2020 Mythopoeic Awards Finalists Announced

2020 Mythopoeic Awards Finalists Announced

Posted on December 8, 2020 by David Emerson

The Mythopoeic Society has announced the finalists for the 2020 Mythopoeic Awards. For more information about the awards, visit the Awards section of this site; the finalists for the literature awards, text of recent acceptance speeches, and selected book reviews are also listed in this section. The winners of this year’s awards will be announced in early 2021. (Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Mythcon was not held in the summer of 2020, and the awards committees needed extra time to obtain and evaluate nominated books, thus necessitating a delay in the awards processes.)

You may download the official press release, in PDF format, here.

Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Adult Literature

• P. Djèlí Clark, The Haunting of Tram Car 015 (Tor.com, 2019)
• Theodora Goss, Snow White Learns Witchcraft (Mythic Delirium Books, 2019)
• Alix E. Harrow, The Ten Thousand Doors of January (Redhook, 2019)
• Jo Walton, Lent: A Novel of Many Returns (Tor Books, 2019)
• G. Willow Wilson, The Bird King (Grove Press, 2019)

Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Children’s Literature

• Erin Entrada Kelly, Lalani of the Distant Sea (Green Willow Books, 2019)
• Yoon Ha Lee, Dragon Pearl (Rick Riordan Presents, 2019)
• Hilary McKay, The Time of Green Magic (Macmillan, 2019)
• Suzanne Nelson, A Tale Magnolius (Alfred A. Knopf, 2019)
• Anne Ursu, The Lost Girl (Walden Pond Press, 2019)

Mythopoeic Scholarship Award for Inklings Studies

• Amy Amendt-Raduege, “The Sweet and the Bitter”: Death and Dying in J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings (The Kent State University Press, 2018)
• Dimitra Fimi and Thomas M. Honegger, Sub-creating Arda: World-building in J.R.R. Tolkien’s Work, its Precursors and its Legacies (Walking Tree Publishers, 2019)
• Kirstin Jeffrey Johnson and Michael Partridge, Informing the Inklings: George MacDonald and the Victorian Roots of Modern Fantasy (Winged Lion Press. 2018)
• Catherine McIlwaine, Tolkien: Maker of Middle-earth (Bodleian Library, University of Oxford, 2018)
• John Rateliff, ed, A Wilderness of Dragons: Essays in Honor of Verlyn Flieger (Gabbro Head, 2018)

Mythopoeic Scholarship Award for Myth and Fantasy Studies

• Maria Sachiko Cecire, Re-Enchanted: The Rise of Children’s Fantasy Literature in the Twentieth Century (University of Minnesota Press, 2019)
• James Gifford, A Modernist Fantasy: Modernism, Anarchism, and the Radical Fantastic (ELS Editions, 2018)
• C. Palmer-Patel, The Shape of Fantasy: Investigating the Structure of American Heroic Epic Fantasy (Routledge, 2019)
• Ebony Elizabeth Thomas, The Dark Fantastic: Race and the Imagination from Harry Potter to The Hunger Games (New York University Press, 2019)
• Mark J.P. Wolf, ed, The Routledge Companion to Imaginary Worlds (Routledge, 2017)

The Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Adult Literature is given to the fantasy novel, multi-volume, or single-author story collection for adults published during 2018 or 2019 that best exemplifies the spirit of the Inklings. Books are eligible for two years after publication if selected as a finalist during the first year of eligibility. Books from a series are eligible if they stand on their own; otherwise, the series becomes eligible the year its final volume appears.

The Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Children’s Literature honors books for beginning readers to age thirteen, in the tradition of The Hobbit or The Chronicles of Narnia. Rules for eligibility are otherwise the same as for the Adult literature award. The question of which award a borderline book is best suited for will be decided by consensus of the committees. Books for mature “Young Adults” may be moved to the Adult literature category.

The Mythopoeic Scholarship Award in Inklings Studies is given to books on Tolkien, Lewis, and/or Williams that make significant contributions to Inklings scholarship. For this award, books first published during the last three years (2017–2019) are eligible, including finalists for previous years.

The Mythopoeic Scholarship Award in Myth and Fantasy Studies is given to scholarly books on other specific authors in the Inklings tradition, or to more general works on the genres of myth and fantasy. The period of eligibility is three years, as for the Inklings Studies award.

