Happy New Year! State of the 2016 Conference

Happy New Year Fellowship of the NY Tolkien Conference,

Welcome to 2016; it is looking to be a great year. We are so very grateful for all your support during 2015, which saw the launch of our annual NY Tolkien Conference.  We have been a tad quiet for the last few months regarding details of the 2016 Conference due to discussions with several potential new venues.  Since New York is a large and vast land we thought of having a new venue each year, and are still in discussion with 2 potential new sites. This we hope shall be nailed down this coming week.  However, we may return to Baruch College this year and have something entirely new for our 2017 Conference taking place during the 80th Publication Anniversary of The Hobbit (was that a hint? Hmmm)

When will the 2016 Conference take place? We are aiming at 3 dates in July: 16, 23rd or 30th. We shall announce very soon, which of those dates we plan on holding the Conference.

What is the theme for this year’s Conference? Yesterday via our social media pages, Facebook and Twitter we announced that this year’s theme would be “The Inklings and Science,” which pertains to the varied and intertwined disciplines of our Guests of Honor.
Who are the Guests of Honor for 2016? A full announcement will be published tomorrow during the day in honor of Tolkien and the Toast to the Professor festivities.
Toast to the Professor 2016 a Worldwide Celebration hosted by the Tolkien Society
“To celebrate Tolkien’s twelfthty-fourth (124^th) birthday on 3 January 2016, the Tolkien Society invites all Tolkien fans to raise a toast to the Professor.”

At 9pm your local time, The Tolkien Society invites you to raise a glass and toast the birthday of this much loved author. The toast is simply: The Professor!
Click here for all the details

What about Programming? We are planning to organize our programming a bit differently to allow it to be more interactive with everyone. There will be speakers offering papers, and we shall have panels but we would like the community to be more involved in the flow of discussion.

Lastly, if you would like to support our endeavors, check out our two available Tolkien titles from Myth Ink Books: Seeking the Lord by Jared Lobdell and Forgotten Leaves: Essays from a Smial by clicking the button below.