2021 Events

7 May 2021 – An Introduction to The Mabinogi
or Why the Matter of Wales Matters: A Visit with Rebecca Fox Blok.
As Voltaire (we’re going to go with this) once wrote, if Rebecca Fox Blok didn’t exist, we would have to invent her. Why? Because most can’t pronounce the Mabinogi, much less explain it.
So you see the absolute urgency of participation with the Inkling Folk Fellowship. A week later we are talking about Pwyll and Dyfed and Llyr and Mathonwy, and you will be all like, “are you speaking Malacandrian or what, dude?”
Rebecca Fox Blok has written her MA dissertation in the School of Welsh and Celtic Studies at Bangor University, North Wales. She also holds an MA from the Medieval Institute at Western Michigan University and a BA in history and literature from Hope College in Holland, Michigan.
Rebecca’s research is primarily focused on medieval Christian writers who were both documenting and interpreting the tales and legends they inherited from their pagan ancestors. Many of the resulting poems and prose stories – a such as Beowulf, the Norse sagas, and Arthurian literature – inspired the Inklings (both their scholarship and their mythopoeia). In these medieval tellings, Christian authors found a way to evaluate the values and vices of their culture through redacting inherited myths and characters.
In most cases, these works suggest that the heroic pagan ideals still so valued throughout the Middle Ages lead, inevitably, to tragedy and loss – but are still, in their own way, noble. (See Beowulf and The Battle of Maldon in Old English, for example.) Rebecca argues that this is what makes “The Four Branches” of the Mabinogi unique in medieval literature: rather than merely grieving over or admiring the heroic ethos, these texts reject it entirely and imagine a different way of being, a way that looks more like the way of Christ than Sigurd, Beowulf, or Urien Rheged.
Rebecca and the Inkling Folk Fellowship session provided exciting and, for many of us, new information – just the sort of thing we like (and need). An introduction to remarkable stories and an exploration of how early Christian writers read and re-imagined them, much like the authors we study did with legendary, heroic, and mythic material in the 20th Century.

14 May 2021 – Under the Mercy
Charles Williams In Memoriam
Charles Stansby Williams passed away on May 15, 1945, leaving an empty space that only he, with his unique combination of gifts, could fill in the lives of friends like C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, and in the larger fellowship known as The Inklings.
His memory, his influence, and his literary achievement were marked in a number of ways, most obviously by a volume of essays titled “Essays Presented to Charles Williams”. Ironically, they were commissioned and collected by C. S. Lewis to be a gift to Williams but became a memorial volume (published in 1947) after his unexpected death.
The Inkling Folk Fellowship remember his gifts and achievements in a number of ways as well. We introduce newcomers to his work, especially the breadth of his achievement as teacher, scholar, biographer, poet, dramatist, lay theologian and more. Since most people are more familiar with the novels, we spend a little longer on an appreciation of his poetry. We discuss his specific influence on his Inkling friends (and others like Dorothy L. Sayers, W. H. Auden, and T. S. Eliot), as represented in the memorial volume as well as in letters and poems.

28 May 2021
   C. S. Lewis once wrote, “Historiography has three functions: to entertain our imagination, to gratify our curiosity, and to discharge a debt we owe our ancestors.” Intellectually and imaginatively influenced (perhaps “formed” is more precise) by writers like Lewis, Charles Williams, Dorothy L. Sayers, and J. R. R. Tolkien, historian Jennifer Woodruff Tait has authored “A Small Introduction to a Vast Topic.”
   That’s actually the subtitle of her book, Christian History in Seven Sentences.  Inter-Varsity Press certainly chose the right person to write the book on Christian History since she is the editor of the award-winning magazine Christian History.  This book shows how keenly she feels the duty of discharging our debt, as Lewis puts it, to our ancestors in the Christian faith.
   Jennifer (PhD, Duke University) is a regular participant in Inkling Folk Fellowship sessions, a priest, a parent, a recent actor in Hamlet, a fine poet, and a friend. Renowned church historian, Grant Wacker, writes: “Four features of this superb book stand out: First, the writing. . . . Second, the erudition. The notes and bibliographic essay alone are worth the price of admission. Third, the conciseness. . . . Finally, the import. Foregrounding not only her own Christian faith but also the implications of such faith for the church today, Tait answers the ‘So what?’ question clearly, decisively, and with a pastor’s heart.”
   The session addresses questions about the Edict of Milan, Martin Luther, the difference between monks and friars, and how the world missionary movement started, among other elements of “small introduction”.

