The Mythopoeic Society has announced the finalists for the 2009 Mythopoeic Awards. The winners will be announced during Mythcon XL, which will be held 17-20 July at the University of California—Los Angeles (UCLA).
The nominees are:
Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Adult Literature:
Flesh and Spirit and Breath and Bone by Carol Berg (published by Roc)
Pandemonium by Daryl Gregory (Del Rey)
Lavinia by Ursula K. Le Guin (Harcourt)
The Bell at Sealey Head by Patricia A. McKillip (Ace)
An Evil Guest by Gene Wolfe (Tor)
Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Children’s Literature:
Graceling by Kristin Cashore, Graceling (Harcourt Children’s)
The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman (HarperCollins)
House of Many Ways by Diana Wynne Jones (HarperCollins)
Savvy by Ingrid Law (Dial)
Nation by Terry Pratchett (HarperCollins)
Mythopoeic Scholarship Award in Inklings Studies:
Charles Williams: Alchemy and Imagination by Gavin Ashenden (Kent State University Press, 2008)
Tolkien on Fairy-stories: Expanded Edition, with Commentary and Notes edited by Verlyn Flieger and Douglas A. Anderson (HarperCollins, 2008)
The History of the Hobbit (Part One: Mr. Baggins; Part Two: Return to Bag-end) by John Rateliff (Houghton Mifflin, 2007)
Planet Narnia: The Seven Heavens in the Imagination of C.S. Lewis by Michael Ward (Oxford, 2008)
The Evolution of Tolkien’s Mythology: A Study of the History of Middle-earth by Elizabeth A. Whittingham (McFarland, 2008)
Mythopoeic Scholarship Award in Myth and Fantasy Studies:
Four British Fantasists: Place and Culture in the Children’s Fantasies of Penelope Lively, Alan Garner, Diana Wynne Jones, and Susan Cooper by Charles Butler (Children’s Literature Association & Scarecrow Press, 2006)
Folklore and the Fantastic in Nineteenth-Century British Fiction by Jason Marc Harris (Ashgate, 2008)
Rhetorics of Fantasy by Farah Mendlesohn (Wesleyan University Press, 2008)
One Earth, One People: The Mythopoeic Fantasy Series of Ursula K. Le Guin, Lloyd Alexander, Madeleine L’Engle, and Orson Scott Card by Marek Oziewicz (McFarland, 2008)
Oz in Perspective: Magic and Myth in the Frank L. Baum Books by Richard Carl Tuerk (McFarland, 2007)
The Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Adult Literature is given to the fantasy novel, multi-volume, or single-author story collection for adults published during 2008 that best exemplifies the spirit of the Inklings. Books are eligible for two years after publication if not 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 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.
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 (2006–2008) 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 Mythopoeic Society is a non-profit international literary and educational organization for the study, discussion, and enjoyment of fantastic and mythic literature, especially the works of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, and Charles Williams. Membership in the Mythopoeic Society is open to all scholars, writers, and readers of these literatures.