Children’s Fantasy

Plastic toys and WWI trauma: Tommy in Lynne Reid Banks’ The Indian in the Cupboard

I am on research leave at the moment, working – among other things – on a new book on miniature worlds and characters in children’s fantasy. One of the primary sources I’ve been re-reading recently is Lynne Reid Banks’ The…

By Dimitra Fimi | 11th November 2021 | Books, Children's Fantasy, Children's Literature | No Comments |

Breaking the rules of fantasy: Alan Garner’s The Owl Service at 50

* This is the original first draft of my Times Literary Supplement article “Alan Garner’s The Owl Service at fifty”. The published version (which appeared on 21 August 2017 to celebrate 50 years from the publication of this novel) is…

By Dimitra Fimi | 17th October 2021 | Alan Garner, Children's Fantasy, Children's Literature, Fantasy Literature, Myth and Folklore, Welsh myth an folklore | No Comments |

Top 3 Fantasy Authors excluding Tolkien? Data from a Twitter snap poll.

A couple of weeks ago, I posted a tweet which ended up developing into a snap poll with over 450 responses. The question? Here it goes: Please help me with a quick experiment to inform a discussion with our #Fantasy…

By Dimitra Fimi | 18th May 2020 | Children's Fantasy, Fantasy Literature, Tolkien, Ursula K. Le Guin | No Comments |

Reading J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit with my 6-and-a-half-year-old son: a journal

One of the highlights of 2019 was reading J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit aloud to my 6-and-a-half-year-old son at bedtime. We started towards the end of August 2019, and finished it in just over a month. I tweeted the entire experience…

By Dimitra Fimi | 3rd January 2020 | Children's Fantasy, Children's Literature, Fantasy Literature, The Hobbit, Tolkien | No Comments |

Celtic Myth in Contemporary Children’s Fantasy wins Mythopoeic Award!

I was absolutely thrilled to find out a couple of months ago that my recent monograph, Celtic Myth in Contemporary Children’s Fantasy, had won the Mythopoeic Scholarship Award in Myth and Fantasy Studies! This is my second Mythopoeic Award: my…

By Dimitra Fimi | 18th November 2019 | Alan Garner, Awards, Books, Celtic Myth, Children's Fantasy, Children's Literature, Fantasy Literature, Folklore, Henry Neff, Irish myth and folklore, Lloyd Alexander, Myth and Folklore, Welsh myth an folklore | No Comments |

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 |

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 |

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 |

Celtic Myth in Contemporary Children’s Fantasy in the 2018 Mythopoeic Awards Finalists!

I have just found out that my latest monograph, Celtic Myth in Contemporary Children’s Fantasy (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017), has been shortlisted for the Mythopoeic Scholarship Award in Myth and Fantasy Studies! The Mythopoeic Awards are divided into four categories, two for fiction, and…

By Dimitra Fimi | 26th May 2018 | Alan Garner, Awards, Books, Celtic Myth, Children's Fantasy, Children's Literature, Fantasy Literature, Folklore, Henry Neff, Irish myth and folklore, Lloyd Alexander, Myth and Folklore, Welsh myth an folklore, Worldbuilding | No Comments |

Forthcoming talks and lectures: Glasgow, Kalamazoo, Essex, Oxford and North Wales

The next few months are going to be a bit hectic! If you are attending any of the conferences or events below, don’t hesitate to come and say hello! 26-27 April – Keynote for GIFCon (Glasgow International Fantasy Conversations) 2018: ‘In the…

By Dimitra Fimi | 23rd April 2018 | Academic Teaching, Books, Celtic Myth, Children's Fantasy, Conferences, Fantasy Literature, Folklore, Irish myth and folklore, Literature Wales, Myth and Folklore, Public Lecture, Tolkien, Welsh myth an folklore | No Comments |

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