4 June 2021
NOLLOQUIM TWO: Reminder and Remainder
      NOLLOQUIM was the name given by our Inkling Folk Friend, Dan Hamilton, to our attempt, summer 2020, to do a small online memorial to the 2020 Lewis & Friends Colloquium that never was.  At that time, the Colloquium on “Gender and the Inklings” with over 100 accepted proposals ready to be shared, not to mention five marvelous keynote speakers, was primed to be the finest scholarly Inklings gathering ever.
However, it was first postponed and then cancelled. No need to say why.  Therefore, on the exact dates of the cancelled postponed Colloquium, we gather to remind ourselves of the legacy of David L. Neuhouser, who started the Lewis & Friends Colloquium in 1996, to consider some short presentations of longer works that we would have heard at the colloquium in 2020 (or 2021), and to dream together about how to make this inspired idea, this imagined shiny thing (and we all know what the Inklings say about the imagination) still come to reality.
Presentations include:
– Grace Tiffany; Tolkien’s Free Females
– Sarah Waters; Hermione in Narnia? Shakespeare’s Female Characters in C. S. Lewis’s Fiction
– Gina Dalfonzo; Dorothy and Jack: A Transforming Friendship
– Barbara Mary Prescott; Time Travel, Pince-Nez, and Post-Traumatic Stress: Literary Links between Muriel Jaeger and Dorothy L. Sayers
– Elizabeth George; “Perfect Understanding:” Friendship and Humanity in Busman’s Honeymoon
– Abby Palmisano; Till We Have Faces as a Mythographic Call to Mystical Espousal
– Rob Jones (www.robjonesbooks.com)
– Judith Millar, “Flora” from Davy and Jacks
– Gary Tandy; “O God, that I were a man!” Shifting Gender Roles in C. S. Lewis’s Till We Have Faces
– Joe Ricke; Inklings and Amazons
– James Stockton; The Women of the Oxford University Socratic Club and C. S. Lewis
– Reading from The Golden Key

11 June 2021
with author Gina Dalfonzo
Although “the Inklings” was a decidedly all-male fellowship, more and more evidence exists of the depth and importance of C. S. Lewis’s friendships with women. Before his friendship and, eventually, marriage to Joy Davidman, none of these was as significant and “transformative” as his relationship with the brilliant mystery writer, dramatist, and religious apologist, Dorothy L. Sayers.
As Gina Dalfonzo shows in her new book, Dorothy and Jack: The Transforming Friendship of Dorothy L. Sayers and C. S. Lewis, the relationship was mutually influential, just as important to the life and work of Sayers as it was to Lewis.
The Inkling Folk Fellowship look at the first book-length exploration of this most interesting and important twentieth-century literary friendship. Author Gina Dalfonzo and the Inkling Folk Fellowship discuss the original idea, the research, the writing, and the discoveries made along the way. Perhaps even more important for our contemporary situation, the book offers an enriching model of friendship, with all its respect, affection, and, yes, disagreements.
Crystal Downing, co-director of the Wade Center, writes: “Beautifully written, Dorothy and Jack will transform not only common understanding of both Lewis and Sayers but also common assumptions about male/female friendships.”

18 June 2021
Philadelphia-based actor Anthony (Tony) Lawton has performed professionally in over 100 productions (not to mention work in television and film) and founded the Mirror Theater Company (in 1998).
Diana Glyer calls this work “brilliantly-conceived, skillfully written, superbly executed, . . . thrilling, wonder-filled, gut-wrenching, and breath-taking.” She was raving about Lawton’s solo performance of C. S. Lewis’s classic tale of heaven and hell, The Great Divorce.
The Inkling Folk Fellowship resonates with the mission statement of Tony’s Mirror Theater Company: “Spiritual Theater for a Secular Audience.” So we couldn’t be more excited to support and sponsor his work as the world (we hope) has slowly eased itself out of plague time. Diana Glyer went on to cay that Tony’s performance “rattled my soul, it broke my heart, and I came away from that theatre feeling like I had experienced the full impact of C. S. Lewis’ creative power for the very first time.”
For lots more info about Tony Lawton and his work, plus the rave reviews by journalists and playgoers, see his website. What you might also like to know is that Mr. Lawton is an excellent pie chef and has been selling pies during the pandemic to make ends meet. Talk about talent. (for more info, see his Facebook page.

25 June 2021
A collection of physical books can take us far beyond the limits of the text inside them. Book jackets, dedications, inscriptions, bookplates, and archival publishing history contain many overlooked clues about the work and personalities and characters of the people who write, publish, sell, read, or collect books.
Collector, bibliographer, and book sleuth, Dan Hamilton shares some stories from assembling his own library of Inklings material, as well as from years of working with Dr. Ed Brown and Dr. David Neuhouser. That work led to what is now known as “The Brown Collection,” once the finest private collection in the world and now the center of The Lewis Center at Taylor University.
Distilling years of research in the stacks, Dan’s discussion, among other things, features two highly-elusive dust jackets, a hand-bound edition of Allegory of Love, a weary editor who apologized profusely for an oversight, several signed books with peculiar provenances, blitz-bombing of books, and a letter with possible clues to a long-lost recording.
Dan Hamilton is an engineer and writer from Indianapolis. He has edited numerous George MacDonald novels and written four fantasy books of his own. He helped Dr. Ed Brown write the fascinating story of The Brown Collection, In Pursuit of C. S. Lewis, which has become the go-to guide for Lewis collecting. Dan joined Dr. Dave Neuhouser in establishing the C. S. Lewis and Friends Society, and is a co-founder and leader of the C. S. Lewis Society of Central Indiana. He administers the publishing imprint, Numinous Press.
If there were such a thing, and perhaps there is, Dan is one of the Inkling Folk Fellowship’s group of “ancestral voices” – leading us “beyond the text” to the joys of fellowship and friendship with the authors we treasure. If you love C. S. Lewis and the Inklings, if you love books, if you love mysteries, and if you love sitting for hours in book stores looking for that rare Sheed & Ward copy of Pilgrim’s Regress, you will appreciate Dan’s work.