The winners of this year’s awards will be announced online in early 2021. A complete list of Mythopoeic Award winners is available on the Society web site: Awards.

The finalists for the literature awards, text of recent acceptance speeches, and selected book reviews are also listed in this on-line section. For more information about the Mythopoeic Awards, please contact the Awards Administrator: Dr. Vicki Ronn, awards@mythsoc.org

Mythlore 137 Now Available!

The Fall 2020 volume of Mythlore (#137, Volume 39, Issue 1) is now available for purchase! Print and digital options are available via our website.

Table of Contents

Editorial
— Janet Brennan Croft

A Cosmic Shift in The Screwtape Letters
— Brenton D.G. Dickieson

“I woulde be there / Byyonde the water”: Consolation in Pearl and The Silver Chair
— Tiffany E. Schubert

“No Sex Please, We’re Narnians”: Turkish Delight, Twelfth Night, and the Problem of Susan
— Andy Gordon 

Useful Little Men: George R.R. Martin’s Dwarfs as Grotesque Realists
— Joseph Rex Young

The Inner Consistency of Mythology: The Mythological Kernel and Adaptation in The Golden Compass
— Douglas A. Barnim

Tom Bombadil and the Spirit of Objectivity
— Dani Inkpen

“Her Enchanted Hair”: Rossetti, “Lady Lilith,” and the Victorian Fascination with Hair as Influences on Tolkien
— Kathryn Colvin

The “Polish Inkling”: Professor Przemysław Mroczkowski as J.R.R. Tolkien’s Friend and Scholar
— Łukasz Neubauer

Tolkien’s Lost Knights
— Ben Reinhard

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Reviews

• Utopian and Dystopian Themes in Tolkien’s Legendarium, by Mark Doyle — Robert T. Tally Jr.
• Music in Tolkien’s Work and Beyond, edited by Julian Eilmann and Friedhelm Schneidewind — Megan N. Fontenot
• Hobbit Virtues: Rediscovering Virtue Ethics through J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, by Christopher A. Snyder — Zachary D. Schmoll
• Michael Moorcock: Fiction, Fantasy and the World’s Pain by Mark Scroggins, and The Law of Chaos: The Multiverse of Michael Moorcock by Jeff Gardiner — David L. Emerson
• Myth-Building in Modern Media: The Role of the Mytharc in Imagined Worlds, by A.J. Black — Maria Alberto
• The Nibelungenlied: with The Klage, translated by William T. Whobrey — Larry J. Swain
• The Worlds of J.R.R. Tolkien: The Places That Inspired Middle-earth, by John Garth — Mike Foster
• Briefly Noted: A Dictionary of Symbols: Revised and Expanded, by Juan Eduardo Cirlot — Janet Brennan Croft
Reality, Magic, and Other Lies: Fairy-Tale Film Truths, by Pauline Greenhill — Alissa Renales

Mythopoeic Nostalgia Sale from the Mythopoeic Press, PART TWO

As we experience ongoing Mythopoeic nostalgia, waiting for our delayed Mythcon 51 (the new dates are July 30 - August 2, 2021), the Mythopoeic Press has announced its special sale, Part Two.

Through the rest of 2020, we will select one of our backlisted titles each month or so, to go on sale when purchased through our website at our Mythopoeic Press page. Our second featured title for the rest of September and October is: Past Watchful Dragons: Fantasy and Faith in the World of C.S. Lewis, edited by Amy H. Sturgis, with 35% off, total $12.95 (normally $19.95 on our website).

This volume provides a broad sample of the research presented at the "Past Watchful Dragons: Fantasy and Faith in the World of C.S. Lewis" international conference held at Belmont University on November 3-5, 2005. The contributing scholars reflect a truly interdisciplinary discussion representing the fields of literature, theology, history, and popular culture. The assembled essays offer insights on the messages of C.S. Lewis's fiction and nonfiction, the dramatic adaptations of his work, the influence of his faith, and his relevance to related fantasy literature and other authors. So please enjoy - AND we hope to see you in Albuquerque NEXT summer!

 

Mythopoeic Nostalgia Sale

Many of us are suffering from Mythopoeic Nostalgia as we wait for Mythcon 51 in 2021. We propose to recapture some of the intellectual excitement from our earlier days by reading one of our backlisted titles. Through the rest of 2020, we will select one of our backlisted titles each month to go on sale when purchased through our website at http://www.mythsoc.org/press.htm.

