SWG News

A Sense of History: Spiral Staircase

Posted by SWG Moderators on 13 September 2024. Last updated on 12 October 2024.

This month's A Sense of History article, written by Simon J. Cook, continues to engage the question of how Tolkien's work on his legendariun informed his scholarship on Beowulf and vice versa. Simon extends the metaphor of the tower found in Tolkien's lecture-turned-essay "Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics"—and of course towers bristle across the landscapes of Arda—to consider what it reveals of the Anglo-Saxon imagination.

This month's column considers what it means to climb the tower, descend it again, and peer through its windows at each landing. The spiral shape of the staircase, Simon argues, is essential to understanding the meaning of the tower.

You can read Simon's article "Spiral Staircase" here.

New Challenge: Idiomatic

Posted by SWG Moderators on 13 September 2024. Last updated on 15 October 2024.

Raining cats and dogs. A short fuse. Up a creek without a paddle. A piece of cake. Sometimes colorful, sometimes puzzling without backstory or explanation, these delightful turns of phrase enrich our language—whichever one it happens to be.

This month we celebrate idioms from languages around the world. We will assign you a random idiom. (Some may not be originally English—for the non-English idioms, we will give a translation along with the original.) How you use this idiom to create a fanwork is entirely up to you. You can request your prompt by commenting on this news post, Dreamwidth, Tumblr, the #monthly-challenges channel on our Discord, or by emailing the mods.

Many thanks to Zdenka for her clever work on 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 October 2024. For complete challenge guidelines, see the Challenges page on our website.

In Memory of Oshun

Posted by SWG Moderators on 5 September 2024. Last updated on 13 September 2024.

We are deeply saddened to inform our members and friends that Oshun passed away on September 6 after a long illness.

There are few people who shaped the SWG—indeed, the Silmarillion fandom—the way that Oshun did. As well as being one of our earliest members, her work on the Character of the Month series actualized our hopes of making the site not just a home for fanworks but for resources for Tolkien fans both experienced with and new to The Silmarillion. After taking on the project, within a few months, Oshun had transformed it from "a few paragraphs about a character" to monthly, scholarship-level essays, many of which won awards and all of which have guided Silmarillion readers and fanworks creators through to a better understanding of the characters of that text.

Equally brilliant were her stories, which were romantic, funny, and political and helped cement Maedhros/Fingon as one of the fandom's flagship pairings. Oshun unabashedly wrote slash at a time when it was unpopular (even dangerous) to do so in some fandom circles. She was one of many courageous writers who helped pull acceptance of LGBTQ+ folks into the mainstream in the Tolkien fandom.

But most of all, Oshun was a friend to so many of us. As people remember her, what keeps emerging is how kind, welcoming, and generous she was. Because of her prolific and impactful work as a writer, many people describe being star-struck by her but quickly discovering how warm and humble she was, eager to share fanworks and life with fellow fans. Her love for her family, her adventures as a journalist in Mexico City, and her vivid photographs of life in New York City were beloved by many, right alongside her fanworks.

For anyone who wishes to help her family with funeral and other expenses, we have set up a GoFundMe here. If you want to help spread the word, there is a Tumblr post here.

Oshun's obituary can be read here.

Themed Collection: The Ruling Queens of Númenor

Posted by SWG Moderators on 31 August 2024. Last updated on 28 September 2024.

Almost since the SWG's beginning, we have run a mostly unofficial event each year called Akallabêth in August. This event started at a time when Second Age fanworks were relatively uncommon and sought to encourage not only their creation but support of the authors writing, drawing, and making them.

This year, for our very first Themed Collection, Himring has put together a collection of fanfiction and fanart for Akallabêth in August that focuses on the three ruling queens of Númenor: Tar-Ancalimë, Tar-Telperiën, and Tar-Vanimeldë. As Himring points out, the bar to writing about the ruling queens is set somewhat high, as most of the information about them is in Unfinished Tales. However, she points out, they offer fertile territory for writing about women who hold power—who are not exactly common in Tolkien's books—while the dearth of information about them allows fans to increase the diversity of Arda by representing the queens as people of color or LGBTQ+.

