Wyrd And Wonder – On Celebrating Fantasy

I learned about May being the month of fantasy reads from Timy at Storytellers on Tour and since I was already connected to Jorie, I thought I would give her a shout about Wyrd And Wonder. We did this conversation over Twitter DM over days – Jorie in the US, I’m in Canada, Imyril is in England and Lisa is based in Scotland. If you love reading fantasy, go sign up for Wyrd And Wonder today and learn more about how it came to be here.

Kriti: Let’s get started! Wyrd And Wonder is about fantasy reads. What do each of you love about fantasy?

Imyril: I very rarely stop to think about why I love fantasy because I’ve been reading fantasy novels since …well, forever. I grew up in Prydain, Tortall, Narnia and Alderley Edge. I’d visited Middle-Earth and Deverry by the time I hit double digits. And I guess I’ve never really come home 😉 I love intricate, world-building and kick-ass swashbuckling. I can’t resist stories about dragons or pirates. I relish tales of magic and challenging the gods. I love being invited to set my imagination free and step out of our own world – so fantasy (and scifi) are my reading heart’s home.

Jorie: I came into Fantasy a bit differently than Imyril – as rather than beginning my journey into fantastical realms as a reader, I was an appreciator of Fantasy in motion pictures! One of my earliest memories (outside of my love of Annie) is being wickedly attached to The Neverending Story – the full breadth of that movie had far reaching attachments for me as I truly felt as if I had lived the journey with Bastian. The creatures of Jim Hansen’s studio were also a beloved favourite as I grew up watching “Fraggle Rock” and all his lovely Muppets. Fantasy was everywhere on television and film – I was a GenX kid in the ‘80s devouring it all and yet, until I crossed paths with Lisa & Imyril, I hadn’t had the pleasure of joy in experiencing the infamously beloved Labyrinth – of which became a live viewing sensation on Twitter, the 7th of August, 2018. I live tweeted my reactions alongside Lisa whilst Imyril ended up getting a bit of that context whilst at work in Western USA. (most if not all of the Twitter exchange was in a single thread).

It took until I was seventeen to pick up my first Fantasy novel – by traditional standards, which was Kate Elliott’s Crown of Stars Saga – beginning with King’s Dragon. Liath had left such a strong impression on me as a reader as much as Bastian had as a child who was growing up on Fantasy film and television – this time round though, the journey felt even more personal, more intimately connected and soul lifting because rather than seeing someone’s vision of the story, I was exploring as I read it. In essence, I had transitioned from reading about The neverending story to learning how to ‘create it’ for myself in Fantasy Fiction.

Prior to Kate Elliott, I had stumbled across The Purple Door by Janifer C. De Vos, – which was most likely one of my gateway novels as a child and young reader, though I’d also claim The Cricket in Times Square as let’s face it, cats, and crickets do not generally befriend each other or get to talk! Unless their name is Jimmy!

Lisa: My love of fantasy is twofold. Firstly, like Imyril I’ve been reading some form of it since I was a wee baby nerd. My first ‘adventures’ were with Alice, down the rabbit hole into Wonderland, and ever since I’ve been a sucker for wildly, richly imagined fantasy worlds. Imagination is key to a really good fantasy for me, and the best ones go far and dig deep into their worlds, and how they work and why.

Secondly, I feel like the best stories say something important about OUR world, through the imagined one. Never mind ‘fantasy shouldn’t be political’ – heck yes, give me your politics! Give me commitment; without it, your world and your story are likely to fall flat. And there is so much diverse fantasy out there, it’s exciting just to take in the scope of it all.

Also: it has dragons.

Jorie: Although Alice and Wonderland were in my life, they were in my life via the adaptations in motion pictures vs fictional worlds in text. I cut my teeth on a lot of Disney Classics as a young girl but I also loved growing up with an inherited joy of Gene Roddenberry’s Star Trek and George Lucas’s Star Wars – the latter in of itself is a work of art in regards to where ‘fantasy’ can take you in visual art and in motion graphics which are altered by the lens of the animator. Similar to how we have Avatar all these generations later on.

