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Fantasy Fiends to Face Off With Language Skills in 'You Spell or You Die'

By Meredith Hoffman | August 16, 2013 6:37am
 "Harry Potter" is one of the popular fantasy books that will be featured in "You Spell or You Die" spelling bee.
"Harry Potter" is one of the popular fantasy books that will be featured in "You Spell or You Die" spelling bee.
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Facebook/Harry Potter

GREENPOINT — If you know Qarth starts with a Q, and would never make the rookie mistake of forgetting the "Y" in "Gryffindor," this spelling bee is for you.

The vocabulary in the "You Spell or You Die" spelling bee can't be found in the dictionary, but instead is drawn from literature's ultimate fantasy realms, ranging from the "Lord of the Rings" to "Game of Thrones."

"Within sci-fi and fantasy books [authors] are creating entire worlds," explained Emily Pullen, manager of the bookstore WORD Brooklyn which is holding the contest. "A lot of the words [in the contest] are going to be proper words specific to those worlds."

In the bee on Saturday Aug. 24, competitors choose between a "Harry Potter" or "Game of Thrones" preliminary round and finalists "then go head to head in an all’s-fair-in-fandom face-off," the event's page notes.

Pullen said terms might pull from any books considered part of "nerd and geek" crazes, and that enthusiastic publishers had already donated prizes related to the literature.

And she noted that the bee — which has already received a flood of participants' interest — was unprecedented at the community bookshop.

"We've certainly never had a geek-oriented [bee]," she said, "although I guess most spelling bees are nerdy."

You Spell or You Die is next Saturday, Aug. 24, 5 p.m. at WORD Brooklyn, 126 Franklin St., Greenpoint. More details can be found on the event's Facebook page.