Blog – Page 2

Samhain or Halloween? The “ancient Celtic year” in Contemporary Children’s Fantasy

* This essay was originally published in Gramarye, the journal of the Chichester Centre for Fairy Tales, Fantasy and Speculative Fiction, in Issue 11 (Summer 2017), pp. 51-63. In the medieval Irish tale of Tochmarc Emire (“The Wooing of Emer”),…

By Dimitra Fimi | 28th October 2019 | Books, Children's Fantasy, Children's Literature, Fantasy Literature | No Comments |

Tolkien’s Glittering Caves of Aglarond and Cheddar Gorge and Caves in Somerset

Last month, I visited Cheddar Gorge and Caves, together with my husband and young son. This trip had been “on the list” for many years, and I am grateful to my colleague and fellow Tolkien scholar Dr Kristine Larsen for…

By Dimitra Fimi | 20th October 2019 | The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien | No Comments |

Tiny Alice and Miniature Books Exhibition – July-September 2019

This summer, a very exciting project I have been working on for a while was launched, and I curated my first exhibition to accompany and complement it. The launch itself was an overwhelming moment, with a lot of media attention…

By Dimitra Fimi | 5th September 2019 | Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Children's Fantasy, Fantasy Literature, Media | No Comments |

It’s taken a bit longer than usual this year, but this is my brief report on an outstanding series of papers and a roundtable discussion on Tolkien at the International Medieval Congress 2019 at Leeds in early July 2019. This…

By Dimitra Fimi | 23rd August 2019 | Uncategorized | No Comments |

TLS review of Dome Karukoski biopic “Tolkien”

It was great fun to review a film, for a change, though it was very much in keeping with one of the main strands of my blog: Dome Karukoski’s biopic Tolkien. I went into the cinema thinking about two words:…

By Dimitra Fimi | 16th May 2019 | Tolkien | No Comments |

A time-traveling cat fantasy: Lloyd Alexander’s Time Cat

I’ve been threatening with a blog post about a time-traveling cat for a while now, so here it is! I’m giving you Lloyd Alexander’s children’s fantasy Time Cat: The Remarkable Journeys of Jason and Gareth, what we’d probably call a…

By Dimitra Fimi | 12th May 2019 | Children's Fantasy, Children's Literature, Fantasy Literature, Lloyd Alexander, Welsh myth an folklore | No Comments |

Demiurgic Beings: A Platonic word in Tolkien

Back in 2016, I was very privileged to watch the “lost recordings” from J.R.R. Tolkien’s 1968 interview for the BBC. Those were previously unbroadcast offcuts from a filmed interview with Tolkien by John Izzard, a small part of which had…

By Dimitra Fimi | 5th May 2019 | Interviews, Myth and Folklore, Tolkien, Uncategorized | No Comments |

Samhain or Halloween? The “ancient Celtic year” in Contemporary Children’s Fantasy

Tolkien’s Glittering Caves of Aglarond and Cheddar Gorge and Caves in Somerset

Tiny Alice and Miniature Books Exhibition – July-September 2019

Tolkien at IMC Leeds 2019 – round-up

TLS review of Dome Karukoski biopic “Tolkien”

A time-traveling cat fantasy: Lloyd Alexander’s Time Cat

Demiurgic Beings: A Platonic word in Tolkien

Mervyn Peake and Anthony Browne: A Visual Dialogue

Tolkien on 1930s BBC Radio via historical issues of Radio Times

My #PicturebookAdventCalendar: 24 brilliant Christmas picturebooks