Uncategorized

Last Wednesday I traveled to London for the Katharine Briggs Lecture 2017, and the announcement of the Katharine Briggs Folklore Award. My new monograph, Celtic Myth in Contemporary Children’s Fantasy, had been shortlisted for this prestigious international award, previously won…

This afternoon I was fortunate to attend a brilliant event organised by Waterstones and Literature Wales. Following the publication of La Belle Sauvage on Thursday, Philip Pullman visited Cardiff to talk about the new book and his creative process more…

CFP: The Celtic Obsession in Modern Fantasy   You are invited to submit a paper for an edited volume tentatively titled The Celtic Obsession in Modern Fantasy Literature to be submitted to Palgrave Macmillan. Scholarship on Celtic-inspired fantasy literature has…

Last week, Owen Sheers rightly drew attention to the perilous consequences of removing English Literature as a core subject from GSCE requirements in Wales: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-41043551 I was asked to share my two penneth in a BBC Radio interview for Good Evening…

Tolkien’s The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings are, of course, his best-known works, much loved and read (and often re-read regularly!) but countless people all over the world over the years. But these two works are only the…

Last week I blogged about Lloyd Alexander, the American fantasist who creatively reshaped elements from Welsh tradition to create an exciting fantasy world and a very successful, award-winning series of books. Alexander’s The Book of Three (1964) is the earliest…

We were having a lazy morning yesterday, in the sunny, warm conservatory, and Andrew was playing The Beatles 1967-70 on his turntable, when “The Fool on the Hill” started playing. I love this song. I do understand why people tend…

I was recently asked by an early career colleague for some advice on presenting their first conference paper. Instead of just an informal chat over tea/coffee, which is what I’d usually do, I felt a sudden urge to take some time to…

Well, I am back from Leeds, where I attended two wonderful events: the Tolkien Society Seminar (Sunday 3rd July), this year commemorating the 100th anniversary of the Battle of the Somme (which Tolkien survived), packed with talks on the theme of…