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Mythopoeic Awards


Acceptance Remarks — 2007

2007 Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Adult Literature

Patricia McKillip Author, Solstice Wood
Solstice Wood by Patricia A. McKillip
Many, many thanks for giving me yet another lion. I’m always quite pleased when I make it onto the nominations list for the Mythopoeic Fantasy Award, because I’m always in extraordinary company, and I enjoy reading the books on the list as well. Solstice Wood was very much a labor of love, and I’m happy that it gives pleasure to others. Sorry I couldn’t be there myself to accept the award, but I’m lost in that dreadful place, the Mire of the Middle of the Unfinished Novel, and can barely find my way to do my laundry, let alone to any place as civilized as Mythcon in Berkeley. I do send my wholehearted appreciation and good wishes to you all.



2007 Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Children’s Literature

Corbenic by Catherine Fisher Catherine Fisher Author, Corbenic

It is a great honour and pleasure to accept the Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Children’s Literature for my novel Corbenic.

Since encountering the Holy Grail in Malory as a child I have been fascinated by the complexities of the legend, and it has been a long-held ambition to write a Grail romance of my own. The challenge was to update the events of the story while trying not to lose its mysterious and numinous nature. I enjoyed setting the story in my own country, the Welsh borders; having Arthur’s men as a re-enactment group, and allowing Merlin to sell newspapers in Chepstow High Street. Finally I managed to bring Cal, and myself, to an achievement of the Grail, but as the old chronicler warns, ‘no one should repeat the great wonders to be encountered ... for they are part of the mystery of the Grail.’

And as my fellow townsman, the great Arthur Machen, once wrote, ‘choose the mysteries first, and I choose them last.’

Thank you again for your support and recognition. I hope the Conference is a success, and that great wonders will happen at the banquet.



2007 Mythopoeic Scholarship Award for Inklings Studies

Christina Scull & Wayne G. Hammond Authors, The J.R.R. Tolkien Companion and Guide
The J.R.R. Tolkien Companion and Guide by Christina Scull and Wayne G. Hammond Web site: www.bcn.net/~whammond

It is a great pleasure to accept this award. It is, we hope, a sign not only of recognition of further achievement in Inklings Studies, but also of forgiveness for the several times The J.R.R. Tolkien Companion and Guide was announced for publication but failed to appear. If we had not run out of steam (and our publishers out of patience), we might still be writing: Tolkien’s life and works are of endless interest, and new facts are still coming to light.

Having (as was said of Gibbon) scribble, scribble, scribbled for some ten years and produced several thick, square books, we are taking a break in order to experience the joys of home improvement. As our renovations enter their fourth noisy, dust-filled month, we regret that we can be with the Society assembled in Berkeley only in spirit.



2007 Mythopoeic Award for Myth and Fantasy Studies

G. Ronald Murphy Author, Gemstone of Paradise: The Holy Grail in Wolfram’s Parzival
Gemstone of Paradise: The Holy Grail in Wolfram's Parzival by G. Ronald Murphy, S.J. Web site: www.gronaldmurphy.com

I am happy to make an announcement: the ushers will not be taking up a collection.

This is the second time the Lion has roared in my direction and I want you to know how grateful I am to receive the Scholarship award. It is especially meaningful to me since it comes from such a unique group of lovers of myth and tale in the tradition of C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien. May I especially extend my gratitude to the members of the scholarship award committee for reading and for choosing Gemstone of Paradise. I would like to add a thank you as well to Eleanor for her careful work, and to Eric for his beautiful and cleverly non-spoiling review in Mythprint. In the tradition of the Inklings when I awoke this morning and put on my shirt I thought I might be becoming one of them. When I had put the pen in my shirt pocket I must have forgotten to close it — the shirt is now blessed with an impressive ink stain.

Thank you very much, I am deeply grateful for your appreciation of my work.

[Editor: We were delighted that MSA author/winner Father Ron Murphy was able to attend Mythcon 38 and participate in our conference programming as well as accept his award during the banquet. His opening remark stemmed from him wearing his clerical collar as banquet attire.]



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