Our themed collections are not intended to be definitive in any way but to offer a jumping-off point for fanworks about a specific topic. Himring has shared links to eleven brilliant stories and works of art about the ruling queens, but we hope you will also share your favorites as a comment on the collection!

You can check out the fanworks in "The Ruling Queens of Númenor" (and add your own!) here.

Note that this is a new column in the newsletter, and we hope that Himring taking the brave first step to share a collection will inspire others to put together some of their favorite fanworks about a beloved topic. Check out our call for contributors if you'd like to put together a collection of your own!

New Challenge: Kings & Queens

Posted by SWG Moderators on 13 August 2024. Last updated on 21 September 2024.

Tolkien's legendarium, with its roots in medieval Europe, displays all the royal drama of history: arguments over succession, regicide, kidnapping, and secret kings dashing back at the heroic last minute to rise to greatness. (Yeah you, Aragorn!) Amidst this royal rumble are kings and queens simply doing the job they were born to do. The annals of Middle-earth are filled with rulers who improved (even saved!) their people's lives, turned their realms into a disaster zone, or—most commonly—simply disappeared into the pages of history.

This month, we challenge you to create a fanwork about a king or queen in the legendarium, whether dramatic or dull, brilliant or disastrous, renowned or forgotten. Below, you will find a list of kings and queens listed in the indices of The Silmarillion and The Lord of the Rings. Note that this list is not exhaustive, and you are welcome to create fanworks about kings and queens not listed. In some cases, it may be questionable whether a character counts as a king or queen, and if you decide they do, we trust your judgment. Fanworks about kings and queens who are textual ghosts or original characters are welcome as well. Finally, remember that the "Silmarillion" is much more than just the First Age. If you're not sure if a Third Age idea would fit on our site, our FAQ on "Silmworks" is here.

Because this challenge falls during Akallabêth in August, there will be a special stamp for anyone who creates a fanwork set during the Second Age.

Thanks go to Zdenka for this month's lovely banner and stamps!

In order to receive a stamp for your fanwork, your response must be posted to the archive on or before 15 September 2024. For complete challenge guidelines, see the Challenges page on our website.

You can find the list of kings and queens for this challenge and fanworks created for the Kings & Queens challenge here.

A Sense of History: Straight Road

Posted by SWG Moderators on 10 August 2024. Last updated on 13 September 2024.

For the past year as part of our column A Sense of History, Simon J. Cook has been looking at how Tolkien's writings on Beowulf, namely the lecture-turned-essay "Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics," informs and is informed by his work on the legendarium that he was undertaking at the same time. Last month, he considered the crossing of ships from and back to the West. A familiar journey to fans of Tolkien's Middle-earth writings, a ship journey from and to the West also appears in Beowulf.

A ship-burial suggests that beyond the Shoreless Sea is hell, the realm of mortal shades in ancient English mythology. Tolkien reads the first ship of the exordium to Beowulf as ancient myth, the ship-burial as Anglo-Saxon art. The art breathes meaning into the myth, yet raises the uncomfortable thought that the good king came to his people out of death. Early in 1936, Tolkien penned an "Elvish myth" that told of a king who sailed the Straight Road, out of a mythical flat world and into the round world of history, and then died side by side with his Elvish friend, fighting Sauron in Mordor. This legendary appendage to The Fall of Númenor spells out Tolkien’s reading of the exordium, a connection that Simon explores in this month's A Sense of History article.

You can read Simon's article "Straight Road" here.

Fandom Voices: Comments and Feedback

Posted by SWG Moderators on 3 August 2024. Last updated on 21 September 2024.

