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…
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.
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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.
So I knew about Ilwen but I didn't realize just how *terribly minor* she was until I ran across this challenge. So I *love* rare characters, and I was browsing through the provided list to see if any jumped out at me and I noticed she wasn't on that list so I thought oh wow, she must have more content on here?? So I got curious and went to the list of characters in the database and she wasn't there either so I started wondering if I'd made some terrible mistake somewhere, but no, she is a named character, just - apparently - one that is so hidden that she didn't even make the Hidden Figures list!
And then Gwidhil is one of my beloveds, I wrote her once and was absolutely hooked - I mean really the entire Arafin family tree - Bëorians honorarily included - are my beloveds.
How I wrote this in particular however was I was waffling on who I wanted to write and thinking okay well I guess I'll write whichever I can think of a story for first, and I started at Mithrim then though oh I could do a Cuivienen fic, I do love those but I still kind of wanted to write Gwidhil, but I realized very quickly as my brain shuffled them both that they had (or I could imagine them having) almost eerily parallel lives. And... off I went :D
I'm so glad you enjoyed it and thank you for asking me about it!
You've put Ilwen on my radar, actually. I can't remember exactly now whether or not it had registered with me that NoME gave us her name, but I guess I had already forgotten again! There was such a lot of new stuff to absorb in NoME. I think at the time of the original Hidden Figures Challenge we probably didn't know her name yet. (It is possible that somebody did write about her, before, but there would have been no way to tag for her on the old site, except possibly "Vanyar". Even the tagging for unnamed canon characters is relatively recent.)
I had written Ilwen once before in a fic that never got finished and sort of shuffled aside while I was writing a series of those who remained in Valinor after the Exile of the Noldor, but this is the first piece I've actually posted with her. Might be why she was on my mind in terms of rarer characters.
If she was only first named in NoME that would narrow the window for any fics she might appear in, but any number of approaches to her as an OC wife of Ingwë prior could still be out there! Maybe a scavenger hunt is in my future :)
You did say in the notes the name was attested in HoME, which may have confused them, because it looks as if technically it isn't (as they are different works).
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.