Inklings Roundtable of Houston

Lord of the Rings Fans in Houston

Fans of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, and the Peter Jackson "Lord of the Rings" movies have been meeting in Houston at special dinner parties for several years. Dr. Jane Chance, Professor of English at Rice University, is an internationally recognized scholar and authority on the works of J.R.R. Tolkien. Dr. Chance has been meeting students, friends, and fellow Tolkien fans for dinner and conversation on an informal basis since the late 1990s.

In 2003, Houston-area fans of J.R.R. Tolkien and The Lord of the Rings started coming together once a month through the Meetup service. When Meetup began charging higher fees for event organizers, the Houston Tolkien dinner groups formed the Inklings Roundtable of Houston and began using a Yahoo! Groups Houston LoTR mailing list to stay in touch and organize events.

The Houston Tolkien Meetup group and Dr. Chance's group began coordinating their dinner events with each other in late 2004. Members of both groups had been visiting each other's dinner parties for more than a year. When the Meetup group abandoned the Meetup service, the time seemed good to seek a joint sponsorship with Dr. Chance's informal group.

The Rice University Tolkien group had been using Houston's famous Hobbit Cafe. However, while the mixture of vegetarian, healthy, and traditional American dishes was popular with members of both groups, the restaurant has become so popular that background noise diminished the groups' enjoyment of discussions. The cramped space inhibited group activities. And scheduling events and ensuring adequate parking became increasingly difficult.

The groups eventually settled on The Black Labrador, located just north of the intersection of Richmond and Montrose. The private dining room helps ensure that the Inklings Roundtable dinner parties are comfortable and relatively free of background noise.

On the other hand, management changed at the Black Labrador and the group increasingly found its activities moved to the upstairs piano lounge, where the tables are cramped and not well-suited for a meeting. Over the summer of 2006 the Inklings Roundtable has moved back to the Hobbit Cafe, which has recently closed in a back porch.

Dinner parties have been organized around themes and lively discussion. Members enjoy trivia contests, sharing books and special news, occasional audio-visual presentations, and planning special activities together. Members of the group helped promote attendance for Dr. Chance's lecture at the Houston Museum of Natural Science in the summer of 2005. Dr. Chance's lecture, sponsored by the Rice University Alumni Association, was proclaimed the most successful event organized in conjunction with the museum. Group members also turned out in force to attend Michael Martinez' presentation, "Being Middle-earth: How Fantasy Shapes the Living World", offered as part of the museum's Distinguished Lecturer Series in conjunction with the Lord of the Rings Exhibition.

Future meetings of the Inklings Roundtable of Houston will be announced through the Yahoo! Groups list. Fans of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and the other Inklings are welcome to join the list, attend the dinners, and enjoy themselves. Occasional guest speakers will be invited to present special programs. Some book signings may be arranged as well.