Mereth Aderthad 2025: Call for Fanworks

The Silmarillion Writers' Guild Presents Mereth Aderthad 2025 - July 19, 2025, Burlington, VT and online - A celebration of creativity and scholarship inspired by the works of J.R.R. Tolkien. The interest form for fanworks creators is open! Fanworks sign-ups begin on February 15.

Mereth Aderthad 2025 is a hybrid event held in honor of the Silmarillion Writers' Guild's twentieth birthday that seeks to celebrate the creativity and insightfulness of the Tolkien fandom. The event will feature presentations of meta, research, and scholarship. Each presentation will be accompanied by fanworks on the same topic or theme.

We are currently seeking fanworks creators who are interested in creating fanworks to be shared at Mereth Aderthad 2025.

Schedule/Timeline

  • If you are interested in creating a fanwork for Mereth Aderthad 2025, you should first complete the interest form. We will be in contact after that with next steps.
  • January 12 - February 15: interest sign-ups for fanworks creators open
  • January 15: call for meta/research/scholarship closes
  • February 7: presentation list sent out to all creators who have submitted an interest form
  • February 15: sign-ups for fanworks creators open
  • April 15: progress check-in
  • Fanwork Due Dates: TBD

Here is a more detailed breakdown of how the process will work:

  • Sign up on our interest form if you would like to receive a link to the presentation list once it is available. Signing up on the interest form does not obligate you to sign up or create a fanwork for Mereth Aderthad 2025.
  • On February 7, we will email a link to a list of the meta/scholarship presentations and a summary for each.
  • On February 15, the sign-up for fanworks will open. We will email you again with a link to sign up. You will choose to create a fanwork in one of the categories below for one of the Mereth Aderthad 2025 presentations. Sign ups are on a first-come basis.
    • Featured Art: a work of visual art related to the presentation it accompanies that will be displayed on the screen at Mereth Aderthad 2025 before the presentation begins and during the fanwork reading afterward.
    • Featured Writing: a written fanwork (ficlet, poem, or excerpt of a longer work) that will be presented at Mereth Aderthad 2025 following the presentation it accompanies. The work should be able to be presented in ten minutes or less.
    • Performing Art: a performing art (music, drama, dance, etc.) that will be performed at Mereth Aderthad 2025 following the presentation it accompanies.
    • Zine Art: a work of visual art in black-and-white/grayscale, created to accompany a presentation, that will be included in a zine available to Mereth Aderthad 2025 participants.
    • Zine Writing: a written fanwork, created to accompany a presentation, that will be included in a zine available to Mereth Aderthad 2025 participants.
  • You will hear from an event volunteer after sign-ups close to confirm your assignment. This person will be your contact person as you work on your fanwork. You may also be put in touch with the person who will be doing the presentation your fanwork will accompany. (You will have this information available at sign-ups and should only sign up to create for presentations where you are comfortable with the level of collaboration requested by the presenter.)
  • On April 15, your contact person will reach out to check in on the progress of your fanwork.

General Fanworks Creators Guidelines

  1. Your fanwork will be created to accompany a presentation at Mereth Aderthad 2025. Presenters will vary in the amount of collaboration they want with you, and this information will be available when you sign up. However, your fanwork is your work in response to the topic or theme of the presentation. Presenters do not approve and cannot require changes to the fanworks that accompany their presentations. If presenters want to collaborate, they may have ideas for fanworks to accompany their presentation, but you are not required to use these. Along those same lines, fanworks creators do not get to approve or require changes in presentations.
  2. Mereth Aderthad 2025 is a public event that welcomes everyone, so fanworks shared at the event should be SFW (safe for work), meaning that they should not include graphic sexual content or graphic violence. Check in with an event volunteer if you're not sure if something you're planning is appropriate for the event. Excerpts read at the event may link to Adult-rated content on the SWG archive.
  3. Fanworks created for the zine may include any content, including adult content.
  4. The SWG does not allow fanworks that are wholly or partially generated by AI. All fanworks created for Mereth Aderthad must adhere to our AI policy.
  5. All fanworks should be created for the event in response to the presentation they accompany.
  6. We deeply appreciate if fanworks are not shared publicly prior to the event on July 19, 2025. However, after the event, we hope that you will share them widely and on whatever archives and social media you choose!
  7. While we hope to see fanworks creators (in-person or online!) at Mereth Aderthad 2025, creating a fanwork for the event does not require you to attend.

