Around the World and Web

November Challenge at tolkienshortfanworks on Dreamwidth

The tolkienshortfanworks challenge for November has been posted to the Dreamwidth community.

The thematic prompt is : leaf and/or tree.
There are, of course, many of both of these in the Legendarium, as well as Tolkien's shorter stories!
If you are in the northern hemisphere, the leaves have been turning colour and drifting in the wind; if you are in the southern hemisphere you may be seeing new growth.

The formal challenge is inspired by Welsh cynghanedd.
The essential idea of this is a repeated pattern of consonants with the two half-lines of a verse matching each other. (You could try it with two clauses in prose, too, of course!)
This is a Welsh example of the strict form in which the repeating pattern is easy to see:
clawdd i ddal / cal ddwy ddwylaw.
Our challenge does not call for such a strict form (unless you want to attempt it!), but you get the idea.
Cynghanedd can be combined with internal rhyme.
There is more information on cynghanedd here and here.

As usual, these two prompts can be filled separately or combined and they can be freely combined with other challenges.

New participants welcome.

For more details on the challenge see the linked post.

Nolofinwëan Week 2023

Nolofinwëan Week welcomes fan creations centering any members of the House of Fingolfin through the ages. You can participate with fanfiction, fanart, headcanons, close readings and musings, edits, or anything else that inspires you to celebrate these characters. Nolofinwëan Week will run on Tumblr and AO3 November 6-12, 2023.

Prompts

Inspirational, nonmandatory prompts:

• Day 1: Noontide of Valinor - Darkening ● Fingolfin ● Anairë
• Day 2: Exile - Arrival to Beleriand ● Fingon ● Argon ● Elenwë
• Day 3: Mithrim - The Long Peace ● Turgon ● Aredhel ● Eöl
• Day 4: Dagor Bragollach - War of Wrath ● Idril ● Maeglin ● Tuor ● Eärendil ● Elwing
• Day 5: Lindon - War of the Ring ● Elrond ● Elros ● Gil-galad
• Day 6: Fourth Age Middle-earth - Return to Valinor ● Númenórean descendants ● Peredhil descendants
• Day 7: AUs, Canon divergences, Freeform ● Nolofinwëan OCs ● Canon ghosts ● Earlier canonical characters

To have your work shared on the event’s page, please mention the blog @nolofinweanweek in your post AND include the hashtags #nolofinweanweek and #nolofinweanweek2023 in the first 10 tags.

Links

• About
• Prompts
• AO3 Collection
• FAQ

November Calls for Papers

Something Mighty Queer: Mythopoeic Society’s Online Midwinter Seminar 2024

This virtual conference will be held 17-18 February, 2023.

We invite submissions for an online conference that focuses on queerness in fantasy, science fiction, speculative fiction or other mythopoeic work. This can be queer representation within the work or engaging with mythopoeia through queer theory. “Queerness” is an intentionally ambiguous term, demonstrating the diversity of queer experiences, and the necessity of situating queerness as a liminal, complex paradigm. Queer theory is wider than the study of gender identity or sexuality, extending to taking positions against normativity and dominant modes of thought, and engaging with the indefinite.

Aspects of this topic might include but are certainly not limited to any of the following:

Otherness, stranger/outsider, the uncanny, marginalization and oppression, liminality and liminal spaces, depictions of queer people, thresholds, trans theory, gender performativity, readings and research that challenge normative or hegemonic perspectives.

Proposals Due: November 30, 2023

See the Something Mighty Queer guidelines for more information on the conference, submission guidelines, and where to send your proposal.

Tolkien at UVM 2023: The Psychologies of Middle-earth

This hybrid conference will be held 13 April 2024 at the University of Vermont.

This is our 20th annual conference. The theme is The Psychologies of Middle-earth. We are excited to have Dr Sara Brown as our keynote!

Please submit abstracts (150 words) to Dr. Chris Vaccaro (at cvaccaro@uvm.edu) by the deadline of January 15th 2024. The registration fee is $25 and covers breakfast and lunch and helps to pay for our tech support for the virtual modality.

Abstracts can cover various applications of psychology including myth, religion, art, sexuality, world building, race and ethnicity, feminism, queer theory, class consciousness, ideology, PTSD, trauma, desire, disability, and much more.

