Bandersnatch, Diana Pavlac Glyer’s new book about the Inklings writing group and its creative processes, arrives November 30.

C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, and the Inklings met each week to read and discuss each other’s work-in-progress, offering both encouragement and blistering critique. How did these conversations shape the books they were writing? How does creative collaboration enhance individual talent?

The paperback is available for preorder from Kent State University Press, Amazon and other sources.

Complemented with original illustrations by James Owen, Bandersnatch offers an inside look at the Inklings of Oxford—and a seat at their table at the Eagle and Child pub. It shows how encouragement and criticism made all the difference in The Lord of the Rings, The Chronicles of Narnia, and dozens of other books written by the members of this literary group. You’ll learn what made these writers tick and more: inspired by their example, you’ll discover how collaboration can help your own creative process and lead to genius breakthroughs in whatever work you do.

Owen’s visuals feature in this promotional video —

Michael Ward, coeditor of C.S. Lewis at Poets’ Corner, recommends Bandersnatch.

No one knows more than Diana Pavlac Glyer about the internal workings of the Inklings. In Bandersnatch, she shows us how they inspired, encouraged, refined, and opposed one another in the course of producing some of the greatest literature of the last one hundred years. A brilliant and beautifully clear case study of iron sharpening iron.