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Fellowship of the Fics: Summer Stories 2024

For four weeks in July, we have assigned various summer themed prompts for you to do with however you please! You could smash them all together into one project, do all of them separately, or you can call out to your followers to send you prompts they want to see!

Don’t limit yourself to the suggestions above, we want to see your creativity, which comes in a variety of forms! Whether you write 100 words, or 1000+ words, we want to see it, so be sure to tag #fotfics and drop your stories into our queue via this form!

Prompts

Week 1

• reflections
• splash
• camping
• heatwave
• unexpected

Week 2

• storms
• exploration
• ice
• waterside
• dreams

Week 3

• fields
• lost
• starlight
• gathering
• feast

Week 4

• music
• garden
• sweets
• critters
• love

Elrond Week 2024

Welcome to Elrond Week, a fandom event dedicated to Elrond Peredhel, a beloved character in the Tolkien legendarium! This event will run from July 10th to July 16th on Tumblr. Any kind of fanwork is welcome, be it art, writing, headcanons, playlists, moodboards, gifs, and whatever else you can think of—get creative and have fun!

Rules

• Be respectful and kind to others. Discrimination, bullying, and harassment will not be condoned.
• NSFW will not be allowed. Please keep your entries clean and SFW! I won't reblog NSFW works.
• The prompts are just suggestions - if you don't like some of them, feel free to create something of your own!
• Tag your entries as #elrondweek and @elrondweek, so I can see and reblog your works!
• Any kind of medium is welcome (except NSFW works, as mentioned above), so get creative!
• Have fun!!

The Elrond Week FAQ is here.

Prompts

Day 1: Childhood and Peace - Sirion, Family, Lifestyle, Elros, Elwing and Earendil

Day 2: Grief and Growth -Sack of Sirion, Maglor and Maedhros, Abandonment, Forgiveness

Day 3: Mortality and Immortality -Lindon, The Choice, Learning, Separation from Elros

Day 4: War and Leadership -Sauron, The Rings of Power, Leadership, Battle, Establishing Imladris

Day 5: Family and Love -Marriage, Fatherhood, Celebrian, Elladan and Elrohir, Arwen, Rivendell

Day 6: Darkness and Loss -Siege of Imladris, The Necromancer, Losing Celebrian

Day 7: Sanctuary and Departure -Third Age, The Hobbit, The One Ring, Legacy, The Undying Lands

Bonus Prompts:

• Relations with Men vs Elves
• Artifacts
• Healing
• Home

July challenge at tolkienshortfanworks posted

The tolkienshortfanworks challenge for July has been posted to the Dreamwidth community. The thematic challenge is: original character or unnamed canon character; the formal challenge: fixed length of multiple of 50 words.

These prompts can be filled separately or combined with other challenges, such as the SWG Monthly Challenges.

New participants welcome.

For more details on this challenge see the linked post; for more information on these challenges and tolkienshortfanworks in general check out the sticky posts at the DW community.

July 2024 Call for Papers and Proposals

Oxonmoot 2024

Oxonmoot is an annual event hosted by The Tolkien Society which brings together over 500 Tolkien fans, scholars, students and Society members from across the world. Oxonmoot 2024 will be our 51st, and will be held over four days, from the afternoon of Thursday 29th August until the afternoon of Sunday 1st September, and will be held at St Anne’s College, Woodstock Road, Oxford and Online.

We are pleased to welcome contributions of all types to the programme for Oxonmoot 2024.

The call for talks and papers is now closed but the call for activities remains open!

The Talks and Papers will be balanced by a wide range of other Activities – these could include, but are not limited to, workshops, demonstrations, discussions, games, physical activities, films & videos and social activities – but any and all offers are most welcome. Activities may take place in Oxford, online, or combine both online and in person participation, and may be scheduled alongside the Talks & Papers, or in the Evening (local time) time depending on the nature of the Activity. You can submit a proposal for an activity here. Activities have a deadline of 8 am UK time on 1 August 2024.

Participants with questions may contact the Activities Programme Co-Ordinator, or for social activities the Social Programme Co-Ordinator.

See the Oxonmoot 2024 page for more information or to register!

Journal of Tolkien Research Special Issue: Asexuality and Aromanticism in Tolkien’s Legendarium

Queer scholarship in Tolkien studies has made great strides in recent years, from David Craig’s “‘Queer Lodgings’: Gender and Sexuality in ‘The Lord of the Rings’” (2001) to Jane Chance’s Tolkien, Self and Other (2016) and Christopher Vaccaro and Yvette Kisor’s Tolkien and Alterity (2017). At a critical juncture of growth, this sub-field is poised to evaluate and address any gaps that exist as the field moves forward. One such gap, in both Tolkien studies and queer studies, is asexuality and aromanticism, which, while part of the LGBTQIA+ umbrella, are significantly underrepresented in scholarship and interpretation.