Proposals Due: January 15, 2024

Note that SWG members often attend this conference! Message Dawn if you are thinking of attending and want to meet up.

Mythmoot X: Homeward Bound

This hybrid conference will be held 22-25 June 2024 at the National Conference Center in Leesburg, Virginia.

Mythmoot annual conference brings together students, fans, staff, and friends of Signum University, the Mythgard Institute, Signum SPACE, and Signum Academy. Our online and in-person completely hybrid event combines the best of scholarship and friendship in four glorious days.

The call for papers for this conference has not been posted yet. The conference webpage is here.

Signum University Regional Moots

These small, regional conferences are held at various dates and locations. See the Regional Moots page for more details.

Many thanks to Robin Anne Reid and her Online Conference Project for handily compiling this information on a regular basis!

Survey: Motivation of Fanfiction Writers

Want to take part in a study on motivations for writing fanfiction and help out a fan studies researcher? Gaille Alyssa Stanley from the University of Cyberjaya (UOC), Malaysia, has received approval from their Ethics Review Board for their study and is looking for fans 18 years old and above who write and publish fanfiction online without receiving monetary profit.

The online questionnaire is 14 questions and estimated to take 1 hour. All information will remain private and confidential. The information will not be disclosed to anyone other than the researcher and supervisor. The data will be collected anonymously and no personal data (e.g., name and address) will be required, except for email address as a means of communication. The data of the study will be used solely for research purposes and will not be shared to any external parties.

You can find out more about the study and access contact information at the consent form link.

Scribbles & Drabbles Second Harvest Sign-Ups Open

Maybe you saw some of the art being reblogged and felt inspired. Maybe you just missed the first sign-up window.

If you want to join in on the fun, now is your chance! Scribbles & Drabbles welcomes another round of authors!

Minimum word count is 100, and fics must be in the collection by November 11.

Any questions? Drop us an ask!

Sign-up form

More details on Scribbles & Drabbles

Hungarian Tolkien Society: 11th International Tolkien Mailing Competition

The Hungarian Tolkien Society invites you to join the international “Quendi” category of the Tolkien Mailing Competition: five rounds of quizzes, riddles, and creative tasks. This category is organised in English, open to any individual participant—and this year also to teams of 2–5 people! The five rounds of the competition will last from November to April. The application deadline has been extended to 5 November, 2023.

Participation in the Quendi category requires a thorough knowledge of The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion. Other works by Tolkien may be needed occasionally, as some questions (riddles, quizzes, etc.) can refer to those, but you will have about four weeks for each round, that is, plenty of time to look up in the books everything you might need.

There will also be some creative challenges. For example, you may be asked to describe a situation, write a short poem, make a drawing or take a photograph, etc. We would like to be proud of our participants, so we ask you to share the rights of your creative productions royalty-free (and you accept this condition by your registration for the competition). The best of your works—with due credit to authors/artists—might be published by the Hungarian Tolkien Society, e.g. on our website, www.tolkien.hu, or in our journal, Lassi Laurië. (The last issue of which is boasting a TLV Quendi solution on the front page!) Please do not publish these works yourself without consulting us first, and especially not before the end of the competition. (Artwork submitted by teams is credited as teamwork by default, but you can add the name of the actual author/artist for each piece.)

You can participate in the Quendi category alone as an individual competitor, or you can participate as a member of a team of 2–5 people. The individual competitors and the teams will receive the same set of tasks, but the winner will be announced separately for individuals and teams.

As an individual competitor, you can make the decision to solve only the quizzes or only the creative tasks in each round: besides the absolute winners of the individual and team subcategories, the separate winners of the lexical and the creative parts will also be announced. This choice is only available for individual competitors, teams are expected to do the full version!

The contest starts in November and continues until April. Every month you will receive the questions of the next round, and you will have to submit your solutions until the indicated deadline.

If you want to participate, please fill in this online registration form.

Registration as an individual competitor: choose the “I am competing alone.” option on the form.

Registration as a team: each team member should fill in a registration form separately, choose the “I am a member of a team of 2-4 people.” option, and provide the same team name. We also need a contact person for each team. Please agree on a unique team name and choose a contact person from the team before starting the registration.

The application deadline is 5 November 2023.

For more information, sample challenges, and contact information, see the Hungarian Tolkien Society's Tolkien Mailing Competition webpage.

