News 2023:

I am voting ‘Yes’ in Australia’s Referendum for an Indigenous Voice to Parliament. Constitutional lawyers have approved it, details will be consultative in enabling legislation, and 80% of Indigenous Australians support this solution to Close the Gap. Yes to a fair Australia.

In other news:

Our anthology, ‘South of the Sun: Australian fairy tales for the 21st century’, has nearly sold out and made a profit of at least $11,000 for the Australian Fairy Tale Society. Well done everyone on our hard work for this inclusive, intercultural, intergenerational production. Special thanks to all the contributors and my fellow editors. As AFTS is a charity, funds are going to a new national artistic project, most likely a second volume, albeit by a different editorial group as we are into sharing responsibilities, along with opportunities.

News 2022:

In December 2022, Bendigo Magazine published a glossy article about my Faerie life:

Winter Solstice, June 2022:

Bendigo Library held a festival Love of the Fey, involving an exhibition by Lorena Carrington (cover artist of our fairytale anthology South of the Sun), my storytelling & music, costume prizes, face painting, workshops, book chats, signings & readings. Special guests (pictured above), authors Carmel Bird & Thang Day Luong, also Jenni Heinrich of the band Much Karma, joined me & Lorena as their hosts. Despite understandable pandemic cancellations, it was well attended. Thang sold out of his novella Refugee Wolf, Carmel announced her new memoir Telltale, and we sold South of the Sun in amplitude. In a year we moved three quarters of 1,000 stock and received wonderful reviews. Thanks all, including librarians, Bookish & other bookstores, Bendigo Writers Festival, Bendigo Advertiser newspaper, and Bendigo Magazine for your support.

News 2021:

Australian Fairy Tale Society bestowed upon me their national award, for my contributions to fairytale arts through music, writing, storytelling, editing & non-profit work. As part of the Award, Lorena Carrington created this painting for me. It’s also an honour to have my name on the trophy sculpture by Spike Deane: a glass dome and a metallic tree frog.

Painting by Lorena Carrington created for Louisa as part of the prize

Trophy sculpture by Spike Deane, bearing awardees’ names

South of the Sun:

An intercultural anthology I co-edited, South of the Sun: Australian fairy tales for the 21st century, arrived! Published in partnership with Serenity Press and Australian Fairy Tale Society, for YA and Adults, it involves over fifty authors & illustrators including Indigenous people and recent immigrants, spanning three generations. You can order it through your local bookshop, directly from the publisher, or from me at Gumtree, as I bought my own stash. I’ll embed links here asap.

North of the Moon:

Three fey Celtic-Australian minstrels united at the Autumn Equinox to bring you some of our most fairytalish songs. Enter North of the Moon: Three Australian Faerie Bards. We hail from three States: Victoria, New South Wales & South Australia. Instruments include flute, mandolin, accordion, charango, guitars, harps and bardic vocals, from folklorists honed in storytelling, mythology, poetry and Druidic / Pagan / Faery paths. Let we three whimsical balladeers carry you through seas and groves of Faery Lands. We have our own page on Bandcamp just for this compilation. Click here to view, listen, read lyrics and order the digital album.

News 2020:

Tune into Faeriecon Live From Home this weekend 11-13th Dec 2020. The new date accommodates legendary poet troubadour again, Donovan and his muse-wife, Linda! Flower power lives on, with proceeds to eco-spiritual charities. Yay for sweet whimsy and grace! Faeriecon is the East Coast answer to the West Coast festival Faerieworlds, by the same hosts, based in Oregon. I’ve been involved with this fey community a long time, and fervently recommend all their presentations, whether in music, storytelling, literature, illustration, puppetry, workshops, costumery, interviews or unique homecrafted wares of vendors.

Now my new digital album Hob and Bud, sequel to Wisp and Sentinel, is beaming at Bandcamp. It features the remaining songs from my Faerieworlds Live From Home 2020 set (‘The Seagiant’, ‘Tree’, ‘Blackbird’, ‘Birch Wandering’, ‘I Am the Djinn’ and ‘Waterwood’) + bonuses. These include a rare rendition of ‘Blackbird’ with my niece Lucy singing in English and French: serendipidous, since verse 2 repeats verse 1, and it was a French record label that brandished this song. Other bonuses are ‘Shed No Tear’, never on CD (my melody to Keats’ poem ‘A Fairy Song’) and ‘Hobnob’ from a future album, slumbering like Sleeping Beauty behind a closed border. All for $7! Soon I shall beam my entire discography at Bandcamp.

You can find my new digital album Wisp and Sentinel at Bandcamp.

I’ve kept the price low, only $9 for the whole album. (All 13 tracks are also available as singles at $1 each.)

