Around the World and Web

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.

Sign up Here

Read the Rules

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

Ekphrasis: the description or interpretation of a piece of art, usually visual, in a different artistic medium.

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:

  1. Read prompts starting March 17.
  2. Create!
  3. Post tagged work to AO3 before June 9 deadline.
  4. Enjoy daily reveals between June 10 and June 16.
  5. 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

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

Find more information about Teitho here.

Around the World and Web Archive

Events listed here are no longer active but are listed on the site for historical purposes.

Call for Papers: Oxonmoot 2022

Oxonmoot runs 1 through 4 September 2022. The Talks and Papers strand will run through the Friday, Saturday, and Sunday mornings. Papers may be presented in person in Oxford or online via Zoom; we will also accept pre-recorded video presentations, though we request that the presenter be available live for questions at the end of their presentation. Papers should be 20 minutes in length (with a further 10 minutes allowed for questions); longer talks (e.g. art- or artefact- based) may be accepted, and should be discussed by email with the Day Time Programme Coordinator.

The Call for Papers closes on Sunday, 15th May.

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. Please indicated the expected duration of your Activity as part of the submission form.

The formal Call for Activities will open in mid April, but if you would like to discuss any ideas prior to submission, please contact the Activities Programme Coordinator, or for social activities the Social Programme Coordinator.

The Oxonmoot page has many more details on this year's event.

Other links:

Guild of Scribes Discord Server Open to New Members

Guild of Scribes is a community of Tolkien fanfic writers who want to receive and give constructive feedback on their own and others' works in a supportive and safe space. The goal is for members to participate as both writers and reviewers/readers. As a writer, you set the parameters for the types of feedback you are looking for and as a reviewer, you sign up for the works based on your own areas of comfort and knowledge. Except for 'asynchronous review' (similar to beta but with the potential for more in-depth feedback from more people), each work receives its own private channel for review, open only to the author and the participants (3-5) who have signed up to review and comment on that particular work.

To keep the server small and manageable for now, we’re inviting members by request only. If you have any questions or want an invite please message @polutropos (she/they) or @Minubell on Discord, or @polutrope on Tumblr or polutrope@gmail.com.

Library of Moria Moving to AO3

The Library of Moria, a Tolkien slash, femslash, gen, and RPF fanfiction and fanart archive, is being imported to the Archive of Our Own (AO3).

The Library of Moria was founded in 2002 as one of the first Lord of the Rings archives, but quickly grew in scope and popularity. The archivists have lovingly kept the Library of Moria running for nearly two decades, but with the announcement that the eFiction software that runs the archive will not be updated, they realize it is only a matter of time before the archive is rendered unusable. They are moving the archive to the AO3 to ensure that it stays online for all of those who have enjoyed it over the years to revisit for decades more.

The purpose of the Open Doors Committee’s Online Archive Rescue Project is to assist moderators of archives to incorporate the fanworks from those archives into the Archive of Our Own. Open Doors works with moderators to import their archives when the moderators lack the funds, time, or other resources to continue to maintain their archives independently. It is extremely important to Open Doors that we work in collaboration with moderators who want to import their archives and that we fully credit creators, giving them as much control as possible over their fanworks. Open Doors will be working with Talullah, Azzy and Half Elf Lost to import the Library of Moria into a separate, searchable collection on the Archive of Our Own. As part of preserving the archive in its entirety, all images currently in the Library of Moria will be hosted on the OTW’s servers, and embedded in their own AO3 work pages. Eventually links to the old site will redirect to the collection on AO3, which can be searched and filtered in order to locate individual imported works.

If you are an author on the Library of Moria, check the announcement from the Open Doors Project for more information on how authors will be contacted and works migrated, as well as contact information for the Open Doors Project.

Polyship Week 2022

Polyshipping week is a multifandom celebration of love that will run March 7-14, 2022. Find them on their website, Tumblr, Twitter, and AO3.

Event Guidelines

  • Please tag us @PolyshipWeek or use the hashtag #polyshipweek22 so we can retweet your creations!

  • Participate in one, a few, or all the days as you prefer! Feel free to choose just one prompt, mix and match, or whatever sparks your imagination!

  • Works may be in any medium — fics, art, gifsets, multimedia, etc. — as long as they are original creations with all collaborators credited.

  • Works accepted to the AO3 collection through the end of March.

  • No ship or character bashing please — let's make this fun for everyone!

