Mark Your Calendars! Mereth Aderthad 2025
The SWG will be hosting a hybrid event in Burlington, Vermont, and online on 19 July 2025. Mark your calendars and watch this space for calls for presenters and fanworks to be shared at the event!
SWG News
Cultus Dispatches: Why People Don't Comment
Many an author has stared at her clicks and her comment count and wondered: Why don't most readers comment? An update on a 2018 article for Long Live Feedback, this month's column uses Tolkien Fanfiction Survey data to reveal three big factors: skill, confidence, and community connections.
A Sense of History: Spiral Staircase
The Anglo-Saxon poet looks on the sea from the highest point of the tower and then, without saying all that was seen, begins a descent. The way of the poem traces a spiral staircase. Ultimately, the plan of this staircase follows an Elvish design. The staircase is a picture of the descent of mortal generations in history, drawn from the perspective of those who do not die.
New Challenge: Idiomatic
Our new challenge features prompts that are idioms from around the world.
New & Updated Fanworks
[Writing] Sediments by polutropos
Elrond hears a call in the waters of the Bruinen and follows it to the sea. There he finds someone whose memory he has long ago put behind him, but whom he knows at once — only Maglor does not know him. As he revisits his past with Maglor, both painful and fond, Elrond must also reckon with…
[Artwork] Behind God’s Back by silmalope
A short comic for the Sept-Oct 2024 Idiomatic challenge. The stifling environment of Eöl’s “dim halls, silent and secret” contrasts with young Maeglin’s idealized vision of Gondolin as a divine, sunlit paradise, home to the godlike Noldor.
[Reference] 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.
[Writing] Ode to Findaráto by Flora-lass
In praise of a painting of a young Finrod in Valinor.
[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…
[Writing] The Lost Poems of Beren by Archivist
The Lost Poems of Beren is a rare and mystical collection of long-forgotten poems, believed to be written by Beren himself during his timeless love affair with Lúthien Tinúviel. Discovered deep within the ruins of Eregion and painstakingly translated from the ancient Elvish…
Current Challenge
Idiomatic
Raining cats and dogs. A short fuse. Up a creek without a paddle. A piece of cake. Sometimes colorful, sometimes puzzling without backstory or explanation, these delightful turns of phrase enrich our language—whichever one it happens to be. Prompts this month are idioms from languages around the world.
Read more ...
Random Challenge
Soundtrack
While usually the scenes are filmed first and the soundtrack is composed later, this month we want to challenge you to create (or continue) a story after listening to one of our musical prompts. The prompts will be pieces of classical and instrumental music. Read more ...
New in References
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.
Death, Grief, and the Other in the "Quenta Silmarillion" by Dawn Walls-Thumma
The narrator of the Quenta Silmarillion uses death, grief, and mourning rituals to generate sympathy for or dehumanize groups of characters considered the Other.
Spiral Staircase by Simon J. Cook
The Anglo-Saxon poet looks on the sea from the highest point of the tower and then, without saying all that was seen, begins a descent. The way of the poem traces a spiral staircase. Ultimately, the plan of this staircase follows an Elvish design. The staircase is a picture of the descent of mortal generations in history, drawn from the perspective of those who do not die.
Featured Themed Collection
The Ruling Queens of Númenor by Himring
Part of our Themed Collection series for our newsletter, this collection features fanworks about the three ruling queens of Númenor: Tar-Ancalimë, Tar-Telperiën, and Tar-Vanimeldë.
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
Silm Smut Exchange 2024
The Silm Smut Exchange is a gift exchange for mature and explicit Silm fanworks (fic and art), hosted on AO3.
Whumptober 2024
Whumptober is a month-long multifandom creation challenge on Tumblr and AO3 with daily hurt/comfort prompts that focus on the darker side of the genre.
Tolkien Pinup Calendar Sluttiest Tolkien Character Bracket
Tolkien Pinup Calendar is taking submissions for the sluttiest Tolkien character for their November bracket.
Aspec Arda Week 2024
This is a week-long Tumblr event to celebrate the interaction of the asexual and aromantic-spectrums and Tolkien’s Legendarium of Arda.
Silm Smut Week 2024
SilmSmutWeek is a fandom event celebrating sexually explicit fanworks based on the "The Silmarillion."
The Lost Poems of Beren by Archivist
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Editor's Footnotes
- *In several instances, the original Elvish words have faded beyond recovery, particularly in places where the sentiment expressed would have held profound personal
- [1] Wode = wood or forest
- [2] Leme = light or gleam
- [3] Fey = fairy or enchanted (referring to the magical quality of the moonlight)
- [4] Sweven = dream
- [5] Sheen = brightness, radiance
- [6] Cleve = to split or pierce, symbolizing the lasting impact in the heart
