Contents
Cover illustration by Maggie Lindorfer
Inside cover: "In a Season of Calm Weather," a story by Ruth Berman
Contents page
Conference Theme and Subtheme
Carol Kendall
Jane Yolen
Jack Zipes
Dorothy L. Sayers
The Mythopoeic Society and the Mythopoeic Awards
The Mythcon 24 Program
[including] Special Events, Papers, Panels & programs, miscellany
Ads
Acknowledgements
This theme was chosen several years ago to invoke particular books and
their authors. First of all, the titles of the Alice In Wonderland books
by Lewis Carroll: Down the Rabbit Hole and Through The Looking
Glass. Probably the most famous children's books of the Nineteenth Century,
the Alice books are also representative of the Victorian Fantasy that has
been of great interest to the members of the Rivendell Group, and members
of the English and German departments for a number of years. Such past and
present members as Ruth Berman, P.C. Hodgell, Michael M. Levy, Louisa Smith,
David Lenander, Rick Henry, Donna White, Peg Kerr Ihinger, Ruth Jeffries,
James Maertens, and Cathy Parlin, have studied with such professors as William
Madden, C. Michael Hancher, Stephen Prickett, Margery Durham, Rodney Shewan,
Gordon Hirsch, Jack Zipes, and Karen Nelson Hoyle, many of whom have also
spoken to the Rivendell Group. The Nineteenth Century roots of the work
of the Inklings-Owen Barfield, C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, Charles Williams
and the others-have been explored in the discussions of the Rivendell Group
since its beginnings in 1973. Of course it was the works of the Inklings
that brought us together, many of us first discovering children's fantasy
in Tolkien's The Hobbit or Lewis's Narnia books, beginning with The
Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe. And so it is these stories that we
call to mind along with Carroll's.
The Mythopoeic Society came together in 1967, in California, as a discussion
group devoted to the Inklings' fantasy. It soon grew to include discussion
groups scattered all across North America, and gradually developed interests
in the Inklings' critical approaches and scholarship as well as their biography
and fiction. The Inklings were themselves originally a college group, celebrating
not only their shared creativity in their original fantasy, but their friendship
and common interests in literature of all periods, talk and argument. They
were not the first such group, or even the first such school of fantasy
writers, but they participated consciously in a rich literary tradition
that we continue today, however much we may expand or add to that tradition.
They were certainly among the first critics to take fantasy and Children's
books as seriously as they took Beowulf, Chaucer or Milton. However seriously
they took their Nesbitt, Caroll or Macdonald, they never failed to enjoy
it, nor became so tangled in theory as to lose either the original texts
or intelligibility in theoretical jargon. Today, at Mythcon 24, we celebrate
not only the Inklings' fiction, but also such essays as "On Fairy Stories,"
and "On Three Ways of Writing for Children." And recognize some
of their true heirs in Carol Kendall, Jane Yolen and Jack Zipes.
Even as the Society and Rivendell have studied the "Roots of Tolkien's
Tree" (as we called them in a lecture series we sponsored some years
ago), so have our members and mentors gone on to harvest new fruits of our
studies and conversations. Articles, dissertations, stories and poems, and
less tangible fruits in the teaching and scholarship informed by our discussions
in many ways. Some of these are in evidence this weekend, not only in the
program detailed in this book, or the novels and Mythlores for sale
in the Goblin Market, but in the conversations in the hallways, the questions
asked, the jokes cracked and the songs sung in the evenings.
This weekend we hope to peer down Bilbo Baggins' hobbit-hole into the past,
examining again the foundations of our fantasy literature, and to accompany
Lucy through the Wardrobe, exploring new worlds of fantasy in papers, panels
and readings by familiar and new writers. We've asked three authors who
have taken those journeys, and journeys of their own, to be our guides.
Jack Zipes will talk about "The Wizard of Oz as American Myth,"
while Jane Yolen, who has often acknowledged her debt as a story teller
to such writers as Rudyard Kipling, and J.M. Barrie, will re-examine some
of the fantasy texts like Kingsley's Water Babies in her talk on
Saturday, "Dark Mirrors." On Sunday evening we'll listen to Carol
Kendall share some of the wisdom that has enabled her to create characters
like Muggles and her Maxims.
Mythcon XXIV's subtheme is "Fantasy in the Midwest." This subtheme
will run through panels on "The Fantastic Tradition in Minnesota and
Wisconsin" and on Minnesota children's writer/illustrator, Wanda Gág,
readings by several Midwestern writers, a video tape of a Minnesota children's
theatre production, as well as some of the scholarly papers. We have a number
of programs relating to the great, American midwestern dream of the Land
of Oz, notably our keynote address by Minnesota resident Jack Zipes.
Wisconsin is the longtime home of Arkham House and the current home of Amazing
Stories. Robert Bloch lived and wrote there for many years. Clifford
D. Simak grew up in southwestern Wisconsin and repeatedly wrote about his
youthful environs during his many decades as the patriarch of Minnesota
SF writers. Poul Anderson went to college in Minnesota and Thomas M. Disch
grew up here. Current Wisconsin writers of the fantastic include Joan Vinge,
P.C. Hodgell, Phyllis Ann Karr, and Kris Jensen. Of the many SF writers
currently living in Minnesota, Gordon R. Dickson is the best known. Current
Minnesota speculative writers who have written novels partly set in the
state include Charles V. De Vet (Special Feature), John Sladek (Roderick
and Bugs), Eleanor Arnason (Daughter of the Bear King), Emma
Bull (War for the Oaks), Pamela Dean (Tam Lin), and Caroline
Stevermer (River Rats).
Minnesota has a strong two-decades old tradition of SF writing groups, currently
including the Aaardvards, the Scribblies and The Workshop. The Minnesota
Imaginative Fiction Writers' Alliance (MIFWA) serves as a resource sharing
network for Minnesota SF & F writers. Tales of the Unanticipated
is a semi-professional speculative fiction magazine published by the Minnesota
Science Fiction Society.
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d-lena@maroon.tc.umn.edu