The Inklings Variety Hour

Sophie Burkhardt joins me to talk about the nature of Tolkien's Shire and its role in his work. (No long episode description this time--I am on vacation.  Enjoy, though!) If you have additional thoughts about the Shire, or ideas about other places we should explore, drop us a line at inklingsvarietyhour@gmail.com .  We would love to hear from you.  I think it would be half worth it to do a second...

Jonathan Geltner joins the show once again to discuss his essay, " The New Transcendentalism ." We ask, and attempt to answer the question: "What would Western society look like if it was rebuilt only around the works of Tolkien?" We're not sure ourselves, but there would probably be a lot more smoking.  Spoilers: We don't ever quite answer this question, but we do speculate about it quite a bit,...

If you liked this episode, give us a rating and review on iTunes so that other people can find us.  We'd love to hear from you, so reach out to me at inklingsvarietyhour@gmail.com . This week, Jonathan Geltner joins Chris to talk about J.R.R. Tolkien's unfinished King Arthur poem, T he Fall of Arthur , indulging in discussions of medieval literature  Among other things, we discuss: Why you should...

Sorry for the late post--it just didn't sit right to publish an episode on the most iconic British monarch during my country's Independence Day celebration. Also, there were hot dogs. If you like this podcast, please give us a five-star rating on iTunes. We'd also love to hear from you, so please reach out--inklingsvarietyhour@gmail.com ! Friend of the show Eric Geddes returns to talk about Lewis'...

If you're enjoying the show, please do rate us on iTunes!  Also, we'd love to hear from you at inklingsvarietyhour@gmail.com . Hal Poe joins the show to discuss his comprehensive and very readable three-volume C.S. Lewis biography, Becoming C.S. Lewis, which you can find here . He talks about how he became interested in C.S. Lewis, the process of writing the biography, and a few of the assumptions...

Chris interviews Don W. King about Ruth Pitter, a superb and often-overlooked poet who was friends with Lewis and many of the other Inklings.  Don also shares some of his exclusive recording of Pitter reading her poetry.  Definitely worth hearing! If you're enjoying The Inklings Variety Hour, we have no way of knowing it unless you email us ( inklingsvarietyhour@gmail.com ) or leave us a rating (a...

As a kind of epilogue to Out of the Silent Planet, Chris talks with Jordan Duncan from Lesser-Known Lewis about C.S. Lewis' 1958 essay, "Religion and Rocketry," also published as "Will We Lose God in Outer Space?"  You can find it collected in The World's Last Night and Other Essays .  This is a wide-ranging conversation (we get a lot of mileage out of a comparatively short essay), and we cover ev...

Renowned Beowulf and Tolkien scholar Michael Drout joins me to talk about the two projects he is publishing through Signum University Press--How to Learn How to Think: What the Liberal Arts Are Good For, Anyway and The Beowulf Project.  While not explicitly about Lewis or Tolkien, these subjects we cover this episode were near and dear to the heart of Lewis and Tolkien, as well as other members of...

We should be back on Thursday to bring you an interview with Michael Drout. But until then, enjoy Tolkien's "Mythopoeia," read by Anika Smith in Season One! We'll have a conversation with Jordan Duncan on "Religion and Rocketry" pretty soon as well, but I wasn't able to complete it quite in time for Tuesday this week. Here's the old description for "Mythopoeia": This week, we have J.R.R. Tolkien's...

Tolkien scholar Verlyn Flieger joins Chris to talk about her new book, A Waiter Made of Glass , a collection of short stories and poems recently published by Quickbeam Books, an imprint of Signum University Press. Topics covered include myth, grief, and the creative writing process. Go here to learn more about Signum University Press. We'll be back next week to talk with scholar Michael Drout abou...

If you're enjoying The Inklings Variety Hour, please consider giving us a review on Apple Podcasts. We'd also love to hear from you, so feel free to shoot us an email at Inklingsvarietyhour@gmail.com .  Additionally, we now have a Substack , so if you have thoughts on any of these episodes, we'd love to discuss them with you! The Inklings Variety Hour is pleased to welcome Dr. David C. Downing for...

Kay Ben-Avraham joins me to talk about her new (and still emerging) book, The Flower of the Cedar, which is about a dryad's journey to find her hearts in the time before human history. If you would like to find out more, to support Kay, or to help her shape this book, go to https://kaybenavraham.com/ .   Kay is the first of several writers for Signum University Press that I'll be interviewing this...

