Please go read Pieter Collier's excellent interview with Alan Lee at http://www.tolkienlibrary.com/press/823-Interview_with_Alan_Lee.php

It is well worth your time!

In this 1968 interview clip that someone has uploaded to YouTube, Tolkien talks about the mythology of Middle-earth and some of the background of the elves and dwarves. Full transcript included below the link.

Anke Eißmann is a rising star in the illustration business, and she has a passion for Tolkien's works. Whether you have met her, seen her artwork before, or are just discovering her now, this interview gives a glimpse not to be missed.

Azusa Pacific University will bring together leading experts on Lewis, Tolkien, and the Inklings for a two-day conference on Feb. 7-9: C.S. Lewis, the Inklings, and the Call to Christian Community.

The White Tree Fund (TWTF) would like to thank everyone for the incredible reception of the inaugural issue of Silver Leaves and is now calling for submissions to its second issue. The theme for this issue is ?The Inklings? and all academic, journalistic, reflective, creative and artistic pieces relative to the collective group known as the Inklings or any of its individual members are welcome.

Available for order soon through their website, the table of contents has just been announced for the 24th volume of the journal Seven (VII).

SEVEN is an annual "Anglo-American Literary Review," focusing on seven British writers: Owen Barfield, GK Chesterton, CS Lewis, George MacDonald, Dorothy L. Sayers, JRR Tolkien, & Charles Williams.

SEVEN is a publication of the Marion E. Wade Center, Wheaton College, and costs $14.50 (the annual is equivalent to a book).

If you like Ted Nasmith art, there is more good news on the calendar front - Ted just announced on his blog that he has been contracted to illustrate the 2009 Tolkien Calendar and 2009 Tolkien Diary as a part of a renewed promotion for The Silmarillion. Unfortunately...

The White Tree Fund is "dedicated to upholding the ideals of Middle-earth such as unity, nobility, courage, honour and peace." They are an incorporated non-profit and support humanitarian and aid programs, environmental initiatives, and literacy programs assisting children and adults.

The purpose of their journal Silver Leaves is to educate, raise awareness, support charitable initiatives, and entertain. The first issue of Silver Leaves was just published, and contains an excellent array of articles by some well known names.

In addition to the Super Deluxe Children of Húrin coming next month, there are two auction houses that have some pricey but quite interesting items coming up for bid. On December 6, Bloomsbury Auctions in London has seven lots available, with estimates ranging from £500 at the low end to £15,000 at the high end. A week later on the 13th of December, Sotheby's London branch has six lots with estimates ranging from £1000 at the low end to £15,000 at the high end. Included are a signed letter and first editions of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. Read on for more details on both auctions...

JUST IN TIME FOR THE YULE TIDE HOLIDAYS!!

The first ever Heren Istarion Calendar is now available to order!
2008 Heren Istarion:
The Northeast Tolkien Society Calendar

The first-ever calendar issued by The Northeast Tolkien Society to feature previously unpublished art by:

Ted Nasmith
Jef Murray

Just ran across this note in the press:

Sunday January 13, 2008
4:00 PM - 5:30 PM

Distinguished Lecture Series

Lenox Library
Eighteen Main Street
Lenox MA 01240
Location: Sedgwick Reading Room

Contact: Denis J. Lesieur 413-637-2630 dlesieur@lenoxlib.org

http://www.eventkeeper.com/code/events.cfm?curOrg=LENOX


Christina Scull & Wayne Hammond on Mastering Middle-earth: Adventures in Scholarship with J.R.R. Tolkien

Christina Scull was born in England where she received a degree from London University in art history. From 1971 to 1995 she was the Librarian of Sir John Soane's Museum, London. She immigrated to the United State in 1995 and is an independent researcher and writer.

Wayne G. Hammond is Assistant Librarian in the Chapin Library, which holds rare books and manuscripts, at Williams College in Williamstown - a position he has held for over thirty years. He is also a scholar, author and print designer.