9 July 2021
As a kid, Sarah Emtage spent endless hours “playing stories” with her sisters. The chief inspiration for these stories were the books her Mom read aloud, and the ones she loved best were The Chronicles of Narnia, The Hobbit, and The Princess and the Goblin.
When pencil, paper, and plasticine got in her hands, she was delighted to discover that she could participate in shaping those worlds (as her mother had done by her reading). And she’s still doing it. Still “wasting her time” (Thomas Gradgrind, 1854) playing at story.
The world-making of the Inklings and related authors has been instrumental in forming Sarah’s love for words and wonder. Really instrumental. She started sculpting so that she could make fauns and hobbits. She started writing poetry so that she could write a Narnian prophecy in verse. She learned to draw so she could make a picture of the Bird and Baby (Eagle and Child pub where the Inklings met).
The playfulness and joy that she finds in the works of these authors has been the spark and the driving force for a life spent making things. Sarah and the rest of the Inkling Folk Fellowship explore her art, her writing, and her whimsical Inkling-inspired view of this made thing, this created work, this phenomenon we call LIFE.
Sarah Emtage (aka Swan White) is a poet/sculptor/playwright/library technician in Kingston, Ontario. She has written two books of poetry (Paperscape and The Second Rate Poetry of S. M. Emtage) and a radio play titled Sound Castle. She is currently working on a radio adaptation of The Princess and the Goblin, a picture book called The Time Wager, a sequel to Sound Castle, a poetry book called Clay Castle, and a nameless novel (because she is too ambitious for her own good). You can find her poetry and radio play at scribblore.com and see updates on her art on Instagram.

16 July 2021
This week marks the 62nd anniversary of the death of Joy Davidman Lewis on July 13, 1960. In recent years, scholars and Inklings enthusiasts have become increasingly interested in her life and work, both as an influence on Lewis but also as tribute to her own accomplishments. And rightly so.
By the time Joy Davidman Gresham met (and later married) C. S. Lewis, she already had a career as a political activist, novelist, editor, translator, essayist, and poet. A great deal of her work was done as an editor for the American Communist newspaper, The New Masses, for which she was the poetry editor from 1938 – 1945. Over and above “party line” rhetoric, her poetry features the voice of a passionate, muscular, attention-grabbing figure. Something displayed as early as her acclaimed prize-winning volume Letters to a Young Comrade (1938) and even earlier in her poetry written while a student at P.S. 45 in the Bronx and later at Hunter College.
Later, even before meeting Lewis except through letters, she began a series of highly-wrought love sonnets, now published as A Naked Tree: Love Sonnets to C. S. Lewis and Other Poems. Although much attention has been given to the frankness and sensuality of the “Jack” poems, these are complex, coded poems, obviously influenced by Renaissance love sonnets (on which Lewis was an expert).
The Inkling Folk Fellowship pursue a consideration of Joy Davidman’s poetry. The session is designed to listen with volunteers to read an assigned poem.

23 July 2021
We read this passage from C. S. Lewis’s The Problem of Pain: “Pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.” Is it? We may not be sure but the tug of the simple beauty of those balanced lines, move us to trust the person who makes such beautiful sense of things.
Dr. Gary Tandy, English Professor at George Fox University (in Newburg, Oregon), has spent considerable time and mental energy pondering the relationship of Lewis’s style to his powerful appeal to a wide range of audiences. Obviously, the Narnia series has shown to have great appeal to “children of all ages.” But Gary has narrowed his question to “why do Lewis’s works of popular apologetics (especially Mere Christianity) continue to find a wide reading audience while so many other excellent books in the same genre do not?”
His research (the subject of a book and at least one scholarly essay) suggests that, although Lewis’s understanding of Christian doctrine and his mastery of logical argument are important (and have received the bulk of critical attention), the artistic success of Mere Christianity has as much or more to do with the style by which he appealed to his audience. In short, Lewis created a wise, friendly, and trustworthy persona to pull us in to his argument. Once we were there, he used his unique ability to blend rational argument with imagination, creating memorable metaphors and analogies both supporting his assertions but also captivating our imaginations and intellects.
As we approach the 70th anniversary in 2022 of the publication of Mere Christianity, it seems high time for a more thorough explanation of its enduring popularity. At least Gary thinks so. This presentation suggests several reasons including the origin of the book as a series of BBC broadcasts during World War Two. It will also describe four elements of Lewis’s style by which he appealed to and won over his readers.
As a writer, Lewis had a knack for memorable, quotable (and, unfortunately, as we have learned, misquotable) statements. It is a truth universally acknowledged that we still have not been able to ignore him or to resist him. This presentation offers a rhetorical/stylistic explanation for this phenomenon. Gary Tandy and the Inkling Folk Fellowship pursue brain food, style points, and mere friendship.
Gary’s book on Rhetoric and C. S. Lewis can be found at the publisher’s website.

