Shapeshifting Stories: The Fascinating History of Fairy Tales with Dr Kate Forsyth
‘I am famously fascinated by fairy tales - I love their wild beauty and their hidden claws.’
In this engaging and eye-opening 1 hour talk, Kate explores her own fascination with fairy tales, their long dark history and hidden meanings, and why they continue to speak so potently to so many people. Fairy tales are the oldest of all narrative arts, expressing in symbolic language some of the most significant crises of human life, the desires and fears we all share. Kate will share some of the ways she draws upon their mythic power in her own work, and gladly answer any questions you may have about ways to use fairy tales in narrative therapy, storytelling, and your own creative endeavours. All are welcome to attend.
Attendance is free but booking is essential.
ABOUT
DR KATE FORSYTH is an award-winning author, poet, and storyteller. Her most recent novels include The Changeling , a story of love, magic and treachery set during the first Scottish witch-hunt; Psykhe , a feminist reimagining of the ancient myth of ‘Eros and Psykhe’; The Wild Girl , the story of the forbidden romance behind the Grimm brothers’ fairy tales which was named Most Memorable Love Story of 2013; and Bitter Greens , a retelling of ‘Rapunzel’ which won the 2015 American Library Association award for Best Historical Fiction. Books for children include Kate Forsyth’s Long-Lost Fairy- Tales, illustrated by Lorena Carrington, which was an Honour Book in the 2025 CBCA awards.
Kate has a Doctorate of Creative Arts in fairy tale studies and is also an accredited master storyteller with the Australian Guild of Storytellers. She runs creative writing retreats and literary tours in the Cotswolds, Greece, Scotland and the South-east of England, and has lectured in fairy tales all over the world.
DEIRDRE SULLIVAN is a writer and teacher from Galway. She has written eight acclaimed books for young adults, including Savage Her Reply (Little Island 2020), Perfectly Preventable Deaths (Hot Key Books 2019), and Tangleweed and Brine (Little Island 2017). She was the recipient of the CBI Book of the Year Award in 2018 and 2021 and the An Post Irish Book Award for YA in 2018 and 2020. Her collection of short fiction for adults, I Want to Know That I Will Be Okay was published in 2021. Little Lives, one of the short stories from I Want To Know That I Will Be Okay won the An Post Irish Book Award for Short Fiction in 2021, and has been optioned for film. Weave, a collaborative collection of short fiction and folklore, co-written by Deirdre and Oein DeBhairduin and illustrated by Yingge Xu was released in 2022 by Skein Press.