Around the World and Web

Around the World and Web includes announcements and items of interest from beyond the SWG.

Silmarillion Epistolary Week 2025

Silmarillion Epistolary is a challenge dedicated to creating fanworks to tell the story of the Silmarillion in the style of an epistolary novel. It will run April 14th - 20th, 2025, on Tumblr and AO3.

An epistolary novel is where the story is told through letters, diary entries, or other types of documents. One of the most well-known epistolary novels is Dracula, another more modern example would be The Princess Diaries series. These books use different kinds of documents and communications between characters such as letters, telegrams, email, journals, instant messaging, or texting to tell a story in a nontraditional way.

The goal of Silmarillion Epistolary is to encourage fans to take the stories we know and tell them through different kinds of documents.

Rules

Be kind and courteous to others. Disrespect or harassment won't be tolerated.

Entries must be in epistolary format of some kind. There are a lot of possibilities, so be creative!

Prompts are suggestions to help generate ideas, but you're not required to use them.

Tag entries as #silmarillionepistolary or @silmarillionepistolary so that they can be reblogged! If you think your post may have been missed please reach out to let us know!

Please tag NSFW entries so that they can be reblogged here with the appropriate tag.

No AI generated works, we want to see what YOU can create!

If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out!

Prompts

Day 1: Daily Life, Customs, Recipes

Day 2: Exploration, New Lands, Maps

Day 3: Family, Loyalty, Journals

Day 4: Friendship, Alliance, Bookkeeping

Day 5: Love, Creation, Letters

Day 6: Loss, Betrayal, Obituaries

Day 7: Remembrance, New Beginnings, AU

These are suggestions to help generate ideas, but not required. If you don't like the prompts for the day please feel free to create something else!

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.

Celedriel Week 2025

Celedriel Week is a Tumblr events for fanworks about Galadriel and Celeborn. It will run April 6-12, 2025, with the following prompts:

April 6 - First Meetings, Impressions, The Heart Stirs. (A Gaze Caught. The Fire Ignites. "Eru save me, I've found my doom.")

April 7 - Dedication, Courtship, The Heart Blooms. (Flowers and Letters. Words of Love. "My heart, my love, my eternity. My soul soars for thee.")

April 8 - Marriage, Vows, The Heart Bound In Love. (An exchange of rings. Families bound. "In joy and suffering, in life persevering, in death enduring, I take thee and thee alone.")

April 9 - Kingdoms, Refuge, The Heart Endures. (Crowns of silver. Realms rise and fall. "Blessed are they who stand before the darkness and do not falter.")

April 10 - Separation, Conflict, The Heart Grieves. (War and loss leave wounds. Paths diverge and change. "I must follow this thread alone, but not forever.")

April 11 - Lothlorien, Children, The Heart Heals. (Wounds become scars. A silver realm. "Let our children bring joy amidst darkness.")

April 12 - The West, Undying Love, The Heart is Eternal. (A test endured and passed. A goodbye, but not a farewell. "In life and eternity, endless bliss under golden trees.")

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: Popular Culture Association Conference Tolkien Studies Area Deadline Extended!

The Tolkien Studies Area (TSA) welcomes proposals for individual papers, paper sessions (with four proposals), and roundtables (with five-seven participants) in any area of Tolkien studies. All PCA sessions are scheduled in 1.5-hour slots. Individual presenters should plan for fifteen minutes to present, and roundtable participants should plan for 5-7 minutes each.

We welcome scholars in all period specializations, from any disciplinary perspective, including interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary, and using any critical theory. Tolkien studies includes but is not limited to: the Legendarium, adaptations and transformative works, reader reception and fan studies, source studies, literary studies, critical race studies, cultural studies, tourism studies, medieval and medievalist studies, media and marketing, religious studies.

Academics, independent scholars, and graduate students are invited to submit through the online submission page. At this time, we are not accepting proposals from undergraduate students.