30 July 2021
Dorothy L Sayers was a woman of contrasts. A strong Christian, she had a baby by a man she did not love – out of wedlock. Possessing a fierce intellect, she translated Dante – and also created one of the most popular fictional detectives ever, in Lord Peter Wimsey. With no new biographies on Sayers having been published for some time, Colin Duriez reassesses her, her life, her writings, her studies and her faith. Drawing on previously unpublished material, particularly her collected letters, he brings to life a fascinating woman.
Colin Duriez continues to be one of the most prolific and popular authors on the group of twentieth century writers known collectively as the Inklings. He now has added Dorothy L. Sayers to his list. Colin joins the Inkling Folk Fellowship from his home in England for a discussion of his just-published biography of this most intriguing and “mysterious” author.

6 August 2021
George MacDonald was a master of beautifully dangerous and, unfortunately, relatively unknown fairy tales. His little-known “Photogen and Nycteris” (also known as “The Day Boy and the Night Girl”) is a wonderful example of same.
Of course, we are rather used to strong gender divisions in fairy tale worlds, and “Photogren and Nycteris” is no exception. However, the division between the male and female is not between weak and strong, or independent and dependent. In fact, both main characters are weak and strong, dependent and independent, relative to changes in their environments.
Interestingly, the real division is between light and dark and once again MacDonald surprises us or goes against fairy tale tradition by NOT using light and dark as images of good and evil but as dispositions towards or habitual responses (neither necessarily good or bad) to the world. So-called weakness or dependence or lack is rendered not so much as an evil (so often equated with privation) but as an opportunity for completion or strength or wholeness through relationship, or, more precisely, love.
The Inkling Folk Fellowship pursues a complete reading of George MacDonald’s under-appreciated fairy masterpiece, “The Romance of Photogen and Nycteris.”

13 August 2021
Text to Screen (Part One)
A gigantic and strange Green Man suddenly appears on your screen and demands that you play a weird game with him which may or may not make you feel like your brain has been removed.
Well, in fact (ugly thing that it is), Joe Ricke is the giant and just wears a green shirt. How your brain feels will really depend on how much you love hearing 14th century romances read in the original Middle English.
Be that as it may, the Inkling Folk Fellowship presents Part One of “(Sir Gawain and) The Green Knight: Text to Screen”. A panel of medievalists and teachers and fans help us try to wrap our 21st century brains around the anonymous 14th century poem “Sir Gawain and the Greek Knight” that, along with Beowulf, lit the imagination of a young J. R. R. Tolkien, inspiring him to write his own fantasies of courage, virtue, and a world filled with numinous powers, friendly and -un.
The following week is a discussion of David Lowrey’s critically acclaimed new film, “The Green Knight” (starring Dev Patel), both in relation to the so-called “source material” but also as a unique and important work of art in its own right.
If you can dig up a copy of Tolkien’s translation of “Sir Gawain,” that would be a help. If you can’t, find another one. If you can’t, read the Spark Notes. If you can’t do that, the Inkling Folk will give a synopsis before diving in to the text itself; to a discussion of its characters, plot, and themes; and to a review both of Tolkien’s work on the manuscript but its influence on his own work.
In a 1953 lecture, Tolkien suggested that “behind our poem stalk the figures of elder myth, and through the lines are heard the echoes of ancient cults, beliefs and symbols… [This] story is not about those old things, but it receives part of its life, its vividness, its tension from them. That is the way with the greater fairy-stories — of which this is one.”
That sounds like a lot. We expect nothing less from the Inkling Folk Fellowship. Now, if you’d just hold this axe for a minute, we might have a question for you.
The consequences of missing this event could be serious. In short, you might miss out on the fun.

20 August 2021
(Sir Gawain and) The Green Knight:
Text to Screen (Part Two)
We may not always get news from the New York Times but something about its review of David Lowery’s new film, “The Green Knight”, axe-slaps one upside the head. Namely, its title: “Monty Python and the Seventh Seal.” Reading A. O. Scott’s Times review, for the most part a big high-five for Lowery and his ensemble, was as much fun at a film review since – the great Roger Ebert.
Be that as it may, as promised (and broken promises are taken very seriously in the world of Gawain and the Green Knight), Friday August 20 is set aside for a robust discussion (gigantic, you might say) of the film as a message for our time, as an example of contemporary medievalism, and as an adaption of the brilliant anonymous alliterative 14th century poem, “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight” (edited and translated by none other than J. R. R. Tolkien). Since The Inkling Fold Fellowship discussed the poem on Friday the 13th, our focus this week is on the film. However, we will not shy away from discussing the relationship of the two.
The film has proven divisive hitherto, not so much between fans of the medieval poem and other folks but between the critics (who almost universally praise it) and regular Joe (pun here) movie-goers. Peter Travers, speaking for the critics writes: “In a summer of junk, cinema visionary David Lowery delivers a modern movie masterpiece” and one “fan,” who actually enjoyed the film, accurately predicted that “The Green Knight” “will surely annoy most of the general public,” as reflected in the discrepancy between its 88% “grade” by critics and a 49% grade by “audiences” on the Rotten Tomatoes review site.
You, however, need not give the film a grade. You need not even have seen it to join us for our discussion. Note: The film has an R-rating, and has earned it for its violence and sexuality. Those are both a part of the original poem as well, but we understand some people are more sensitive to film than text when it comes to such things. We post this information so that you will not feel “blind-sided,” however.