If you read, view, or create fanworks, you have likely thought about feedback. Creators often wonder how to encourage their readers and viewers to speak up, and worry over the silences when they don't, and readers and viewers often struggle to provide the feedback that they know is so wanted by those making the fanworks they love.

For the next few months, our Cultus Dispatches column will be tackling the tough topic of feedback by looking at it through various approaches. This month, we present the responses to our latest Fandom Voices project about comments and feedback. Fandom Voices is an occasional and short survey that gathers fan perspectives on topics relevant to the Tolkien fandom. This month's article explores some trends and takeaways from the responses, or you can check out the full response collection as well.

You can read the article "Fandom Voices: Comments and Feedback" here.

Also, Fandom Voices surveys never close! If you didn't get a chance to respond yet and want to, you can share your perspectives on feedback here. While we will not edit the article to include new responses, we will add your response to the collection.

20th Birthday Event Feedback Needed

Posted by SWG Moderators on 26 July 2024. Last updated on 17 August 2024.

In one year, the SWG will turn twenty years old! We are planning to hold an event to celebrate twenty years of fanworks, community, and friendships made as part of the SWG's two decades of existence.

As we begin planning, we need an idea of how many people might be interested in this event so that we can select a venue that meets our needs. We appreciate you letting us know your thoughts on if and how you would likely attend. It's one question and will take about a minute, if you read all the stuff at the top of the page too!

You can share feedback for the initial planning of the event here.

Watch this space for more information in the weeks to come, including a call for presenters!

Call for Contributors: Themed Collections

Posted by SWG Moderators on 20 July 2024. Last updated on 28 September 2024.

Are you passionate about a topic related to Tolkien or fanworks? (Of course you are! Why else would you be here?) Maybe you have been collecting bookmarks and favorites of your favorite stories, meta, art, and other fanworks?

We are excited to introduce a new column that will be featured periodically in our newsletter! Themed collections are just what they sound like: collections of fanworks around a topic, curated by people who are interested in the subject and familiar with the fanworks around it.

What are we looking for? A collection of five to ten fanworks about a topic with a brief introduction. That's all! Fanworks can be of any type and do not need to be posted with the SWG. The topic of the collection can be as broad or specific as you like. It can include only fanworks of a particular type (say, meta or music) or it can include a mix.

The full Call for Contributors has more information. If you have questions, feel free to comment here or reach out to the moderators through the usual channels.

New Challenge: Bollywood

Posted by SWG Moderators on 11 July 2024. Last updated on 15 August 2024.

The world's largest film industry isn't Hollywood, with its stars and scandals and endless sequels but Bollywood, the film industry that originated in Bombay in the late 19th century, more than a decade before Hollywood got its start. This month's challenge celebrates the lively dances, glittering costumes, towering emotions, and music you can't get out of your head of Bollywood.

Prompts this month come from Bollywood films and will be assigned by a moderator. You can request your prompt on Dreamwidth, Tumblr, the #monthly-challenges channel on our Discord, or by emailing the mods. You can specify whether you'd like a song, film title, trope, or color palette—or you can let us surprise you! (If you choose a song, let us know if you'd like a song with an English translation available.) As always, you can use any aspect of your prompt to inspire your fanwork.

In some cases, we provide an intentionally brief and vague synopsis of a film or definition of a concept so that creators can get started with a prompt without having to do additional research. However, creators are welcome to dig deeper into a prompt if they want to and use what they learn to inspire a fanwork. For example, you might find that the film in your prompt has a clever subplot you will write a story around, the music video for a song has costumes you will include in a drawing, or a concept has aspects not included in our definition that you wish to use to make a playlist. While this is not required, you should feel free to dig as deeply into the prompts if you want and use anything you find!

In order to receive a stamp for your fanwork, your response must be posted to the archive on or before 15 August 2024. In addition, July is Disability Pride Month, so we have a special stamp for fanworks that include characters with disabilities. Make sure it is clear from your summary or let a moderator know if you need this stamp. For complete challenge guidelines, see the Challenges page on our website.