For individual paper proposals, please submit contact information (name, institutional affiliation if an, e-mail addresses, and telephone number), a title and a 300-word proposal that includes information on the topic, theory or method, and relation to relevant scholarship.

Possible Topics

Adaptation Studies

Games, Films, Art, Amazon’s Tolkien

Cultural Studies/Reception Studies/Fan Studies

  •           Race & Tolkien
  •           Queer Tolkien
  •           Gender & Tolkien
  •           Class & Tolkien
  •           Intersectional Tolkien
  •           Tolkien & Religion or Spirituality (Catholic, Buddhist, Neo-Paganism)
  •           Tolkien & White Supremacy (then and now)
  •           Tolkien’s Fandoms (fanfiction, fan art, fan vids, cosplay, collecting, tourism)
  •           Tolkien Fanzines (Marquette or other archives)
  •           Tolkien & Contemporary Fantasy (examples: N. K. Jemisin, G. R. R. Martin, Terry Pratchett)

Literary Studies

  •           New Tolkien Publications
  •           Tolkien & Genre
  •           Tolkien & Romanticisms
  •           Tolkien & Medievalisms
  •           Tolkien & Modernisms
  •           Tolkien & Postmodernisms
  •           Tolkien & the Sciences

Possible Roundtable Topics:

  •           Games, Gaming, Gamers (Online or Tabletop)
  •           New Disciplines, Methods, Pedagogies
  •           How and Where To Publish
  •           The Question of Tolkien and Theory
  •           Digital Tolkien (Digital Archives, Corpus Projects)

Fandom Snowflake Challenge

Ever other day, starting on the first and running through the twenty-ninth of January, one of us will post a challenge or idea or prompt. We will also be hosting a friending meme on the thirty-first, to close out the fest.

Participants use your own space to respond to that challenge in whatever way suits you best. If you like, you can drop a comment on the challenge post and link to your response, so that you can share your thoughts with other fans. Please comment, interact, and celebrate each other, as all together we are what make up fandom!

There is no minimum for the number of challenges you have to do. One is a complete acceptable number, as is zero, as is all fifteen. You do not have to do them on the day they're posted, and you can do them in any order you please. You are free to interpret "fandom" as widely or as narrowly as you please, and talk about any kind of fanwork or type of fandom interaction you can think of.

The Fandom Snowflake Challenge can be found on Dreamwidth, Tumblr, Twitter, and Pillowfort.

Screw Yule 2022

Everyone is cordially invited to participate in this year's Screw Yule, a celebration of Elves, Smut, and a New Year's Resolution to toss Laws and Customs right out the window (or, at least, ignore whatever is necessary to appease your muses.)

What is Screw Yule? Screw Yule started in 2005 as the smuttiest writing and art challenge around, and is still going strong in its 17th season. It's a chance to start the year nice with some naughty elves (and friends), with a focus on populating the fandom with rare pair goodness.

R+ ratings encouraged, but lower ratings are still accepted.

January 1st through January 20th.

Pairing prompts, sassy bingo cards, kinky playlist..

Runs on AO3; for rules and FAQs see collection profile.

B2MEM 2022: Mathom Marketplace

Offer Prompts from January 1 to February 15
Create Works from March 1 through April 15.

In the Michel Delving Market, Hobbits (and big folk alike) can offer ‘prompts for sale’ for ‘prompts for trade’. Shoppers (participants) at the Mathom Marketplace earn mathoms when they offer up prompts for sale, which can be ‘spent’ to acquire prompts from others (or their own!)

The number of people who can ‘buy’ a prompt for sale is limitless – let’s say that Petunia Took offers up ‘An adventure on the Buckleberry Ferry’ as a prompt for sale, and both Gertrude Goodbody and Wylde Thyme wanted to ‘purchase’ that prompt. So long as Gertrude and Wylde each have the mathoms to trade for it, they can each claim the prompt.

Gertrude and Wylde could also combine their mathoms, and spend only one together instead of one each to buy the prompt – the catch is, whatever is created needs to be a collaborative effort between them!