3 September 2021
The Rooster’s Crow:
A Tribute to Walter Wangerin
He was a Lutheran Minister, a novelist, a playwright, a spiritual writer, a children’s author – shoot, Walter Wangerin even rewrote the Bible and called it “The Book of God.” He lived a full life, a robust life, a meaningful life, and, most importantly, an inspiring life. I’m sure Walter would say that you should never set out to live “an inspiring life” but if you live a good life and make lots of friends, you just might.
The great Medieval tradition has taught us that one of the main purposes of living a good life is to die a good death. Walter said as much in his book “Letters from the Land of Cancer” (2010). “Sickness is not an enemy. It is a rooster’s crow, calling me to the truth of myself and to the precise condition of my relationships.”
A rooster’s crow. Hmmmm. Sorry, not sorry, Walter, but there was something of your cocky, unforgettable rooster, Chauntecleer, in you (as well as in The Truth you followed). You, too, were the “rooster’s crow” of truth for us. Rousing us to see the world as a place of incredible beauty, yet great danger and conflict (especially in your barnyard trilogy – one of the great “supposals” of faithful imagination in our time). Waking us up to the humanity and humility of our Lord (“The Ragman). Over and over again, in genre after genre, reminding us of the divine image in our neighbors. All of our neighbors.
Walter died on August 9. He had been dying for some time. Preparing to die even longer. He was diagnosed with cancer in 2006. Joe Ricke met him a in 2012 when Stephanie Sandberg adapted and directed (with Wangerin’s help) a theatrical production of “Dun Cow” for the Festival of Faith & Writing in 2012 then watched him sitting two rows away, glowing with the joy of collaborative creativity. During that process, Sandberg said: “He’s one of the gentlest, kindest and warmest people I’ve ever met. And he’s very wise about the suffering of people.”
Those who knew him, even if only through his works, crow “Amen!” There is suffering everywhere in Walter’s work. And great joy.
The Inkling Folk Fellowship are joined by special guest Matthew Dickerson to share a tribute to Walter. Matthew is the co-editor (with InklingFolk participant, Anne M. Doe Overstreet) of Songs from the Silent Passage, a new book of essays on Walter’s writings.

10 September 2022
Stone Soup
The first InklingFolk Stone Soup pot luck will share assembled writings – published, unpublished, work-in-progress, old or new. This is an opportunity for attendees (i.e., anyone) to contribute original works or a piece written by someone else that we need to hear. All ingredients will be added to the pot.

17 September 2021
Jack at Home:
Behind the Scenes
Yes, yes. You know about Mere Christianity, Screwtape, Narnia, and, perhaps, even Till We Have Faces. But did you know that Lewis’s best friend throughout his entire life was his brother, Warren? That his wife, Joy Davidman, was an award-winning young poet years before she had ever heard of, much less met, Lewis? And, most important, that Lewis liked to bathe with just his nose sticking out from the bathwater, “like a hippo” (as he wrote to one of his godchildren).
Well, you would know these things, and oh so much more, if you had just read the most recent (just released) issue of Christian History: Jack at Home, a look at C. S. Lewis’s life without quite so much emphasis (as usual at least) on his writing and speaking career.
The issue covers Lewis’s relationship to his parents, his brother, his long-time friend Arthur Greeves, Mrs. Moore (the woman he lived with most of his life), children, his colleagues, his wife, Joy, and much more.
The Inkling Folk Fellowship and several of the authors/editors who worked on that issue take a behind-the-scenes look at how the issue was dreamed up, how the editors chose what they considered the most relevant topics and the best writers for those topics, and, especially, how they hope the content of “Jack at Home” will change our understanding of the man who wrote those aforementioned books we know and love.
If you don’t know much about Christian History magazine, this will also be a good chance to find out about this incredibly fine publication, including an opportunity to subscribe (free or donation) and, if you are so inclined, to support their work. This is a look behind the scenes of C. S. (Jack) Lewis’s life and behind the scenes of the making of this most interesting and helpful issue of Christian History. There is always something new to learn. Why not learn it in fellowship with the Inkling Folk?

24 September 2021
Leaves of Silver:
Readings from J. R. R. Tolkien
Tolkien Week – the birthday week of Bilbo and Frodo Baggins (September 22) and a week to remember and recite and roll the R’s of the enchanted words of the Professor himself. This is also the one-year anniversary of the Inkling Folk Fellowship. Our very first virtual gathering was one year ago Friday, and it was to celebrate Tolkien week with a session of readings from his work. So, what better way to celebrate both than by . . . .
The Inkling Folk Fellowship will meet for readings from Tolkien. Nothing like hearing them read aloud to wash Peter Jackson out of your head. Join us as we enjoy and marvel at “the riddle game” between Bilbo and Gollum, Bilbo’s birthday speech, the coming together of Faramir and Éowyn, the creation song from The Silmarillion, and much more.
Letters, lectures, poems, epics, fairy tales, allegories, even a play about Anglo-Saxon heroism – Tolkien’s published works are truly “God’s plenty” (as Dryden said of Chaucer). We spend two hours (give or take) reading and listening to the so much goodness of his subcreations.
May the blessing of Elves, Men and all the Inkling Folk go with you. May the stars shine upon your faces!
[Image for this week by Matěj Čadil]

