2019 Mythopoeic Awards Finalists

The 2019 Mythopoeic Awards finalists were posted June 6.

The Mythopoeic Awards are chosen from books nominated by individual members of the Mythopoeic Society, and selected by a committee of Society members.

Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Adult Literature Finalists:

  • Mishell Baker, The Arcadia Project series: Borderline; Phantom Pains; Impostor Syndrome (Saga Press)  
  • Sarah Rees Brennan, In Other Lands: A Novel (Big Mouth House)  
  • Ruthanna Emrys, The Innsmouth Legacy series: “Litany of Earth” in New Cthulhu 2: More Recent Weird (Prime Books); Winter Tide (Tor.com); Deep Roots (Tor.com)  
  • Madeline Miller, Circe: A Novel (Little, Brown)  
  • Naomi Novik, Spinning Silver (Del Rey)  

Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Children’s Literature Finalists:

  • Jorge Aguirre and Rafael Rosado, The Chronicles of Claudette series: Giants Beware!; Dragons Beware!; Monsters Beware! (First Second) 
  • Jonathan Auxier, Sweep: The Story of a Girl and Her Monster (Harry N. Abrams) 
  • Sarah Beth Durst, The Stone Girl’s Story (Clarion Books) 
  • Wendy Mass and Rebecca Stead, Bob (Feiwel and Friends) 
  • Emily Tetri, Tiger vs. Nightmare (First Second) 

Mythopoeic Scholarship Award in Inklings Studies  Finalists:

  • Jane Chance, Tolkien, Self and Other: “This Queer Creature” (Palgrave Macmillan, 2016) 
  • Lisa Coutras, Tolkien’s Theology of Beauty: Majesty, Splendor, and Transcendence in Middle-earth (Palgrave Macmillan, 2016)  
  • Verlyn Flieger, There Would Always Be a Fairy Tale: More Essays on Tolkien (Kent State University Press, 2017) 
  • Catherine McIlwaine, Tolkien: Maker of Middle-earth (Bodleian Library, University of Oxford, 2018) 
  • Jonathan S. McIntosh, The Flame Imperishable: Tolkien, St. Thomas, and the Metaphysics of Faërie (Angelico Press, 2017)  

Mythopoeic Scholarship Award in Myth and Fantasy Studies Finalists:

  • Dimitra Fimi, Celtic Myth in Contemporary Children’s Fantasy: Idealization, Identity, Ideology (Springer Nature, 2017) 
  • Elizabeth Sanders, Genres of Doubt: Science Fiction, Fantasy and the Victorian Crisis of Faith (McFarland, 2017) 
  • Jonas Wellendorf, Gods and Humans in Medieval Scandinavia: Retying the Bonds (Cambridge University Press, 2018) 
  • Mark J. P. Wolf, The Routledge Companion to Imaginary Worlds (Routledge, 2018) 
  • Helen Young, Race and Popular Fantasy Literature: Habits of Whiteness (Routledge, 2016)   

The Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Adult Literature is given to the fantasy novel, multi-volume novel, or single-author story collection for adults published during the previous year that best exemplifies “the spirit of the Inklings”. Books are eligible for two years after publication if 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 beginning readers to age thirteen, 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. Books for mature “Young Adults” may be moved to the Adult literature category.

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 (2016–2018) 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 50, to be held from August 2-5, 2019, in San Diego, California. 

Update 06/17/2019 Corrected one the category definitions per Lynn Maudlin’s comment.

7 thoughts on “2019 Mythopoeic Awards Finalists

  1. **Finally** Circe gets nominated for something. 🙂

    Those are all interesting nominees, and I never realized til now that books were eligible for two years after publication. Good thing I’m not voting — I’d have a hard time picking between the Brennan, Miller, and Novik.

  2. I don’t know whether the fact that I’ve read all the novels means that the award is too mainstream, or that I’m vaguely keeping up with current work (where I used to be 2+ years behind, at best). I thought the Brennan was a pandering mess (but realize I’m not common in this opinion), but the rest of the list is seriously impressive. I’m also amused that the Brennan shows up on the adult list, where it’s up for not-a-Hugo YA award (which ISTM is much more in its range).

  3. @Chip Hitchcock

    I really liked the early bits of In Other Lands and then gradually liked it less and less the more I was expected to sympathise with the main character while he stayed just as much of a jerk. And the (rot13) unecl storyline — I don’t know whether it was an improvised late addition, but it felt like one, and it didn’t work for me at all.

  4. @Meredith: my notes say the permanently-unlikable lead wasn’t my only issue — I thought the plotting was generally missing-in-action, cf your observation of a possibly improvise late addtion — but it was a major issue.

  5. @Chip —

    I thought the Brennan was a pandering mess (but realize I’m not common in this opinion)

    I loved the book to death — it made me happy all over 😉 — but as I wrote in my original review for it, it’s obviously very much a Marmite sort of book.

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  7. Thanks, Mike, for posting this – it wasn’t until reading the comments here that I realized we had a TYPO on the MythSoc website!

    Regarding the Mythopoeic Fantasy Awards, only books that became finalists in their first year of eligibility are eligible to be considered for a second year. So it should read:
    “The Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Adult Literature is given to the fantasy novel, multi-volume novel, or single-author story collection for adults published during the previous year that best exemplifies “the spirit of the Inklings”. Books are eligible for two years after publication if 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.” (from http://www.mythsoc.org/awards.htm)

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