Around the World and Web includes announcements and items of interest from beyond the SWG.
Tolkien Reverse Summer Bang (TRSB) Sign-Ups Open!
Calling all creators of Middle-earth magic! Whether you wield a pen, stylus, or keyboard, it’s time to return to Middle-earth for another epic journey.
What is it? The Tolkien Reserve Summer Bang is a collaborative fan event celebrating the works and adaptations of J.R.R. Tolkien. Writers and artists will team up to bring new stories to life—from the Shire to the far reaches of Valinor (and everything in between).
Sign-ups are officially OPEN! Whether you're a seasoned loremaster or a first-time adventurer, we’d love to have you join us. Writers, artists, beta readers, cheerleaders, treat makers, and pinch hitters—all are welcome!
*While artist and author sign-ups have a time limit, sign-ups for the other roles will remain open for the event.
Art Suggestion Spreadsheet for inspiration
FAQs: Answers to all our frequently asked questions
Sign-up deadlines: Artists: May 3rd
Authors: May 17th
Everybody Else: Duration of the Event
Spread the word, gather your fellowship, and let’s make some magic this summer!
April Challenge at tolkienshortfanworks
The tolkienshortfanworks challenge for April has been posted to the Dreamwidth community.
The thematic challenge for this month is: Wood.
This could be in the sense of "forest" or in the sense of the material.
It could also be "wood" as an element in compounds or names.
The formal challenge this time is: linnod.
This is the traditional verse form used by Gilraen in the Tale of Aragorn and Arwen (LOTR Appendix A).
We only have that one canonical example with translation:
Ónen i-Estel Edain, ú-chebin estel anim.
"I gave Hope to the Dúnedain, I have kept no hope for myself."
The name of the form probably means "chant-seven".
Our Sindarin example seems to show two times seven syllables, although there may be other ways to interpret the form.
Imitate the Sindarin original or its English translation in any way you like.
Alternatively, your piece could include someone using a short response in verse in the way Gilraen does, without your imitating the form of the linnod itself.
These prompts can be filled separately and freely combined with other challenges and prompts that allow this. New participants welcome.
More detals on the challenges at the linked post and at the Dreamwidth community.
Tolkien Ekphrasis Week 2025
Material culture and art add vibrancy to our lives, and it seems that there are so many options in Middle Earth ripe for interpretation! A poem on Nerdanel's statues, a tapestry capturing Nessa's dance, a prose fic describing the impact of seeing Númenor's frescoes, a painting exploring the beautiful quotidian architecture of a Hobbit hole…
This is a Tolkien-fandom-wide event dedicated to the art of ekphrasis in Tolkien's worlds. Its goal is to illuminate the artistic surroundings of the places, people, and stories we love, in as many media as possible. As such, fanworks are welcome to take almost any form: see the FAQ for the full list!
The prompts are multi-part. The first part of the prompt is mandatory, describing the kind of art to be interpreted. The subsequent parts are optional thematic, formal, or visual add-ons that people may choose to incorporate or not.
In short, the timeline is:
- Read prompts starting March 17.
- Create!
- Post tagged work to AO3 before June 9 deadline.
- Enjoy daily reveals between June 10 and June 16.
- Amnesty day June 17 for late posters.
Inclusion
Tolkien Ekphrasis Week is open to all characters, genres, and ratings, and all Tolkien canons. This includes books, movies both live-action and animated, fan-made films like Born of Hope, TV shows, and game canons such as Lord of the Rings Online. It also includes Tolkien's non-Arda fictional works, such as Roverandom. Crossovers between two or more Tolkien canons are welcome.
Tolkien Ekphrasis Week wants to be as inclusive as possible. As such:
- All canons and versions of canon are equally welcome and encouraged to participate.
- Fan creators of all levels of experience should feel more than welcome to join in the fun.
- All languages are welcomed, and works in languages other than English are actively encouraged.
- All styles of art and all types of fic are permitted. Apart from following the Art Form content prompt for each day, there are no restrictions on genre, style, rating, or ship. There are two exceptions: first, no character bashing; second, no AI-generated writing or art.
Above all, this event is supposed to get us thinking and feeling about art, which is for everyone. With this in mind, TEW asks participants to be respectful and inclusive at all times. In particular, TEW values its queer and trans participants and participants of color and will moderate as necessary to ensure that this event remains a welcoming space.
Please see the FAQ for all rules and full instructions on how to post and tag.
