2009 Mythopoeic Award Finalists Announced

The cover-art alone just makes us drool.

The winners of this year’s awards will be announced during Mythcon XL, to be held July 17-20, 2009, in Los Angeles, Calif.

The nonprofit Mythopoeic Society promotes fantastic and mythic literature, particularly the works of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis and Charles Williams, all of whom belonged to the informal Oxford literary circle known as the “Inklings.”

Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Adult LiteratureCarol Berg, Flesh and Spirit and Breath and Bone (Roc)
Daryl Gregory, Pandemonium (Del Rey)
Ursula K. Le Guin, Lavinia (Harcourt)
Patricia A. McKillip, The Bell at Sealey Head (Ace)
Gene Wolfe, An Evil Guest (Tor)

Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Children’s Literature

Kristin Cashore, Graceling (Harcourt Children’s Books)
Neil Gaiman, The Graveyard Book (HarperCollins)
Diana Wynne Jones, House of Many Ways (HarperCollins)
Ingrid Law, Savvy (Dial)
Terry Pratchett, Nation (HarperCollins)

Mythopoeic Scholarship Award in Inklings Studies

Gavin Ashenden, Charles Williams: Alchemy and Imagination (Kent State, 2008)
Veryln Flieger and Douglas A. Anderson, eds. Tolkien on Fairy-Stories: Expanded Edition, With Commentary and Notes (HarperCollins, 2008)
John Rateliff, The History of the Hobbit, Part One: Mr. Baggins; Part Two: Return to Bag-End (Houghton Mifflin, 2007)
Michael Ward, Planet Narnia: The Seven Heavens in the Imagination of C.S. Lewis (Oxford, 2008)
Elizabeth A. Whittingham, The Evolution of Tolkien’s Mythology: A Study of the History of Middle-earth (McFarland, 2008)

Mythopoeic Scholarship Award in Myth and Fantasy Studies

Charles Butler, Four British Fantasists: Place and Culture in the Children’s Fantasies of Penelope Lively, Alan Garner, Diana Wynne Jones, and Susan Cooper (Children’s Literature Association & Scarecrow Press, 2006)
Jason Marc Harris, Folklore and the Fantastic in Nineteenth-Century British Fiction (Ashgate, 2008)
Farah Mendlesohn, Rhetorics of Fantasy (Wesleyan University Press, 2008)
Marek Oziewicz, One Earth, One People: The Mythopoeic Fantasy Series of Ursula K. Le Guin, Madeleine L’Engle and Orson Scott Card (McFarland, 2008)
Richard Carl Tuerk, Oz in Perspective: Magic and Myth in the Frank L. Baum Books (McFarland, 2007)

Intrigued?  Find out more about The Mythopoeic Society and it’s Members here.

Accidental Billionaires to Hit Big Screen

Kevin Spacey set to produce movie version of Ben Mezrich’s Book ‘The Accidental Billionaires‘ with Sony.  Expect Aaron Sorkin and Scott Rudin to also be involved.

“The incredible true story of the accidental creation of Facebook, and the even more amazing tale of what followed.”

Catch LA Times Interview with Playmate Turned Author Lily Burana

“Burana, a former punk rocker who wrote a memoir about stripping (“Strip City”) and once posed for Playboy, might seem  an odd candidate to marry a military man. But that’s exactly what she did, about seven years ago, before her then-boyfriend Mike, an Army officer, shipped out for Iraq. Her new memoir, “I Love a Man in Uniform,” is about that experience and the many unexpected issues it raised for her”

Don’t let the flashy image fool you.  This author knows what it’s like to get down and  dirty in the writing trenches and how to come out muddied and proud and profound.

The LA Times full interview here.