Around the World and Web includes announcements and items of interest from beyond the SWG.
Teitho November/December Contest: Healing
Welcome to the Teitho Contest, where you can participate with a variety of other writers and artists and send in stories and pictures based on our themes.
Join us in this writing and drawing contest!
A new challenge is posted every month. On the first day of the challenge, we announce a new theme on this site. You then have two months to create your entry, which has to be finished when you send it in.
After the deadline of the contest, the voting period begins. Based on the number of entries, it lasts for two or more weeks. The winners are usually announced a day or two after the end of the voting. Teitho remains one of the last prompt-based, independent, Tolkien fan-fiction/fan art monthly contests. Full contest guidelines are here.
Our prompt this month is Healing.
Healing figures significantly in many of Tolkien’s works. We encounter healers like Elrond, the staff of the Houses of Healing in Minas Tirith, Aragorn and the healing hands of the King.
We see many characters being healed—Frodo, Faramir, Eowyn, Merry.
Healing isn’t only confined to physical injury—there is healing of mental and emotional hurts as well.
And we also see incomplete healing—where characters may be healed of bodily injuries swiftly but the horrors and trauma they endured persist—Maedhros, Gwindor, Frodo.
Healing also affects the land in Tolkien. Ithilien—where Legolas and his people go at Aragorn’s request, to rejuvenate and cleanse the land—is just one example of this.
Healing can also be seen in the context of interpersonal relationships—Maedhros healing the rift in the house of Finwë, the repair of Bilbo and Thorin’s friendship at the end of the Battle of Five Armies.
What stories of healing will you give us? We can’t wait to see where your imagination takes you!
Stories or art should be submitted to teitho.contest@gmail.com by Dec 31!
Lord of the Rings Secret Santa 2024
So, it's that time of the year again: time to sign up for the Lord of the Rings Secret Santa exchange! Slash, femslash, het and gen; you can request it all, so why not join in?
Lord of the Rings Secret Santa has been going for twenty-one years, and we'd love to see you join us and keep the tradition going.
LotR SeSa has been a traditional exchange since its inception, but we continue to adapt and refine the exchange to best serve all participants. The exchange has been in the form of a prompt meme since 2020. If you are new to the format, AO3 has a helpful FAQ here.
This year's timeline (2024)
- Prompt Posting: November 1st to 25th.
- Claiming: November 26th to December 27th.
- Collection Open for Posting: November 26th to December 27th.
- All Fills Due: December 27th
You will be able to post up to 2 prompts, and we will do our best to make sure that at least one of your prompts is filled.
Please note that this is an FPF challenge. (i.e. Fictional, not real people fiction/RPF.) We're always open to all the Peoples and Ages of Middle-earth, which means that characters from The Hobbit and The Rings of Power are welcome too!
The Rules (2024)
- You will be able to post up to 2 prompts between November 1st and 25th, and we will do our best to make sure at least one of your prompts is filled.
- Your fill is due December 27th 11:59 pm Pacific Time (you can check what that is in your time zone here). Please post it to AO3 (and nowhere else, until January 3rd).
- As a matter of fairness, please make your story more than 750 words (1000 is better).
- Signing up: the sign up form can be found here (or here if the main link gives you an error message). If you need help with signing up, please don't hesitate to contact the mods at lotrsesa[AT]gmail.com.
- Once claiming has opened, please only claim a prompt if you plan on actually fulfilling your end of the bargain, and please only claim one prompt at a time. After you have completed your fill, you may claim a new one.
- Claiming a prompt: use the "Claim" button next to the prompt you want to claim. (You can find open prompts under "Prompts" in the sidebar.) Several people can claim the same prompt. You can also claim a prompt without having submitted any of your own.
It's a good idea to join the LotR_SeSa LiveJournal community or the Dreamwidth community so you can keep track of any admin posts. You can also follow us here on Tumblr.
Kiliel Week 2024
Kiliel Week will run on Tumblr from November 17-23, 2024 and accepts all types of fanwork for the Kili/Tauriel pairing.
We accept fic and fanart but also moodboards, edits, playlists and anything else your fannish heart wants!
We take submissions not in English. If you speak a language other than English and want to submit something in that language, please send it in!! We would be happy to reblog it!
If you are submitting something NSFW please tag the @tolkienpinupcalendar. If you are interested we are collabing with @tolkienpinupcalendar for the simultaneously run Kiliel Smut Week!
