About this Event
You are cordially invited to the virtual launch of Fearsome Fairies, an anthology of eerie stories and weird tales exploring the darker side of the fae, published by the British Library.
Join editor Elizabeth Dearnley for a conversation and Q&A with contributor Jane Alexander (A User's Guide to Make-Believe, The Flicker Against the Light), where we'll discuss fairies, the uncanny, changelings, banshees, folklore, tricks of the light, illusion and reality - and share an eerie reading or two!
7.45pm for 8pm start. Attendance is free - reserve your ticket to access the Zoom link, which will be shared shortly before the event.
There was an enormous fascination with fairies in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries which popularised depictions of benevolent, butterfly-winged beings and glittering pantomime figures. But the fae have always had a more sinister side. Taking inspiration from folk tales and medieval legends, the works of weird tale and ghost story writers such as Arthur Machen, M. R. James, Angela Carter and Charlotte Riddell show that fairies, goblins and other supernatural entities could be something far more unsettling.
Delving into a frightening realm of otherworldly creatures from banshees to changelings, this new collection of stories revives and revels in the fearsome power of the fairy folk.
Elizabeth Dearnley is a folklorist, artist and researcher based at the University of London and the University of Wolverhampton. Her work explores fairy tales, horror and collective storytelling, and she has curated several projects delving into these fields, including immersive 1940s Red Riding Hood retelling and her restaging of E. T. A. Hoffmann's 'The Sandman' for the Freud Museum London's The Uncanny: A Centenary. Her first book, Translators and their Prologues in Medieval England, was published in 2016 by Boydell & Brewer, and her writing has appeared in the Times Literary Supplement, the Guardian, the White Review and elsewhere. She has previously edited Tales of the Weird anthology , and is currently writing a book about the relationship between forests and fairy tales.
Jane Alexander is the author of two novels and a collection of short stories. Her first novel was selected as a Waterstones Debut of the Year in 2015; her second, (2020), explored the impacts of virtual realities, and in (2021) her uncanny short stories about science and technology are collected with an accompanying essay, 'Writing the Contemporary Uncanny'. In 2018 she completed a PhD in Creative Writing at Northumbria University. Originally from Aberdeen, she has lived in Edinburgh for 25 years, and is currently a lecturer in Creative Writing at the University of Edinburgh.
Event Venue
Online
GBP 0.00