Asexuality, defined broadly as not experiencing sexual attraction to other people, and aromanticism, not experiencing romantic attraction to other people, convey a spectrum of individual experiences (ace-spectrum, or aspec). Aspec perspectives not only represent these individual identities and experiences but also illuminate and refresh understandings of love, desire, relationships, communities, and culture. Implemented within literary interpretation, an aspec lens offers insights into characters, plots, themes, narrative structures, and much more.

In order to address a gap in queer scholarship in Tolkien studies and to solicit new perspectives that can deepen understandings of Tolkien’s work, we invite submissions for a proposed special issue in Journal of Tolkien Research that focuses on asexuality and aromanticism in Tolkien’s work.

Topics can include but are not limited to:

• Aspec readings of individual characters
• Interpretations of love/relationships beyond (but not necessarily excluding) romantic, sexual, and/or platonic love
• Intersections between aspec theory and gender, disability, race, or other critical theory
• Comparative readings between Tolkien’s work and other fiction
• Amatonormativity or aspec aspects in Tolkien’s work, life, and historical context
• Reception of Tolkien’s work by aspec readers
• Aspec interpretations within adaptations of Tolkien’s work
• Interpretations focused on specific identities within the ace-spectrum, including demi-
• sexual/romantic, grey-sexual/romantic, etc.

Proposals/abstracts of a maximum of 300 words, along with a short bio and working bibliography (not included in word count), should be sent via email to aspectolkien@gmail.com no later than midnight Eastern Time on August 31, 2024.

Tolkien at Kalamazoo 2025

Hosted by the Medieval Institute at Western Michigan University, the International Congress on Medieval Studies is an annual gathering of thousands of scholars interested in medieval studies. The Congress embraces the study of all aspects of the Middle Ages, extending into late antiquity and the early modern period, including—but not limited to—history, language, literature, linguistics, art, archaeology, religion, science, medicine, music, drama, philosophy, gender, sexuality, mysticism and technology, as well as medievalism. The 60th International Congress on Medieval Studies takes place Thursday, May 8, through Saturday, May 10, 2025. Find more at the conference website.

Tolkien at Kalamazoo will be offering a total of eight sessions (paper sessions and roundtables), two of which are co-sponsored. The sessions are a mix of in-person, virtual, and hybrid as identified below. Send 100-word abstracts or complete papers to Christopher Vaccaro (cvaccaro@uvm.edu) and Yvette Kisor (ykisor@ramapo.edu) by the1^st of September.

Tolkien and Medieval Conceptions of the Sea (in-person paper session): HYBRID

The Medieval Roots of the Poems of J. R. R. Tolkien (in-person roundtable): HYBRID

Tolkien and Old Norse (hybrid / in-person paper session): HYBRID

Tolkien and Medieval Feminisms (in-person paper session)

Medieval Languages and Tolkien's Language Invention (in-person paper session)

Medieval Resonances in Tolkien's Letters (in-person roundtable)

Fire, Dragons, & Jewels, O My!: Medieval Poems & J.R.R. Tolkien (co-sponsored with the Pearl-Poet Society, virtual paper session)

Return of the Franchise: The Ongoing Reception and Interpretation of Tolkien's Medievalism (co-sponsored with the Tales after Tolkien Society, virtual paper session): HYBRID

Coming Soon: Call for Proposals for McFarland's Critical Explorations in Tolkien Studies Series

We are sharing this information on behalf of Robin Anne Reid:

I recently signed a Letter of Agreement with McFarland Publishers to become the series editor for a new series, Critical Explorations in Tolkien Studies. The series will open for proposals in 2025 after I assemble an advisory board.

Scholars can submit proposals in either of two tracks. The first track is for single-author or collaborative monographs and edited collections written for academic experts that should be between 70-100K words long. The second track is for shorter Critical Companions, between 40-50K words long, written for a general audience including but not limited to students and fans. Submissions for both tracks will go through a double-blind peer review process.

Proposals on topics relating to Tolkien's published works as well as to the edited posthumous publications; the adaptations for film, television, and games; the translations; and fan transformative works (textual and visual) or other reception studies may be submitted to either track.

While peer-reviewed scholarship is a professional necessity for tenure-track and tenured academics, there is also value in shorter works, informed by critical theories, that focus on an aspect of single work or a thematic group of works, especially ones that have received less critical attention than The Lord of the Rings. The Critical Companions are designed to introduce a more general audience to analytical approaches and the scholarship in Tolkien studies by situating works in their socio-historical contexts; explaining how the text or texts fit into the field of Tolkien studies; and modelling how to apply critical theories to analyze primary texts.

