Symposium on Fantasy and the Fantastic

This past Friday I walked to a side of the University of Glasgow campus that I'd never visited before. That's the Kelvingrove Museum from the southwest side. It was a beautiful day to wander through Kelvingrove Park.And I'd never stepped foot in Kelvin Hall before. There, I enjoyed a series of five-minute presentations from Fantasy Professors and PhD Researchers on the latest topics they are studying. It was a dizzying array of fascinating subjects from Fantasy in Children's Literature from my supervisor, Maureen Farrell to Dimitra Fimi talking about when children begin to understand what fantasy is (vs. reality),to Brian Attebery arguing in favor of literary journals - fantasy journals especially, to Tony Pollard talking about Game of Thrones and warfare. After the presentations and a lunch break, we gathered to talk about how we might set up a "Centre for Fantasy and the Fantastic" at the University of Glasgow. Some wonderful ideas got tossed around.And then we got to enjoy the keynote by my friend (and Ellen and Delia's dear friend) Terri Windling!!! What a talk she gave! She talked about the impact of Tolkien when his books first came out on both her and the world, the evolution of fantasy writing, and the trends in fantasy writing. Needless to say, it was fascinating and wonderful. But most of all, I so enjoyed getting some time to hand out with Terri. Here I am with Terri and Dimitra (who did a fabulous job putting the symposium together).All of this is not to be confused with GifCon which is coming up next week!