Fact-Checking Community little_details Is Back, Now on Dreamwidth

Little Details is a community that helps writers with their research and fact-checking. We're here to answer questions such as:

• If I drop a brick on someone's head from twenty stories high, what will happen?
• How big does an asteroid need to be to destroy the Earth?
• How do I say "it's not you, it's me" in French?
• Can people have freckles on their penises?

All types of fiction writers (professional, amateur, fanfiction, original, dungeon masters) are welcome to post questions. Our focus is factual accuracy rather than general writing advice.

This is the new home of the (now defunct) Little Details community on LiveJournal. Welcome back, everybody!

Fictober 2023

This event is open to all fanfiction and original fiction.

Start October the First. You do not have to do the prompts in order. Tag your posts with #fictober23. Please state if your entry is original fiction or fanfiction and what fandom at the top. State common warnings and triggers at the top and tag accordingly. I reserve the right to not reblog fics that I find inappropriate. I will reblog things here on @fictober-event, follow this blog to see all the entries.

Check the rules for any questions.

Here's the AO3 collection.

1. "It's not too late, let's go."
2.     "Don't worry, I got you."
3.     "Okay, show me."
4.     "Do you even know what this means?"
5.     "You're the smartest person I know."
6.     "I can't wait for you."
7.     "Do you recognise this?"
8.     "Give me that, before anything happens."
9.     "I wouldn't do that if I were you."
10.     "It's alright, I'm here now."
11.     "You lost it. Well, we lost it."
12.     "I'm not saying I didn't like it."
13.     "Come with me, hurry."
14.     "If you don't stop now —"
15.     "Fine, explain it to me."
16.     "Do you know a way out of here?"
17.     "I never said it would be easy."
18.     "We can't do this on our own."
19.     "What if we're wrong?"
20.     "This better be good."
21.     "Just in case this doesn't work."
22.     "Who takes care of you?"
23.     "No, you won't understand, ever."
24.     "Is it over? Is it really over?"
25.     "Do I look like I knew that?"
26.     "Honestly, why would I care?"
27.     "I don't know if they will accept this."
28.     "I may not get another chance to say this."
29.     "That's all? Easy."
30.     "Are you with me?"
31.     "It's not your fault."

Panfandom Hanukkah Bingo 5784

WHAT: A fanworks bingo celebrating Jewish (and Jew-ish) characters across any and all fandoms. Write fanfiction and/or create graphics (moodboards, edits, vids, whatever you like) to fill prompts on this overall bingo card. During the 8 nights of Hanukkah, submit your fills to the AO3 collection and/or post them on Tumblr to be reblogged and added to the Bingo Masterpost.

WHY: Jewish characters and Jewish fans are often overlooked or erased during the Winter Holiday Season in favor of “Secret Santa” exchanges, Christmas-themed fics, and the idea that ~Hanukkah is Jewish Christmas~ (which spoiler for all fics in this bingo: it’s not). This panfandom Bingo challenge is to celebrate Hanukkah on its own terms and give Jewish characters and fans a place to breathe. :)

Signing up is totally optional. If you want to sign up and get an individualized Bingo Card, then you have between 10/1/2023 (October 1) and 12/1/2023 (December 1) to do so. If you want to use the GENERAL Bingo Card, which will be posted on Tumblr on 10/7/2023, then you do not need to sign up to participate. You can sign up to receive an individualized Bingo Card here.

Participation is open to anyone! You do not need to be Jewish to participate in the Panfandom Hanukkah Bingo! If you are not Jewish, though, we request that you have a Jewish sensitivity reader or beta reader before posting your piece and that you reblog and promote the work of Jewish creators in the event. MESSIANIC STORIES ARE NOT ALLOWED.

Please let us know of any character(s) or fandom(s) we should promote this event to, and please feel free to promote this event yourselves on Discord, Twitter, Instagram, whatever! We would love to see this event grow this year.

Whumptober 2023

We’re very excited to see the community come together once more and be a wild, chaotic bunch of creators and consumers of whump. Go wild with the prompts, and support your fellow creators—we wish you all the fun!

Please make sure to read the Event Info carefully, as most of your questions will be answered there already. For everything else, you are welcome to come to our ask box or ask questions in our Discord server here.

This year’s AO3 Collection can be found here.

And this years playlist can be found here.

Find the full rules and 139 prompts here!