The primary goals of the series are to add significant original contributions to Tolkien scholarship by developing and to create and support greater diversity in the field by embracing a wide definition of what Tolkien studies includes in relation to authors, texts, topics, theories, and methods.

Both single author and collaborative works, especially those foregrounding intersectionality, are explicitly welcome from authors without regard to ability status, age, caste, class, ethnicity, gender, nationality, religion, or sexuality. Approaches can include but are not limited to theories and methods from class studies, cultural studies, critical race studies; digital and new media studies; fan and reception studies; feminist, gender, and queer studies; film studies, languages and linguistics, literary studies (any period); medieval and medievalist studies; pedagogical studies, modernist and postmodernist studies, media and marketing studies; religious and theological studies; source studies; stylistics, and tourism studies. 

Contingent faculty, early-career faculty, graduate students, independent scholars, tenure-track and tenured faculty in the Americas and worldwide who are trained in any discipline and period specialization are invited to submit proposals in either track and to consider applying to become m become a member of the advisory board.

The call for applications to the advisory board will be circulated shortly. Please email robinareid@fastmail with any questions you may have.

Tolkien at UVM 2025: Tolkien and War

The theme for the 2025 Tolkien at UVM conference will be Tolkien and War. The conference will be held on April 5, 2025, at the University of Vermont. Recent conferences have been hybrid and welcomed presentations and attendees online as well.

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!

Teitho June/July Challenge: Mentor

Our Teitho June/July prompt is Mentor!

So many examples of such relationships in Tolkien's works! From Mahtan's mentorship of Fëanor to Galadriel's towards Arwen. The example BIlbo set for Frodo. The way Gandalf is a mentor to many of the characters along the way--Aragorn, Thorin, Bilbo, Frodo, Theoden, and more.

We see short term and long term mentorships--both for good and evil. Eru Iluvatar's guidance of the Valar. Melkor's tutelage of Sauron over the ages. The many generations of Dunedain guided by Elrond's counsel and wisdom.

Aragorn himself is a mentor to the hobbits.

Some are long lasting, others--like Theoden to Merry--are brief yet deeply meaningful.

Mentors can be teachers, friends, parents, adversaries, people we encounter by chance, or for just a brief moment in time.

What stories of mentors do you want to tell? We look forward to your submissions for this challenge!

Please submit your stories by July 31 to teitho.contest@gmail.com.

Learn more about the Teitho contest guidelines here.

Scribbles & Drabbles 2024

S&D is coming back for another year!

The schedule looks as follows this year:

Artists:
Sign-ups: June 1 - June 30
Art Submission Window: June 1 - July 13
Art posting begins: August 10

Authors:
Sign-ups: June 1 - July 31
Gallery revealed: July 27
Claims Day: August 3

• Authors who are also artists: 15:00 UTC
• Returning authors in good standing (no defaults last year of participation): 17:00 UTC
• New authors: 19:00 UTC
• Returning authors who've defaulted in the last year of participation: 21:00 UTC

Drop-out Deadline: October 25
Fic Submission Deadline: November 15
Reveals: November 29

Authors will be informed in advance about which group you belong to for claims. If you cannot claim in your assigned slot, you can use the form any time after, as it will remain open.

Please make sure to familiarise yourself with our guidelines and FAQs before signing up, even if you are a returning participant, as we have made some changes this year.

If you have any questions before then, or want to get an early start on the fun, come join the discord server!

Mythcon 53: Fantasies of the Middle Lands

Mythcon 53 will be held 2-5 August 2024 in Minneapolis, Minnesota, with the theme "Fantasies of the Middle Lands." The author guest of honor is Eleanor Arnason, and the scholar guest of honor is Brian Attebery.

Mythcon 53 will be held at the DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The hotel has full conference and catering facilities, so nearly everything we need will be in one place. This hotel is in a bustling shopping area full of stores, restaurants, and a megaplex movie theater, all within walking distances. We will be able to hold our Welcome Reception sponsored by the Council of Stewards, as well as our Sunday evening banquet, in this same building.

Sleeping room rates for convention attendees have been set at $129* per night for a regular room, and $139* per night for a small suite. The suites are the same as the regular room except for a small sitting room at the front, and that they open onto the hotel atrium. To reserve rooms online at the special convention rate, go to this page. If you prefer not to use web access to reserve a room, you can call the hotel directly at +1 (952) 542-8600 and use the code MCA.

