REQUIRED READING & SPECIAL GUESTS

 

Glastonbury Tor, said to be one of the most magical places on earth.

REQUIRED READING:

 Naturally, we encourage you to pack a copy of one or more of the books mentioned below and gulp it down on the flight or sip it thoughtfully in the cafes and pubs of Oxford and Bath. Additionally (or failing that), you are  required to read/review and discuss (when the time comes) the excerpts, articles, videos, and podcasts linked below. More soon. (But, hey, if your enthusiasm demands it, feel free to start now.)

TOLKIEN: Read "One Book to Rule Them All" by John Michaud. Read "What has made the book such an enduring success?" by Thomas Shippey. Read "There and back again" by Van Newkirk II. Read "Tolkien's World" by Peter Libbey: Click HERE to listen to Chapter 5, "Riddles in the Dark" (one of my favorite chapters).

LEWIS: To read an excerpt from The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, click HERE. "By Heart" is a series in The Atlantic in which authors share and discuss their all-time favorite passages in literature. To read Lev Grossman's By Heart essay on Narnia, click HERE.

INKLINGS: Click HERE to watch a video produced by the podcast Mythmakers at the Oxford Centre for Fantasy. Click HERE for access to all the episodes of Mythmakers on Spotify (which includes such eps as The Problem with Orcs, Is It Dangerous to Study Tolkien, and Do Faeries Need a Makeover.

PULLMAN: To read an excerpt from The Golden Compass, the first book in the His Dark Materials trilogy, click HERE. To read "Far From Narnia" in the New Yorker, click HERE. To watch Pullman's address at the Oxford Union, click HERE. To see the trailer for the HBO series, His Dark Materials, click HERE.

CARROLL: Click HERE to read Chapter 1 of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Read two articles on the beguiling legacy of Alice HERE and HERE.

SHELLEY: Read an excerpt from Mary Shelley's Frankenstein HERE. Read the Atlantic's article on Frankenstein HERE. Read "The Strange and Twisted Life of Frankenstein" in The New Yorker HERE. 

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SPECIAL GUESTS:

TERRI WINDLING is an American editor, artist, essayist, and the author of books for both children and adults. She has won nine World Fantasy Awards, including a lifetime achievement award, the Mythopoeic Fantasy Award, and the Bram Stoker Award, and her collection The Armless Maiden appeared on the short-list for the James Tiptree, Jr. Award. In 2010, Windling received the SFWA Solstice Award, which honors "individuals with a significant impact on the speculative fiction field". Her work has been translated into French, German, Spanish, Italian, Czech, Lithuanian, Turkish, Russian, Japanese, and Korean. In 2016, she delivered the Tolkien Lecture on Fantasy Literature at Pembroke College, Oxford.

 

BRIAN FROUD is an English fantasy illustrator and conceptual designer. He is most widely known for his 1978 book Faeries with Alan Lee, and as the conceptual designer of the Jim Henson films The Dark Crystal (1982) and Labyrinth (1986). According to Wired, Froud is "one of the most pre-emiminent visualizers of the world of faerie and folktale." Most recently, Froud developed the 2019 streaming television series The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance. The television adaptation of his book Faeries is forthcoming from Amazon and Jim Henson Company.  

WENDY FROUD is an American sculptor, puppet-maker, and writer, best known for fabricating Yoda for Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, for which she has been called "the mother of Yoda," as well as creatures for the Jim Henson films The Dark Crystal, where she met her husband Brian, and Labyrinth.

Labyrinth and The Dark Crystal, designed by artist Brian Froud.

 

ALAN LEE is an English book illustrator, Tolkien scholar, and film concept artist. He is best known for his Tolkien inspired artwork, and for his work as the head concept designer of Peter Jackson's film adaptations of Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit. Lee illustrated and, indeed, helped construct many of the scenarios and sets for the movies, as well as objects and weapons for the actors. He made two cameo appearances: in the opening sequence of The Fellowship as one of the nine kings of men who became the Nazgûl; and in The Two Towers as a Rohan soldier in the armoury. Two years after completing Jackson's LOTR, Lee released a collection of his concept artwork for the project, The Lord of the Rings Sketchbook. Peter Jackson said, "His art captured what I hoped to capture with the films."

Alan Lee illustration for special edition of The Lord of the Rings.

CATRIONA WARD is a British horror novelist. She won the August Derleth Award for Best Horror Novel in 2016 at the British Fantasy Awards for Rawblood and again in 2018 for Little Eve, making her the first woman to win the prize twice. Little Eve also went on to win the prestigious Shirley Jackson Award for best novel. She is author of the "brilliant" (New York Times), "mind blowing" (Stephen King) international Gothic bestseller The Last House on Needless Street (recently option by Andy Serkis), and "her scariest book yet" (Booklist, starred), the "gasp-inducing" (Vulture), USA Today bestseller and Best Book of the Year (Vulture), Looking Glass Sound. "Here's your next obsession." (Kelly Link, Get In Trouble). "If there's any justice in this world, Looking Glass Sound will enter the canon of the classic American macabre. It should be read and studied for decades" (Esquire).

PLUS:

DR. LIZ WILLIAMS is a celebrated fantasy and sci-fi writer who sets a lot of her stories in and around Glastonbury.The daughter of a stage magician and a Gothic novelist,  Liz used to own a local witchcraft shop called the Cat and the Cauldron. She writes about occultism and the philosophy of science for the Guardian and is considered the foremost authority on paganism in the country, having written a historical survey of magic in the British Isles called Miracles of Our Own Making.