Mythopoeic Award Finalists Announced
The Mythopoeic Society announced the 2014 Mythopoeic Awards finalists. Winners will be announced at Mythcon 45, August 8-11, 2014, at Wheaton College in Norton MA. Guests of Honor include author Ursula Vernon (a writer, artist and illustrator, winner of the 2013 Mythopoeic Award for Adult Literature for her graphic novel Digger) and scholar Richard C. West (winner of the 1976 Mythopoeic Award for Inklings Studies for Tolkien Criticism).
Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Adult Literature: Given to the fantasy novel, multi-volume novel, or single-author story collection for adults published during the previous year that best exemplifies “the spirit of the Inklings”. Books not selected as finalists in the year after publication are eligible for a second year. Books from a series are eligible if they stand on their own; otherwise, the series becomes eligible the year its final volume appears.
The Ghost Bride, Yangsze Choo (Morrow)
The Ocean at the End of the Lane, Neil Gaiman (Morrow)
Three Parts Dead, Max Gladstone (Tor)
Sleepless Knights, Mark H. Williams (Atomic Fez)
The Golem and the Jinni, Helene Wecker (Harper)
Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Children’s Literature: Honors books for younger readers (from “Young Adults” to picture books for beginning readers), 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.
Ghoulish Song, William Alexander (McElderry)
Doll Bones, Holly Black (McElderry)
Killer of Enemies, Joseph Bruchac (Tu Books)
Conjured, Sara Beth Durst (Walker)
Shadows, Robin McKinley (Paulsen)
Mythopoeic Scholarship Award in Inklings Studies: Given to books on J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, and/or Charles Williams that make significant contributions to Inklings scholarship. For this award, books first published during the previous three years are eligible, including finalists for previous years.
There and Back Again: J.R.R. Tolkien and the Origins of the Hobbit, Mark Atherton (I.B. Tauris)
C.S. Lewis and the Middle Ages, Robert Boenig (Kent State University Press)
Tolkien and the Study of His Sources: Critical Essays, Jason Fisher, ed. (McFarland)
C.S. Lewis—A Life: Eccentric Genius, Reluctant Prophet, Alister McGrath (Tyndale House)
Exploring J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit, Corey Olsen (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
Mythopoeic Scholarship Award in Myth and Fantasy Studies: 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 Book of Legendary Lands, Umberto Eco; Alastair McEwan, trans. (Rizzoli Ex Libris)
Dancing the Tao: Le Guin and Moral Development, Sandra J. Lindow (Cambridge Scholars)
Tree of Salvation: Yggdrasil and the Cross in the North, G. Ronald Murphy (Oxford University Press)
As If: Modern Enchantment and the Literary Prehistory of Virtual Reality, Michael Saler (Oxford University Press)
Critical Discourses of the Fantastic, 1712-1831, David Sandner (Ashgate)
