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
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.
Holly Poly Sign-Ups Open October 22-31
Holly Poly is, as the name implies, an exchange for polyamorous relationships. OT3s, OT4s, OT6s, orgies, open relationships, sedoretus, whatever strikes your fancy, as long as it involves three or more entities. Participants are able to offer and request fanart, fanfiction, fanvids, or podfic. Sign-ups run from 22-31 October 2021.
Participants will have an option to select whether they want to receive fanart, fanfiction, fanvids, and/or podfics. Signups must include 3-10 fandoms, and each fandom must have 1-20 relationships from the list of nominated relationships.
Participants may offer to create fanfart, fanfiction, fanvids, and/or podfic. You may offer between 3-10 fandoms, with 1-20 relationships per fandom.
Complete rules and FAQs can be found on the Holly Poly AO3 collection.
Holly Poly can also be found on Dreamwidth, Twitter, and Tumblr.
Fanlore Seeks Input on Image Policy about Images of Fans
Fanlore is the fandom history wiki and is a project of the Organization for Transformative Works. Through 31 October 2021, they are seeking public input on their proposed policy on how the wiki will handle uploaded images that include pictures of fans. To read the proposed policy and comment, see the post on Fanlore's Dreamwidth.
German Tolkien Society Annual Seminar: Tolkien and Politics
This year our Tolkien Seminar will take place from 29th - 31st October at the University of Marbug. The topic is "Tolkien and Politics". Due to the current situation, the seminar will take place for the first time in hybrid form with the possibility to participate on site and online. If you would like to attend on site, please register here. Registration is free!
Call for Papers: Popular Culture Association Conference Tolkien Studies Area
This year's Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association (PCA/ACA) Conference will be held in Seattle, April 13-16, 2022. Paper proposals are being accepted through November 15, 2020. Note that PCA/ACA offers a dedicated Tolkien Studies area!
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.
The Tolkien Studies area page has more information on how to submit a proposal.
Comfortween Prompts Open
There will not be new prompts this year as mods have been busy, but we would like to repost last year's if anyone would like to use them this year! There is a Ao3 Collection for posting to! This is a casual thing, do as many or as few as you would like. Post them out of order! Put your own spin on them! This is just for fun. You can find the Comfortween prompts here.
Tolkien Society Autumn Seminar: Translating and Illustrating Tolkien Registration Open
Tolkien’s appeal has led to his fiction and non-fiction being translated into over fifty languages. The art of translation is immensely complex and when discussing the Dutch translation of The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien himself saw the task as “formidable”, offering his own supportive intervention to achieve a satisfactory result. The author’s invented names and languages prompt the question of how the translator should approach Tolkien’s immense mythology. Recent scholarship has emphasised the need for a wider range of Tolkien’s work to be translated in order for readers to gain a fuller understanding of Arda and the author’s development. But with a wealth of translated texts existing already, this seminar hopes to spark new interpretations about old texts and for unacknowledged translations to be brought to light and examined.
An illustrator of his own work, Tolkien had a keen eye for the visual representation of a text. He admired the work of illustrators such as Pauline Baynes, Cor Blok and Ingahild Grathmer (the Queen of Denmark) and others who illustrated the original English and translated versions of his texts. The manner in which illustrators have engaged with Tolkien’s stories varies dramatically and can often be influenced by culturally specific ideas. This seminar hopes to re-examine renowned illustrations of Tolkien’s work while calling for new or overshadowed illustrations to be discussed.
Registration is free for this online seminar, which will be held on 6 November 2021.
Teitho Contest September/October Challenge: Fruit
The Teitho challenge for September and October is Fruit.
How will you choose to approach this month’s prompt? Summer’s bounty in the Shire? A harvest meal with Tom Bombadil and Goldberry?
Or does your story follow the fruit of the vines and the vintages of Old Dorwinion that make their way to cellars in Middle-earth?
Or will you take us all the way back to Valinor, to the fruit of the Two Trees. Or perhaps Isildur’s brave action of stealing a fruit from Nimloth the Fair, the White Tree of Numenor.
Fruit can have other connotations as well: the fruit of one’s labours, an idea or concept coming to fruition, the satisfaction of a fruitful life.
Whatever path you choose we wish you fruitful endeavors with this month’s story!
Remember submissions are due by October 31. Please email them to teitho.contest@gmail.com.
LOTRO Coupon Code for Free Quest Packs
Get caught up just in time for the upcoming Lord of the Rings Online (LOTRO) Fate of Gundabad Expansion with a special coupon Code that will let you acquire all currently-available quest packs permanently on your account(s)! However, you will need to act quickly, as this Coupon Code is available to redeem through November 30th, 2021.
The coupon code and a list of quest packs included is available on the LOTRO site.
Finwëan Ladies Week
This is a week-long event on Tumblr celebrating the ladies of the line of Finwë! There have been events within the Silmarillion fandom focused on the sons of Finwë and their descendants, and to add to the fun this week was established to give his wives, daughters, and other female descendants their own time to shine. We are back for our third year, from October 4-10, 2021!
Any content and creations about the ladies of Finwë’s line are welcome! You can create edits, gifs, fanart, fanfic, fanmixes, and more! Please tag your posts with #finweanladiesweek AND @ mention this blog @finweanladiesweek so they can be easily found. If your submission turns into a long post, please put what you can beneath a “Keep reading” divider.
Below are some prompts for each day of the week. They are not mandatory, but they are here to inspire you. This page will lead to a detailed explanation for each one.
DAY ONE: Míriel Þerindë and Indis
DAY TWO: Findis and Írimë Lalwen
DAY THREE: Aredhel and Galadrield
DAY FOUR: Later Generations
DAY FIVE: Ladies Who Married In
DAY SIX: Original Characters
DAY SEVEN: Freeform
October Challenge at tolkienshortfanworks
The October Challenge at the tolkienshortfanworks community on Dreamwidth has been posted. (New members are very welcome to join the community.)
The thematic prompt is Apple.
The formal challenge is to write a piece in blank verse. either unrhymed iambic pentameter (the most common kind of blank verse in English) or other similar unrhymed metre.
(For bonus quotation prompts and more details on the challenges, see the linked Dreamwidth post.)
