The Company They Keep: C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien as Writers in Community by Diana Pavlac Glyer wins the Mythopoeic Scholarship Award in Inklings Studies (22.08.08 by Pieter Collier) - Comments

The Mythopoeic Society has announced the winners for the 2008 Mythopoeic Awards last weekend on August 17, during Mythcon XXXIX in New Britain, Connecticut.

The Mythopoeic Society discusses myth, fantasy and imaginative literature in discussion groups across the U.S. and on the internet, in newsletters and scholarly books and journals, and at its annual Mythopoeic Conference. Inspired by the scholarly discussions and writings of the 1930s Oxford University group The Inklings (including C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, and Charles Williams), the Society began in California in 1967.

Every year they give away Literary & Scholarship Awards. The most interesting award for Tolkien fans is The Mythopoeic Scholarship Award in Inklings Studies. It is given to books on J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, and/or Charles Williams that make significant contributions to Inklings scholarship.

The Mythopoeic Scholarship Award in Inklings Studies was given this year to:

The Company They Keep: C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien as Writers in Community
by Diana Pavlac Glyer; appendix by David Bratman.

A very interesting interview with the author can be read here.

The Company They Keep: C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien as Writers in Community
by Diana Pavlac Glyer; appendix by David Bratman.

The most interesting book on Tolkien that has been published in 2007 is for sure the The Company They Keep by Diana Glyer. This book will probably become the standard book when people need to know something about The Inklings. If you are interested in the Inklings, this is the book to read. After winning the 2006/2007 Imperishable Flame Award the wonderful book by Diana Glyer had been nominated for a Hugo Award, as Best Related Book, but sadly did not win. Now however it has now been awarded by the Mythopoeic Society! Congratulations! It was well deserved!

Dr. Glyer is a professor of English at Azusa Pacific University. She has published extensively on Lewis, Tolkien, and the Inklings, including contributions to The C. S. Lewis Readers’ Encyclopedia and C. S. Lewis: Life, Works, and Legacy. She is the recipient of the Wade Center's Clyde S. Kilby Research Grant (1997) and APU's Chase A. Sawtell Inspirational Teaching Award (2002). Her latest book is The Company They Keep: C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien as Writers in Community.

Fans of Tolkien, Lewis, Charles Williams, and the other lesser-known Inklings will be excited by this book... This important study challenges the standard interpretation that Lewis, Tolkien, Charles Williams, Owen Barfield, and the other Inklings had little influence on one another’s work, drawing on the latest research in composition studies and the sociology of the creative process.

Here is a nice review of this book written by Josh B. Long.

The other winners this year are:

Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Adult Literature:

The stories Catherynne M Valente tells have a fairytale, mythical quality about them; there are stories within stories within stories, weaving in and out of each other; and it is all told in Valente's flowing, beautiful prose. She takes some basic archetypes - the prince, the maiden and the witch, for instance - and turns them on their head in an oft-peculiar way, sometimes subtly and sometimes not, with ideas drawn from a wide spread of cultures and a fair few from the imagination-rich world inside her own head.

The Orphan's Tales are a series of interconnected fairy tales for adults journeys into a fantastical world populated by heron kings, fox-faced women who command living ships, and goose girls who can really fly. This is a dazzling, original, interesting series, and I recommend it to everyone who wants a taste of something fresh and fantastic.

Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Children's Literature:

Harry Potter has captivated the world for many years and will do for many in the future. J.K. Rowling has now finished the series and no one else deserves this award more then she!

For all fans now you can buy a fantastic boxed set, which makes a fabulous opportunity to own all seven Harry Potter titles - Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

Talking about J.K. Rowling, I also need to mention The Tales of Beedle the Bard, Collector's Edition (Offered Exclusively by Amazon). We all remember this auction. While the Tolkien books and letter up for sale during the auction fetched very high prices, the real highlight was a book by J.K. Rowling called The Tales of Beedle the Bard.

The book of five wizarding fairy tales, referenced in the last book of the Harry Potter series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, was one of only seven handmade copies in existence.

Amazon.co.uk purchased the book for £1,950,000, and Ms. Rowling donated the proceeds to The Children's Voice campaign, a charity she co-founded to help improve the lives of institutionalized children across Europe.

Now The Tales of Beedle the Bard is being published by The Children’s High Level Group (CHLG), registered charity number 1112575, a charity co-founded in 2005 by J.K. Rowling and Emma Nicholson MEP to make life better for vulnerable children.

All net proceeds from the sale will be donated to The Children's Voice campaign. The book is now available for pre-order and looks stunning. Don't miss out on this exclusive edition.

Collector's Edition Product Features:
• All five fairy tales from the original The Tales of Beedle the Bard
• An outer case disguised as a wizarding textbook from the Hogwarts library
• Handwritten version of J.K. Rowling's new introduction
• 10 new illustrations by J.K. Rowling not included in the Standard Edition or the original handcrafted edition
• Velvet bag embroidered with J.K. Rowling's signature
• Metal skull, corners, and clasp
• Replica gemstones
• Emerald ribbon

Mythopoeic Scholarship Award in Myth and Fantasy Studies:

Lower mythology, which contains most of the creatures who populate pop culture, did not spring from the imagination of special effects technicians. Instead, valkyries, dragons, elves, and even the odd werewolf were a part of folk culture for hundreds, if not thousands of years, waiting only to be captured between book covers by such as Jacob Grimm.
In these 11 accessible essays contributors examine what Grimm exposed to the world of light with topics such as mythography and mythology in the nineteenth century, dwarfs and giants in Germanic tradition, a cultural history of the troll, elves as a category problem, the borderline humanity of Grendel, Norse dragons, Norse wise women, Norse and German sources compared to the English, and the enduring identity crises of werewolves.

Editor Shippey (English, St. Louis U.) gives Grimm his due in the conclusion while conceding Grimm was sometimes wrong, and often politically incorrect. We all know Shippey from his wonderful Author of the Century. With a clear and accessible style, Shippey offers a new approach to Tolkien, to fantasy, and to the importance of language in literature. He demonstrates how The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and THE SILMARILLION form part of a live and continuing tradition of storytelling that can trace its roots back through Grimms' FAIREY TALES to BEOWULF.

J.R.R. TOLKIEN: AUTHOR OF THE CENTURY not only gives readers a deeper understanding of Tolkien and his work, but also serves as a learned and entertaining introduction to some of the finest and most influential works of fantasy ever written.

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