Tag Archives: Inklings

Diana Speaks at Wheaton on Oct. 20

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Dr. Diana Pavlac Glyer

Diana Pavlac Glyer lectures about “C.S. Lewis’s Fingerprints on the Map of Middle-Earth” in the Wade Center at Wheaton College at 4 p.m. Wednesday, October 20. The topic of her talk is based on her study of collaboration among the Inklings, which was completed using resources at the Marion E. Wade Center.

Dr. Glyer is the author of The Company They Keep: C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien as Writers in Community. Her book reveals the behind-the-scenes story of how Lewis, Tolkien, Owen Barfield, Charles Williams, and other Inklings influenced each other’s works, and in the words of Wade Center Associate Director Marjorie Lamp Mead, “deserves a place in the library of all those who value the works of the Inklings.”

Dr. Glyer is a professor of English at Azusa Pacific University and was the winner of the Mythopoeic Scholarship Award for Inklings Studies in 2008, and also a Hugo nominee.  

This lecture is free and open to the public. It takes place at The Marion E. Wade Center, located at 351 E. Lincoln Avenue in Wheaton (campus map).

The Marion E. Wade Center at Wheaton College is a special library, archives, and museum devoted to the works of seven British authors including C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, Charles Williams, Dorothy L. Sayers, G.K. Chesterton, George MacDonald, and Owen Barfield. Wheaton College (Wheaton, Ill.) is a coeducational Christian liberal arts college noted for its rigorous academics, integration of faith and learning, and consistent ranking among the top liberal arts colleges in the country.

[Based on the Wheaton College press release.]

Diana Glyer Speaking
at 2010 Inklings Conference

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The C.S. Lewis and Inklings Society has invited Diana to be one of the keynote speakers at their 13th Annual Conference at Oklahoma City University on April 9-10, 2010, where the theme will be “C. S. Lewis and the Inklings: Discovering Hidden Truth.”

I noticed the Aslans Country blog turned her appearance into one of the “hidden truths” by devoting a ginormous headline to the name of the other speaker and only mentioning Diana in the fine print. 

So let the blogosphere’s accounts now stand in balance…!

Good Company

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There’s been a small flurry of new reviews by people who love Diana’s book about the Inklings, The Company They Keep.

John Adcox drew comparisons with Humphrey Carpenter’s group biography:

Glyer’s book makes a wonderful companion to Carpenter’s more well known volume, and stands very well on its own. Carpenter’s book is a biography; Glyer’s is an examination of the very significant ways in which, as a community, the Inkings challenged, inspired, influenced, and supported one another. The Company The Keep is a terrific and insightful read.

Jason Fisher said kind things about the book, beginning with this observation about the paperback edition:

This says a lot, actually; most books on Tolkien, Lewis, and the Inklings never get a second printing, or never go from hardcover to soft.

He also praised David Bratman’s contributions:

The appendix and index by David Bratman are, collectively, a work of art, ne plus ultra. Would be bibliographers and indexers should take them as a model.

Steve Hayes came away from The Company They Keep impressed with the value of artistic communities and convinced can be even more readily organized in the age of the internet:

In many ways we have it much easier than the original Inklings. When they read their writings to each other seventy years ago, they did not have the benefit of word processors or even photocopiers. They read from hand-written manuscripts which they brought to meetings stuffed in jacket pockets. But they also lived close to one another, and could meet face to face.

Now we have the Internet, and even if there are no likeminded friends within visiting distance, it should be possible to find people with similar literary interests with almost the whole world open to us. Distance is no longer a barrier.

Diana’s Notices

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Many thanks to Bruce Edwards for reminding the readers of his popular CS Lewis & Inklings Resource Blog that The Company They Keep, Diana’s book about the Inklings, is now in paperback:

Just in time for you to buy yourself the Christmas present you wanted last year, The Company They Keep, Diana Glyer’s magnificent work on the Inklings, has just been released in paperback.

The New Writer's Handbook Volume 2Also, Diana’s contribution to The New Writer’s Handbook Volume 2, published in August, was singled out for praise by blogger “Emily Veinglory”:

I particularly enjoyed Diana Glyer’s piece on the writing group Tolkein and CS Lewis were in with some information about the earlier drafts of Lord of the Rings. Several other essays gave me ideas I intend to try out. …

Keeping Company in Glendale

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Diana Pavlac Glyer and Will Vaus Students in Narnia costumes

Diana launched the paperback edition of The Company They Keep with a book signing at Glendale‘s Mystery and Imagination Bookstore on October 25. She appeared in tandem with Will Vaus, who is doing a tour for his youth-oriented biography of C.S. Lewis, The Professor of Narnia.

