmaking Group below:

'Sir Lanval' Auditions - Friday 12th February - Venue: London Bubble Theatre Company, 5 Elephant Lane, London, SE16 4JD

The Chagford Filmmaking Group are auditioning for the lead roles in a 52 minute film of a twelfth century fairytale about a handsome young knight who falls in love with a fairy. It is a strong actors' drama with complex characters and relationships set in the court of King Arthur. Filming is in Devon and Brittany in May this year.

The Roles:
Sir Lanval - lead role - a young knight, playing age 20, French accent preferred but not essential, needs to move well and have a certain aura of innocence and beauty (sufficient to attract a fairy!)
Tryamour - the Fairy Queen, playing age 20, ability to dance preferred but not essential.
King Arthur - playing age 40, minimum height 5 ft 10.

Fee £500.

Preparation - we will email lines to learn and a synopsis of the story.

We also have other speaking parts to cast from amongst the auditionees although these will be unpaid. Expenses will be paid.

Shooting dates 16th-30th May 2010 with a 4 day intensive rehearsal weekend 23rd-26th April.

The budget for the film is around £20,000. The 58,000 euro award also covers a book, an exhibition, and the distribution of DVDs of the film to tourist centres across England and France.

Our co-partners are "Le Centre d'Imaginaire Arthurien" in Brittany.

Contact Alex at info@fairytalefilms.co.uk. Please include a photograph and CV. You can find more information on the project here.

Chagford Filmmaking Group is a non-profit organization dedicated to films of British fairytales. Sir Lanval is made possible by grants from the European Regional Development Fund and South West Screen.

Lots of lovely things to read....

I'm currently battling with essay deadlines so I haven't got the time to present these links in the kind of posts they deserve, but three wonderful looking fairy tale reads have appeared in the last few days:


The new issue of Goblin Fruit, the fantastical poetry zine, which has been guest edited by Mike Allen of Mythic Delirum fame.


The new issue of Scheherezade's Bequest from the brilliant fairy tale journal Cabinet Des Fées.


And the fantastic looking Fairy Tale News New Year's Bumper Edition from Once Upon a Blog.


I can't wait to delve in!
- as soon as I've finished the essays :-(

Marina Warner on the RSC's Arabian Nights

It's been a fantastic season for fairy tale theatre in the UK, as well as the ubiquitous pantomime there have been many exciting productions drawing on fairy tales and folklore. I've been lucky enough to see two of them - The Library Theatre's Grimm Tales (deliciously dark with a great selection of tales) and En Masse Theatre Company's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (enjoyable and inventive - the audience all had to don green lensed glasses when Dorothy and friends reached The Emerald Kingdom!).

One other production I would love to see is the RSC's Arabian Nights. Marina Warner wrote an article about it in yesterday's Guardian. She reviews the production and she also gives us some fascinating tidbits of the history of the Nights on stage, here's just a taste:

'In the theatre especially, the sheer abundance of the plots of the Nights opened up possibilities: the book presented magical twists and turns that intrinsically lent themselves to high-spirited performance and to technical experiment. The history of the Nights on the stage is consequently intertwined with some brilliant early stagecraft for transformation scenes, flying machines, conjuring illusions, innovatory limelight and other effects (in Islington in the 1890s, the genies in Aladdin were called after the new gases, Paraffin, Benzoline and Colza).'

The Arabian Nights is on at the RSC's Courtyard Theatre until the 30th January. And although the glut of seasonal fairy tale shows has now nearly passed there is Andersen's English to look forward to - a new production by Out of Joint, written by novelist Sebastian Barry:

'Celebrated children's writer Hans Christian Andersen arrives, unannounced, for a stay at Gad's Hill Place in the Kent marshes - home to Charles Dickens and his large, charismatic family.

To the lonely and eccentric guest, the members of Dicken's household seem to live a life of unreachable bliss. But with his broken English, Andersen doesn't at first see the tensions in the family: undeclared passions, a son sent to serve in India, and a growing strangeness at the heart of Dickens's marriage.'

This should be interesting, especially as the relationship between the two writers soured after this visit. The production will be touring in Spring 2010.

(ps - If you follow the link to the Guardian to read Marina Warner's article I'd also recommend Margaret Atwood's plea for birds, which made me think of her beautiful essay 'Of Souls as Birds' in Mirror, Mirror on the Wall, in which she explored her love of fairy tales in which people are transformed into birds)

The Fairy Tale Project

Just came across this intriguing fairy tale project, in which each artist is contributing a paragraph and an illustration to the story before it is passed along to someone else. The story takes a new turn with each contributor and there are some lovely illustrations - definitely one to follow.

Enchanted Conversation - The Sleeping Beauty Issue

Enchanted Conversation is a new blogazine dedicated to fairy tales. Each of the quarterly issues will be dedicated to a particular fairy tale and feature an eclectic mix of fiction, poetry, articles, essays, art and reviews.

In The Sleeping Beauty Issue there's lots to enjoy, including recipes to feed a castle full of people who've just woken up from a 100 year sleep (A Royal Awakening), the real bad fairy confesses - and it isn't the one you'd expect (The Twelfth Fairy Confesses), one princess is starved of stories (Apathy), and another questions the fairy tale ending (Happily Ever After), we learn about Steampunk + Fairy Tales and there's much, much more.

The issue also looks beautiful, I love the way editor Kate Wolford has included a mix of classic and contemporary illustration, along with fabulous etsy buys.

The magazine is based on a blog to encourage participation, readers are encouraged to comment on the contents and enter the conversation about the featured tale, there are contests you can enter too.

The next issue will be focused on Beauty and the Beast and you can find the submissions info here.

New Fairy Tales Competition - winners picked...

...from inside my favourite pair of socks.




The wonderful 'New Fairy Tale Nymph' will be winging its way to Samantha in the UK.




The fantastic fairy tale Ream will be flying to Christina in Australia.




Congratulations to the winners!!! And thank you so much to everyone else who took the time to donate to Derian House.

As a special thank you runners up will also be receiving a little set of New Fairy Tales postcards.

I'd also like to say thank you to Particle Article - without their generosity the competition wouldn't have been possible. You can see more of their fantastical creatures here and if you'd love one for yourself (I would!) you'll find a list of their stockists here.

And thank you also to Oona Patterson, who has sent a beautiful signed card to go with Ream to make it extra special. If you'd like a copy of the book (a new year treat!) you can buy it here and you can see more of her amazing work here.

Happy New Year! May the new year bring you what you wish for - and remember to wish wisely!