1 October 2021
Inklings not Allowed:
Recommended Reading
No, of course not. We are not excluding the Inklings because we don’t love them. We do love them; most of the time anyway. But after a year talking about the Inklings, we might perhaps be excused for mentioning a few other authors. We want to hear recommendations for “must read” authors, old or new, religious or non, fiction or . . . whatever that other stuff is called.
   The Inkling Folk Fellowship will share favorites. Did you know that fellowship means sharing?  And that’s exactly what we do.  Participants just show up and give an “elevator pitch.”  It is not necessary to have an author to identify. Just a book that you think is priceless. We assume it had an author.
   By “no Inkling,” we, of course, are outlawing Chesterton, MacDonald, Joy Davidman, and others as well. In other words, the usual suspects are not allowed. But Cervantes is. And T. S. Eliot (they both had birthdays the previous week). And Bonhoeffer. And Rushdie. And Mark Twain. And Annie Dillard. And Langston Hughes. And we introduce you to the marvelous late 20th Century poet, Jane Kenyon.
   Remember, five minutes is all we each get. A gigantic Ent (with the speed of an Elf) will invoke the mute blip after the 4 minute 59 second mark. Or perhaps the offending computer catches on fire. But, oh how lovely those five minutes will have been talking about your fave writer or book.  There is no talking about yourself or your best friend or the journal you edit or books about the Inklings (that would be sneaky and perhaps sinful). This is not a time for self promotion but a time to celebrate seeing the world through eyes and imaginations other than our own (oops, we referenced an Inkling).

8 October 2021
The Light Princess:
Love, Laughter, and Gravity
George MacDonald’s Fairy-tale masterpiece, The Light Princess, had a difficult time getting published in the 1860s so MacDonald smuggled it, beautifully, into his novel Adela Cathcart. It is the first story in a series of stories within a story about healing a depressed young woman through story-telling. In 1867, it was published with the wonderful Arthur Hughes illustrations, in Dealings with the Fairies. At some point in time, not specifically clear, MacDonald created a scroll manuscript for public performances of this masterpiece with even more sardonic asides and personal touches by the tales ironic narrator. Take that to mean he loved this story as much as we do.
Which is why you, yes you dear reader, should know that The Inkling Folk Fellowship completes a dramatic reading (sans scroll) of the story that paved the way for “The Princess Bride” and all other ironic fairy tales long, long before we all realized we were so clever.
It’s a love story. It’s a fairy story. It’s a story about a witch, and, of course, a king and a queen. More controversially, it’s about mixed bathing! (oooh). We come to laugh, to cry, to fly – and to fall.

15 October 2021
A Complete Reading
Prince Caspian, the second volume in the Chronicles of Narnia, was published on October 15, 1951. What better way to celebrate its 70th Anniversary than joining in (as a reader or a listener or both) a complete reading of the entire novel? Unless of course you have $4,000 sitting around and would rather celebrate by buying a first edition on Biblio.com (“just $3,975.00 with a Bibliophiles club membership”!).
Even better, buy the book and follow along in it as we read. Several may even suggest a chapter they’d like to read but we can’t promise to honor all requests. Bring some nourishment and something to wet your whistle because it will take a while to read it all. But what a time that will be to hear it again, just like so many of us did for the first time with our parents or our big brothers or sisters or a favorite teacher!
The Inkling Folk Fellowship meets by Zoom for the return to Narnia of the Pevensie children. The background story is narrated by none other than “the DLF.” What fun! All are welcome: children, fauns, naiads, dryads, centaurs, and even giants. There will be quite a romp.
Happy 70th to good Prince Caspian and the return of the old magic.

22 October 2021
“Learning in War Time”:
From Pulpit to Print
Before The Problem of Pain, before the BBC talks, before his speaking engagements with the RAF during the war, before Mere Christianity, before Time magazine covers, before . . . almost everything, C. S. Lewis, an Oxford literature tutor and a minor novelist, had his unintentional and unofficial “coming out” as a serious Christian intellectual to on October 22, 1939.
That evening in Oxford, he climbed the steps to the pulpit in the University Church of St. Mary the Virgin to deliver a sermon just after the outbreak of World War Two. Most famously known as an essay titled “Learning in War-Time” in the collections Transposition and Other Addresses (in the U. K.) and The Weight of Glory and Other Addresses (in the U. S.), the sermon was, in the words of one influential Christian publisher (who, the next year, published The Problem of Pain) a prophetic message to a world and a church in crisis. And within months the sermon had been republished twice in the UK, both times under different titles.
As many of you know, the sermon and its message have been adapted many times to other cultural situations – most famously the 9/11 events of 2001 and our recent pandemic experience.
The Inkling Folk Fellowship takes a close look not only at the message Lewis delivered that day but its cultural historical significance for its time and place. And for ours. Along the way, you will hear and can judge for yourself the contention that it was, indeed, Lewis’s “coming out” as a Christian intellectual to take seriously.

