From 28 to 30 October 2025, the Women Writers Route of the Council of Europe and Ivana’s House of Fairy Tales in Ogulin, Croatia, will host the international conference “Women’s Path through Fairy Tales.”
The event will bring together writers, scholars, and cultural professionals from across Europe to explore how fairy tales have served — and continue to serve — as powerful spaces for female creativity, identity, and resistance.
Over three days, participants will journey through the imaginative worlds of women who redefined the fairy tale genre, from Ivana Brlić-Mažuranić to Carmen Sylva, Maria Konopnicka, and Dubravka Ugrešić.
Sessions will examine how these authors have transformed traditional narratives, giving new voice to women’s experiences and challenging patriarchal structures through imagination and metaphor.
Highlights include keynotes by Dubravka Zima, Milena Mileva Blažić, Biljana Dojčinović, and Anera Ryznar, as well as creative workshops and guided tours through Ivana’s House of Fairy Tales.
The programme invites participants not only to discuss but to experience storytelling — blending academic dialogue with play, creativity, and cultural heritage.
As Andreja Rihter, President of the Women Writers Route, notes, the conference embodies the Route’s mission:
“to connect European women’s voices across borders and generations, showing how their stories continue to shape our shared cultural memory.”
By rediscovering fairy tales through women’s eyes, Women’s Path through Fairy Tales celebrates imagination as both heritage and empowerment — a bridge between the past and the present, and a reminder that every story told by a woman adds a new path to Europe’s cultural landscape.
The event is organized in partnership with the Women Writers Route and Ivana’s House of Fairy Tales, with the support of the Ministry of Culture and Media of the Republic of Croatia.