Glen GoodKnight (1941-2010)

Posted on November 6, 2010 by Mike Glyer

Glen GoodKnight, founder of the Mythopoeic Society, died November 3. As Bonnie Callahan told readers of a Yahoo group:

“….Glen GoodKnight passed away on Wednesday night. He had been in poor health for a number of years, but was actively participating in many online activities, cataloging his collection for eventual sale/donation, and appeared to be in stable condition.”

I was often in the home of Glen Goodknight and his partner Ken Lauw when I was on Glen’s 1997 Mythcon committee. It was the ideal fan’s home, walls covered with bookcases, though unlike other fans Glen’s shelves were filled with editions of Lord of the Rings in every language it had appeared: collecting them was his passion. He was a highly interesting and very knowledgeable fan.

Glen founded the Mythopoeic Society in 1967 in the aftermath of the legendary “Bilbo-Frodo Birthday Picnic” held in September of that year. He invited fans to his house on October 12 to form a continuing group. The 17 attendees became the Society’s first members. Within a few years they had planted 14 discussion groups around the country. In 1972 at the suggestion of Ed Meskys of the Tolkien Society of America the two organizations merged and overnight the Society grew to more than a thousand members.

Mythcon I in 1970 was organized to help knit the Society’s different groups together. Glen married Bonnie GoodKnight (later Callahan) at Mythcon II in 1971.

Glen edited 78 issues of the Society journal Mythlore between 1970 and 1998.

After staying away from Mythcons for several years, Glen returned to celebrate the Society’s 40th anniversary at Berkeley in 2007. Greeted with a standing ovation, he delivered an emotion-filled reminiscence of the Society’s early days. Glen came back to Mythcon the following year, too. I was glad to see him renewing his links with the Society. Now I’m sad to know I won’t be in his company again.

Ken Lauw and Glen GoodKnight at 2007 Mythcon.

Alexei Kondratiev (1949-2010)

Posted on May 29, 2010 by Mike Glyer

Celtic scholar, linguist and long-time member of the Mythopoeic Society, Alexei Kondratiev has died at the age of 61 of a heart attack.

This year’s Mythcon chair Jason Fisher posted the news he received from Anthony Burdge and Jessica Burke on Lingwë – Musings of a Fish:

In Alexei, Jessie and I share a mutual friend, Carole L. Gonzalez, who was his close friend. Carole wrote to us via facebook this morning and told us the news. They suspect a heart attack, but we are not sure at the moment.

Alexei Kondratiev was born in New York to a French mother and a Russian father. Raised in rural France near the site of ancient Celtic remains, he was inspired to learn the Irish language, first from books he found in libraries, then by living four years in the Aran Islands among native speakers.

For the past 25 years he taught Irish language at the Irish Arts Centre in New York as well as courses on Celtic mythology, early Celtic Christianity, and the history of Celtic traditional music. He authored The Apple Branch: A Path to Celtic Ritual. He was scholar guest of honor at the 2002 Mythcon in Boulder.

I always felt Kondratiev was a prototypical Mythopeoic Society member, someone fascinated by a linguistic and literary subject who spent his life mastering its intricacies, yet (here’s the exceptional part) just as willing to hear about your scholarly passions as he was willing to share his own.

[Thanks to Lynn Maudlin for the story.]

Back Dated

Posted on March 28, 2010 by Mike Glyer

How time flies! This is already the 20th anniversary of the 1990 Not Tolkien Calendar, a project managed by Lynn Maudlin. She explains:

I called it “The NOT Tolkien Calendar” to make it clear that we were playing, in the hope that no one would take offense or be misled into expecting a *serious* Tolkien Calendar; I loved Pat Wynne’s illo for the cover – using the international “No” symbol was important to me. I wrote in “NOT” by hand on every copy.

Lynn’s memoir also tells why Tim Callahan’s contribution was matched up with December at the end of the year. The reason wasn’t subtle — look and you should be able to back into it yourself.

Sherwood Smith Joins Book View Cafe

Posted on January 29, 2010 by Mike Glyer

Sherwood Smith ranks with Mythopoeic fans’ favorite writers, twice a finalist for the Mythopoeic Fantasy Award. She’s also many people’s favorite Mythopoeic fan, having been a creative force in the Mythopoeic Society since its early days.

(Wait! Can a fan be a pro? Can a pro be a fan? Nobody’s ever asked me this before!)

Now you can find her fiction at BookViewCafe.com, beginning with her novelette “Being Real”, about striking back at reality tv when your life ends on the cutting room floor.

The full press release follows the jump.

Continue reading →

Mythcon 41 Sets Dates

Posted on December 7, 2009 by Mike Glyer

Author Tim Powers and scholar Janet Croft are two compelling reasons to attend Mythcon 41 in Dallas.

Tim Powers is famous for his stories revealing the supernatural causes of history. Three Days to Never (2006) is the most recent of his four Mythopoeic Fantasy Award-nominated novels, while Last Call (1992) and Declare (2000) won the World Fantasy Award.