Calendar
June 9, 2025: Submit all works to the AO3 Collection by this date
June 10-16, 2025: Reveals
- June 10 - AO3 collection reveals begin with Day 1 Prompt (Dance)
- June 11 - Day 2 Prompt (Leathercraft)
- June 12 - Day 3 Prompt (Painting)
- June 13 - Day 4 Prompt (Tattooing, Piercing & Body Art)
- June 14 - Day 5 Prompt (Culinary Arts)
- June 15 - Day 6 Prompt (Textiles & Fashion)
- June 16 - Day 7 Prompt (Lapidary & Hardstone Carving)
- June 17 - Amnesty Day and Free-for-all posting
March 17, 2026: 2025 AO3 Collection and DW community close to posting.
Housekeeping
The DW site is the primary home of Tolkien Ekphrasis Week: that is where to check first for dates, news, FAQs, links, and prompts!
Prompts will also be posted here on Tumblr. The Tumblr blog will be used for event promotion ahead of the event, answering questions via the ask function, and reblogging your creations, if they are posted and tagged on Tumblr.
This event does not and will not exist on any other form of social media other than Tumblr and DW, though I encourage you to spread the word in your other online communities.
If you have any questions, you can get in touch with the mod, @chestnut_pod, via Tumblr ask or comments on the Dreamwidth community's equivalent post.
Links
Teitho March/April Challenge: Mothers
Exploring the idea of mothers in Tolkien lets us go behind the scenes. We have quite a few mothers directly in the narrative, primarily in the Silmarillion—where we see Miriel, Nerdanel, Morwen, Idril, Aredhel, Luthien, Elwing, and even have mentions of Anaire and Earwen.
In The Lord of the Rings we read of Galadriel being Celebrian’s mother and Arwen’s grandmother. Aragorn’s mother Gilraen, Faramir and Boromir’s mother Finduilas, and Rosie Cotton—Sam’s wife—are all mentioned in the narrative. The Hobbit gives us a memory of Belladonna Took, Bilbo’s mother, and mentions of Thorin’s sister Dis—the mother of Fili and Kili. The stories of any of these characters would make for fascinating fic! Or art!
There are many who remain unmentioned and unnamed—Legolas’s mother, Gimli’s, the mothers of generations of Dunedain, of Gondorians, of the Rohirrim, of the Shire. And consider Ungoliant, mother of Shelob! And mothers among the ranks of orcs.
We are excited to see where this prompt takes you and which character gives you inspiration! Please submit your fic or art by April 30 to teitho.contest@gmail.com
Around the World and Web Archive
Events listed here are no longer active but are listed on the site for historical purposes.
Sindar Week 2023
Sindar Week is a Tolkien event week for the Sindar, the Grey-Elves, from the Years of the Trees to the Third Age. It will run from September 4th 2023 to September 10th 2023 on Tumblr.
Prompts (2023)
FAQ/Guidelines
Navigation
Prompts:
- Day 1: Heroes & Villains
- Day 2: Locations
- Day 3: Legendary Deeds
- Day 4: Traditions & Myths
- Day 5: Songs & Sailing
- Day 6: The Third Age
- Day 7: OCs
Ainur Week 2023
Ainur Week will be taking place Friday, September 1 to Saturday, September 9 on Tumblr. This is a Tolkien fandom week dedicated to the Ainur, J.R.R. Tolkien’s fictional species. The Ainur, including the Valar and Maiar, are the first beings created by Eru Ilúvatar in the Professor’s lore. They are powerful, mysterious, and even controversial. Come celebrate the Ainur by creating fanworks centered around them!
You can create art, fics, graphics, playlists, meta, headcanons, or any other type of fanwork. When you post your work, make sure to mention this blog (@ainurweek) and put “ainur week” or “ainurweek” in the first 20 tags.
Prompts
Day 1
Manwë | Varda | Eönwë | Ilmarë
Power dynamics | Life among the stars | Flight
Day 2
Aulë | Yavanna | Curumo | Aiwendil
Craftsmanship | Relationship with Nature
Day 3
Ulmo | Ossë | Uinen | Salmar
Romance | Relationship with Elves
Day 4
Oromë | Vána | Arien | Tilion
Hunting | Family dynamics | Legends
Day 5
Mandos | Vairë | The Blue Wizards
Death | Fate | Travel
Day 6
Lórien | Estë | Melian
Dreams | Healing | Friendship
Day 7
Tulkas | Nessa | Balrogs
War | Dance | Darkness
Day 8
Nienna | Olórin
Grief | Mercy | Light
Day 9
Melkor | Mairon
Chaos | Corruption | Redemption
Code of Conduct
1. Do not repost other people’s fanworks without their explicit permission.
2. Respect other people’s interpretations of Tolkien’s characters and relationships. Do you disagree with a certain ship or a creator’s perspective on a character? Please keep that to yourself.