How do I submit:
Tag @kilielweek, and use the tag #kilielweek2024
If the post is also for Kiliel Smut Week please also tag @tolkienpinupcalendar and use the tag #tpckilielsmutweek
November challenge at tolkienshortfanworks
The challenge for November has been posted to the tolkienshortfanworks community on Dreamwidth.
The thematic challenge for November is: refuge.
The formal challenge is: include imitation of a sound.
The simplest way to do this is to include a pre-existing word that imitates a sound, for instance: meow, which imitates a sound made by a cat.
But you can also try for something more challenging, if you like: can you make the sound of your sentence or phrase imitate the flowing of a river or the rustling of trees?
Also, think of what Treebeard does with bits of Elvish, stringing them together in Entish fashion:
Taurelilómëa-tumbalemorna Tumbaletaurëa Lómëanor
Like him, feel free to make things up!
As always, these can be filled independently and also freely combined with SWG and other challenges.
New participants welcome!
More details on these challenges at the linked post.
November 2024 Call for Papers and Proposals
Popular Culture Association: Tolkien Studies Area
The Tolkien Studies Area (TSA) welcomes proposals in any area of Tolkien studies. We welcome scholars in all period specializations, from all disciplines, using any critical theory. We encourage interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary as well as collaborative work. The TSA defines "Tolkien studies" as including, but not limited to, Tolkien's Legendarium; adaptations, transformative works, and translations; cultural studies; critical race studies; digital and new media studies; fan and reception studies; feminist, gender, and queer studies; literary studies; medieval and medievalist studies; media and marketing; religious studies; source studies; tourism studies; and translation studies.
Academics, independent scholars, graduate students, and undergraduate students are invited to submit individual paper proposals, paper session proposals, and/or roundtable proposals. Presenters may present one paper and participate in one roundtable session.
All presenters must join the Popular Culture Association as members as well as pay a registration fee to attend the conference. These are separate fees that have been restructured to a tiered system taking into account that PCA members range from undergraduates to retirees, with salaries ranging from part-time, minimum wage to retiree pensions and social security.
All PCA sessions are scheduled in 1.5-hour slots. Paper sessions consist of four presenters, each speaking for fifteen minutes, followed by a group Q&A.
Roundtables are informal interactive discussions between five to seven participants and the audience. A roundtable focuses on a timely topic and is designed to raise questions and brainstorm for future scholarship. If you have an idea for a special topic for an academic journal issue or for an anthology, email Robin to find out how to organize a paper session and/or roundtable on the topic!
For individual paper proposals, please submit contact information (name, institutional affiliation [or "independent scholar"], e-mail address, and telephone number), your presentation's title, and a 500-word proposal describing your topic, chosen theory, methodology, argument, and its relevance to current scholarship.
For a paper session proposal, please submit your contact information, all the presenters' contact information, and a 100–300-word proposal for the session. All participants for your proposed paper session or roundtable must register for the conference and submit their individual proposals through the PCA database so they can be added to the paper session.
If you wish to organize a roundtable, please contact me directly at robinareid@fastmail.com. Only Area Chairs or PCA Admins can enter roundtables into the PCA database. Please note that the TSA can schedule only two roundtables; however, there are no limits on the number of paper sessions we can present!
The 2025 PCA Conference will be held in-person at the Marriott in New Orleans, from April 16-19, 2025.
See the 2025 PCA Conference website to submit paper proposals. Proposals are due by November 30, 2024.
Call for Proposals: Anthology on Women and Gender
We invite submissions for an anthology focused on women and gender in Tolkien’s writings, ‘Great Heart and Strength:’ New Essays on Women and Gender in the Works of J.R.R. Tolkien. In 2015, Janet Brennan Croft and Leslie A. Donovan published Perilous and Fair: Women in the Works and Life of J.R.R. Tolkien, the first volume dedicated to the subject of women in Tolkien’s works and life, which collected the major milestones of feminist scholarship in Tolkien studies alongside new essays. Since then, feminist scholarship and gender theory has flourished in and outside of Tolkien studies. This volume will honor Croft and Donovan’s work and build on the past decade of feminist scholarship in Tolkien studies by presenting a new collection of essays on women and gender in the works of J.R.R. Tolkien.
Please send your proposal (no more than 300 words) and a short bio (100 words) to cami.agan@oc.edu by March 15, 2025.Working bibliographies encouraged.