We have a Substack page at inklingsvarietyhour. substack.com . Head there if you have comments to make about this or any episode!  It may be desolate at first (I've not bothered to invite anyone as of this posting) but make a comment and subscribe--it shouldn't be too long before you hear back from someone else who wants to talk about Out of the Silent Planet. Also, please rate and review us on Ap...

If you're enjoying this podcast, please rate it on iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts! Also, we'd love to hear from you!  Email us at inklingsvarietyhour@gmail.com . Chris, Sophie, and Logan discuss Chapters 9-14 of Our of the Silent Planet, by C.S. Lewis! More description to come!

If you enjoy this podcast, please rate it on iTunes, or wherever in the world you get your podcasts!  Please feel free to drop me a line at inklingsvarietyhour@gmail.com .  I'd love to hear from you. David Bates, Logan Huggins, and Sophia Burkhardt join Chris to talk about  Out of the Silent Planet !  This was recorded quite some time ago--shortly after the Voyage of the Dawn Treader, but I wanted...

Feeling nostalgic while running through the grading gauntlet, Chris dips back into what was probably the most widely-listened-to episode of the Inklings Variety Hour: the first of many, many, many episodes on Till We Have Faces.  If you like it and want to hear the rest, just go back to Season 1 and binge away!  It's good stuff. Next week, once my grades are in, we will be blasting off to Heaven w...

The Internet, like Sauron, just keeps on giving.  Kora Burton and Jonathan Geltner join Chris to talk about one of its strangest and most recent Tolkien-related gifts, Khraniteli , a made-for-television production of The Fellowship of the Ring that aired in the final days of the USSR (1991) and was released by a kind soul onto YouTube 30 years later (2021).   In this characteristically digressive...

Editing and releasing a podcast once a week is difficult. Editing a releasing a podcast once a week while grading end-of-term papers is...more difficult.  So...enjoy this 2020 vintage from the vaults, where Chris, Anika, and Meagan weigh in on the (now-semi-)perennial question: Is The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe a "Fairy Story" (as defined by Tolkien)?  Their answer...will shock you. Probabl...

Jonathan Geltner and Eric Geddes join Chris to talk about their favorite adaptations of Tolkien's Legendarium in this fairly self-indulgent and digressive conversation.  Join us! More description to come!  Sorry to publish this late! Do you have a favorite (or least favorite) Tolkien adaptation?  Email us at inklingsvarietyhour@gmail.com and tell us about it. Next time: A full episode on the "Sovi...

J.D. Peabody has written a middle-grade novel that features the Inklings! We're accordingly interviewing him on The Inklings Variety Hour! Our conversation is about his book, The Inkwell Chronicles: The Ink of Elspet, which you can buy here . And here is the secret, "invisible" page that shows how the details in his plot are connected to real people in places in England. Among other things, J.D. a...

Once again--there were problems with the original file. This should be corrected now. Please delete and redownload, and thank you for your patience! This week, the Inklings Variety Hour (that is, Chris) talks to Dr. Sørina Higgins about the life and thought of " the Oddest Inkling ," Charles Williams.  Among other things, we discuss: Taliessin Through Logres Williams' upbringing and education Worl...

The second of a two-part conversation with author Jonathan Geltner--about his highly-acclaimed debut novel, Absolute Music--a literary novel about fantasy and faith, among other things.  Among other things, we discuss: Mythologizing or reenchanting Cincinnati and Pittsburgh The Inklings, of course Music Art, order, and chaos D&D Campaigns in the Middle of a Realist Novel Humphrey Carpenter's The I...

If this automatically downloaded and says it is 1 hour 30 minutes long, it is the wrong version of the episode. Delete the episode and redownload. Sorry for the inconvenience! (Or, if you're a hardcore fan, you're welcome for the exclusive, behind-the-scenes raw podcast.) Initially, an unedited version of this episode was uploaded.  The newer version is a lot more fun to listen to.  Inklings Varie...

Episode description to come!  It's late!   (Sorry about some of the audio quality!  I'm learning!--Chris)

As Season Three of the Inklings Variety Hour begins, worlds collide!  David Bates, of Pints with Jack fame, is hoisted aboard our primitive, deckchairless podcast, as we set sail for sweeter waters! Why, you can almost feel the sea air! Bracing! Also joining up with us, we have Eric Geddes from the snowy wastes of Phoenix--whom you might remember from our Christmas episode! Enjoy part 1 of our two...