Prompts

Day 1: "two hands" - vee | compersion | meet cute

Day 2: solo polyamory | date night | only one (big) bed

Day 3: metamours | growing old | scifi AU

Day 4: open relationships | meet the family | domestic fluff

Day 5: kitchen table | queerplatonic | magic

Day 6: comets | scheduling as romance | historical AU

Day 7: triads | mapping the polycule | soulmates

Day 8: Free Day

Priscilla Tolkien has died (announcement on the Tolkien Society website)

Priscilla Tolkien, youngest daughter of J.R.R. Tolkien, passed away on 28 February 2022  after a short illness. She was a trustee of the Tolkien Estate and the Tolkien Trust, Vice President of The Tolkien Society, and involved in the publication of The Tolkien Album, Mr Bliss and The Letters from Father Christmas.

More detail in the linked announcement by the Tolkien Society and also in this obituary.

Tolkienshortfanworks prompts for March posted

New prompts for March have been posted to the tolkienshortfanworks community on Dreamwidth; they are: new life (theme) and acrostic (form). The prompts can be freely combined with each other or with other prompts of current challenges elsewhere.

New joiners welcome.

More details at the linked post.

Gen Freeform Exchange 2022: Nominations and Sign-Ups

Gen Freeform Exchange is a multi-fandom exchange focused on gen fanworks, with freeform tag matching so that you can request and offer all your favorite gen tropes. We’re defining gen fanworks as works with no romantic or sexual content. Gen can focus on platonic relationships (friends, family, colleagues, enemies-with-whom-there-is-no-sexual-tension, etc), usually indicated by a & between characters rather than a /, or it can focus on a singular character with no particular focus on any relationship.

Both solo characters and gen character combos can be requested. Media allowed include fic, art, vids, and podfic. Participation requires an AO3 account.

The schedule:

Feb 25-March 5 11:59PM EST - Nominations
March 6-16 11:59PM EST - Signups
Mar 19 - Assignments sent by this date
May 1 11:59PM EDT - Assignments Due
May 7 11:59PM EDT - Work Reveals
May 14 11:59PM EDT - Creator Reveals

See the 2022 Gen Freeform Exchange sticky post for complete guidelines.

Revamped Tolkien Estate Website

The Tolkien Estate has revamped their website for the Seventh Age! The new site contains a timeline and biography of Tolkien's life, selected important scholarship, and important letters and writings from Tolkien.

Concerns over the Estate's stance on fanworks are addressed in this article here.

Tolkien Society Seminar on Tolkien and the Gothic (Call for Papers)

The Tolkien society has announced a seminar on the theme of Tolkien and the Gothic, which will be a hybrid event held online and in-person at the Hilton Hotel, Leeds on 3rd July 2022.

Tolkien’s engagement with the Gothic is not as straightforward as one may assume. His earliest understanding of the word and the language of the Goths can be traced to his reading of Joseph Wright’s A Primer of the Gothic Language (1892). His early fascination with Gothic consequently fed his own experimentations with language creation and legendarium.

However, his prose and poetry show a clear awareness of the Gothic literary tradition that had previously captured the imaginations of eighteenth and nineteenth century writers. Beyond his writing, Gothic influences can be found in Tolkien’s life: from the European fascination with Gothic architecture to the physical and psychological terrors of the Great War.

The seminar aims to explore the ways that Tolkien engaged with the various applications of the Gothic and how this in turn has influenced creative engagements with Tolkien.

The Tolkien Society invites abstract submissions of no more than 300 words, for a 20-minute paper and 5 minutes of questions. Submissions can be made here and should be submitted before end of day, Friday 1st April [UK time].

For more details see the Submissions page.

The seminar will be free for all attendees (both online and in-person). Sign-up for the seminar will open soon.

Reading Fictional Languages Symposium

This one-day symposium aims to bring together scholars from different disciplines to consider the nature of reading fictional languages. The event will be held in a fully integrated arena at the University of Nottingham, comprising both on-campus and online participants. It is thus designed to be accessible, enabling participants to attend from around the world, as suits their circumstances, as part of a truly hybrid event. The on-campus room will be as covid-safe as possible with a maximum occupancy. Refreshments and lunch will be provided in line with covid guidance. The symposium will be held on 11 March 2022 from 9:30-17:00, UK Time, and costs £10 for in-person participant (cost includes lunch) and £5 for online attendees. You can register to attend the symposium here.