Greetings!

This Friday, March 23rd 2018 the New York Tolkien Conference returns with a Guest Presentation by Tolkien Scholar & NYU Professor Nicholas Birns. For everyone who has followed our work and publications at Myth Ink Books you may have noticed we were fairly absent in 2017.  All of our planned projects and the Conference came to a halt for numerous reasons, some of which we discussed in this article found on the NY Tolkien Conference site.
With the launch of our new Conference format, and the event taking place this Friday, we are currently catching up with correspondence and projects regarding Myth Ink Books. There will be an announcement very soon regarding a wonderful new project we are currently working on.

As you may know we ran two NY Tolkien Conferences in 2015 and 2016.  Our history of organizing the Northeast Tolkien Society and the Conferences can be found here

This year we are launching the new format of smaller events each with their own theme.  For our Tolkien Reading Day event this Friday we celebrate the Ringbearers from Tolkien’s Legendarium.

A Great Burden Without Guidance: The Six Mortal Ringbearers
Presented by: Nicholas Birns

The One Ring was made by and meant for Sauron, the malevolent Maia gone rogue.  But Sauron’s great defeat at the end of the Second Age, and the ‘accidents’ of history, cause it to be borne by six very different individuals, of very diverse origins, social status, and moral character: the Númenórean king Isildur, the river-halflings Déagol and Sméagol/Gollum, and the Hobbits Bilbo Baggins, Frodo Baggins, and Sam Gamgee. On March 25, the ‘anniversary’ of the final relinquishing of the Ring’s great burden, we will compare and discuss the lives and personalities of these six ringbearers as a way to come to grips with Tolkien’s fascination with special items or tokens (Palantiri and Silmarilli as well as the Rings of Power) and how they illuminate his understanding of creativity and possessiveness.

ABOUT:  Nicholas Birns first read The Lord of the Rings in the early months of 1975, finishing very near to the memorable day of March 25. He has published on Tolkien in Tolkien Studies, Mythlore, and The Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts. He is also the author of Understanding Anthony Powell (University of South Carolina Press, 2004), Theory After Theory (Broadview, 2010) Barbarian Memory (Palgrave, 2013), and Contemporary Australian Literature: A World Not Yet Dead  (Sydney University Press, 2015),  as well as many other books and journal articles. including contributions to Exemplaria, Science-Fiction Studies, Leviathan, Victorians Institute Journal, and Extrapolation. He currently is Associate Professor at the Center for Applied Liberal Arts, New York University.

Professor Birns is also a contributor to our volume of collected essays, compiled the Index, about Tolkien: Forgotten Leaves Essays from Smial.  

Myth Ink Books will be selling Forgotten Leaves at the Conference and if you wish to have your copy signed Professor Birns and other contributors will be available to do so.  In addition we will have other titles for sale, plus issues of The Journal of the New York Tolkien Society.

If you would like to attend Pre-Registration is required and can be found by hitting the button below.  We hope to see you all there!