Acceptance Remarks — 2024
2024 Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Adult Literature
Emma Törzs, Ink, Blood, Sister, Scribe
Thank you so much for recognizing my first novel, Ink Blood Sister Scribe, with a Mythopoeic award. It is a delight and an honor, especially considering the longstanding history of the Inklings and the Mythopoeic society, and the work you’ve long carried out within the speculative community. As both an author and a fan, I am grateful. I will treasure this award!
2024 Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Young Adult Literature
Frances Hardinge, Unraveller
I am delighted that the Mythopoeic Society decided to include a YA category among their roster of awards this year, and not just because I won. I am in awe of my fellow YA genre fiction authors, a fearless, passionate, endlessly experimental crowd, and it’s always exciting to see new prizes that recognise their ground-breaking work. But... yes, from a selfish point of view, I am extremely happy to have won it.
There are some stories which flow swiftly and easily from one’s brain, and are a dream to write. Unraveller was not one of those books — quite the reverse. For one thing, a large portion of it was written during lockdown, when like a lot of other authors I found writing unexpectedly difficult. (I know that there are some writers who thrived under lockdown and managed magnificent bursts of productivity, and I promise I don’t hate them at all.) In my case, I felt as though I was squeezing my brain like a tube of toothpaste in order to produce words. I then realised that I’d squeezed too hard and produced far too many words, and epic feats of editing were required.
I think one of the reasons I struggled so hard and so long with the book was because I wanted to get it right. It is a story of many things — of curses, conspiracies, man-eating horses, misty marshwoods, supernatural spiders and dangerous fae realms — but it is also a story of trauma and recovery. It is a tale of losing yourself in the darkest of forests, and finding your way out again. I wanted to handle this with emotional honesty so that it would ring true. This wonderful award makes all my efforts feel worthwhile.
Many thanks to the Mythopoeic Society, the judges, my agent Molly, my erstwhile agent Nancy, and all the wonderful publishing folks at Pan Macmillan and Abrams!
2024 Mythopoeic Scholarship Award for Inklings Studies
José María Miranda Boto, Law, Government, and Society in J.R.R. Tolkien’s Works
It is the most unexpected of honors for me to have been awarded the 2024 Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Inklings Studies. Being a Spaniard and a lawyer, two strange characteristics that had never been present in a winner beforehand, I feel like a little Hobbit who is admitted to the Council of the Wise.
My first thanks, naturally, must go to the Jury, who has made happy someone who writes about Tolkien as a hobby and not as trade.
My second thanks go to Tom Shippey, who endorsed my work with his prestige, giving me the most beautiful of the prologues. I still can’t believe that I have joined him, and so many other distinguished scholars such as Verlyn Flieger, in the Halls of this Award.
Next in my gratitude is Peter Buchs, editor of Walking Tree, who in Birmingham in 2019 considered that my topic could lead to an interesting book for a reader who does not live in court.
I conclude by thanking all the friends who accompanied me during the writing of the book, providing numerous observations that made it a much more complete work than what I had achieved. Everyone will understand that I distinguish among them Friar José Anido, who has found his own role as an inhabitant of my footnotes.
The ultimate thanks go to my wife. Without her, and her patience, and the sacrifice of our shared leisure time, none of this could have been achieved.
With this award, the three functions of Fantasy become reality for me: recovery, escape, consolation. Thank you so much. Muchas gracias.
2024 Mythopoeic Award for Myth and Fantasy Studies
Matthew Sangster, An Introduction to Fantasy
I’m honoured and delighted to accept this award — many thanks to the judging panel and to the Mythopoeic Society for recognising An Introduction to Fantasy in this way! I’m flattered to have been shortlisted alongside four excellent and insightful books — many congratulations to their authors too!
I wrote this book to try and help explain why we care about Fantasy, and why we should care about it. I wanted to explore how Fantasy helps us make and improve reality, how its repetitions and returns constitute a distinctive strength, how its deep roots inform its modern manifestations, how its questioning spirit provides an equally valuable counterpoint to realism, how its worlds enchant us, and how its communities sustain the genre as a living, ever-changing site of meetings and connections. I’m very grateful that the book’s ideas seem to resonate — I hope that it can continue to be useful.
I’d like to dedicate this award to our Fantasy community at the University of Glasgow. It’s been a joy to teach on our Fantasy Master’s programme and a privilege to supervise brilliant PhD students over the past eight years. I look forward to continuing to learn for many years to come.