Specific Fanworks Creators Guidelines

Featured Artwork

  1. Featured artwork will be displayed at the beginning of the presentation it accompanies and during the fanwork reading afterward. All types and formats of artwork are welcome.
  2. We may include the title of the presentation and fanwork alongside your artwork. We will not include the title over top of your work or any additional modifications to your artwork without seeking your permission first.
  3. Because this work will be displayed on the screen at both the in-person and virtual events, it should have dimensions, coloring, and composition suited to this purpose.

Featured Writing

  1. Featured writing will be presented live at Mereth Aderthad 2025. If you sign up to create one of these fanworks, it is up to you what format this uses. You can, of course, read your work live (in-person or online). You can have someone else read your work for you. You can pre-record your work (or have someone else pre-record it) and have it played at the event.
  2. Featured writing may be in any format: ficlet, excerpt of a longer story, poetry, dramatic reading, etc.
  3. Featured writing should be presented in ten minutes or less. Excerpts of longer works are fine but should be able to stand on their own.
  4. You can opt whether or not your written fanwork is also included in the zine. See Zine Writing below for more specifics.

Performing Art

  1. Performing arts include forms such as music, drama, and dance and will be presented live at Mereth Aderthad 2025.
  2. If you are not planning to attend the event in-person, consider whether the performance will be suitable for a virtual presentation.
  3. We will consult with performing artists about the length of the performance given the constraints of our schedule.

Zine Artwork

  1. Zine artwork will not be presented on screen but will appear in a zine available to all Mereth Aderthad participants. The zine will be available in a digital format and may be printed as well. Zine artwork will be designed to accompany one of the presentations.
  2. Zine artwork should be able to be printed in grayscale.

Zine Writing

  1. Zine writing will not be presented live but will appear in a zine available to all Mereth Aderthad participants. The zine will be available in a digital format and may be printed as well. Zine writing will be designed to accompany one of the presentations.
  2. Zine writing may be in any format: ficlet, excerpt of a longer story, poetry, etc.
  3. There is no word count limit for zine writing; however, we will only print the first 2,000 words in the zine itself. The remainder of the work will be posted on the SWG archive with a link and/or QR code in the zine to continue reading on the archive.

Rights Acquired

The SWG seeks first-time worldwide publication rights for all fanworks created for the Mereth Aderthad 2025 event. All creators retain the copyright to their work. What that means in plain English: We would like to be the first to share your fanwork as part of our event, but it is your fanwork, and you can share it and do with it as you please after that!

First rights includes:

  • The fanwork will be posted on the SWG archive (silmarillionwritersguild.org). All creators will be provided with an SWG account, if they do not have one already, and so will maintain full control over their work on the archive. Creators can edit or add to their work on the archive. While we hope that they will not do so, creators can also delete their work from the archive.
  • Featured artwork and writing will be displayed or read at the Mereth Aderthad event, which will also be available on a virtual platform. No fanworks will be recorded at the event without prior approval from the creator.
  • Zine artwork and writing and featured artwork and writing where the creator chooses to do so will be published in a zine that will be available to Mereth Aderthad attendees. This zine will also be available to download in PDF format on the SWG website (silmarillionwritersguild.org). This zine will not be edited or deleted after publication.

Fanworks Creator Sign-Up

If you are interested in creating a fanwork for Mereth Aderthad, use this form to share an email address where we can reach you. You will hear from us on February 7 with the presentation list and more information on sign-ups, then again on February 15 with a link to the sign-up form. Filling out the interest form does not require you to sign up.

Posted on 13 January 2025 (updated 13 January 2025) by SWG Moderators