Mythcon 53 online registration for Mythopoeic Society members, general public, and students — prices are in US dollars. These are advance rates until July 1, 2024. In-person rates will go up significantly just before the conference and at the door.

• Full Conference Registration (MythSoc member) $75.00
• Full Conference Registration (non-member) $90.00
• Full Conference Registration (Student*) $65.00
• Virtual Attendance Only (via Zoom/Discord) $20.00

* Full-time students; must present current, active student ID at check-in to get this rate.

Forgotten Ground Regained: Call for Submissions

The Fall issue of Forgotten Ground Regained is open for submissions. I am especially interested in poetry that explores themes of love, devotion, and desire – themes that are, thus far, relatively sparsely represented in modern English alliterative verse. Submissions should be sent to Paul D. Deane at the following email address: pdeane [at] alliteration.net.

Requirements

• Submissions must be in modern English, but authors should feel free to submit poems that take advantage of the diction, rhythms, and syntax of particular language varieties and communities. I do not discriminate against Scots, Appalachian English, Black English Vernacular, Indian English, or any other language variety, though I do ask that authors be prepared to supply notes to explain any terms or expressions that outsiders to their communities may not readily understand.
• Submissions should make skillful, systematic use of alliteration in ways that use alliteration to reinforce the rhythm and connect important ideas. Overall, I prefer poems that have the strongest impact on readers when they are read aloud. I therefore encourage authors to include links to audio or video versions of their poems in their submissions.
• I would love to see people experimenting with modern English versions of Old and Middle English alliterative verse, with Old Norse forms like ljoòahattr and drottkvætt or modern Icelandic rimur, or with new alliterative forms designed to highlight modern English rhythms and speech patterns. While my first preference is what traditional scholarship calls alliterative-accentual verse, I am also open to alliterative free verse or to alliterative versions of traditional forms, such as the ballad, as long as the alliteration is clearly a structural rather than a decorative feature of the form. 
• I am open to work both by contemporary poets and to projects that would normally be considered to fall outside the literary mainstream, such as speculative poetry, SCA Bardic Arts projects, and fan fiction.
• There is no hard upper length limit, though poems more than five to six pages in length are likely to be published separately on the website, with links provided from the Fall issue, rather than being included directly in the pdf magazine. Note that I love both both the lyrical and the narrative turns in poetry, so longer narratives will be given careful consideration.
• Please submit your poem in the body of your email. I will not open attachments.

Submissions for the Fall Issue must be received by September 15th, 2024.

Tolkien Reverse Summer Bang (TRSB) 2024

First conceived in 2018, the Tolkien Reverse Summer Bang (or TRSB!) is a Tolkien-fandom-wide event celebrating the talent of our fanwork creators. At its core, the event is about bringing together the artistic side of our fandom with the literary talents it possesses, creating bridges between the separate areas of fandom experience for the enjoyment of all. During the late spring, signed up artists submit fan art pieces in progress or finished, which is then posted anonymously in our Gallery. The Gallery is open to the pool of writers who have signed up for the event only. Each writer is then invited to claim a piece of art to write for; the minimum word count is 5000.

We are open to all characters, genres, ships and ratings, and all canons that fall under the Tolkien fandom umbrella. This includes movieverse (i.e. the LOTR and Hobbit trilogies), lesser known works by Tolkien (such as The Father Christmas Letters), and/or other works with a clear link to his life or creative output (for example, Tolkien’s translations and academic texts, the 2019 Tolkien biopic, fan-made films like Born of Hope, and game canons such as Lord of the Rings Online). Crossovers between two or more Tolkien canons are permitted.

When we started this event, one thing we absolutely agreed on was our desire for maximum inclusivity. In practice this means that:

• We encourage participation from all sections of the Tolkien fandom, whether you prefer bookverse, movieverse, game canon, smaller canons, or Tolkien’s academic papers.
• Fan creators should ALL feel safe and able to join in, regardless of experience levels or perceived ability. This means that everybody is welcome, whether they’re a professional artist/writer or a complete beginner, whether they’ve been a fan for decades or fell in love with the films last weekend.
• As far as practically possible, all styles of art and all types of fic are permitted. We do not set restrictions on genre, style, rating or ship, although we do keep NSFW art submissions behind a lock, for the safety of our younger participants.

Above all, the event is supposed to be fun. Fandom should not be a place of difficulty, conflict and stress. With this in mind, we ask participants to be kind, inclusive, respectful and welcoming at all times.

Schedule

March 17 – 2023 Gallery Opens

The Gallery for 2023 is live at last! Enjoy all the beautiful pieces created for last year’s TRSB!

