Abstract

Literary scholar Lisa M.Fiander has proposed that ‘fiction writers are most likely to draw upon fairy tales when they are framing, in writing, a subject that generates anxiety in their culture,’ and that whilst British writers may use fairy tales to ‘chart the movement of the lonely into communities’ and Canadian writers to express anxieties about identity, Australian writers use fairy tales to express the landscape and geography and to articulate anxieties about belonging as a settler community in an Aboriginal land. She was writing about Australian adult fiction; but does this hold in contemporary Australian fantasy fiction for young people? If so, how is it expressed? And if not, why not? This presentation is an interesting overview of a flourishing area of Australian contemporary fiction for young people, and draws on Sophie Masson’s own experience as a writer as well.

Born in Indonesia to French parents and brought up in Australia and France, Sophie Masson is the award-winning author of over 60 books, for children, young adults and adults. Her latest books are Jack of Spades (Eagle Books, 2017) and Once Upon An ABC , illustrated by Christopher Nielsen, (Little Hare, 2017)