PICTURING TOLKIEN (forthcoming publication)

So, today I found out that a book I've contributed an essay to has now been listed on the publisher (McFarland)'s website. Although it won't be published till next year, it's apparently available for preorder:

http://www.mcfarlandpub.com/book-2.php?id=978-0-7864-4636-0

The book itself, PICTURING TOLKIEN: ESSAYS ON PETER JACKSON'S THE LORD OF THE RINGS FILM TRILOGY, is the brainchild of Jan Bogstad and Phil Kaveny, whom I knew back in my Milwaukee days when they were stalwarts of the Madison science fiction community (they were among the founders of WisCon) and the long-lived University of Wisconsin Tolkien Society. My own contribution is my essay "Two Kinds of Absence: Elision & Exclusion in Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings", which focuses on the film's decision to omit the Bombadil chapters and the consequences thereof to the story.

I'm quite pleased by this, naturally -- not just that this piece, which I wrote especially for this collection, seems to be well on its way to seeing the light of day, but that when it does I get to read all the other contributor's essays, something I'm v. much looking forward to. I've been getting a lot more essays finished and submitted lately, which feels good; part of the release from all those years of working on one big project (MR. BAGGINS) is tackling a lot of the smaller projects I've wanted to do for years but not been able to steal time for. Most recently this has included the piece for PICTURING TOLKIEN, the guest editorial in the newest MALLORN, reviews in TOLKIEN STUDIES and SEVEN and MYTHLORE, my piece for this year's Kalamazoo ("Inside Literature"), my piece for MythCon ("SHE & Tolkien Revisited"), and just today I started work on a small side project (more on this later) and sent in my proposal for next year's Kalamazoo (here's hoping it makes the cut), as well as reached a milestone in an editing project that's been percolating on and off for over a year now.

Busy busy busy. And yet there are still so many projects that were researched and begun but then set aside that are impatiently waiting their turn -- for example, the proposal I just sent off for Kalamazoo is an idea I sketched out in 1980/81 and am only now finally getting back to. Worlds enough and time, but we'll see what we can do.

Woo-hoo!

--John R.

current audiobook: THE BOOK OF ISAIAH (all-prophecy, all-of-the-time), THE IMPERIAL CRUISE (surprisingly depressing).
current book: REFLECTIONS ON THE PSALMS by CSL. (soon to be the subject of a post of its own, probably).



And this post itself marks something of a milestone: #501 in the three and a half years since I started blogging. --JDR