How does one ‘earn’ mathoms? By offering prompts! Everyone starts off with a generous donation from Postmaster Proudfoot of mathoms lost in the mail–he wagers he has enough in the unclaimed mathoms room of the post in Michel Delving for everyone participating to start with five (5) mathoms regardless of whether or not they have anything to offer at the market. The more you offer, the more you earn!

 More details, rules, FAQs at the linked Google Doc, which also has the links to the AO3 collections, etc.

My Slashy Valentine sign-ups open

My Slashy Valentine is a hand matched slash fiction exchange focused on the people of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle-earth.

Sign ups are now OPEN so spread the word, recruit your friends and fellow authors, and get ready for MSV 2022.

Sign-up Period: December 8th to December 22nd

Assignments distributed: by December 29th

Deadline for first time participants: January 31st, 2022

Deadline for veteran participants: February 7th, 2022

Archive opens: February 14th, 2022

 

Admin posts on Tumblr, Dreamwidth, Livejournal; stories to be posted to AO3.

Link to sign-up form in the linked post, together with rules and FAQ

December challenge at tolkienshortfanworks (on Dreamwidth)

December at tolkienshortfanworks is an amnesty month for all the previous monthly challenges posted to the community.

New joiners to the Dreamwidth community are always welcome!

More details plus a list of all the challenges at the linked post.

Sign-ups for Tolkien Secret Santa 2021 (on Tumblr) are open

The Tolkien Secret Santa sign ups for the main event are open till November 20th (on Tumblr). The closing date for  sign-ups to the  Advent Calendar companion event  is 11 November.

TSS is a digital gift exchange, where Tolkien fans sign up to make and receive small winter-themed gifts.

More details and links to  instructions, etc. at the linked post.

The LOTR SeSa prompt meme is now open for sign-up and posting prompts

The LOTR Sesa exchange is running in the form of prompt meme this year. 

Timeline (2021):
- Prompt Posting: November 1st to 30th.
- Claiming: December 1st to 22nd.
- Collection Open for Posting: December 1st to 31st
- All Fills Due: December 31st.

Open to all the Peoples and Ages of Middle-earth (Fictional persons only, no RPF).

The prompt meme runs on AO3. Admin announcements are posted to Dreamwidth, Livejournal and Tumblr.

More details and links in the linked post.

 

November Challenge at tolkienshortfanworks posted

The November Challenge at the tolkienshortfanworks community on Dreamwidth has been posted. (New members are always very welcome to join the community.)

The thematic prompt is Poppy.

The formal challenge is to write an elegy, either in the narrower sense of a poem of mourning and memorial for the dead or in the wider sense of a poem of serious or melancholy reflection.

These prompts can be filled independently.

(For  bonus quotation prompts and more details on the challenges, see the linked Dreamwidth post.)

"Pictures by J.R.R. Tolkien" to Be Republished

This collection of pictures, with a text by Christopher Tolkien, now reissued after almost 30 years confirms J.R.R. Tolkien’s considerable talent as an artist. It provides fascinating insight into his visual conception of many of the places and events familiar to readers of The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion.

Examples of his art range from delicate watercolours depicting Rivendell, the Forest of Lothlorien, Smaug, and Old Man Willow, to drawings and sketches of Moria Gate and Minas Tirith. Together they form a comprehensive collection of Tolkien’s own illustrations for his most popular books.

Also included are many of his beautiful designs showing patterns of flowers and trees, friezes, tapestries and heraldic devices associated with the world of Middle-earth. In their variety and scope they provide abundant visual evidence of the richness of his imagination.

This enchanting gallery was personally selected by Christopher Tolkien who, through detailed notes on the sources for each picture, provides unique insight into the artistic vision of his father, J.R.R. Tolkien. Pictures by J.R.R. Tolkien goes on sale 11 November 2021 for a price of £25.00.

Preorder Pictures by J.R.R. Tolkien on the HarperCollins website.