SpillianQuest is a growing web of tools, toys, treats, adventures, and boon companions from Spillian: A Place to Revel, a historic estate in the Catskill mountains of New York.

We’re making curious things and following curious questions. Some arrive through the post. Some invite you to wander down unexpected paths. Others bring people together around tables, fires, stories, and adventures.

We’re interested in what happens when we give ourselves a little more room to imagine, to wonder, to play, and to take things that are apparently beside the point quite seriously.

Reveling, rebelling, and frivoling are strongly encouraged.

I’m Leigh Melander, Ph.D., Founding Fomenter of SpillianQuest and co-founder of Spillian with my husband, Mark Somerfield.

I’ve spent much of my life exploring mythology, imagination, and the wonderfully subversive power of play. I earned my doctorate in cultural mythology and psychology, writing my dissertation on frivolity and play as a doorway into imagination. It turns out that taking frivolity seriously can lead you into some fascinating places.

My work has also taken me into the arts, strategic planning, and community-building, working with people and organizations nationally and internationally to imagine new possibilities, strengthen relationships, and create places where people can find belonging without surrendering what makes them particular.

I’ve served on the board of the Joseph Campbell Foundation and the academic advisory board of Spring Journal and Books, appeared as a myth expert on the History Channel, and taught and presented internationally on mythology and imagination. My writing has appeared in academic publications including Spring Journal and the Routledge International Handbook of Jungian Film Studies. I was also the founding editor of the Joseph Campbell Foundation’s MythBlast essay series. I’m the author of Psyche’s Choice: The Frivolous Revolution and the forthcoming Just This Side of Crazy: Questing Your Wild Idea to Life.

Along the way, Mark and I created Spillian on the historic Fleischmanns Yeast family estate in the Catskills—a place where imagination, celebration, creativity, and a healthy disregard for unnecessary solemnity are very much alive. It’s also a place where we’ve seen what can happen when people are welcomed as their whole, marvelous, weird, particular selves.

SpillianQuest grows from the same wild roots as Spillian, but reaches beyond the boundaries of the house and its grounds. It’s an invitation to carry more imagination, curiosity, play, and belonging into our everyday lives—to revel, rebel, and frivol wherever we find ourselves.

We’re making this as we discover it, following the questions and possibilities that emerge along the way. And you’re welcome to come along.

Breathe deep and resume the quest.