As a book blogger, my love of #dragonfiction multiplied directly through my discovery & reading of the Leland Dragons series by Jackie Gamber. It was also my first exposure to shifters and to a shifter narrative I felt most at ‘home’ reading wherein I was truly transfixed on this quasi-political world of dragons and humans as I had been with Elliott’s Crown of Stars. There are some authors who simply know how to pull you straight into the heart of their stories and never quite let you exit afterwards. In regards to the ‘bigger’ giants – I gathered the stories of Middle Earth & of Hogwarts; reading only the first Harry Potter story before I transitioned into a movie watcher – reclaiming my childhood through the films and proudly becoming a Ravenclaw. With Middle Earth, the films were an adventure in midnight releases and sitting through the most awe-inspiring three hours of motion pictures – where I was enchanted and museful about what was happening in the saga itself.

For Narnia, the books aside as I didn’t enjoy them – the two films I loved most were The Lion, The Witch & the Wardrobe as well as The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. There are some stories which speak to us via visual and motion media whereas others are felt through how we interpret a story either by a book in hand or through an audiobook being narrated through our headphones (at least for me). Each experience is a catalyst of sorts and takes us further into where Fantasy and Reality co-merge to tell a new dimensional story of our own humanity and I believe, for me, this is what initially fuelled my Quest into Fantasy.

As an individual who has constantly pursued Speculative Fiction – the greater truth is peering into a place which cannot be fully understood by the naked eye and must first been seen by the heart and the imagination. You have to take that first leap of faith to see what is fantastically being presented to you – to peer past your own biases and understandings of the fundamentals of life, the world and the universe itself – as isn’t this the allure of why we watch Space Opera? (such as how my love of Star Trek recently took me into the voyages of Star Trek: Enterprise which left me emotionally choked at the conclusion!) We want to take the journey with these characters, fantastical & mythical creatures and visit worlds which are nothing like our own – to see a different way of life. Whilst attempting to re-understand our own path as we endeavour to grow our empathy for what is still not known in the farther reaches of our galaxy and the infinite plausible adventures of our imagination. That is where Fantasy lives and thrives – in the nexus of what can be breathed to life on the curiously curious questions of “What if” and “Where”.

Fantasy allows us to take a firm step away from our living realities and exchange it for something quite magical, fantastical and awe-inspiring. We might scare ourselves by what we discover, we might find further enlightenment and joy but if we dare to adventure, we are definitely going to find a reason to carry forward towards the dawning light of what is discoverable if you only believe in what is possible to be found.

Kriti: How did the three of you come together to form the #WyrdAndWonder month? How long have you been doing it?

Imyril: 2020 will be our third Wyrd and Wonder. Lisa and I also run SciFiMonth together, and it was in a casual chat with Jorie (who is a longstanding member of the SciFiMonth crew) that we realised we had separately been thinking it would be amazing to have a fantasy-themed equivalent.

I’d been considering wrangling one since the previous year, but hadn’t felt I could fly solo on such a big undertaking – these events are a big organisational and promotional commitment – but as soon as all three of us were excited about it it was a no-brainer. So in some ways it was just ironic it took so long for us all to have that conversation given how long we’d all been thinking about it 😉

Then we had the REAL challenge: what to call it 🙂

Fantasymonth was already taken as a (dormant) twitter handle – presumably because it’s perfect for porn 😉 – so we got creative.

Jorie: I had a similar idea myself for about a year before we pulled our efforts together to develop Wyrd and Wonder; as I was trying to track down if anyone had been using #FantasyFebruary. They had, and although one of the partners had given me the greenlight to use the tag and the name, the other person never responded. I considered it wasn’t meant to be. I had, like Imyril, considered the work involved might require a partner or team – how we first developed the idea and germinated it together as a partnership – those details are a bit lost to me, though perhaps Lisa or Imyril remember?! I do know they had already taken over @SciFiMonth from @RinnSohma and were leading us into the voyages of seeking Science Fiction every November. This was partially how we did choose to host Wyrd and Wonder in May – as we wanted to anchor the two events at opposite ends of a full calendar year and host them in different seasons.

