Recently back from the wonderful Tŷ Newydd Writing Centre in North Wales https://www.tynewydd.wales/ty-newydd/, where fellow author Catherine Fisher and I tutored a week-long course on Myth and Fairy Tales in Fantasy Fiction. While Catherine taught the Fourth Branch of the Mabinogi, I led course members through the different challenges posed by folk tales (often set in a real landscape) and fairy tales (set in what Joseph Campbell has called ‘the timeless, placeless realm of faerie). We did some myth-busting (many fairy tale heroines are tough cookies) and considered a number of very different retellings of ‘Briar Rose’/’The Sleeping Beauty’ (Robin McKinley to Neil Gaiman by way of Jane Yolen.) Delicious food, great company, beautiful house and gardens, and a wonderful week!