29 October 2021
The Lion and the Vampire:
The Inklings and English Horror Films in Conversation
By 1957, the Inklings’ meetings were long over but something was coming out in theaters that strangely and wonderfully connected to their work. Of course, we refer to “The Curse of Frankenstein”, a new gothic horror film directed by B-movie auteur Terence Fisher. Fisher would make many notable gothic films for Hammer Productions over the next 20 years, many starring Christopher Lee (who personally met at least 2 of the Inklings and famously appeared as the wizard Saruman in Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings films).
While Fisher’s subject matter apparently had little in common with Lewis or Tolkien, Fisher emphasized themes and characters that paralleled aspects of the Inklings’ work, especially his interest in numinous reality, the power of evil, the dangers of scientism, and the “sin and food” motif that also fascinated Hitchcock.
Various scholars, including Fisher’s official biographer Tony Dalton, have discussed how Fisher’s religious upbringing and foundational beliefs gave him a strong interest in “the charm of evil,” an idea that Lewis, Tolkien, and Charles Williams all highlighted in their work. Like Williams’s novels, Fisher’s movies use tropes from horror and the Dennis Wheatley school of supernatural thrillers, but he transform them into something less generic, more philosophical, perhaps even theological.
We join author Connor Salter and the Inkling Folk Fellowship as he takes us on a seasonally-appropriate voyage into the realm of English horror, using insights from the films of Terence Fisher and the writings of Lewis, Tokien, Williams, and Sayers.
hahahahahaha (the sound all mad scientists make).

5 November 2021 – Remember! Remember! The Fifth of November!
with Grace Tiffany

These are the famous opening words of rhymed verse chanted by generations of English folk, often while burning effigies of Guy Fawkes, Catholic traitor against Protestant England.  He was captured (they say) preparing
“To blow up the King and Parli’ment.
Three-score barrels of powder below,
Poor old England to overthrow.”
   Ever since, Guy Fawkes Day has been celebrated with bonfires and fireworks and (especially in “the old days”) anti-Catholicism, as a celebration of the fortunate foiling of the so-called “Gunpowder Plot.”
   We, the Inkling Folk Fellowship, are fortunate as well, having one of our number being a Renaissance Literature scholar who just so happens to have written a historical novel about this important cultural story: Gunpowder Percy. Dr. Grace Tiffany, Professor of English at Western Michigan University, teaches Renaissance Literature, Shakespeare, and (sometimes) an Inkling class, as well as having a rather prolific “hobby” of writing historical fiction.
   The story is complex and a bit of a puzzle but Grace will lead us through (let’s just savor that line for a moment, at all four levels of interpretation!). Along the way, we will learn more about the Catholic/Protestant divide in English Renaissance culture (and since), the way patriotic feelings turn into cultural traditions that are more parties than memorials, and how one writer sorted through many twists and turns into the story to make a compelling work of fiction. – and why she suggests that Shakespeare may have played a role in the story.
   Grace’s novels include Gunpowder Percy, My Father Had a Daughter (Judith Shakespeare’s Tale), The Turquoise Ring (Shylock), Will (Shakespeare), Paint (The Dark Lady), and Ariel (a YA novel).
   The Inkling Folk Fellowship gathers for not so much a Guy Fawkes Day Celebration but a Guy Fawkes Day Interrogation. What really happened? How has the role of Guy Fawkes Day changed over time in English culture? How has the Guy Fawkes story been picked up and re-used since that fateful day in 1605? Add your own questions. Plus, we enjoy some delightful conversation with a good friend, who happens to write historical novels about Shakespeare and his culture.

12 November 2021 – Remembrance:
The Poetry of the Great War
Kurt Vonnegut once wrote:
“When I was a boy … all the people of all the nations which had fought in the First World War were silent during the eleventh minute of the eleventh hour of Armistice Day, which was the eleventh day of the eleventh month.
It was during that minute in nineteen hundred and eighteen that millions upon millions of human beings stopped butchering one another. I have talked to old men who were on battlefields during that minute. They have told me in one way or another that the sudden silence was the Voice of God.”
For a number of reasons, many of those who fought through the mud and blood of Europe in what came to be known as “The Great War” recorded their experiences, reactions, terrors, and convictions in brilliant poetry. Their work continues to speak over a hundred years after the war, having become one very powerful means of remembrance.
Wilfred Owen, Rupert Brooke, Jessie Pope, Isaac Rosenberg, Siegfried Sassoon, C. S. Lewis, and many others brought their own individual imaginative perspectives to the Remembrance.
The Day after Armistice Day (or Remembrance Day), two days before Remembrance Sunday, the worldwide Inkling Folk Fellowship remembers those who lived, fought, nursed, wrote, were wounded for life in so many ways, and, of course, died. After some brief introductions and business, we move on to Sara Carter’s presentation, including readings by members of the fellowship of many of the great poems which grew out of the Great War.
We conclude with some brief readings and a quiet time of remembrance, so bring a candle if you so wish. There will be much to think about. Much to feel. Much to reflect on long after our time together concludes.