Christina Scull and Wayne Hammond, who are wife and husband, have collaborated on several publications about Tolkien, including The J.R.R. Tolkien Companion and Guide, a book on Tolkien's illustrations and a reader's guide to The Lord of the Rings.

ADMISSION: $15 for each lecture or $50 for the entire four lecture series

For more inforrmation on Christina Scull & Wayne Hammond: http://mysite.verizon.net/wghammond/

Greetings!
In our 2nd annual awards we have announced 12 nominees, four for each of the three categories Scholarship, Creativity and the building of Fan community resources celebrating and honoring Tolkien and The Inklings. This award system began last year in 2006 to allow readers of herenistarion.org a chance to vote for nominees in three categories as seen in the poll system on herenistarion.org. This year we bring to you thoughts from last years award winners in our NETS AWARDS area

For readers and contributors to Tolkienguide, Tolkienbooks.net, Tolkienlibrary, there will be some familiar names amongst the selection.

This years polling will run through December 1st, 2007 So go and vote, plus stay tuned for a special 2007 Award Nominee Special forthcoming!!
Best to all,
Anthony

Bloomsbury Book Auctions just announced that they have a set of all three volumes of The Lord of the Rings in proof state - the copies sent to noted author Arthur Ransome for review.

This set is incredibly important for at least two reasons (beyond the scarcity of proof copies in general). From the dated letter to Arthur Ransome, the Fellowship proof can be identified as the second earliest proof copy known (only predated by the page proofs sent to Tolkien himself.) Also, the Two Towers proof copy has the incredibly scarce proof map included.

Please read on below for the full announcement.

Hello all, and welcome to the first Tolkien Collector's guide (TCG) newsletter!

First, the newsletter itself. I am always working on improving how TCG operates, and to offer as many ways as possible to keep all interested people up to date. The TCG Home page summarizes a lot of what's going on in the community, there are RSS feeds for the forums and news articles, and now this newsletter to summarize what has gone on in the last month in the Guide database as well as elsewhere in the Tolkien community. I do hope that these will come out around the first of every month.

More...

Dear Friends,
We hope this reaches you all well. Within this newsletter we
would like to address three matters of importance within the
Northeast Tolkien Society community. The current crisis Heren
Istarion is in, Award nominees (two names noted on TCG.com and a certain calendar guy ,
1)
Heren Istarion is in crisis

As many of your know, Jessica and I have been running the society almost
single-handedly for the past 5 years. We have always managed to keep the
society afloat, and have always managed to keep things running smoothly—if
sometimes a bit behind schedule: until now. Heren Istarion: The Northeast
Tolkien Society is in crisis. Jessica and I have never pretended that we
envisioned a society with over-flowing coffers. Yet, we had hoped that
the society would be able to make its own ends meet even halfway.
However, if we cannot manage a solution, Jessica and I may have to close
the society.

The Northeast Tolkien Society Online Review of Books opens with reviews of two exciting texts focusing on Tolkien and The Inklings. The Company they Keep: C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien as Writers in Community by Diana Pavlac Glyer and Tolkien and Shakespeare: Essays on Shared Themes and Language Edited by Janet Brennan Croft. These enlightening additions to scholarship considerably broadens the field of Tolkien and Inklings study.

See what we had to say about them in our new Books Review Section:
http://www.herenistarion.org/

The Inklings: A Discussion of the Literary and Theological Perspectives
of C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, Charles Williams, and Owen Barfield

Mondays, October 15, 22, 29, November 5, 12
The Church of Saint Luke in the Fields
487 Hudson Street
Greenwich Village, New York City
7-8:30pm Laughlin Hall

C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, Charles Williams, and Owen Barfield formed the
nucleus of an informal literary society that flourished at the University
of Oxford during the 1930s and ‘40s. Because of their shared interest in
the weaving of Christian themes into works of fiction and poetry
(particularly that with an emphasis on fantasy and myth), the Inklings—and
their literary creations—were widely considered part of a magical world
that continues to influence contemporary readers. The achievements of
these four Inklings, as well as the work of some of their contemporaries,
will be discussed.