Proposals should focus on women and gender in the legendarium or in non-legendarium texts by J.R.R. Tolkien, reflecting contemporary feminist and intersectional theory. Proposals may also focus on non-binary, trans, and gender fluid interpretations, as well as non-anthropomorphic topics such as landscapes and environments. All proposals should convey a thorough knowledge of previous feminist scholarship in Tolkien studies as well as current theory outside of Tolkien studies. We highly encourage intersectional work, which analyzes how gender intersects with other aspects of identity (such as race, sexuality, class, etc.).
Topics may include but are not limited to:
- Female characters in the legendarium
- Female characters in Tolkien’s non-legendarium works (such as The Fall of Arthur, The Lay of Aotrou and Itroun, etc.)
- Non-binary, trans, and gender fluid interpretations of characters
- Landscapes, environments, and material culture
- Historical conceptions of gender
- Intersections with race, sexuality, socio-economic class, etc.
- Postcolonial analyses
- Women and gender in adaptations of Tolkien’s work
- Women scholars of the legendarium and/or women-centered treatments of Tolkien’s legendarium
Mythcon, the conference of the Mythopoeic Society, is scheduled for August 2025, and its theme is Women and Gender in Sci-Fi Fantasy, and we hope to organize several panels from the accepted submissions.
Mythopoeic Society Online Midsummer Seminar: Women and Gender in Mythopoeic Fantasy
The Mythopoeic Society invites paper submissions for an online conference that focuses on intersectional feminist approaches to women and gender in fantasy, science fiction, speculative fiction or other mythopoeic work. While the focus of this seminar is women and gender in mythopoeic works, we encourage proposals that acknowledge and analyze the intersectionality of gender with other aspects of identity, experience, and embodiment, including the non-human. Proposals should engage with developments in women and gender studies that both acknowledge and seek to move beyond the work of Perilous and Fair, drawing on theories and methodologies from recent years.
Papers, panels, and roundtables from a variety of critical perspectives and disciplines are welcome. We are interested in ANY form of media — text, graphic novels, comics, television, movies, music and music videos, games — as long as it can be described as fantasy or otherwise mythopoeic. We also welcome papers on the work of either of our Guests of Honor.
Each presentation will receive a 50-minute slot to allow time for questions, but individual presentations should be timed for oral presentation in 40 minutes maximum. Two or three presenters who wish to present short, related papers may also share one 50-minute slot.
Individual proposals (~200 words) with bios (150 words, maximum) should be sent to: oms-chair @ mythcon.org by March 31, 2025.
Group (two or three presenters) proposals should group the individual proposals together to send to: oms-chair @ mythcon.org by March 31, 2025.
Working bibliographies are welcome, but not required.
The seminar will be held August 2-5, 2025 on Zoom and Discord.
The full call for papers and more on the midsummer online seminar can be found here.
Coming Soon: Call for Proposals for McFarland's Critical Explorations in Tolkien Studies Series
We are sharing this information on behalf of Robin Anne Reid:
I recently signed a Letter of Agreement with McFarland Publishers to become the series editor for a new series, Critical Explorations in Tolkien Studies. The series will open for proposals in 2025 after I assemble an advisory board.
Scholars can submit proposals in either of two tracks. The first track is for single-author or collaborative monographs and edited collections written for academic experts that should be between 70-100K words long. The second track is for shorter Critical Companions, between 40-50K words long, written for a general audience including but not limited to students and fans. Submissions for both tracks will go through a double-blind peer review process.
Proposals on topics relating to Tolkien's published works as well as to the edited posthumous publications; the adaptations for film, television, and games; the translations; and fan transformative works (textual and visual) or other reception studies may be submitted to either track.
While peer-reviewed scholarship is a professional necessity for tenure-track and tenured academics, there is also value in shorter works, informed by critical theories, that focus on an aspect of single work or a thematic group of works, especially ones that have received less critical attention than The Lord of the Rings. The Critical Companions are designed to introduce a more general audience to analytical approaches and the scholarship in Tolkien studies by situating works in their socio-historical contexts; explaining how the text or texts fit into the field of Tolkien studies; and modelling how to apply critical theories to analyze primary texts.
The primary goals of the series are to add significant original contributions to Tolkien scholarship by developing and to create and support greater diversity in the field by embracing a wide definition of what Tolkien studies includes in relation to authors, texts, topics, theories, and methods.
