Founded in 2005, the Silmarillion Writers' Guild exists for discussions of and creative fanworks based on J.R.R. Tolkien's The Silmarillion and related texts. We are a positive-focused and open-minded space that welcomes fans from all over the world and with all levels of experience with Tolkien's works. Whether you are picking up Tolkien's books for the first time or have been a fan for decades, we welcome you to join us!
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.
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.
Largely focused on Númenor, its fall, and the aftermath, as seen from the perspective of two Mannish scientists, bit players in some ways, but who nonetheless cast their shadows across the history of Middle Earth.
A story of three friends in Númenor, one of whom attracts the attention of the High Priest. What does friendship mean in the shadow of the Black Temple?
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…
Elrond and Celebrían celebrate their anniversary with their family.
Current Challenge
Bollywood
Prompts this month are films, songs, and tropes from India's dazzling film industry, Bollywood. Read more ...
Random Challenge
Strong Women
Choose a female character from The Silmarillion or related texts who contributes something of value and create a fanwork about her. Read more ...
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Scribbles & Drabbles 2024
A chill Tolkien event, where artists make art, and authors write little stories in response. Begins in June and ends in November.
The Silmarillion Writers' Guild is more than just an archive--we are a community! If you enjoy a fanwork or enjoy a creator's work, please consider letting them know in a comment.
This is so beautiful!! You have perfectly captured the underwaterness, the flow of fabric, the lights on the floor... I could just stare at this for hours ?
This is absolutely breathtaking. The more I stare at it, the more lovely it seems. THANK YOU for taking a moment from my fic and making it come alive on the page. The sense of floating, of water and light, of love and redemption -- it's all there, and portrayed so beautifully. It's truly humbling for a writer to receive such a gift. And the thought that it was Kei's universe that inspired all this makes it all the sweeter. I feel very lucky today.
Thank you for the inspiration. Creating art is such a solace for me sometimes, so it was lovely to work on something that was related to Kei's creations while also having the element of healing energy. And I'm really pleased you like it so much.
Yes, I'm totally in love with her Gil, but even more, I never saw much in Erestor until I read hers, and now he's one of my favourite, multifaceted, characters.
I've been reading more of her fics that have been sitting in my to-read queue with such bittersweet feelings, grateful that she's still here in that form, and really sad I can't tell her how her stories and characters make me feel...
Thank you so much, Gabriel! The painting is indeed beautiful, and I'm so glad you liked the fic. Kei's Gil-galad really is top notch, as is her Erestor. It was quite moving for me to write these characters (whom I used to write back in the early 2000s in stories Kei used to read) but give them more of a Keiliss spin. This fic is pretty special to me for that reason.
Like Anerea, I have some of Kei's stories in my to-read queue, but I haven't been brave enough to actually read any since she passed away. I click on them and then chicken out. Still too sad -- but I'll get there. Her stuff is too good not to read and re-read.
You're right about her fics, ' too good not to read' and I remember thinking once after reading her very seemingly simple Gil stories that just seemed to ensnare you as if by magic, that I wanted to write like that.
I've never interacted much with Keiliss, but anytime I did, she took the time to reply to my comments on ao3. I heard she was dedicated and kind. I heard of what happened, I'm glad she's no longer suffering.
Comments
The Silmarillion Writers' Guild is more than just an archive--we are a community! If you enjoy a fanwork or enjoy a creator's work, please consider letting them know in a comment.