Inspired by Faerieworlds Live From Home in which I performed recently, I threw together as many songs from my live set as I could find, and will do a sequel for the others later (update: now beaming – news above)! There are bonus surprises. The songs are by the main producers who’ve worked with me over the past 3 decades. Lyrics, notes and credits are all at Bandcamp.

Based in Oregon, USA, Faerieworlds is the world’s largest, longest-running fairy festival, established 20 years ago. You can still catch the music via PORTL for free, or donate to an artist or eco-charity. Or purchase a $50 V.I.P. ticket for access to bonuses – a great way to express your wish for this beautiful gathering to continue.

What is Faerieworlds? Music, Art, Imagination, a gathering of tribes, who revel in costume to the call: ‘Live your Legend!’ dubbed a ‘bonnaroo for Middle Earth’, a shindig for Elfland, a carousel of elementals, a faerie Rade!

Who: The line up is in the flier inserted below

Why: Amidst the world’s strife and sorrow, it is worth pausing to refresh our souls. Rekindle our kindred kin. Uplift our spirits. There are many more struggles ahead. Battles to save endangered forests, species, democracies. True faerie lore is not escapist. It’s about delving deeper into life – falling in love with the world, with renewed wonder. Tolkien gave us this metaphor: the Ents fought for their forests, alongside Hobbits, Humans, Wizards, Dwarves and Elves, those guardians of the arts. Time to unite.

After a long hiatus from performing, I enjoyed revisiting songs and memories to rejoin Faerieworlds Live From Home.

PORTL, the Faerieworlds Live From Home platform, is the most elegant, artistic online network I’ve encountered. I recommend it for those of you who miss physical meetings during the pandemic, or share my reclusive shyness of travel. Let Faerieworlds be your welcome portal (pun intended) to a new way of gathering our fey tribes. Long live the Faerie Realm!

xxx Louisa

News 2017-2019:

Tree Change alert! Friends, we’ve left Melbourne. If chasing our new address, email me. This site won’t display on phones. For now, I recommend a larger screen such as desktop. Thanks for your patience.

After releasing music on indie record labels for two decades, we regrouped to bring you:

Torlan: ethereal ambient folk-pop water music, compiled from our albums. Torlan is Welsh for ‘from the riverbank’. Welcome water magic – nymphs, nixies, nereids! Between each song is a recording of water. Listen for waterbirds or mermaids. Discover wetlands or island witches. Dream of voyages beyond the estuary, rest by a well, trace a forest lane in the rain.

News 2015-2016:

‘Evander the Unicorn’, a dream-pop song, is at Bandcamp here

Poet Bee Williamson published ‘Torment & Soul’ with my intro. Daughter of one of our long-cherished producers, Bee is an artist-poet of eco-literary-soulfulness.

We released a video in 2016. ‘The Green Lady’, a song from Elderbrook, features Rachael Hammond of Fantastical Fae Art as dancer, as well as Melissa Rose Tonkin and Zeinab Yazdanfar, filmed by Ian Clarke.

Writers Victoria caught my pitch for a Fairy Tale edition of The Victorian Writer (Dec 2015-Jan 2016), featuring my story & articles by Dr Rebecca-Anne Do Rozario and Dr Kate Forsyth.

Australian Fairy Tale Society annual conference, NSW Writers Centre, Sydney. Honoured to be invited to sing for fairy tale researchers, folklorists, storytellers, exhibitors and fantasy authors. Theme: ‘Transformations: spinning straw into green and gold’.

The Monash Fairy Tale Salon celebrates the 150th Anniversary of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland in Glen Eira Town Hall, Melbourne. I perform my song ‘Alice in the Garden of Live Flowers’ from CD Ariel (French record label Prikosnovenie). Accompanying my singing & mandolin is Dandelion Wine on shruti-box/ percussion, vocal harmonies & lute. Come as your favourite wonderlander!

I set up a Bandcamp page with new songs ‘Violin Velvet’ & ‘Talaria’ plus remixes and selections from our albums.

News 2012 – 2014:

I cancelled Elderbrook’s book-cd deal amicably with the label, to pace myself with a sick hubby & the creative ride.

A dragon lives in our fairy waterfall, courtesy of designer ‘Made by Karl!‘. For more of Karl’s enchanting design, visit the site of brilliant Belgian harpist/ singer Keltia.

Here’s a preview of my story & music Elderbrook: www.elderbrook.com.au  with my first audio-reading & a song of Singing Fountains.

Another version appears on fairy compilation Graines De Berceuses on our label in France. [Subsequent update: Record label closed during pandemic.]

Thanks for visiting! – Louisa.