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.
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…
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…
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 ...
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.
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.
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.
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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.
Ah, Elleth! These are so excellent. I think I've let you know my feelings about them. I still love the Maedhros-in-Doriath and the murder mystery too, Chilling, both of them.
Quoting what I said elsewhere: Trying to keep track of Elleth's B2MeM contributions, I felt a bit like one of those hobbits who threw themselves flat on their bellies as Gandalf's firework dragon rushed over their heads and then looked up to see it turn a somersault over Bywater.
Heh. I'm afraid she's quite notorious for her spiky Tengwar, cliché or not. ;) You're not alone with paying for the tickets either, though lacking their expertise in the field I would probably not be understanding very much of it - still, to come along for that ride would be worth it either way!
Here, the praise of the black blade mingles with the hate the dwarf felt in an ominous way, which makes my heart reach out to Beleg all the more. Thank you for writing this little piece!
I cannot believe you did this in 100 words! This is wonderful. You left me sitting here with my hand over my mouth, stunned. Chilling, scary, and absolutely perfect. (I came here to read this one so I could read the remix Zeen did of it and read a couple more--wonderful also--the Aredhel space/in-patient one! Fabulous and the tiny petrichor poem. I guess I missed this collections because they were part of massive B2MeM influx. I will come back and read and comment on others.)
Thank you so much, Oshun! I'm glad these fics are still eliciting a response, after all it's been a while since I wrote them, and it's always great to know something stood the test of time. I hope you enjoy the rest you decide to read as well. :)
Ooooh, thank you, thank you for directing me to this fantastic ficlet! As you well know, BeMeM results in so many stories of quality (and Bungo Baggins' Bingo generated a huge number of fics), that it is easy to miss stories. Thank goodness I read this. I came here to see how Elrond came across Estëlindë's journals, and found a rich, darkly atmospheric tale and a very satisfying backstory as to how Narsil came to the line of Elros. Although there are a lot of great turns of phrase here, this stood out:
They follow in, driving a host of memories like rats before them.
You are most, most welcome - and I remember very well what a crazy year the Bingo Bash was (though still hoping a toned-down repeat may be possible at some point), and I'm thrilled you found something that you enjoyed so much, turns of phrase and everything.
Love that the boy, who would grow up to be the man who would be king, is reading of a treatment he will apply to the very same condition that Estëlindë describes. Very neat tie-in between the First Age and the Third Age.
Thank you so much! :D It was a lot of fun digging into the history and forging that connection - after all Aragorn knew how to treat the Black Breath (and I don't buy that it was entirely his royal destiny that let him), so he must have learned it somewhere, and in this 'verse that somewhere just happens to be Estelindë's abominably spiky scrawl. :D
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.