SWG News

Mereth Aderthad Interview: Interview with polutropos by Dawn

Posted by SWG Moderators on 29 March 2025. Last updated on 29 March 2025.

Kidnap fam, the Tolkien fandom term for the Silmarillion plot point where Maedhros and Maglor raise Elrond and Elros after the third kinslaying, fascinates many Tolkien fanworks creators. In the next in our series of interviews of Mereth Aderthad 2025 presenters, polutropos spoke with Dawn about her presentation "'Kidnap Fam' and the Living Legendarium," which explores why this plot point attracts so much interest in the fandom.

You can read Dawn's interview with polutropos here.

Mereth Aderthad Interview: Interview with Maglor by Shadow

Posted by SWG Moderators on 22 March 2025. Last updated on 29 March 2025.

Who was Gil-galad? One need not have even read The Silmarillion to begin reciting the answer to that, in the style of Samwise Gamgee. But who really was Gil-galad? Who was the person beyond the king we are presented in the texts?

In our latest in a series of interviews of Mereth Aderthad 2025 presenters, Shadow spoke with Maglor about his upcoming presentation on "Gil-galad was an Elven King: Kingship and Personhood in the Last High King of the Noldor." Maglor spoke about what draws him to Tolkien, his theories on Gil-galad as a character, and what makes fanworks so essential to unlocking the secrets of the last High King of the Noldor.

You can read Shadow's interview with Maglor here.

Mereth Aderthad Registration Is Open!

Posted by SWG Moderators on 15 March 2025. Last updated on 15 March 2025.

Mereth Aderthad 2025 is open to both in-person and virtual attendees, and registration for both is free. Registration will remain open through the day of the event, so there is no deadline to register!

Some key points:

• You will be asked for a name and an email address at registration. Pseudonyms are fine!
• We will use your email to contact you about event updates only.
• Please do not register if you cannot attend, and cancel your registration if circumstances change and you are no longer able to attend. In-person seating is limited, and we pay costs per person and cannot afford to pay for empty seats. Contact a moderator if you need help canceling a registration. We are leaving registration open through the day of the event, so if you decide you can join us last-minute, please do!
• There is an OPTIONAL donation to help us cover costs of the event. It really is optional! We want you there more than we want an extra few bucks! If you want more information on how donations will be used, see our Donation Policy.

Ready to register? You can register for Mereth Aderthad 2025 here!

New Challenge: Birthday Bash

Posted by SWG Moderators on 12 March 2025. Last updated on 13 March 2025.

On March 14, 2005, the SWG arrived in the small hours of the morning. It was still in very embryonic form, actualized only as a Yahoo! Group with no members and a series of very cringey posts on Dawn's LiveJournal (she had no idea how LiveJournal worked, having joined just that day to post these cringey posts in her insomnia-fueled effort to launch the SWG).

Twenty years later, this challenge debuted in recognition of two full decades of existence of the SWG. Each day, we will post an event that is an important hashmark on the timeline of the SWG's history along with three prompts that (at least in the challenge mods' mind) are associated with that event: a single word, a snippet of poetry (with a link to the full poem), and a public domain image. As always, you can use any aspect of the prompt to inspire your fanwork, including fragments of prompts or parts of the poem not included on the challenge page. The history snippets are fair game as prompts. You do not have to create or share your response on the day a prompt is posted. You can go back to past prompts, and you can stitch prompts from different days together into fanworks in cool and bizarre ways.

You can find challenge prompts for Birthday Bash here.

In order to receive a stamp for your fanwork, your response must be posted to the archive on or before 25 April 2025. (Note that this extends the challenge past the usual deadline of the 15th so that those who wish to create for the later prompts in the challenge have the opportunity to do so!) For complete challenge guidelines, see the Challenges page on our website.

So You Want to Present at a Tolkien Conference? Putting Together the Presentation

Posted by SWG Moderators on 12 March 2025. Last updated on 12 March 2025.