October 15 Inklings Series Introductory Talk

Speaker: Anthony S Burdge

Shards of Creativity: The Inklings, Subcreation and the Evolution of Human
Consciousness (working title)

Mr. Burdge is the Co-Chair of Heren Istarion: The Northeast Tolkien Society.

October 22 J. R. R. Tolkien

Speaker: Jessica Burke

Ms. Burke is the Co-Chair of Heren Istarion: The Northeast Tolkien Society.

Hugh Abramson at International Polygonics published nine jigsaw puzzles of interest to Tolkien collectors - art from the Ralph Bakshi film and photos of Tolkien, but also artwork from Pauline Baynes and of course some with Tolkien's own artwork.

39th Annual Mythopoeic Conference

MythCon XXXIX

August 15-18th, 2008

Central Connecticut State University
www.ccsu.edu

Theme: The Valkyrie and the Goddess: The Warrior Woman in Fantasy

If you were all wondering where we had gone, we rode in the West, to
Berkeley, California for this years 38th Annual Mythopoeic Conference
where it was announced that Anthony Burdge, will be chairing next years
event, info above, in Connecticut. Jessica Burke, as cochair will conduct
panel coordination, Alexei Kondratiev will coordinate paper submissions,
Emily Rauscher as Registrar, SK Thoth will conduct the Bardic Circle and
many others are coming aboard to bring to everyone a fine MythCon.

Heren Istarion: The Northeast Tolkien Society is listed as a Mythopoeic
Discussion Group and we encourage you all to visit MythSoc site,
www.mythsoc.org, and become members, utilize the Inklings Bibliography,
read up on the whole 40 year history of our extended family within the
Mythpoeic Society

As we progress into the next few weeks working out the details, guests of
honor, call for papers and other event plans we look forward to hearing
from the Heren Istarion: Northeast Tolkien Society community and their
ideas, suggestions and thoughts on the conference. Stay tuned for a
special con section and community page on herenistarion.org, we also
encourage you to become part of the wonderful Inklings, and mythopoeic
discussions on the society's yahoo group
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/mythsoc/


The official conference page has been posted and early registrations are
being accepted, and we encourage you all to help us support the furthering
of Inklings Studies

http://www.mythsoc.org/mythcon39.html

2007 Mythopoeic Award Winners

Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Adult Literature

Patricia A. McKillip, Solstice Wood (Ace Books)

Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Children’s Literature

Catherine Fisher, Corbenic (Greenwillow)

Mythopoeic Scholarship Award in Inklings Studies

Christina Scull and Wayne G. Hammond, The J.R.R. Tolkien Companion and
Guide
(Houghton Mifflin, 2006)

Mythopoeic Scholarship Award in Myth and Fantasy Studies

G. Ronald Murphy, S.J., Gemstone of Paradise: The Holy Grail in
Wolfram’s Parzival
(Oxford University Press, 2006)

The Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Adult Literature is given to the
fantasy novel, multi-volume, or single-author story collection for
adults published during 2006 that best exemplifies “the spirit of the
Inklings”. Books are eligible for two years after publication if not
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 younger
readers (from “Young Adults” to picture books for beginning readers),
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.

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 (2004–2006) 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 were announced at Mythcon XXXVIII in
Berkeley, California, on August 5, 2007. A complete list of Mythopoeic
Award winners is available on the Society web site:

www.mythsoc.org/awards.html

The finalists for the literature awards, text of recent acceptance
speeches, and selected book reviews are also
listed in this on-line section. For more information about the
Mythopoeic Awards, please contact the Awards Administrator: Eleanor M.
Farrell, P.O. Box 320486, San Francisco, CA 94132-0486,
awards@mythsoc.org.