Jane Chance

Poet

Author's Bio

Jane Chance, Andrew W. Mellon Distinguished Professor Emerita at Rice University and recipient of a D.Litt. from Purdue University in 2013, published her first book of poems, Only Begetter, in 2014 (White Violet Press). Author of twenty-four scholarly books and over a hundred articles and reviews on Old and Middle English literature, medieval women, mythography, and medievalism, she has received Guggenheim and NEH Fellowships, membership at the Institute for Advanced Study- Princeton, a Rockefeller Foundation residency at Bellagio, and book and article prizes for her work. Her edited collection Tolkien the Medievalist twice received runner-up for the best book prize by the Mythopoeic Society; she has also published two monographs on Tolkien and two other edited collections and appeared briefly in two full-length documentary films on Tolkien. Her new book on "Tolkien, Self and Other: 'This Queer Creature,'" will be published fall 2016.

Her poems have appeared in many little magazines, including Antigonish Review, Ariel, Dalhousie Review, Degenerates: Voices for Peace, Icarus (Trinity College Dublin), Ilanot Review, Kansas Quarterly, Literary Review, Lyric, New America, Nimrod, Primavera, Quartet, Southern Humanities Review, Texas Poetry Calendar, Wascana Review, and the Anthology of Magazine Verse and Yearbook of American Poetry as well as in anthologies for Houston Poetry Fest, Poetry at Roundtop, Words& Art, and Red Sky/| poetry on the global epidemic of violence against women. Eight poems appear in New Crops from Old Fields: Eight Medievalist Poets, edited by Oz Hardwick (Stairwell Press, 2015). In 2014 she was a Juried Poet at Houston Poetry Festival and a featured poet at Inprint Houston-First Friday and has served as a poetry judge for Words&Art and Houston Poetry Fest 2016. Her poem "Homecoming" in the Texas Poetry Calendar 2016 was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. She has participated in poetry workshops led by Greg DePardo, Kevin Young, Marge Piercy, May Swenson, Lauren Berry, and Justine Post. She has read poetry at various universities and has organized sessions on medievalist poetry at MLA, the Medieval Academy, and the New Chaucer Society.

Publications & Prizes

Anthology:
Anthology of Magazine Verse and Yearbook of American Poetry (Monitor Book Company, 1979)
Books:
The Literary Subversions of Medieval Women (Macmillan, 2007)
,
Tolkien's Modern Middle Ages (Palgrave Macmillan, 2005)
,
Women Medievalists and the Academy (University of Wisconsin Press, 2005)
,
Tolkien and the Invention of Myth (Kentucky University Press, 2004)
,
Tolkien the Medievalist (Routledge, 2002)
,
The Lord of the Rings: The Mythology of Power (Kentucky University Press, 2001)
,
Tolkien's Art: A Mythology for England (Kentucky University Press, 2001)
,
Medieval Mythography, vol. 2 (University of Florida Press, 2000)
,
The Assembly of Gods (Western Michigan University Press, 1999)
,
Christine de Pizan's Letter of Othea to Hector (Boydell & Brewer, 1997)
,
Gender and Text in the Middle Ages (University of Florida Press, 1996)
,
Medieval Mythography, vol. 1 (University of Florida Press, 1994)
,
Woman as Hero in Old English Literature (Syracuse University Press, 1986)
,
The Genius Figure in Antiquity and the Middle Ages (Columbia University Press, 1975)
Journals: ,
Ariel
,
College Literature
,
Dalhousie Review
,
Icarus Review
,
Kansas Quarterly
, ,
Lyric
,
New America: A Journal of American and Southwestern Culture
, ,
Primavera
,
Quartet
, ,
Studies in Medievalism
,
Wascana Review
Prizes won: 

SCMLA Best Book Prize, Medieval Mythography, vol. 1, 1995
SCMLA Best Book Prize, Literary Subversions of Medieval Women, 2007
Medieval Feminist Society Best Essay Prize
Honorable Poetry, Writer's Digest Contest

Personal Favorites

What I'm reading now: 
The Little Red Chairs by Edna O'Brien

More Information

Gives readings: 
Yes
Travels for readings: 
Yes
Identifies as: 
White
Prefers to work with: 
Any
Fluent in: 
Italian
Born in: 
Neosho
Please note: All information in the Directory is provided by the listed writers or their representatives.
Last update: Jul 27, 2016