Artists Needed to Create 2025 Challenge Stamps
We are soliciting help from artists who want to help create the stamps we award to challenge participants.
SWG News
Tolkien Fanartics: Mapping Arda - The Second Age
In the third part of the Mapping Arda series, Anérea and Varda delle Stelle present a selection of fan-created maps of the lands of the Second Age.
New Challenge: Potluck Bingo
Sit down to a delicious selection of prompts served on bingo boards, created by the SWG community.
Bingo Cards Wanted for Potluck Bingo
Our November-December challenge will be Potluck Bingo, featuring cards created by you! If you'd like to create cards or prompts for cards, we are taking submissions.
New & Updated Fanworks
[Writing] Collection of Potluck Drabbles by Artano
This is a collection of true drabbles completed for the 'Four Words' drabble bingo card.
[Writing] After the Festival by Himring
At Ivrin, during the aftermath of the Mereth Aderthad.
A brief vignette.
[Artwork] Long-tressed Wingildi by Anérea
"... the long-tressed Wingildi ... spirits of the foam and the surf of ocean."
~ a painted sketch for Scribbles and Drabbles 2024.
[Writing] Seeking Sunlight by StarSpray
It was winter, and the sunlight that came into the caves was cold and pale, but Rían still sought it out, bundled up in all of the furs and blankets that they could give her.
[Writing] Primordial Daydream by Anérea
The Queen of Faery takes a little light trip down memory lane.
[Writing] Silence Under Starlight by StarSpray
In Valmar, after the Darkening and the Flight of the Noldor, Indis receives a visitor.
[Writing] Where Memory Walks by StarSpray
Neldoreth was both like and unlike the forests of Dior’s childhood and youth.
Current Challenge
Tolkien Meta Week
Tolkien Meta Week is a week-long event to encourage fans to create nonfiction works related to Tolkien's world. Tolkien Meta Week will run from December 8-14, 2024 on Tumblr and here on the Silmarillion Writers' Guild archive. Read more ...
Festival of Lights Fest
This is a fun and low-key event meant to encourage works about or inspired by Hanukkah, running this year in conjunction with the Potluck Bingo challenge. Read more ...
Potluck Bingo
Help yourself to a collection of prompts on bingo boards designed by members and friends of the SWG. Read more ...
Random Challenge
Experimental
Tolkien was an experimental writer, pushing the boundaries of literary and artistic convention. This month, we invite you to experiment with a new technique or approach to your fanworks. We’ve listed some prompts you can select from, but you’re also free to develop your own. Read more ...
New in References
Mapping Arda, Part III: The Second Age by Anérea, Varda delle Stelle
A series of articles featuring fan-made maps of all the lands of Arda. Part III explores the island of Númenor and mainland Middle-earth during the Second Age.
Doom and Ascent: The Argument of ‘Beowulf: the Monsters and the Critics’ by Simon J. Cook
Simon reads 'Beowulf: the Monsters and the Critics' to conclude his account of the Anglo-Saxon tower of its allegory.
Why People Don't Comment: Data and History From the Tolkienfic Fandom by Dawn Walls-Thumma
A reworking of the 2018 article for Long Live Feedback that includes data from the 2020 Tolkien Fanfiction Survey, pointing to a lack of comments as related to skill, confidence, and community connection.
Featured Themed Collection
Part of our Themed Collection series for our newsletter, this collection features fiction, artwork, and essays that transcend the idea of Orcs as the enemy, instead considering their humanity.
Alliterative Verse for Arda by Rhunedhel
Part of our Themed Collection series for our newsletter, this collection features alliterative poems about Middle-earth.
Beyond the Silmarillion
[Writing] Homage to the Song of Durin by Flora-lass
Legolas is inspired by Gimli's song - and by Gimli himself.
[Writing] Partners in Craft by elennalore
Annatar realises that he might like Celebrimbor too much.
[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.
Around the World and Web
Festival of Lights Fest 2024
This is a fun and low-key event meant to encourage works about or inspired by Hanukkah, running this year in conjunction with the Potluck Bingo challenge.
Fluffcember 2024
Fluffcember is a Tumblr event with daily fluffy prompts during the month of December.
Hidden Paths 2025
Hidden Paths, an event dedicated to the celebration of smaller Tolkien canons, has released their early prompts for the 2025 event.
Teitho November/December Contest: Healing
The theme for Teitho's November/December contest is healing.
Lord of the Rings Secret Santa 2024
LotR SESA has been ongoing for twenty-one years and is running again this year as a prompt meme hosted on AO3 for all genres of Tolkien-based fanfiction.
Éowyn - warrior & healer by daughterofshadows
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Éowyn - warrior & healer
The fifth cycle that belongs to my Tolkien's Rockin' Ladies Bingo.
Since this one is very firmly part of Lord of the Rings, I decided to post it separately.
She stands before her mother’s grave, the green burial mound that is her family’s tomb. Her tears have long dried, but Éowyn cannot bring herself to leave.
How will Rohan remember her mother?
Her father died a warrior’s death, her mother of a broken heart.
No one sings songs of the women left behind when the men go off to fight. Instead is their lot to be forgotten by the histories, buried under the glory of men.
Éowyn refuses to let that be her future. When she dies, her life will be remembered. She will stand in no man’s shadow.
She learns the ways of the blade at her cousin’s feet, but it is no battle of swords that tests her mettle.
It is a battle of minds, a battle she loses a bit more every day, as her uncle, her king, slowly slips into senility, his mind poisoned by Saruman, though she does not know it.
Her brother and cousin leave her behind, desperately grasping for something to control as they fight to protect their lands from the dangers lurking everywhere.
In Meduseld, Éowyn grows cold, her heart turning to ice because the pain of losing is too great.
He appears to her like one of the heroes of old, the dawn after a never-ending night. She hopes for salvation he cannot grant.
She is entrusted with the care of her people, unwilling she may be, and when he leaves for the paths of the dead, the night swallows her whole again.
Éowyn rides to the battlefield with no hope in her heart.
She is willing to die. Craves death perhaps because she can perceive no greater glory then dying on the battlefield.
Her life will be a matter of songs, just like she swore on her mother’s grave.
The Witch-king dies to her blade, collapsing in on himself like a puppet whose strings were cut.
Éowyn survives. She does not wish for it, but death is not ready to take her just yet.
Her body recovers.
In the Halls of Healing, she meets another lost soul, and together they navigate the darkness.
Slowly, but surely, she also heals her mind.
A burden shared is a burden halved, after all, and when their kings finally return triumphant, her future path is clear to her.
Éowyn of Rohan is her own saviour, now she learns how to save others, too.
Chapter End Notes
The prompts were:
Éowyn +
1. On my tombstone when I go
2. Steel in her bones
3. I wanna go out my way
4. Don't need to be saved