Both single author and collaborative works, especially those foregrounding intersectionality, are explicitly welcome from authors without regard to ability status, age, caste, class, ethnicity, gender, nationality, religion, or sexuality. Approaches can include but are not limited to theories and methods from class studies, cultural studies, critical race studies; digital and new media studies; fan and reception studies; feminist, gender, and queer studies; film studies, languages and linguistics, literary studies (any period); medieval and medievalist studies; pedagogical studies, modernist and postmodernist studies, media and marketing studies; religious and theological studies; source studies; stylistics, and tourism studies.
Contingent faculty, early-career faculty, graduate students, independent scholars, tenure-track and tenured faculty in the Americas and worldwide who are trained in any discipline and period specialization are invited to submit proposals in either track and to consider applying to become m become a member of the advisory board.
The call for applications to the advisory board will be circulated shortly. Please email robinareid@fastmail with any questions you may have.
Tolkien at UVM 2025: Tolkien and War
The theme for the 2025 Tolkien at UVM conference will be Tolkien and War. The conference will be held on April 5, 2025, at the University of Vermont. Recent conferences have been hybrid and welcomed presentations and attendees online as well.
Signum University Regional Moots
These small, regional conferences are held at various dates and locations. See the Regional Moots page for more details.
Journal of Fandom Studies: Open Call for Papers
Journal of Fandom Studies seeks to offer scholars a dedicated, peer-reviewed publication that promotes current scholarship into the fields of fan and audience studies across a variety of media. We focus on the critical exploration, within a wide range of disciplines and fan cultures, of issues surrounding production and consumption of popular media (including film, music, television, sports and gaming).
The editors welcome general papers (between 6000 and 9000 words), interviews and book reviews (between 800 and 1200 words) as well as suggestions for thematic issues.
All articles submitted should be original work and must not be under consideration by other publications.
See the Journal of Fandom Studies open call for papers for more information.
White Oliphaunt 2024
In the White Oliphaunt gift exchange, Tolkien fans sign up to exchange humorous gifts with each other.
Schedule
- Sign ups open: November 1st
- Sign ups close: November 30th
- Assignments out: December 1st
- Anonymous posting + Last call for dropouts: December 24th
- Gift reveal: December 31st
Tolkien Society: Christopher Tolkien Centenary Conference
The Tolkien Society is pleased to announce it will be hosting the online Christopher Tolkien Centenary Conference on Saturday 23rd and Sunday 24th November 2024. Registration is free and can be done on the conference webpage.
Confirmed Speakers
- Douglas A. Anderson — editor of The Annotated Hobbit
- Nicholas Birns — author of The Literary Role of History in the Fiction of J.R.R. Tolkien
- Sara Brown — lecturer on Tolkien, and Language and Literature Department Chair at Signum University
- Sonali Chunodkar — researcher on secondary beliefs in Tolkien’s works
- Michael D. C. Drout — editor of Beowulf and the Critics, and J.R.R. Tolkien Encyclopedia; co-editor of Tolkien Studies
- Vincent Ferré — Professor in Comparative Literature (University Sorbonne Nouvelle), translator, and editor of Dictionnaire Tolkien. Literary advisor to the Estate of Christopher Tolkien
- Dimitra Fimi — Tolkien scholar and fantasy professor at the University of Glasgow, co-editor of A Secret Vice, author of Tolkien, Race and Cultural History
- Verlyn Flieger — editor of Smith of Wootton Major, The Story of Kullervo, and The Lay of Aotrou and Itroun; author of Splintered Light
- William Fliss — Tolkien archivist at Marquette University’s Raynor Library
- John Garth — author of Tolkien and the Great War, The Worlds of J.R.R. Tolkien and Tolkien at Exeter College
- Christopher Gilson — chief editor of Parma Eldalamberon and leading member of the Elvish Linguistic Fellowship
- Nick Groom — author of Twenty-First-Century Tolkien
- Peter Grybauskas — editor of The Battle of Maldon: together with The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth
- Wayne G. Hammond — co-editor of The Collected Poems of J.R.R. Tolkien, The Art of The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien, Roverandom, and co-author of J.R.R. Tolkien: Artist and Illustrator, The Lord of the Rings: A Reader’s Companion
- Andrew Higgins — co-editor of A Secret Vice
- Thomas Honegger — co-editor of Sub-creating Arda and Laughter in Middle-earth: Humour in and around the Works of J.R.R. Tolkien
- Carl F. Hostetter — editor of The Nature of Middle-earth and Vinyar Tengwar
- John Howe — artist who has illustrated covers for The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The History of Middle-earth
- Yvette Kisor — researcher on medieval literature and the works of J.R.R. Tolkien, co-editor of Tolkien Studies and Tolkien and Alterity
- Kristine Larsen — writer and researcher on science and astronomy in Tolkien’s works
- Alan Lee — artist who has illustrated The Lord of the Rings, The Children of Húrin, Beren and Lúthien and The Fall of Númenor
- Ted Nasmith — artist who has illustrated The Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales
- Richard Ovenden — Bodley’s Librarian and co-editor of The Great Tales Never End
- John D. Rateliff — author of The History of The Hobbit
- Robin Reid — researcher on Tolkien fandom, fan fiction, and race in Tolkien’s works
- Christina Scull — co-editor of The Collected Poems of J.R.R. Tolkien, The Art of The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien, Roverandom, and co-author of J.R.R. Tolkien: Artist and Illustrator, The Lord of the Rings: A Reader’s Companion
- Brian Sibley — author of The Fall of Númenor
- Chris Smith — the Tolkien editor of HarperCollins
- James Tauber — researcher on corpus linguistics and digital humanities for Tolkien’s works
The full schedule will be published closer to the event.