3. Fanworks that are bigoted/ prejudiced in their messaging are not allowed. You may, however, depict instances of bigotry/ prejudice in your fanwork. E.g. You can write about characters experiencing sexism, but fanworks that endorse or promote sexism are not permitted.
Violation of these rules will result in your being blocked.
August Challenge at tolkienshortfanworks on Dreamwidth
The August Challenge has been posted to the tolkienshortfanworks community on Dreamwidth.
We are doing something slightly different this month.
Co-mod Lferion has very kindly offered us an image prompt, featuring their lovely artwork.
The piece is called Elven Elements.
New participants welcome. For more details on the challenge go to the linked post.
Innumerable Stars 2023
Innumerable Stars is a Tolkien fandom gift exchange for all works by Tolkien or associated with Middle-earth.
People Who Participate in Innumerable Stars are:
★ Interested in and excited about multiple Tolkien-based canons.
☆ Interested in their fellow fans’ creativity in fanfiction and fanart, and excited to explore their own.
★ Open to creating and receiving any one of a number of different prompts or ideas.
☆ Happy to read and comment on the fanwork(s) they receive with thanks first of all, but also to read and comment on other fanworks in the exchange.
People Who Participate in Innumerable Stars will:
★ Generally read and create for a variety of slash, gen, het, adventures, fluff, dark, erotica, worldbuilding, etc.
☆ Create their fanwork following their recipient’s prompts in good faith, and receive the fanwork(s) that have been given to them in good faith also.
★ Also write or draw “treats” for others in the exchange, if their own time and inspiration permits after they have completed their assignment,. These are not required but they add to the fun and excitement of the exchange!
☆ Create their fanwork without the use of AI, be it in writing or art.
What Innumerable Stars is NOT:
You do not have to be open to or interested in every type of fanwork to participate. However, Innumerable Stars is not for anyone interested in just one character, pairing, or scenario. Nor is it for people who find stories or art containing material they are not interested in offensive because it exists. If either of these apply, we wish you well, but this is not the exchange for you.
Links
AO3 Collection | Tumblr | LiveJournal RSS Feed
Schedule
Nominations Open: Sunday, 06 August 2023, 8:00 PM UTC
Nominations Close: Sunday, 20 August 2023, 8:00 PM UTC
Sign-ups Open: Sunday, 20 August 2023, 11:59 PM UTC
Sign-ups Close: Sunday, 03 September 2023, 8:00 PM UTC
Assignments Out: Monday, 04 September 2023, 8:00 PM UTC
Assignments Due: Sunday, 15 October 2023, 8:00 PM UTC
Works Revealed: Sunday, 22 October 2023, 8:00 PM UTC
Authors Revealed: Sunday, 29 October 2023, 8:00 PM UTC
Silvergifting Week 2023
Silvergifting Week will happen on Tumblr August 7-13, 2023!
This is the second year of the week-long event that celebrates the relationship between Celebrimbor and Mairon | Annatar | Sauron. The event wants to encourage people to create fanworks focused on Celebrimbor/Mairon pairing (including Celebrimbor/Annatar and Celebrimbor/Sauron). Fan art, fan fiction, headcanon, moodboards, fan crafts, cosplay, fan videos, meta ... all kinds of fan works are welcome!
This year, there are optional word prompts for days 1-5 you can use in addition to the main prompts.
List of prompts
Day 1 (August 7): Beginnings | First Meetings
Optional word prompt for Day 1: Delicious meal
Day 2 (August 8): Crafting | Community
Optional word prompt for Day 2: Curious cat
Day 3 (August 9): Soulmates | Marriage | Bonding
Optional word prompt for Day 3: Beautiful gift
Day 4 (August 10): Betrayal | Captured | Bad Ending
Optional word prompt for Day 4: Corrupting touch
Day 5 (August 11): Post-canon | New beginnings
Optional word prompt for Day 5: Nimble fingers
Day 6 (August 12): Canon divergence | Alternate universe
Day 7 (August 13): Freeform
Tolkien of Colour Week 2023
Tolkien of Colour Week will run 31 July - 6 August 2023 on Tumblr and AO3.
Any form of content is welcome. Tag @tolkienofcolourweek in your post and #tocweek2023.