The beauty of how we host Wyrd and Wonder is how we delegate the duties and split the responsibilities of monitoring the Twitter feeds for @WyrdAndWonder. That is how I came up with the shortcode of putting it on my tweets to help readers, followers, bloggers & social Fantasy engage with us sort out when/if Jorie was tweeting. Its worked out well – being Imyril is in England, Lisa is in Scotland and I am in the United States, we can each pull our hours together to help keep the Wyrd and Wonder event moving forward, whilst finding ways to engage, converse and interact with our expanding community. This marks our 3rd Year and each year I feel we are gaining more ground and momentum on what we can do as hosts and as a community as a whole.

We have a sister event in October called #SpooktasticReads which was inspired by my own geeky appreciation for Spookier Reads – ghosts, paranormal and other lovely bits of Gothic storylines which are befitting to be read in the weeks leading into Halloween. Each October, we’ve co-hosted a mini-Wyrd And Wonder wherein we turn a bit from traditional Fantasy into what a spookified reading TBR looks like and entertain ourselves silly until Old Hallow’s Eve!

In this regard, I tipped forward the name I was using on my blog and of an idea I had for an event of its nature. Imyril and Lisa loved it and we just ran with it. We’ve developed a following for both events and for the events as individual haunts depending on whose joining us and which season appeals them the most.

Lisa: Though… is this where I admit that I am eternally unsure how exactly to pronounce “wyrd”?

Jorie: So am I!!! I didn’t even tell you two I was confused about it as I didn’t want to tip my hat that the dyslexic in the room was confused!

Lisa:  It’s like “word”, right? Or is it “weird”? I mean, both fit.

Jorie: I always say “word” if you ask my parents, (ducks and hides)

Kriti: How do you organize a month-long reading event like this one? Do you have clear cut roles on who does what?

Imyril: We primarily organise with spreadsheets (so magical). We always have a master schedule we ask our participants to add links to when they post, and we use that plus the twitter hashtag to know what content is out there and needs boosting. Plus it’s a spreadsheet, so we can track what posts have been boasted, what’s gone into a weekly recap post, even whether we’ve commented. It’s our group brain. Or maybe that’s just me! 20 years in project management, my beloved teases me that I can’t do anything without a spreadsheet (and preferably a pivot table)…we have never had a Wyrd and Wonder pivot table. Yet now I can go check those spreadsheets to see what the most-read books have been.

Jorie: Without those spreadsheets – we’d all be lost, truly Imyril! I yield to her genius queuing those fields together but Lisa and I also help sort out which posts are making their mark on our Wyrd and Wonder feeds whilst we try to take turns visiting, commenting & cheering everyone on whose committed to a part of the event which lifts their own bookish and geeky joy.

Lisa: As it’s mostly an online event, I think a large part of it is keeping track of who’s participating, what they’re posting and when, and remembering to boost signals on social media. I confess I’m eternally grateful that Imyril gets along so well with spreadsheets and technical things because haha, I do not! But beyond this we take quite a relaxed approach, which definitely works for me!

Kriti: What are some noteworthy books that you and other participants have read in May?

Jorie: It wasn’t until I reached the story within The Magic Cup during Year One of Wyrd and Wonder did I feel like I had found the kind of Fantasy story I had been seeking to find that year and it wasn’t a traditional Fantasy novel at all as it was a fantastical ‘otherworld’ within a business man’s memoir of how to find success in capitalism (uniquely enough!). I knew Frozen Fairy Tales would give me the wicked good ‘otherness’ I wanted but The Magic Cup took the cake for best display of Fantasy within a short fiction exploration of a world within a metaphoric message of life. The first year, most of my readings were short-changed due to my chronic migraines which is why I was actively online late at night on the #WyrdAndWonder tag via Twitter – engaging with our audience and participants and having randomly lovely late-night topical discussions.

By Year Two, I was able to focus a bit more on reading Fantasy before the migraines derailed my efforts as 2018/19 were my hardest years for personal health afflictions and an uptick in frequencies for my migraines. 2020 is the first year I’ve been migraine-free for longer than thirty days. From 2018, my favourite discoveries were the Magical Midway series by Leanne Leeds, the Fantasy Romance To Court A Queen by H.L. Burke, Sea of Lost Souls by Emerald Dodge and the Epic Fantasy series Morgan L. Busse created within the trilogy the Ravenwood Saga. Those were wicked good individual reads for me as a reader – wherein I found each writer was allowing me to heighten my awareness of where Fantasy would lead me to traverse and how Fantasy could look through the eyes of a Contemporary writer creating new worlds for readers to explore through their vision of them.

