New Challenge: Bollywood
This month's challenge offers songs, films, and tropes from Bollywood, the world's largest film industry based out of India, as prompts for fanworks.
SWG News
Cultus Dispatches: Fandom Chocolate … or Authors Love Comments
Tolkien Fanfiction Survey data provides insight into how comments benefit authors and which authors are most impacted by a lack of comments, with a digression on authors' perspectives one-click feedback like kudos.
A Sense of History: Passing Ships
As Tolkien's characters in various texts gaze out to the sea, what do they see? What is brought by the ships coming out of the West?
Beta-Reader List Now Available
The beta-reader list and profiles have been moved into our new system and are available again.
New & Updated Fanworks
[Writing] No Time Have I by Flora-lass
A Silmarillion acrostic.
[Writing] I called it Fate that I should fail by AdmirableMonster
Nimruzimir, a natural philosopher recently out of his apprenticeship, hardly considers himself very important to anyone, least of all his colleagues. When his strange, prophetic fits bring him to the attention of the High Priest, however, he may find that his existence is less superfluous than…
[Writing] All of you by chrissystriped
Elrond and Celebrían celebrate their anniversary with their family.
[Writing] Lament for the Singer by daughterofshadows
A short thing about Maglor, death and grieving.
[Writing] Cosmological Poems of Arda by AaronAzrael
I would like to share my revelations of Tolkien's Universe in the form of narrative and emotional poems.
[Writing] Eä's Redemption by AaronAzrael
This is my new poetical attempt to add my own interpretation to Tolkien's Cosmology as to Eru's Creation and the Valar's minds and behind-the-scene providence reasons and mechanisms.. I often review Eä as part of our own world, just in another dimension, this is why I have always seriously…
[Artwork] Map of Valinor by Aprilertuile
My newly drawn map of Aman, as complete as I could make it.
Current Challenge
Bollywood
Prompts this month are films, songs, and tropes from India's dazzling film industry, Bollywood. Read more ...
Random Challenge
Holiday Party
No matter if you're in the Northern or Southern hemisphere, it's a time of year to think about holidays. Whether you're bundling up in blankets or slipping a swimsuit into your suitcase, we invite you to an SWG holiday party! Read more ...
New in References
Fandom Chocolate … or Authors Love Comments by Dawn Walls-Thumma
[]Tolkien Fanfiction Survey data shows that authors view comments as driving their motivation to create fanfiction. However, perception of comments by authors is part of a larger shift in fandom around how and how often fans interact with each other.
Passing Ships by Simon J. Cook
[]The arrival and departure of ships across the Great Sea carries mythic significance for the peoples of Middle-earth. The image of ships crossing out of and back into a mysterious West appears as well in Beowulf and is alluded to in Tolkien's tower analogy in his lecture "Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics," where the tower allows those who climb it to observe the passage of the ships.
Fanfiction and the Serious Business of Writer's Craft by Dawn Walls-Thumma
[]Tolkien Fanfiction Survey data shows that while most authors self-identify as taking their craft seriously, a growing subset of authors may be pushing that norm.
Beyond the Silmarillion
[Writing] Staging a Battle by StarSpray
[]He and Diamond were visiting, though Pippin had been disappearing every afternoon, and taking Frodo and Elanor and most other lads and lasses in the neighborhood with him—though why they couldn’t use Pippin’s own pony, Sam couldn’t imagine.
[Writing] From whose bourn no traveller returns by losselen
[]So gathered they were to Bree, what lieutenants who could be spared, from their scattered watches west and east, for their chieftain had returned from his long sojourn in lands godless and mountains strange.
Aragorn returns from the South to tells his tales. Halbarad listens.
[Writing] Sand Sorcery by StarSpray
[]It is well known that Psamathos does not leave his cove. He does not like to get his feet wet, and prefers to spend his days dozing under the sun.
Around the World and Web
Fellowship of the Fics: Summer Stories 2024
Fellowship of the Fics offers four weeks of summer-themed prompts during the month of July.
Elrond Week 2024
Elrond Week is a fandom event dedicated to Elrond Peredhel that will run from July 10th to July 16th on Tumblr.
July challenge at tolkienshortfanworks posted
The tolkienshortfanworks challenge for July has been posted to the Dreamwidth community. The thematic challenge is: original character or unnamed canon character; the formal challenge: fixed length of multiple of 50 words. New participants welcome.
July 2024 Call for Papers and Proposals
Conferences and publications that have open calls for papers and proposals in July 2024.
Teitho June/July Challenge: Mentor
The June/July prompt for the Teitho challenge is "mentor" and invites fanworks about this relationship in Tolkien's works.
Atop Aewellond's Tower by Kaylee Arafinwiel
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Atop Aewellond's Tower
"Aewellond" or Bird-haven is the non-canonical name of Earendil and Elwing's dwelling in Aman, name borrowed from my Atto Fiondil's Elf, Interrupted 'verse.
Donut: MINE!
*bats Donut away from Notes* No. Mine, Donut. Silly seagull...
Elwing stood atop the great tower of Aewellond beside the sea, dark hair streaming out behind her. She stared out over Belegaer, the Great Sea that divided the uttermost West from the Hither Shores. She looked eastward, wondering.
My sons, she thought, with a pang. My little boys. I left them behind…we left them…
“Thou hadst no choice, child.”
Elwing spun round, eyes wide. The newcomer was a tall woman – taller than Elwing herself – with impossibly long, shining dark hair trailing behind her, glistening wetly. Kelp was threaded through it, and her aquamarine gown, skin-tight, dripped with water.
“Thou hadst no choice, Daughter of Dior,” she repeated, fixing her deep blue eyes on Elwing. The scent of sea-breeze emanated from her, though the wind was still, and she glowed with an inner Light that brought Elwing to her knees.
“Lady Uinen…” Elwing whispered, recognizing the Maia for what she was. Uinen nodded.
“Thy sons yet live,” she said quietly. “In fact, thine Elros will soon be King of a new land Lord Manwe intends to raise in my lord’s demesne, between here and the Hither Shores. A gift for the Men who fought so bravely against the Dark One.”
“Elros…will be Mortal, then,” Elwing said quietly.
“Yes.” Uinen’s voice was laced with sympathy. “Elrond has chosen the fate of the Edhil.”
“Will Elrond, at least, be returned to us one day, lady?” Elwing pleaded.
“I cannot say, child. But this I do know – the seabirds which dwell in thy domain will gladly bring thee news of thy sons. My Lord Ulmo gave thee the shape of a bird, for a time – and bird-speech is still thine, to speak and understand through osanwe. Thou wilt have news of Elrond, Elros, and in time, their descendants if such they have.” With a shimmer of light, and the scent of brine strengthening in the air, Uinen was gone. Elwing knelt by the tower’s railing, weeping.
“My sons…”
A lone seagull, winging its way through the air, came to perch by her. It cocked its head – no, his, Elwing could tell the bird was male – and met her astonished gaze with a bright eye.
Mine?
My sons, she thought, and the seagull nodded.
Mine!
Well, Uinen hadn’t said speaking with her companions would be easy.