Mereth Aderthad 2025 is coming in July, and we are excited to have many fans who are presenting their meta, research, and scholarship at the event! But even though Tolkien fans engage in deep research and thinking about the legendarium all the time, making the step to presenting that work at conferences can feel intimidating. Even in a field as friendly to fan and independent scholarship as Tolkien studies is, the trappings of academia remain and, unless you have academic training, these can be a barrier to participation.

To help demystify conference proposals and presentations, over the next few months, we will be holding sessions aimed at helping fans make the sideways step to Tolkien scholarship by presenting their work at a Tolkien conference. Our next session is about how to put together the paper and presentation that you will share at the event, including various approaches to conference presentations, how to structure a presentation to maintain audience interest and not exceed time limits, and tools/strategies for using multimedia. (If you missed our first session, it can be found here: So You Want to Present at a Tolkien Conference? Writing the Proposal.)

Date: Saturday, 12 April 2025
Time: 1:00 PM Eastern Time (what is this in my timezone?) 
Location: RSVP to have the link emailed to you

After the session, there will be time for questions, and we will stay online for a collaborative writing session for anyone who is interested.

All are welcome to attend and participate to whatever extent they feel comfortable! (In other words, you can keep your camera off and there are no breakout rooms.)

Can't make it on April 12? We will record the session so that anyone can view it.

If you need to change your Zoom display name before or while attending, learn how to do that here.

Mereth Aderthad Interview: Interview with Shadow by Himring

Posted by SWG Moderators on 8 March 2025. Last updated on 29 March 2025.

Shadow's presentation "The Aromantic in Tolkien" will be featured at Mereth Aderthad 2025 in July and will discuss three characters in Tolkien who can be read as aromantic. Himring had a chance to talk with Shadow about aromanticism in Tolkien and their personal and fannish inspirations for the topic.

You can read Himring's interview with Shadow here.

And find out more about our upcoming hybrid Mereth Aderthad event here.

Mereth Aderthad Interview: Interview with Stella Getreuer-Kostrouch by Quente

Posted by SWG Moderators on 28 February 2025. Last updated on 18 March 2025.

Stella Getreuer-Kostrouch, who writes under the penname LadySternchen on our archive, will be presenting her paper "Cherished antagonist, despised protagonist – a defence of Elu Thingol" at Mereth Aderthad 2025 in July. Quente chatted with Stella about Thingol and what draws her to his character, despite him not being widely liked by the fandom overall. As Stella notes, many Silmarillion characters are complex. What leads some to be fan favorites and others actively villainized?

You can read Quente's interview with Stella here.

And find out more about our upcoming hybrid Mereth Aderthad event here.

Mereth Aderthad Interview: Interview with Acha Rezak (Quente) by Shadow

Posted by SWG Moderators on 22 February 2025. Last updated on 7 March 2025.

Acha Rezak, who writes under the penname Quente on our archive, will be presenting her paper "Mythmakers vs. the made myths: Exploring a reader’s levels of religious alienation and connection in works about and by J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis" at Mereth Aderthad 2025 in July. Shadow sat down with Acha to ask her about her paper, its inspiration, and the topic of religion in Tolkien.

You can read Shadow's interview with Acha here.

And find out more about our upcoming hybrid Mereth Aderthad event here.

Fanworks Sign-Ups for Mereth Aderthad Now Open!

Posted by SWG Moderators on 16 February 2025. Last updated on 16 February 2025.

At Mereth Aderthad 2025, we hope to bring together the meta and scholarship SWG members do along with the fanworks we create. We've put together a program of twelve speakers on a range of topics and are now looking for fanworks to accompany those talks. We are also looking for submissions for a fanzine we are creating for the event. If you are interested in one or both, carefully read the guidelines below, then use the sign-up form at the bottom of the page to sign up.