I have tried to be more visible in the Wyrd and Wonder blogosphere of posts and contributors but each year I’ve failed to truly capture the heart of what everyone has provided consistently due to my migraines. I am hoping this year, I can finally alter how I approach visiting with our participants and become more mindfully aware of what everyone else is doing rather than getting the news of their own Wyrd and Wonder journeys in the beautiful recaps Imyril & Lisa provide on their blogs. Those logs are wonderfully intricate and all-encompassing. I yield to them to talk about the most popular authors, stories, series, etc which have percolated through hosting the first two years of the event.

I can say, this year being our 3rd Year – I wanted to firmly step back into the threshold of Dragons and focus on reading Dragon Fiction whilst reexamining the types of Fantasy I am gravitating towards as an adult reader. I even want to lay down a map of sorts of which series I eventually want to read, which ones I haven’t yet finished and which authors who still feel like ones I’d love to aspire to read in future years of Wyrd and Wonder.

Imyril: The authors who have received the most attention the first two years have been Jen Williams & Rebecca Roanhorse (our read-alongs last year, but also attracted much chatter in reviews), Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Juliet Marillier, Mark Lawrence, Naomi Novik, Patricia Briggs, VE/Victoria Schwab and Seanan McGuire.

So it’s really eclectic – the mix is self-published, trad published, urban fantasy, epic fantasy, portal fantasy, grimdark, YA, mythical, magical realism, you name – someone is probably reading it for Wyrd and Wonder 🙂

I think the read-alongs are my most notable reads. I got a real kick out of running the read-along for Daggerspell in the first year – which has led to tempting Lisa into a full Deverry read-along this year (wyrd – I pronounce it weird to round out our confessions 😉 – is a central concept in the Deverry books, so it was very appropriate for us. And last year our read-along of The Ninth Rain by Jen Williams turned into a series through the year as we completed the trilogy over the following months, which was amazing.

Lisa:  The group readalongs are definitely a highlight for me, because I enjoy the discussion format and being able to dig into the details that stand out in a book. I’m here for the interactions, and a good read along can feel like being part of a book club!

Jorie: The highlight of joy for all of us is being able to interact with the community of Fantasy lovers – as both Imyril and Lisa have mentioned themselves – to find a way to communicate with them, celebrate with them and to become this growing community of diversely read Fantasy readers who also encompass the world of Fantasy in other mediums of interest is what encapsulates the joy of hosting each year. Each year, it is interesting to see what story, series, author or movement of interest in Fantasy is on everyone’s radar whilst throughout the month observing how others are celebrating Fantasy – how creative they are getting at what they are posting on social media and/or their blogs or other channels of influence is what is personally enriching for me as well. It is an event which keeps you humble – to see how much growth has occurred from Year One to Year Three.

Thank you, Kriti for organizing this special conversation and for giving us a chance to cast an even wider net of interest for #WyrdAndWonder!

Kriti: It has been a pleasure to chat with you three and I hope that readers sign up to celebrate fantasy with us in May. Just talking to you has gotten me super excited – mark your calendar for the 16^th when I will be sharing my Wyrd And Wonder TBR. Thank you so much, Jorie, Lisa and Imyril for being a part of this journey with me. 🙂

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Everyone, find out more information about and sign up for Wyrd And Wonder – Celebrate fantasy with us in your unique way, even if it is with one book.

You can find these lovely ladies on their respective spaces on the Internet:

• Jorie on her blog Jorie Loves A Story and Twitter
• Lisa on Dear Geek Place, Twitter and Instagram
• Imyril on There’s always room for one more and Twitter

Cover Photo by Joyce McCown on Unsplash
IMAGE CREDITS for Wyrd And Wonder images: Flaming phoenix by Sujono Sujono | Decorative phoenix by Tanantachai Sirival – both from 123RF.com
Photo of book and crystal ball on unsplash.
All other images on Pixabay.