19 November 2021 – Adapting George:
MacDonald’s Classic Phantastes as a Graphic Novel
After a successful Kickstarter campaign and finishing the project, the team from Cave Pictures Publishing that turned George MacDonald’s classic fairy tale, The Light Princess, into a graphic novel is back. This time they are tackling MacDonald’s classic adult fantasy, the book that C. S. Lewis said “baptised his imagination.” Phantastes.
The Inkling Folk Fellowship pursue an informative session with the Phantastes team just days before their Kickstarter campaign begins. Mandi Hart, the president of Cave Pictures Publishing, is a screenwriter, a filmmaker, and an attorney. Meredith Finch, the author of the adaptations of The Light Princess and Phantastes has been behind the stories of some of comic’s most iconic female heroines, including Wonder Woman, Catwoman, Valaria, and Xena: Warrior Princess. She is also the author of Rose and The Book of Ruth, a graphic novel based on the biblical book but set in the Great Depression. With over 30 years in the comics business, Andrew Pepoy has worked for US, Canadian, British, and French publishers on hundreds of comics on such characters and titles as The Simpsons, Fables, Batman, The X-Men, Iron Man, Star Wars, Godzilla, Transformers, Wallace & Gromit, Scooby Doo, Betty & Veronica, Lanfeust, Uncle Scrooge, and many more. Nominated several times, Andrew won an Eisner Award in 2009 and has also won an Inkwell Award and been nominated for the Harvey and Hugo Awards. He inked the 50th Anniversary graphic novel adaptation of the The Beatles’ Yellow Submarine and, obviously, drew a cover for Archie vs. Predator II.
We believe that the Phantastes team has incredible graphic novel DNA. We learn more about these artists and their work, about the project ahead, about how to be sure to get not only a copy of the finished project but all kinds of other interesting things. As always, we meet people who share our vision of baptized imaginations making a difference in our too often disenchanted world.

26 November 2021 – Give Thanks:
Let Your Thinks be Thanks! A Gathering
W. H. Auden said that (or something like like), but thanks for maybe thinking for a minute. Although it’s the day after, so what? The Inkling Folk Fellowship meets to encourage and be encouraged. To say thanks, again. To tune your heart to sing of grace.
We bring a story, a song, a poem, a meditation, an interpretive dance, a cute puppy, a photo of your grandma, in short – your soul. We meet at the place where Mercy leads.

3 December 2021 – Advent Readings:
A Gathering
The Inkling Folk Fellowship gathers to encourage and be encouraged in this season of Advent. We are planning to bring a poem, passage, song, or dance etc. to share.

10 December 2021 – A Christmas Carol:
The Squished Version
The Inkling Folk Fellowship gathers with you, your ghosts, your families, your friends, your pets, your former business partners, and the annoying guy down the street playing Christmas jams too loud on his boombox (do they still have those?) to a slightly squished version of A Christmas Carol by the great Charles Dickens.
There aren’t costumes and the accents will probably be – impure, not to mention the fact that over-acting is the one note played throughout. What care ye and we for such fa la la? The important thing is that we say things like “JACOB MARLEY” and “SCROOOOOOOOOOOOGE!” and fa la la. Besides, there are fake mince-pies and plenty of fake beer and fake Zoom screen dancing and people with fake names like Fezziwig! For real!
At the conclusion, we sing “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen” on Zoom, and you know how beautiful that will be!!
The session is a condensed but still loooong version of a story you probably haven’t heard often enough. The story of nasty, selfish old Scrooge and the Spirit who loved him enough to trouble him enough to unlearn how to be a monster.
Seriously, the message of A Christmas Carol is very much an Advent message of taking stock of what we have become, of turning around, and of charity. We laugh and fa la la – and we learn.

17 December 2021 – Father Christmas Letters, the Xmas Grouch, and Pevensies in the Melting Snow . . .
The Inkling Folk Fellowship meets again for a lovely seasonal session with Father Christmas and his sidekick, the North Polar Bear. C. S. Lewis will make an appearance impersonating the Grouch complaining about Xmas. The Sons of Adam and Daughters of Eve will, we hope, encounter Father Christmas in the melting snow.
That may be interrupted by J. R. R. Tolkien, taking his turn as the Grouch, losing his religion over C. S. Lewis including Father Christmas in Narnia. Bandersnatch, indeed! After we catch our breath, we have a snippet from a play by Dorothy L. Sayers, one of the few comprehensible bits written by Charles Williams, and lovely Christmas sermon from Adela Cathcart by George MacDonald. Give us a poem by Anne Ridler, another one by G. K. Chesterton, and a song by Christian Rossetti, add in a few Middle English lyrics, and our gooses should be just about cooked.
All are always welcome to enjoy the stories, the songs, the poems, and sometimes the grouchiness of Christmas. Perhaps even a parody of “Mary did you know?”? Nooooooooooooooooooooooooo.
Cerealously, we tend to go a wee tad long but “long” has become very relative in our Inkling Folk Fellowship Family. Sooo, we try to do what we hope to do (see the above) but we are also open to what (else) people might bring. An epic is a bit much but a song, a poem, a thought, or just shedding a tear or two with 30-40 folk that can be your besties are wonderful to share. It is all a gift.
All are invited, unless they are witches who plan to put a curse on the proceedings for the next few hundred years. We know that Xmas has become the season of stress but we celebrate Christmas, the feast of cheer and good will and, for a couple of hours on a Friday, it will be, we hope, a good time, in all possible meanings of the adjective.