Tolkien Article Accepted

Yesterday brought news that I’ve had another Tolkien article accepted for publication. This one was co-written by one of my very good friends: A. Keith Kelly, an Assistant Professor at Kutztown University, who specializes in Old English and Old Norse. Keith’s a terrific fellow medievalist who I met at the Medieval Institute in the course of earning my first M.A. degree. A good man of the West, he taught me fly-fishing, and we shared many a great day fighting mighty fish in the waters of Michigan. That’s Keith there in the picture, wrestling one of the beasts found on the end of our lines. (There are other, more “interesting” pictures I could produce, but I don’t know that he’d forgive me.)

Keith and I finished our Ph.D. degrees the same year, and we roomed together three winters ago in Washington, DC for the annual MLA Convention (which doubles as a cattle-call for folks wanting jobs in English). Keith interviewed for a few jobs, including the one he took at Kutztown. I had a few, too, including one for The Citadel. Anyway, one evening, over some hefty pints of good ale at a local pub/bar, we chatted about some Tolkien things that had been on our minds, and we were astonished at how closely our thoughts were meshing.

The result of our Tolkien mindmeld, after a few back and forth drafts, is “‘A Far Green Country’: Tolkien, Paradise, and the End of All Things in Medieval Literature,” which has now been accepted for publication at Mythlore. It should appear in the Spring 2009 issue.