2025 Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Adult Literature

Minsoo Kang, The Melancholy of Untold History



Wow, thank you. Thank you so much.

I have to tell you what an honor it is for me to receive this award from this organization in particular, because... My father was a diplomat for the Korean Government, so I lived all over the world, and at 11 years old we went to New Zealand. I was already a very bookish kid, and so it was very frustrating for me to start a new language and read at a lot lower level. So the following year I decided to try to make a jump start to my reading ability, went to the bookstore and picked the longest book that I could find, so that over the summer I could go through it. And it happened to be an omnibus edition of The Lord of the Rings. And when I started with The Fellowship of the Ring, I had to look up every other word, but by the time I finished The Return of the King and put it down, I could tell myself, “Wow! Now I can read English.”

And so that book has such a special meaning for me. Also imagine my surprise decades later I heard that the movie is going to be made, and it’s going to be made in New Zealand by a New Zealand director. That was very surprising to me, and I’m a big fan.

So the one last thing that I will say is that I think for these literary heroes you can give tribute to them in two different ways as a fiction writer in your own right. One is to carry on the kind of work that they did in terms of the storytelling and all that. The other one is to go beyond it.

And I very much appreciate the fact that for myself and other nominees, we’ve seen works from all variety of people, all variety of backgrounds, and all variety of storytelling, and I think that says something really, really positive about the people who run this organization. And it’s the readers they’re following. So thank you so much, I really really appreciate it, this is a great honor. Thank you.

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2025 Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Young Adult Literature

Amie Kaufman, The Isles of the Gods



Thank you so much for selecting The Isles of the Gods as the winner of the 2025 Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Young Adult Literature! This was a book ten years in the making—from original idea to final execution was a long road, as I waited for my skill to catch up with my ambition. As a result, this book is very close to my heart—it means the world to have it recognised, especially by a group devoted to the kind of literature I love so much.

I would like to recognise all of the books on the shortlist—this honour is only increased by being among them—and thank everyone involved in the awards for such a career highlight!

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2025 Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Children’s Literature

Frances Hardinge (author) and Emily Gravett (illustrator), Island of Whispers



Frances Hardinge:
Many, many thanks for awarding the Mythopoeic Award for Children’s Literature to our extraordinarily death-y children’s book. This is a great honour, and I am enormously chuffed. (This is British for ‘very happy’.)

I was once asked during a Q&A whether I deliberately injected hope into my books, or felt a need to shield younger readers from ‘the bleakness of adult life’. I answered that my books contained hope because I was a naturally hopeful person, and that there weren’t many topics I’d avoid in a children’s book. “Well, I probably wouldn’t write a book about the inevitability of death,” I said, then thought about that for a few seconds. “Actually... maybe I would, if I could find a way of writing it that felt entertaining, exciting and positive.” Only after completing Island of Whispers did I realise that this was exactly the book I’d written. Of course, it was also a gothic ghost-story-fairy-tale-sea-adventure with necromantic headless birds, evil magicians, perilous seas, poetry, and a sinister island that appears on no map, because you can’t let things get dull....

Every book is a joint effort, and I want to thank my editor Suzanne Carnell, my agent Molly, my ex-agent Nancy, and the teams at both Pan Macmillan and Abrams. Most of all I would like to thank and praise my partner-in-crime, the superb illustrator Emily Gravett. Her moody, atmospheric pictures were more than a joy, they were a revelation, bringing out the heart of the story in ways I had never anticipated. Some of them even made me cry a little (in a good way). Finally, a big thanks to the Mythopoeic Society, and everyone involved with the awards!

Emily Gravett:
Looking at the other finalists I can see that we are in excellent company. When I first read the text for Island of Whispers, I was desperate to illustrate it. I’ve long been a fan of Frances Hardinge as her writing is so brilliant and timeless, and conjures up feelings in me of the mystery of the world and all that entails. I just hope that I’ve done such a wonderful book justice.

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2025 Mythopoeic Scholarship Award for Inklings Studies

Christina Scull and Wayne G. Hammond, editors, The Collected Poems of J.R.R. Tolkien



We have just written, in an article for the journal Hither Shore, that editing Tolkien is both exhausting and rewarding. This is part of the reward, to have our achievement recognized.

We would like to send thanks to our fellow members of the Mythopoeic Society who voted for our book, to the Tolkien Estate and HarperCollins for trusting us with Tolkien’s poems, and to Christopher Tolkien in memoriam, to whom we have owed so much over so many years.

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2025 Mythopoeic Award for Myth and Fantasy Studies

Stefan Ekman, Urban Fantasy: Exploring Modernity through Magic



Receiving the 2025 Mythopoeic Society Scholarship Award for Myth & Fantasy Studies is an incredible honour, and I sincerely wish I could have been with you to accept the award in virtual person.

I would like to thank all of you in the Society and on the Awards Committee who thought my study deserved this distinction. Having spent more than a decade puzzling about the inner workings of urban fantasy, it is both humbling and gratifying to realise that so many people felt my findings worth reading.

No scholar is an island. Numerous friends and colleagues have given generously of their time and insights, and their comments have improved the book greatly in so many ways. I value their contributions more than they may realise. And without the unwavering support of my amazing partner Helena, this book would not even exist. Part of this honour is rightfully hers.

Thus, to the Mythopoeic Society and to the readers of the book, as well as to all my urban fantasy interlocutors and to my fantastic partner: my heartfelt thanks!