This year there is a Ao3 collection!
The prompts below are only suggestions. There are two sets of prompts - Peoples | Themes. You can use both sets of prompts or just one.
Day 1: Ainur | Faith, Hope, Festivals
Day 2: Elves | Home, Lands, Journeys
Day 3: Men | Ancestors/Descendants, Tradition, Stories
Day 4: Dwarves | Music, Artwork, Clothing
Day 5: Hobbits | Family, Friendship, Romance
Day 6: Mixed | Community, Language, Belonging
Day 7: Freeform | Intersectionality, Sexuality, Gender, Intersex, Disability
Call for Papers: 2024 Kalamazoo Congress
The 59th International Congress on Medieval Studies will be held in a hybrid format, Thursday through Saturday, 9-11 May 2024) at Western Michigan University. Six sessions on Tolkien are offered this year. Note that some sessions are in-person and others are virtual.
- Tolkien's Leeds Legacy: A Reconsideration of His Work as a Medievalist (In-person)
- Tolkien and "The Battle of Maldon" (In-person)
- Tolkien’s Problematic Medievalisms, A Roundtable (In-person)
- Flora, Fauna & Fantasy: Medieval Poets and J.R.R. Tolkien, co-sponsored with the Pearl Poet Society. (Virtual)
- Here Be Dragons: Tolkien at the Medieval Margins (co-sponsored with Centre for Fantasy and the Fantastic, University of Glasgow: Virtual)
- Tolkien and Disability (co-sponsored with Society for the Study of Disability in the Middle Ages: Virtual)
Proposals are due by 15 September 2023.
Multifandom Poetry Fest 2023
Welcome to the seventh annual Multifandom Poetry Fest, a prompt fest for poetry for all fandoms!
Rules
1) Leave a prompt in the form of fandom, characters or relationships, prompt. If you don’t want to specify the fandom or characters, you can say "any." One prompt per comment. Leave as many prompts as you like.
2) Reply to other people’s prompts with poems. The poems can be any length or form, or no form. Quality isn’t important--the point is to have fun, not to produce deathless works of art. (Any deathless works of art produced are just a bonus.)
LotR Ladies Week 2023
LotR Ladies Week will be a week-long event hosted on Tumblr, in order to celebrate the female characters in and around J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. The event will run 17-23 July 2023.
We welcome all forms of fan creations centered around the women in the series: be it fics, fanart, edits, gifs, fanmixes, or whatever else you’d like to make!
Guidelines
- Tag your posts with #lotrladiesweek and mention @lotrladiessource
- We’re focusing on female characters from The Lord of the Rings itself & ones with connections to it, such as Second Age characters like Tar-Miriel, and characters from The Hobbit like Belladonna Took. There are many other amazing women from The Silmarillion and such, but this is the LotR ladies' chance to shine!
- Fanwork of all kind is welcome--art, fanfic, gifsets, graphic/aesthetic edits, fanmixes, headcanons, crafts, anything!
- Per our usual policy, we will not reblog NSFW content.
- Bigotry of any kind will not be tolerated.
Prompts
(Note: the prompts are completely non-mandatory and can be mixed and matched however you would like to use them! They’re just meant to provide a range of creative inspiration and you don’t have to use them at all!)
- Day 1: Hobbits | Warm colours | Resilience | Music/Lyrics | Fairytales & Legends
- Day 2: Women of the North | Cool colours | Love | Minimalism | Family
- Day 3: Dwarrowdams | Monochrome | Joy | Motifs | Language
- Day 4: Women of the South | Black & white | Courage | Typography | Parallels
- Day 5: Elves | Pastels | Grief | Portraits | Archetypes
- Day 6: Original Characters | Complementary Colours | Anger | Faceless | Textual ghosts
- Day 7: Freeform | Multicolour | Hope | Blending | Alternate Universes
Tolkien Pinup Calendar 2024
The Tolkien Pinup Calendar compiles a calendar of risque fanart of your favourite Tolkien characters! Most of the art is commissioned and in that way we are helping to support fan artists. There are other ways to participate, see the ‘roles’ section under FAQ.
In addition to the calendar, Main Commissioners can also submit fics inspired by the art! There will be an AO3 collection with the fics revealed at the end of the event.
Sign-ups are now open for main commissioners, artists, and donators!
To submit any ideas or view those others suggested, take a look at our Ideas Form post!
Frequently Asked Questions
Schedule
2023 Masterlist | Video | Downloadable Calendar for 2023
This is an 18+ event.
