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Location
Weatherford, Oklahoma
Document Type
Ceremony
Event Website
https://www.mythsoc.org/mythcon/mythcon-54.htm
Start Date
26-7-2026 7:30 PM
End Date
26-7-2026 9:00 PM
Description
We find ourselves in a dire reality. America is facing a literacy crisis, especially among the young. College professors are sounding the alarm that students are entering higher education without having read a full novel while book bans are limiting access to reading materials. Many libraries are preemptively removing works before anyone can protest their inclusion even as budgets are being cut. Reading for pleasure among adults is down significantly, as is reading comprehension, at a time when media literacy is made crucial by weaponized misinformation, outright gaslighting, and the proliferation of AI generated media that is becoming increasingly hard to detect as artificial. Added to this is an ongoing environmental catastrophe.
None of this is aided by the ultrawealthy, who hope to remove access to the very elements that make us human: our capacity to create art and think for ourselves. The quiet part is being said out loud: “We see a future where intelligence is a utility like electricity or water and people buy it from us on a meter.” – Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI.
In the midst of this sits fantasy literature, which, in all of its forms, including romantasy such as the books of Rebecca Yarros or comedic commentary such as Terry Pratchett’s Discworld, can be part of the solution to these problems.
Authors of speculative fiction might be challenged to create realities even more threatening than our current, difficult world, but fantasy can provide escape, a reprieve. Beyond that, it can also provide a context for understanding the times we live in and give readers the means to survive them. The archetype of the fantasy hero is one of overcoming impossible odds, or making a journey to the darkest places, and returning triumphant while perhaps shining a little light into the world along the way. This makes fantasy worth exploring and worth teaching. In it are the seeds, not only of resistance, but of resilience.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
Included in
Author Guest of Honor Keynote - Fantasy as a Tool of Resilience and Resistance / Mythopoeic Awards Ceremony
Weatherford, Oklahoma
We find ourselves in a dire reality. America is facing a literacy crisis, especially among the young. College professors are sounding the alarm that students are entering higher education without having read a full novel while book bans are limiting access to reading materials. Many libraries are preemptively removing works before anyone can protest their inclusion even as budgets are being cut. Reading for pleasure among adults is down significantly, as is reading comprehension, at a time when media literacy is made crucial by weaponized misinformation, outright gaslighting, and the proliferation of AI generated media that is becoming increasingly hard to detect as artificial. Added to this is an ongoing environmental catastrophe.
None of this is aided by the ultrawealthy, who hope to remove access to the very elements that make us human: our capacity to create art and think for ourselves. The quiet part is being said out loud: “We see a future where intelligence is a utility like electricity or water and people buy it from us on a meter.” – Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI.
In the midst of this sits fantasy literature, which, in all of its forms, including romantasy such as the books of Rebecca Yarros or comedic commentary such as Terry Pratchett’s Discworld, can be part of the solution to these problems.
Authors of speculative fiction might be challenged to create realities even more threatening than our current, difficult world, but fantasy can provide escape, a reprieve. Beyond that, it can also provide a context for understanding the times we live in and give readers the means to survive them. The archetype of the fantasy hero is one of overcoming impossible odds, or making a journey to the darkest places, and returning triumphant while perhaps shining a little light into the world along the way. This makes fantasy worth exploring and worth teaching. In it are the seeds, not only of resistance, but of resilience.
https://dc.swosu.edu/mythcon/mc54/schedule/33