March 24 – Suggestion Form Opens

This form gives potential authors (or anyone else who wants to play!) the opportunity to suggest characters, places and scenarios they would like to see in the submitted art. We will post a link to the form on our Tumblr blog and here on the website. The answers will feed into a publicly available spreadsheet listing the ideas submitted; artists can peruse this to get inspired!

April 14 – Sign-ups Open

We post links to our sign up form on all the usual platforms. You can then sign up as an artist, an author, a beta, a cheerleader, a pinch hitter, or as two or more of these. Please see the ‘Signing Up’ section of the FAQ for more details on what these terms mean.

May 5 – Artist Sign-up Deadline

May 10 – Discord Server Opens

May 13 – Art Draft Due

Participating art submissions must be sent to the mods by this date to be eligible for the Claims Gallery.
For more details on how to do this, see the ‘Art Submissions’ section of the FAQ. Artists may submit up to two pieces of art, for claiming by two separate authors.

May 17 – Art Preview Opens

Our online gallery will be visible to signed up participants only.  Signed up authors can browse the artworks and see which pieces appeal to their muses!

May 18-19 Discord Art Talks

Repeating the fun from last year, these will be live chats on discord with mod presence – start times to be announced – where we go through the beautiful gallery and admire the work of our artists.

May 20 – Author Signups Deadline

May 25 – CLAIMS – 17:00 UTC

Authors submit a ranked list of the artworks they would like to claim to write fic for. Claims are on a first come, first served basis. One artwork will be allocated to each claiming author in the first instance; the mods will email you to confirm which piece you have successfully claimed and how to get in touch with your artist. See the ‘Claims’ section of the FAQ for more information.

What time is that for me?

TBA – Additional Claims

If a number of artworks are left unclaimed, we may allow authors to claim second and third pieces of art to write for. However, we don’t know until after claims night whether this will be needed, so this is likely to be announced at short notice – keep an eye on the blog and on your emails to avoid missing out.

June 7 – Post-Claims Check-in

The mods will email each artist/author pair to ensure that you have successfully established contact – even if you are not planning on a close collaboration, it is polite to check in with your partner, say hello, and make sure you’re both clear on must-haves and do-not-wants. One person from your pair must respond and confirm that you have done this!

June 16 – Free Rein Art Due

We know some artists like to give their authors as much creative freedom as possible and we have a dedicated collaboration option for this (see ‘Art Submissions’ FAQs). However, this means we require these artists to provide finished art to their authors much earlier than artists who are prepared to be more involved. See ‘Completing the Artwork’ in the FAQs for more details on how this works.

June 28 – Check-in #2

The mods will email each pair to ensure everything is on track. One person from your pair must respond – see ‘Check Ins’ in the FAQ.

June 26 – Check-in #3

The mods will email each pair to ensure everything is on track. One person from your pair must respond – see ‘Check Ins’ in the FAQs.

August 9 – Final Art Due

Artists should share a copy of the final art to their authors – but don’t post it yet!

Don’t email it to the mods.

August 16 – Final Check-in (#4)

Deadline to abandon your fic to a pinch hitter. There will be no penalty for dropping out on or before this date.
As per other check ins, except the mods will be providing instructions about promotional posts (see ‘Promotional Posts’ FAQ for more information). We will also ask you:

• Whether you have discussed posting logistics with your artist (if you’re embedding art in your AO3 story, for example)
• Whether you have specific posting needs re publicizing date/time frame (e.g. not wanting us to reblog your art/fic on Shabbat as you will be unable to respond)

August 26 – Art Can Be Posted

August 30 – Final Fic Due In Collection

Authors should post their stories in our AO3 collection with the artwork embedded or linked. (If you are writing a last minute pinch hit we can be a bit flexible with this deadline.)

TBA – Discord Art Reveals Event

September 6 – COLLECTION REVEALS

September 13 – Staggered Tumblr Reblogs Begin

September 20 – Gallery Submission

October 6 – Discord Server Closes

Other Links

• Rules
• Sign-Ups
• Frequently Asked Questions
• TRSB on Tumblr | Twitter | Instagram | Dreamwidth

Acorns and Oak Leaves: A Year of Bagginshield

Throughout 2024, the Bagginshield community Acorns and Oak Leaves offers monthly prompts to encourage new creations of all kinds (i.e. art, fics, gifs, etc) - but don't worry, there are no deadlines. Pick and choose whatever prompts you like, and be sure to tag the @acorns-and-oakleaves blog on Tumblr so we can share your Bagginshield creations!

Monthly prompts for the Year of Bagginshield can be found here.

Acorns and Oak Leaves also has a Discord server!