ChLA News

—Alethea Helbig, editor of the Quarterly's poetry column, urges potential contributors to contact her without delay. Her address is 3640 Eli Road, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48104.

—ChLA Historian Carol Gay advises members that requests for back issues should be addressed to her at the English Department, Youngstown State University, Youngstown, Ohio 44555. Postage and handling are $2.50 per issue. The following issues are not available: Summer, 1976 (I) 2; Winter, 1977 (I) 4; Fall, 1977 (II) 3; Summer, 1981 (VI) 2; Fall, 1981 (VI) 3.

—Jill Gefvert, Chair of the Graduate Studies Committee, has details of 9 graduate programs in children's literature, and a list of schools where children's literature is taught. If you have, or want, information about schools or courses, write to Jill at 8426 Lyons Place, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19153.

—The 1983 MLA Convention will be held in New York City at the end of December. As an affiliated organization, the ChLA is allowed to set up three meetings, at which papers by its members may be presented. The Association is interested in receiving papers on the following topics for the convention:

1. 1. the realistic picture story book;

2. 2. Arthurian legend and romance in children's literature;

3. 3. adolescent and problem literature, and (closely related)

4. 4. realism in children's and adolescent literature.

Deadline for papers of ten page maximum length, 20 minute reading time, is January 31, 1983. Please send all submissions to Alethea Helbig, 3640 Eli Road, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48104, or to Ruth MacDonald, Department of English, Northeastern University, Boston, Massachusetts 02115. Those submitting will be notified by March 31 of the status of their papers.

—There will be three ChLA panels at the 1982 MLA Convention in Los Angeles this coming December. John Cech will chair "Mapping the Myths in Contemporary Children's Literature: an Examination of the Archetypal Patterns and Themes that Have for Centuries Appeared and Continue to Surface in the Subject Matter and Illustrations of Works for Contemporary Children"; Bernard Horn, Jerry Griswold, Phyllis Bixler, and Lois Kuznets will be the panelists. Anita Moss will chair the second panel: "Tradition and Individual Talent: the Portrait of the Artist as a Little Woman." Elizabeth Kaiser, William Blackburn, and Joanne Lynn are the panelists. Peter Neumeyer's panel, on poetry, is not yet organized.

—The winner of the ChLA Annual Award for the year's most distinguished criticism of children's literature has not yet been announced. Slow mails and the publication of many journals in January were cited as reasons to move announcement of the Award further along in the year. Jon Stott resigned as Chair of the committee to avoid a conflict of interest, now that he has joined the Editorial Board of Children's Literature in Education, and Karen Nelson Hoyle was appointed to replace him.

—Three Research Fellowships were awarded by the ChLA Scholarship Committee, headed by Carl Gay. Margaret Esmonde, Villanova University, was granted $250 for "From Dale Arden to Princess Leia Organa: The Development of the Female Role in Children's Science Fiction"; $250 went to Warren Wooden, Marshall University, for "A History of Children's Literature from the Introduction of Printing in England through the Conclusion of the Seventeenth Century"; and $1000 was awarded to C. W. Sullivan, East Carolina University, for "Celtic Mythology in Modern Literature." ChLA members are invited to apply for Research Fellowships to be awarded in 1983. Proposals must be for projects in literary criticism or original scholarship: monies are provided for transportation, subsistence, material, and supplies. The grants are not to be used for obtaining advanced degrees, for textbook writing, or for other pedagogical concerns. Applications for ChLA Fellowships must be received no later than December 1, 1982. Members of the Board of Directors and/or the Scholarship Committee are ineligible for the grants during their tenure of office. Proposals will be judged on the basis of originality, punishability, and contribution to the field of children's literature. For application forms, write to: Professor Carol Gay, English Department, Youngstown State, Wick Avenue, Youngstown, Ohio 44555.

—The Elections Committee, chaired by Malcolm Usrey, is drawing up a slate of candidates for ChLA offices...