#WitchWeek2019 starts here

…Witch Week, when there is so much magic around in the world that all sorts of peculiar things happen…
— Witch Week by Diana Wynne Jones

Welcome to the sixth Witch Week where, aided and abetted by Lizzie Ross, I’m hosting what Lory of Emerald City Book Review originally planned as an annual event celebrating our favourite fantasy books and authors. This year’s theme — you may already have spotted it — is

VILLAINS

Diana Wynne Jones’ Witch Week (1983) is a fantasy set between Halloween and November 5th — Bonfire Night — marking the day in 1604 when Guy Fawkes was caught preparing to blow up Parliament. We’ve used this time frame to set up eight days of magic and mayhem for Witch Week 2019, beginning today.

Our readalong this year is Diana Wynne Jones’ Cart & Cwidder. A few of us had an earlier discourse on this, but we hope that some of you will join in a general discussion later in the week.

Here then is the schedule:

Day 1: 31st October
Laurie Welch of Relevant Obscurity will look at a particular antagonist in the first published instalment of C S Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia.
Day 2: 1st November
Villains in graphic novels are examined forensically by Lizzie Ross.
Day 3: 2nd November
Joan Aiken’s villains in The Wolves of Willoughby Chase sequence are discussed by yours truly.
Day 4: 3rd November
Shakespeare has a full gallery of veritable baddies, some of whom are on the distaff side, as Sari Nichols of The View from Sari’s World will demonstrate.
Day 5: 4th November
Diana Wynne Jones’ Aunt Maria, from her novel Black Maria, is put under the spotlight by fantasy author and blogger Jean Lee.
Day 6: 5th November
Discussion of DWJ’s epic fantasy Cart & Cwidder.
Day 7: 6th November
Wrap-up post and the unveiling of the theme for Witch Week 2020, which will be hosted by Lizzie Ross.

Let the mayhem begin!

“O villain, villain, smiling, damnèd villain!
My tables — meet it is I set it down
That one may smile, and smile, and be a villain.”
— Hamlet