Teitho October/November Challenge: Legacy
Welcome to the Teitho Contest, where you can participate with a variety of other writers and artists and send in stories and pictures based on our themes.
Join us in this writing and drawing contest!
A new challenge is posted every month. On the first day of the challenge, we announce a new theme on this site. You then have two months to create your entry, which has to be finished when you send it in.
After the deadline of the contest, the voting period begins. Based on the number of entries, it lasts for two or more weeks. The winners are usually announced a day or two after the end of the voting. Teitho remains one of the last prompt-based, independent, Tolkien fan-fiction/fan art monthly contests. Full contest guidelines are here.
Our prompt this month is Legacy.
What impact do past events have on the present? What traits, ideals or beliefs impact an individual’s followers or descendants? What do we leave for those who come after?
Legacies can be both positive and negative, as we see in the house of Fëanor.
It can be steadfastness, as we see in Fingolfin and his descendants.
An individual can leave a legacy, but so can a community or an entire culture—what legacy did Numenor leave to those who escaped the destruction?
It could be a written legacy like the Red Book of Westmarch, started by Bilbo Baggins to recount his quest for Erebor, then added to over the years to become much more than a simple diary.
A legacy may also be an object, an item passed down from individual to individual: a bequest, a sword, a ring, a property, an oath.
What will you choose to explore using this prompt? We look forward to your stories and art this month!
Please submit by November 30, 2024 to teitho.contest@gmail.com
Acorns and Oak Leaves: A Year of Bagginshield
Throughout 2024, the Bagginshield community Acorns and Oak Leaves offers monthly prompts to encourage new creations of all kinds (i.e. art, fics, gifs, etc) - but don't worry, there are no deadlines. Pick and choose whatever prompts you like, and be sure to tag the @acorns-and-oakleaves blog on Tumblr so we can share your Bagginshield creations!
Monthly prompts for the Year of Bagginshield can be found here.
Around the World and Web Archive
Events listed here are no longer active but are listed on the site for historical purposes.
November Challenge at tolkienshortfanworks on Dreamwidth
The tolkienshortfanworks challenge for November has been posted to the Dreamwidth community.
The thematic prompt is : leaf and/or tree.
There are, of course, many of both of these in the Legendarium, as well as Tolkien's shorter stories!
If you are in the northern hemisphere, the leaves have been turning colour and drifting in the wind; if you are in the southern hemisphere you may be seeing new growth.
The formal challenge is inspired by Welsh cynghanedd.
The essential idea of this is a repeated pattern of consonants with the two half-lines of a verse matching each other. (You could try it with two clauses in prose, too, of course!)
This is a Welsh example of the strict form in which the repeating pattern is easy to see:
clawdd i ddal / cal ddwy ddwylaw.
Our challenge does not call for such a strict form (unless you want to attempt it!), but you get the idea.
Cynghanedd can be combined with internal rhyme.
There is more information on cynghanedd here and here.
As usual, these two prompts can be filled separately or combined and they can be freely combined with other challenges.
New participants welcome.
For more details on the challenge see the linked post.
Nolofinwëan Week 2023
Nolofinwëan Week welcomes fan creations centering any members of the House of Fingolfin through the ages. You can participate with fanfiction, fanart, headcanons, close readings and musings, edits, or anything else that inspires you to celebrate these characters. Nolofinwëan Week will run on Tumblr and AO3 November 6-12, 2023.