Schedule/Timeline

• February 15: sign-ups for fanworks creators open
• April 15: progress check-in
• Fanwork Due Dates: TBD

Here is a more detailed breakdown of how the process will work:

• Read through the guidelines below; the sign-up link follows. You will choose to create a fanwork in one of the categories below for one of the Mereth Aderthad 2025 presentations.
  • Featured Art: a work of visual art related to the presentation it accompanies that will be displayed on the screen at Mereth Aderthad 2025 before the presentation begins and during the fanwork reading afterward.
  • Featured Writing: a written fanwork (ficlet, poem, or excerpt of a longer work) that will be presented at Mereth Aderthad 2025 following the presentation it accompanies. The work should be able to be presented in ten minutes or less.
  • Performing Art: a performing art (music, drama, dance, etc.) that will be performed at Mereth Aderthad 2025 following the presentation it accompanies.
  • Zine Art: a work of visual art in black-and-white/grayscale, created to accompany a presentation, that will be included in a zine available to Mereth Aderthad 2025 participants.
  • Zine Writing: a written fanwork, created to accompany a presentation, that will be included in a zine available to Mereth Aderthad 2025 participants.
• You will hear from an event volunteer after sign-ups close to confirm your assignment. This person will be your contact person as you work on your fanwork. You may also be put in touch with the person who will be doing the presentation your fanwork will accompany. (You will have this information available at sign-ups and should only sign up to create for presentations where you are comfortable with the level of collaboration requested by the presenter.)
• On April 15, your contact person will reach out to check in on the progress of your fanwork.

General Fanworks Creators Guidelines

1. Your fanwork will be created to accompany a presentation at Mereth Aderthad 2025. Presenters will vary in the amount of collaboration they want with you, and this information will be available when you sign up. However, your fanwork is your work in response to the topic or theme of the presentation. Presenters do not approve and cannot require changes to the fanworks that accompany their presentations. If presenters want to collaborate, they may have ideas for fanworks to accompany their presentation, but you are not required to use these. Along those same lines, fanworks creators do not get to approve or require changes in presentations.
2. Mereth Aderthad 2025 is a public event that welcomes everyone, so fanworks shared at the event should be SFW (safe for work), meaning that they should not include graphic sexual content or graphic violence. Check in with an event volunteer if you're not sure if something you're planning is appropriate for the event. Excerpts read at the event may link to Adult-rated content on the SWG archive.
3. Fanworks created for the zine may include any content, including adult content.
4. The SWG does not allow fanworks that are wholly or partially generated by AI. All fanworks created for Mereth Aderthad must adhere to our AI policy.
5. All fanworks should be created for the event in response to the presentation they accompany.
6. We deeply appreciate if fanworks are not shared publicly prior to the event on July 19, 2025. However, after the event, we hope that you will share them widely and on whatever archives and social media you choose!
7. While we hope to see fanworks creators (in-person or online!) at Mereth Aderthad 2025, creating a fanwork for the event does not require you to attend.

Specific Fanworks Creators Guidelines

Featured Artwork

1. Featured artwork will be displayed at the beginning of the presentation it accompanies and during the fanwork reading afterward. All types and formats of artwork are welcome.
2. We may include the title of the presentation and fanwork alongside your artwork. We will not include the title over top of your work or any additional modifications to your artwork without seeking your permission first.
3. Because this work will be displayed on the screen at both the in-person and virtual events, it should have dimensions, coloring, and composition suited to this purpose.

Featured Writing

1. Featured writing will be presented live at Mereth Aderthad 2025. If you sign up to create one of these fanworks, it is up to you what format this uses. You can, of course, read your work live (in-person or online). You can have someone else read your work for you. You can pre-record your work (or have someone else pre-record it) and have it played at the event.
2. Featured writing may be in any format: ficlet, excerpt of a longer story, poetry, dramatic reading, etc.
3. Featured writing should be presented in five minutes or less. Excerpts of longer works are fine but should be able to stand on their own.
4. You can opt whether or not your written fanwork is also included in the zine. See Zine Writing below for more specifics.