Janet Croft is the editor of Mythlore, one of the premier periodicals on the Inklings and fantasy literature. Her three books about J.R.R. Tolkien include War in the Works of Tolkien (2005), winner of the Mythopoeic Scholarship Award in Inklings Studies.

The conference will run July 9-12, 2010 on the Southern Methodist University campus in Dallas.

Early-registration rates are available through January 31, 2010: $60 for Mythopoeic Society members; $70 for non-members; $55 for students. Free for children (under age 12). Online registration is available here.

[Thanks to Lisa Harrigan for the story.]

Mythic Fun at UCLA

Posted on July 22, 2009 by Mike Glyer

Mythcon 40 returned the series to its Southern California roots, attracting 136 fans and scholars for a weekend of play and scholarship on the UCLA campus. Author GoH James A. Owen and Scholar GoH Diana Pavlac Glyer developed the theme “Sailing the Seas of Imagination” in their keynote speeches, while at the banquet Mythopoeic Society Founder Glen GoodKnight sketched a vision for using technology to extend the Society’s work into the future.

Diana and I brought Sierra to the conference. She had a ball playing with the Owen children Sophie and Nathaniel. And a high point of her weekend was the expedition to the campus’ family pool, graciously led by Farah Mendelsohn. The con also profited from Farah’s donation of five copies of her Rhetorics of Fantasy – had she been able to stay for the very last meeting, she would have been gratified to see that just as soon as chair Sarah Beach announced they were for sale, fans rushed to the front of the room with twenties waving in their hands.

Some of my photos actually came out, and are posted above. (Scroll your cursor over to read the tags explaining who’s in them.)

The 2009 Mythopeic Award winners were announced at the conference banquet:

Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Adult Literature

Carol Berg, Flesh and Spirit and Breath and Bone (Roc)

Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Children’s Literature

Kristin Cashore, Graceling (Harcourt Children’s Books)

Mythopoeic Scholarship Award in Inklings Studies

John Rateliff, The History of the Hobbit, Part One: Mr. Baggins; Part Two: Return to Bag-end (Houghton Mifflin, 2007)

Mythopoeic Scholarship Award in Myth and Fantasy Studies

Charles Butler, Four British Fantasists: Place and Culture in the Children’s Fantasies of Penelope Lively, Alan Garner, Diana Wynne Jones, and Susan Cooper (Children’s Literature Association & Scarecrow Press, 2006)

(The full awards press release appears after the jump.)

Another Mythcon banquet tradition was the preparation of food sculptures from select leftovers, dubbed with punny titles appropriate to the works of the guests of honor. James Owen created a dragon’s head with ketchup and mustard and named it “The Condiments They Keep,” a sound-alike for the title of Diana’s Inklings study, The Company They Keep.

Continue reading →

Mythcon 40 Extends Papers Submission Deadline

Posted on April 9, 2009 by Mike Glyer

Mythcon 40 chair Sarah Beach says the committee “has decided to give folks a chance to follow up on their last minute paper ideas, and has extended the proposal deadline to May 22.” These are the scholarly and fannish presentations that energize every Mythcon. Accepted proposals get assigned slots on the program.

Check the Society website for the contact information for submission.

With James Owen as Author Guest of Honor and Diana Pavlac Glyer as Scholar Guest of Honor, how could the conference be anything but stellar?

“We are really looking forward to a wonderful conference this year,” promises Sarah. “ If you have not registered yet, do so soon. Don’t be left out of this special anniversary celebration!”

Snapshots

Posted on August 20, 2008 by Mike Glyer

Wired reports the Army is moving ahead with plans for a laser cannon What next, the U.S.S. Death Star?

All the winners of the 2008 Mythopoeic Awards are listed at SF Award Watch.

There’s already a DVD of Denvention 3 Masquerade photos for sale. The committee expects to offer a DVD of the Hugo Ceremony this fall. And Laurie Mann has posted a vast collection of links to Denvention 3 news, blog and photo coverage.

Want to help with next year’s Worldcon? Anticipation’s volunteer form is online.

Keith Stokes reports on his January 2008 trip to Costa Rica, with beautiful photos, here.

And Keith takes you along on his March 2008 trip to Kansas and Nebraska, featuring Rocky Mountain Oysters, here.

Fast-Forward did a total of five podcasts from Denvention 3.

Peter Glaskowsky, a frequent contributor to Chaos Manor Reviews and attendee at 16 Worldcons, has a post about ebooks and Digital Management Rights on CNET.

Hugo-winner Michael Chabon’s affectonate comments about SF and alternate history can be found in articles at the Los Angeles Times, the UK’s Times Online, and the New York Review of Books.

[Links via David Klaus, Isaac Alexander, Rick Moen, Laurie D. T. Mann and Michael Kennedy.]

Diana Wins a Mythopoeic Award

Posted on August 18, 2008 by Mike Glyer

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.

2008 Mythopoeic Award Finalists

Posted on June 8, 2008 by Mike Glyer

The Mythopoeic Society has announced the finalists for its 2008 scholarship and literature awards. The winners of this year’s awards will be announced during Mythcon XXXIX, to be held from August 15-18, 2008, in New Britain, Connecticut.