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
Season's Greetings
Create a fanwork in which one (or several) of the holidays of Middle-earth plays a role. 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.
Tennis With An Elf and A Dwarf by Grundy, Raiyana
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New friend
Master Carweg,
I am not certain how to explain my name in letters except as it is spelled in our runes; my grasp of your letters is perhaps not so advanced as I would have believed? It is H A R TH GR EI P, I think. Perhaps you might call me Harga, instead? We are not, of course, kin, but I doubt any will raise the issue of formality in these letters; I know they are not read by any courier I would entrust with my words. I do hope they reach you in a timely manner – here, it is now late in the chilling season; we are coming close to the turning of the year as we reckon it, and my family are busy working on the projects they will present for the Midwinter Craft Fair. I think this is a strictly Dwarven tradition, and I will not now name it to you in our tongue, but it is a chance for all to show off their skill and prowess in their chosen craft. The King chooses his favoured Thirteen – after the Firsts – and my sibling hopes to be among the contenders for the honour. Do Elves have such traditions?
Enclosed with this letter, you will find the plans my father perfected for his creation in his last years; I trust your own craftsmen may make sense of them if you have a use for such a chair – father told stories of your people seeming indestructible by such injuries as he suffered, but I am glad to hear you take steps to keep such accidents from happening again. Be not mindful of any proprietary restraints on the plans; I have discussed the matter with my sibling and we agree that spreading Hafli’s genius among other folk is in keeping with his legacy. Do let us know if anything remains unclear – I am not aware of the methods your elven masons, few as they are, use to annotate measurements, and of course the ones given are for a dwarf-sized chair regardless, so some calculations might be required for any adaptations.
I am sending this letter with the traders heading to Thargelion, and entrusting that they might there find worthy hands to carry it to the Deep Halls – trade into Doriath has dried up of late, but the Noldor are fond of the goods and metals we provide; they are almost Dwarven in their outlook, I hear. Gossip says some have even been accepted to apprentice with our Masters, though I do not know to credit such speculations – I have yet to see an Elf in Belegost, at least.
My best to you,
Harðgreip Harga, daughter of Hafli, Senior Journeyman Claysmith of Belegost
