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.
Drabbles by Grundy
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Naturalist's Guide To Middle-earth, I
Drabbles from the Naturalist's Guide to Middle-earth Image Instadrabbling
January 10 2021
0:00 UTC
Elros tugged Maedhros’ sleeve urgently – and utterly silently.
Bemused, he quietly followed the boy, who was at pains to make as little sound as possible.
They swiftly reached what Elros had clearly wanted him to see.
Seven birds, of the sort the elves of this area called waxwings, sat perched on a branch atop a tree that had not yet gotten its leaves.
The birds are like you and your brothers!
It was the first time either twin had favored him with osanwë, though he knew they frequently used it between themselves.
See, there is even a pair of twins!
---
Though Uncle Moryo was a master tailor with a talent for embroidery, Tyelperinquar had never seen him sketch anything before. But that was exactly what his uncle was doing now.
Tyelperinquar peered over his shoulder, and was surprised to find that his uncle was adding carefully – and in full color – to a page of butterflies.
“It will take some time and careful dye work to achieve the right colors to render them on fabric,” his uncle explained matter-of-factly. “I will need the sketches then to remind me of the patterns.”
Tyelperinquar hoped he would get to see the finished piece.
---
Finderato was astonished when the trees gave way to water and the strangest things he’d ever seen. He was trying to work out just what the things floating here and there on the water were – some sort of causeway, perhaps? – when a bird ran across one.
His face must have been quite the sight, for Cirdan burst out laughing.
“They’re just water lilies, lad. But bigger – they’re large enough that we can walk on them, if we’re careful.”
Astonishment gave way to excitement. Just wait until he wrote to Artë that he had gone walking across the water on plants!
---
“What is that flower called?”
Lindë shrugged.
“I don’t know. I haven’t been back here since the Trees… this one is new.”
Tyelpesilmë sighed. Perhaps it had been a bad idea to bring her law-sister with her. She had thought it might do Lindë some good.
But Lindë had preferred to sail up or down the coast to go climbing up to spots she knew of from before her youth. This was not the only one that had changed. But it was the only one from which they could see the last of the embarkment and the ships making way.
---
“What in the name of Varda is that?” Elros demanded in an undertone.
Elrond had no more idea than his brother. Luckily, Elros hadn’t been quiet enough.
“Better to name Mahal’s mate for that, my lad!” their teacher chuckled.
“That’s a plant?” Elros asked, radiating skepticism.
“No, it’s a fungus,” Akraghâl explained. “As are the smaller ones. We call them elf-cups, seeing as they always grow on riverbanks.”
Elros’ eyes lit, and several of their classmates giggled.
“Can we drink from them?” he asked eagerly.
“If you really want to, but you’ll find it gives the water an odd taste.”
---
Elros stared at the multi-colored insects in his son’s ‘collection’ in bemusement.
This was definitely not any of the grasshoppers he remembered from his childhood. There hadn’t been any near Sirion, at least not that he could recall. The ones near Amon Ereb had been a dull green with brown legs; the ones on the eastern side of Tumunzahar had looked rather like leaves – a form of camouflage, Akraghâl had explained.
This so-called grasshopped had vibrant red wings, a rear section that looked akin to a bee at first glance, and speckles all over its head.
“Are you sure, Vardamir?”
---
Curufinwë wasn’t sure what was so important for him to see that Tyelko needed him *now*. Their camp was barely established. He had much to do.
He’d only been pried away by Tyelko’s admission that he had left Tyelpë outside the camp *alone*. There will be another kinslaying if anything has happened to his son.
His jaw dropped when they reached the clearing Tyelko had been aiming for. The massive nest dominated the scene.
“Isn’t it amazing?” Tyelpë beamed. “I think we should call it the atto-bird – he likes shiny things and everything in his house arranged just so, too.”
