All are invited to join the Mythgard Institute on Saturday, Oct. 3, for the Mythgard Midatlantic Speculative Fiction Symposium at the University of Maryland in College Park, MD.    The symposium will offer a mix of paper presentations and discussions about fantasy, science fiction, and speculative stories in literature and other media.

Special guests will include:

Dr. Verlyn Flieger – Professor emerita in the Department of English at the University of Maryland at College Park. Dr. Flieger will be discussing her recently published edition of The Story of Kullervo by J.R.R. Tolkien.
Carl F. Hostetter – Computer scientist and head of the Elvish Linguistic Fellowship
Dr. Corey Olsen – President of Signum University and the Mythgard Institute, and known to podcast listeners around the world as The Tolkien Professor.

The symposium will begin at 10 am and continue until 5 pm, and it will be broken into three sessions:

Session 1: Tolkien – This session will focus on topics related to Tolkien and his legendarium.
Session 2: Other Speculative Literature – This session will consider works by other authors, including H.P. Lovecraft, Philip Pullman and Ted Chiang
Session 3: Speculative Fiction Across Media – This session will look at speculative stories in television and film, including Star Wars, Babylon 5 and Twin Peaks

After the symposium, many participants will be continuing discussions over dinner at a nearby restaurant. All are welcome to join. (Meals are not included in the registration fee.)

University of Maryland, Tawes Fine Arts Building, Room 1100, College Park, MD

The symposium is $10 per person