Performing Art

1. Performing arts include forms such as music, drama, and dance and will be presented live at Mereth Aderthad 2025.
2. If you are not planning to attend the event in-person, consider whether the performance will be suitable for a virtual presentation.
3. We will consult with performing artists about the length of the performance given the constraints of our schedule.

Zine Artwork

1. Zine artwork will not be presented on screen but will appear in a zine available to all Mereth Aderthad participants. The zine will be available in a digital format and may be printed as well. Zine artwork will be designed to accompany one of the presentations.
2. Zine artwork should be able to be printed in grayscale.

Zine Writing

1. Zine writing will not be presented live but will appear in a zine available to all Mereth Aderthad participants. The zine will be available in a digital format and may be printed as well. Zine writing will be designed to accompany one of the presentations.
2. Zine writing may be in any format: ficlet, excerpt of a longer story, poetry, etc.
3. There is no word count limit for zine writing; however, we will only print the first 2,000 words in the zine itself. The remainder of the work will be posted on the SWG archive with a link and/or QR code in the zine to continue reading on the archive.

Rights Acquired

The SWG seeks first-time worldwide publication rights for all fanworks created for the Mereth Aderthad 2025 event. All creators retain the copyright to their work. What that means in plain English: We would like to be the first to share your fanwork as part of our event, but it is your fanwork, and you can share it and do with it as you please after that!

First rights includes:

• The fanwork will be posted on the SWG archive (silmarillionwritersguild.org). All creators will be provided with an SWG account, if they do not have one already, and so will maintain full control over their work on the archive. Creators can edit or add to their work on the archive. While we hope that they will not do so, creators can also delete their work from the archive.
• Featured artwork and writing will be displayed or read at the Mereth Aderthad event, which will also be available on a virtual platform. No fanworks will be recorded at the event without prior approval from the creator.
• Zine artwork and writing and featured artwork and writing where the creator chooses to do so will be published in a zine that will be available to Mereth Aderthad attendees. This zine will also be available to download in PDF format on the SWG website (silmarillionwritersguild.org). This zine will not be edited or deleted after publication.

Fanworks Creator Sign-Up

Make sure you have read the guidelines above. If you have questions, use our contact form and ask before proceeding.

The sign-up form below contains a link to the presentation abstracts, including keywords and specific requirements for each.

Sign ups are on a first-come basis. We will update the sign-up form with what fanworks remain available for sign-up. This is managed by a human, so it won't be perfect but we hope to minimize disappointment!

Sign up to create a fanwork for Mereth Aderthad here.

You will hear from us to confirm your assignment(s) as soon as possible. If you do not receive a response within forty-eight hours, please query.

New Challenge: Dark Matter

Posted by SWG Moderators on 13 February 2025. Last updated on 15 March 2025.

Dark matter is a substance found throughout the universe that goes unseen and is known to exist only because of its interaction with objects around it. This month's challenge seeks to imitate the mystery that is dark matter: a prompt that isn't there yet shapes the fanwork around it.

This month's prompts are anti-prompts, and your challenge is to create a fanwork where those prompts don't exist or that is shaped around their lack of existence. Prompts are selected using a randomized prompt generator. There are three categories to choose from: motifs and tropes, literary techniques, and words and letters. You can select your prompt from whichever of the three categories you wish (and if you're really feeling the dark energy, you can try prompts from two or all three categories in the same fanwork!)

We know this challenge is an unusual approach, so prompts range from very easy to just-about-impossible (don't use the letter E?!) You can reroll the prompt generator as many times as you want until you find a prompt that you can work with.

Dark Matter Prompt Generator

Thank you to Independence1776 for this month's banner and stamps!

In order to receive a stamp for your fanwork, your response must be posted to the archive on or before 15 March 2025. For complete challenge guidelines, see the Challenges page on our website.