Fantasy Faire 2023 is now open, and with it comes the Fantasy Faire Literary Festival (LitFest), now in its ninth year, and the Fantasy Faire Film Festival (FilmFest), returning for its third year at the Faire.
The LitFest
Centred on the Stump Theatre in Fungalmire the LitFest is a special place where the magic of the spoken word will weave tales of wonder, relate stories of great adventure and daring; where talks by authors, discussions, creative writing sessions and performances will all take place. In addition, literary hawks and writers will be encouraged to join daily LitFest tours of the Fairelands and afterwards compose pieces related to their travels.
This year, our theme is anthropomorphic fiction – that is, fiction in which animals displaying decidedly human traits form an important part of the narrative. Think of the likes of Aesop’s Fables or legends out of Africa and the orient, or the retelling of Hamlet through the likes of The Lion King, to evergreen favourites like The Wind in the Willows, Winnie the Pooh and Charlotte’s Web.
Guest Of Honour
The LitFest 2023 Guest of Honour is Anne Louise Avery, author of Reynard the Fox, the beautiful novel that draws upon medieval sources. Anne also creates Twitter vignettes that tell stories of a world where animal and humans live together.
Born in London to bohemian parents – her mother was a novelist and her father a journalist who worked with Ian Fleming and Graham Greene in Naval intelligence during the War – Avery received a First Class degree in art history at the School of African Studies (SOAS), University of London, one of the world’s leading institutions for the study of Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. She then held a fellowship at Brown, and studied Japanese at the International Christian University (ICU) in Tokyo, before becoming an art historian and writer.
In 2020, she published Reynaud the Fox, which takes William Caxton’s bestselling 1481 English translation of the Middle Dutch tale of a subversive, dashing, anarchic, aristocratic, witty fox from medieval East Flanders and weaves a new interpretation of the story, complete with innovative language and characterisation and themes of protest, resistance and duplicity fronted by a personable, anti-heroic fox making his way in a dangerous and cruel world.
| Sunday, April 23rd |
11:00 – An interview with Anne Louise Avery |
LitFest Fairelands Tours
The popular Fantasy Faire LitFest Tours will once again be taking place, leaving daily from the LitFest home base in the Drifts of Anamnesis to explore the Fairelands and seeking the stories they have to tell as well as their special secret places and details. Stories can also be submitted for publication on the Fantasy Faire website, provided they are submitted within two days of each tour.
The Tours depart daily from Fungalmire, and at the time of writing, the tour schedule is as follows (all times SLT):
| Fri. April 21 |
17:00 – Safe Haven | Sat. April 22 | 13:00- Spirits Crossing 17:00 – Fairelands Junction |
| Sun. April 23 | 13:00 – Sialdor 17:00 – Frostweald |
Mon. April 24 | 17:00 – Dingir |
| Tue. April 25 | 13:00 –Giraphoria and Sambeaubee 17:00 – Sipala |
Wed. April 26 | 13:00 – Nysaris |
| Thur. April 27 | 13:00 – Giggenwhirl 17:00 – Fungalmire |
Fri. April 28 | 13:00 – Khumbala |
| Sat. April 29 | 17:00 – Winding Valley | Sun. April 30 | 17:00 – Isles of Aquarius |
| Mon. May 1st | 17:00 – Flambois | Tue. May 2 | 13:00 – Syzstrum Synod 17:00 – Glimmering Meadows |
| Wed. May 3 | 17:00 – WooHoo! Bay | Thur. May 4 | 13:00 – Nova Nadiya 17:00 – The Shimmering Fen |
| Fri. May 5 | 17:00 – Opera |
The FilmFest
The Film Festival is returning for its third year at Fantasy Faire. Events will include: talks, discussions and retrospectives of the works of different machinimatographers, three film premieres, including the premiere of the third episode of the ongoing series, Harland Quinn and the Omega Hex. And don’t worry if you missed Episodes 1 or 2 – these will also be shown.
The Film Competition
2023 will see the second edition of the Fantasy Faire Film Festival Competition, complete with awarding of the Wafflies!
Open to all, the competition is based in the Fairelands, and comprises three categories, with the winner in each will receive a golden Wafflie statue.
| Category 1 – 5-minute fiction | Tell a narrative story, set in the Fairelands |
| Category 2 – 5-minutes factual | This could be a documentary, a tour of a region, a special Faireland event and – if the creator is willing – perhaps a short interview. |
| Category 3 – 10-minute Livestream |
Either edit a ten minute sequence from the livestream, or give a timeframe of 10 minutes from the longer livestream. |
The LitFest and FilmFest Calendar
The calendar blow lists all of the LitFest and FilmFest events – click on any link for more details.
LitFest and Film Festival Highlights
All times below SLT.
| Weekdays April 21-May 5 |
06:30 | LitFest | The Milkwood Dash – a chance for you to spend 15 minutes writing your own prose or poetry based on a writer’s prompt, and then share what you have created with your fellow authors. |
| Friday April 21 | 11:00 | FilmFest | Chantal Harvey and Saffia Widdershins explain what will be happening at the FilmFest |
| Sunday, April 23 |
11:00 | LitFest | An interview with Anne Louise Avery at the Stump Theatre, Fungalmire. |
| Tuesday, April 25 | 11:00 | FilmFest | An interview with Pryda: discussing her machinima work, some of which – the Future Shock series – has been featured in this blog. |
| Wednesday, April 26 | 11:00 | FilmFest | An interview with machinima maker Teal. |
| Friday, April 28 | 10:00 | FilmFest | An interview with Macguyver Mode, followed by the premiere of his new film. |
| Saturday, April 29 | 11:00 | FilmFest | An interview with machinima maker Chantal Harvey. |
| Saturday, May 6 | 14:00 | FilmFest | The Wafflies Awards |
| Saturday, May 6 | 17:00 | LitFest | The Mythos of the Fairelands- Zander Greene and Aoife Lorefield are in conversation about the Mythos the underlies the Fairelands. |
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