A lively crowd of more than 40 came out to hear and meet the authors, including a whole batch of high schoolers in Narnian costume, the students of John Long, one of Diana’s former research assistants.

We’ve eagerly awaited the paperback edition, which is just coming out now (announced for October 30). The publisher arranged an expedited shipment of copies for the event.

Will Vaus blogged about it afterwards, and posted some nice pictures.

The Professor of Narnia teamed up with Inklings expert Diana Pavlac Glyer, author of The Company They Keep, for a special Narnia Night at the Mystery & Imagination Bookshop in Glendale, California last night. We were joined by many and various Narnia characters. . . .

Thanks to John King Tarpinian for connecting us with the bookstore. (John himself had an excused absence, to escort Ray Bradbury to a showing of King Kong at the Alex Theatre down the street.)

The only thing we wish might have worked out in a luckier way would have been for our friend Joseph Bentz, who attended the signing, to have realized right then that Will Vaus is the son of J. Arthur Vaus, gangster-turned-evangelist. Bentz is currently writing a book about conversion stories, and the elder Vaus is one of his subjects.

Will penned an entire book about his dad, My Father Was a Gangster. Will also met the local crime kingpin:

My father worked for the infamous Hollywood gangster, Mickey Cohen, during the late 1940’s. Despite the fact that my father quit organized crime in 1949 he and Cohen remained friends. Thus it was that when Cohen got out of jail in 1972 I got to meet him and spend time with him on a number of occasions. Cohen was the epitomy of respectability around women and children. In fact, he gave me a signed photograph addressed to “my little buddy Billy”.

Coincidentally, this week the Los Angeles Times is running a seven-part series on the LAPD’s old Gangster Squad and its efforts to nail flamboyant gangster Mickey Cohen. Vaus, mentioned in the second and third parts, worked for the Cohen organization as a wiretapper.

Diana Wins a Mythopoeic Award

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My favorite reporter called after the Mythcon 39 banquet with the great news that the Mythopoeic Scholarship Award in Inklings Studies was presented to The Company They Keep: C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien as Writers in Community by Diana Pavlac Glyer; appendix by David Bratman.

I don’t know the full list of winners. Keep looking on the Society’s awards page, or SF Awards Watch, or both.

Narniafans on Diana Glyer’s Hugo Nomination

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Narniafans posted Diana Glyer’s comment on the nomination of her book, The Company They Keep, for the Best Related Book Hugo:

“It is so rare for a book about Tolkien or Lewis to gain this kind of recognition,” said Glyer. “But this is about their interaction. I think there is a renewed interest in creative collaboration, even in business, science, and technology. We are in the age of Wikinomics: it’s not so much about being a solitary genius as it is about teamwork, relationships, and context.”

Diana Glyer Wins Imperishable Flame Award

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Diana Glyer’s The Company They Keep: C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien as Writers in Community has won the Northeast Tolkien Society’s 2007 Imperishable Flame Award for Tolkien/Inklings Scholarship. Her book tells the story of the Inklings, the writers group that met in Oxford through the 1930’s and 1940’s to read their work aloud and offer feedback. The group’s 19 members included Tolkien, author of The Lord of the Rings, and C. S. Lewis, author of the Chronicles of Narnia. 

Nominees for The Imperishable Flame are named by the Northeast Tolkien Society. This year, the winners were chosen by readers of the Journal of the Northeast Tolkien Society, participants in the NETS Yahoo online group, and visitors to the Herenistarion.org website.

Northeast Tolkien Society chairs Anthony S. Burdge and Jessica Burke told winners, “We see your work as an inextinguishable light amongst the rest, guiding future generations to further understanding and education, leaders in community functions and creativity.”  

The Company They Keep has received enthusiastic reviews from the Times Literary Supplement, Green Man Review, Mythlore, Mythprint, the SF Site, and Tolkienlibrary.com. It was named a Core 1000 book by Yankee Book Peddler, and a recommended title by the American Library Association’s Choice magazine.

Diana Glyer’s exploration of the Inklings shows how many ways that the members of this group encouraged, critiqued, and on occasion, even rewrote each other’s work. For example, after Tolkien asked for feedback on a long poem Lewis not only criticized it but actually re-wrote several sections of it for him. When Tolkien abandoned all hope of finishing The Lord of the Rings, Lewis took him to lunch and made him promise to write more of the tale. And unforgettably, Charles Williams, an Inkling, once wrote a poem that prompted Lewis to write a letter saying that his work was getting to be so good, “I’ve a good mind to punch your head when next we meet.”