Our first featured title for the rest of July and August is:
The Intersection of Fantasy and Native America: From H. P. Lovecraft to Leslie Marmon Silko, edited by Amy H. Sturgis and David D. Oberhelman - 25% off, total $14.95 (normally $19.95 on our website and $23.00 from Amazon.com).

Mythcon 51 Postponed until Summer 2021

The Council of Stewards has considered carefully the state of upheaval and quarantine in which the country has been operating and come to the conclusion that our best path forward is to postpone Mythcon 51 for one year. The new dates are July 30 - August 2, 2021.

Our Guests of Honor, author Rivera Sun and scholar David Bratman, both concur and are happy to serve in that capacity next year. The hotel has been very accommodating and we dare say that our theme, "The Mythic, the Fantastic, and the Alien," will be even more apt next year.

The Call for Papers is available and registration remains open; join now while the membership rates are low.

We hope to see you in Albuquerque NEXT summer!

Mythcon 51: Guests of Honor Announced

Mythcon 51: Guests of Honor Announced

We are thrilled to announce our Author Guest of Honor for Mythcon 51 is Rivera Sun, the author of The Dandelion Insurrection, The Roots of Resistance, and other novels. Her young adult fantasy series, the Ari Ara Series, has been widely acclaimed by teachers, parents, and peace activists for its blending of fantasy and adventure with social justice issues. The Way Between, the first book in the Ari Ara Series, has been read by numerous groups of all ages, while the second book in the series, The Lost Heir, has been nominated for the 2020 Dayton Peace Literature Prize.

Our Scholar Guest of Honor will be David Bratman, who has been reading Tolkien for over fifty years, and has been writing Tolkien scholarship for nearly as long. His earliest contribution to the field was the first-ever published Tale of Years for the First Age, right after The Silmarillion was published. Since then he has published articles with titles like “Top Ten Rejected Plot Twists from The Lord of the Rings,” “Hobbit Names Aren’t from Kentucky,” and “Liquid Tolkien” (on Tolkien and music). He’s been co-editor of Tolkien Studies: An Annual Scholarly Review since 2013, and has written or edited its annual “Year’s Work in Tolkien Studies” since 2004. David edited The Masques of Amen House by Charles Williams and contributed the bio-bibliographical appendix on the Inklings to Diana Pavlac Glyer’s The Company They Keep. He has also written on C.S. Lewis, Ursula Le Guin, Mervyn Peake, Neil Gaiman, and others.


The conference theme for Mythcon 51 is the Mythic, the Fantastic, and the Alien. Does exploring the Other in Mythopoeia appeal to you? Our call for papers is open until May 15th!





Registration is now open; we invite you to join us next summer in Albuquerque, New Mexico, July 31- August 3, 2020.

Mythcon 51: Call for Papers

The Call for Papers for this year's Mythcon is now live. 

Please join us at Mythcon 51: The Mythic, the Fantastic, and the Alien, which will be taking place July 31 - August 3, 2020 in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
 
This year’s Mythcon theme provides multiple opportunities to explore the Other in fantasy and mythopoeic literature. Tolkien spoke in “On Fairy-stories” of “the desire to visit, free as a fish, the deep sea; or the longing for the noiseless, gracious, economical flight of a bird.” We invite discussion about the types of fantasy that are more likely to put us into contact with the alien, such as time portal fantasy and space travel fantasy.

As always, this is going to draw a number of interesting and insightful presentations and panels. If you would like to participate by submitting a paper, please check the CFP for submission information. If your interest has been piqued, please consider registering for our conference. See you in Albuquerque!

The last Inkling, Christopher Tolkien, has left us

I will not say: do not weep; for not all tears are an evil.

Christopher Tolkien, J.R.R. Tolkien's son and literary executor has died today at age 95. Christopher was instrumental to the field of Tolkien Studies, working tirelessly to compile and edit his father's work, giving the world an extraordinary glimpse into the process of creating a masterpiece. Today we mourn the man who brought the Silmarillion to completion and dedicated his life to ensuring the legacy of Tolkien's work. He will be missed by all who love Tolkien.

The Mythopoeic Society offers its sincerest condolences to the Tolkien family.