The Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Adult Literature is given to the fantasy novel, multi-volume, or single-author story collection for adults published during 2009 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.

Update: it turns out that one of the nominees for Scholarship in Inklings Studies for “Arda Reconstructed: The Creation of the Published Silmarillion” is none other than message board member Voronwe the Faithful (a.k.a. Douglas Charles Kane). Congratulations and good luck, Doug!

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 (2007–2009) 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 during Mythcon XLI, to be held from July 9 -12, in Dallas, Texas. A complete list of Mythopoeic Award winners is available on the Society web site: http://www.mythsoc.org/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: David Oberhelman, awards@mythsoc.org

Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Adult Literature
Barbara Campbell, Trickster’s Game trilogy consisting of Heartwood,
Bloodstone, and Foxfire (DAW)
Greer Gilman, Cloud & Ashes: Three Winter’s Tales (Small Beer Press)
Robert Holdstock, Avilion (Gollancz)
Catherynne M. Valente, Palimpsest (Spectra)
Jo Walton, Lifelode (NESFA Press)

Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Children’s Literature
Kage Baker, The Hotel Under the Sand (Tachyon)
Shannon Hale, Books of Bayern consisting of The Goose Girl, Enna Burning, River Secrets, and
Forest Born (Bloomsbury)
Grace Lin, Where the Mountain Meets the Moon (Little, Brown)
Malinda Lo, Ash (Little, Brown)
Lisa Mantchev, Eyes Like Stars (Feiwel & Friends)

Mythopoeic Scholarship Award in Inklings Studies
Gavin Ashenden, Charles Williams: Alchemy and Integration (Kent State, 2008)
Dimitra Fimi, Tolkien, Race, and Cultural History: From Fairies to Hobbits (Palgrave Macmillan, 2009)
Douglas Charles Kane, Arda Reconstructed: The Creation of the Published Silmarillion (Lehigh Univ. Press, 2009)
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
Lucas H. Harriman, Lilith in a New Light: Essays on George Macdonald’s Fantasy Novel (McFarland, 2008)
Farah Mendlesohn, Rhetorics of Fantasy (Wesleyan Univ. 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)
Leslie A. Sconduto, Metamorphoses of the Werewolf: A Literary Study from Antiquity through the Renaissance
(McFarland 2008)
Caroline Sumpter, The Victorian Press and the Fairy Tale (Palgrave Macmillan, 2008)