An e-mail just received: “We were watching the Catholicism of the Lord of the Rings special that you did on EWTN the other night in the Marian house, and I had two questions. The conversation between C.S. Lewis and J.R.R Tolkien, in regard to the importance of myths, was that dialogue written down by one of the two authors? I was just curious as to how that scene was put together. Lastly, I was more curious as to whether there were any plans to do more specials that would go deeper into The Lord of the Rings?”

And my reply: The dialogue was written by me as a composite of various reports of the famous “night talk” between CSL and JRRT in September 1931 and of various sources in which the two men enunciate their respective philosophies of myth. The sources include Lewis’ letters, Tolkien’s letters, Tolkien’s essay on fairy stories, Tolkien’s short story, “Leaf by Niggle”, his poem, “Mythopoeia”, Lewis’ Pilgrim’s Regress and Carpenter’s biography of Lewis and his book on the Inklings.

There are indeed plans afoot to do more EWTN specials on The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit. I’m working on the scripts at the moment and we hope to film them in April.