Prompts
Inspirational, nonmandatory prompts:
- Day 1: Noontide of Valinor - Darkening ● Fingolfin ● Anairë
- Day 2: Exile - Arrival to Beleriand ● Fingon ● Argon ● Elenwë
- Day 3: Mithrim - The Long Peace ● Turgon ● Aredhel ● Eöl
- Day 4: Dagor Bragollach - War of Wrath ● Idril ● Maeglin ● Tuor ● Eärendil ● Elwing
- Day 5: Lindon - War of the Ring ● Elrond ● Elros ● Gil-galad
- Day 6: Fourth Age Middle-earth - Return to Valinor ● Númenórean descendants ● Peredhil descendants
- Day 7: AUs, Canon divergences, Freeform ● Nolofinwëan OCs ● Canon ghosts ● Earlier canonical characters
To have your work shared on the event’s page, please mention the blog @nolofinweanweek in your post AND include the hashtags #nolofinweanweek and #nolofinweanweek2023 in the first 10 tags.
Links
November Calls for Papers
Something Mighty Queer: Mythopoeic Society’s Online Midwinter Seminar 2024
This virtual conference will be held 17-18 February, 2023.
We invite submissions for an online conference that focuses on queerness in fantasy, science fiction, speculative fiction or other mythopoeic work. This can be queer representation within the work or engaging with mythopoeia through queer theory. “Queerness” is an intentionally ambiguous term, demonstrating the diversity of queer experiences, and the necessity of situating queerness as a liminal, complex paradigm. Queer theory is wider than the study of gender identity or sexuality, extending to taking positions against normativity and dominant modes of thought, and engaging with the indefinite.
Aspects of this topic might include but are certainly not limited to any of the following:
Otherness, stranger/outsider, the uncanny, marginalization and oppression, liminality and liminal spaces, depictions of queer people, thresholds, trans theory, gender performativity, readings and research that challenge normative or hegemonic perspectives.
Proposals Due: November 30, 2023
See the Something Mighty Queer guidelines for more information on the conference, submission guidelines, and where to send your proposal.
Tolkien at UVM 2023: The Psychologies of Middle-earth
This hybrid conference will be held 13 April 2024 at the University of Vermont.
This is our 20th annual conference. The theme is The Psychologies of Middle-earth. We are excited to have Dr Sara Brown as our keynote!
Please submit abstracts (150 words) to Dr. Chris Vaccaro (at cvaccaro@uvm.edu) by the deadline of January 15th 2024. The registration fee is $25 and covers breakfast and lunch and helps to pay for our tech support for the virtual modality.
Abstracts can cover various applications of psychology including myth, religion, art, sexuality, world building, race and ethnicity, feminism, queer theory, class consciousness, ideology, PTSD, trauma, desire, disability, and much more.
Proposals Due: January 15, 2024
Note that SWG members often attend this conference! Message Dawn if you are thinking of attending and want to meet up.
Mythmoot X: Homeward Bound
This hybrid conference will be held 22-25 June 2024 at the National Conference Center in Leesburg, Virginia.
Mythmoot annual conference brings together students, fans, staff, and friends of Signum University, the Mythgard Institute, Signum SPACE, and Signum Academy. Our online and in-person completely hybrid event combines the best of scholarship and friendship in four glorious days.
The call for papers for this conference has not been posted yet. The conference webpage is here.
Signum University Regional Moots
These small, regional conferences are held at various dates and locations. See the Regional Moots page for more details.
Many thanks to Robin Anne Reid and her Online Conference Project for handily compiling this information on a regular basis!
Survey: Motivation of Fanfiction Writers
Want to take part in a study on motivations for writing fanfiction and help out a fan studies researcher? Gaille Alyssa Stanley from the University of Cyberjaya (UOC), Malaysia, has received approval from their Ethics Review Board for their study and is looking for fans 18 years old and above who write and publish fanfiction online without receiving monetary profit.
The online questionnaire is 14 questions and estimated to take 1 hour. All information will remain private and confidential. The information will not be disclosed to anyone other than the researcher and supervisor. The data will be collected anonymously and no personal data (e.g., name and address) will be required, except for email address as a means of communication. The data of the study will be used solely for research purposes and will not be shared to any external parties.
You can find out more about the study and access contact information at the consent form link.
Scribbles & Drabbles Second Harvest Sign-Ups Open
Maybe you saw some of the art being reblogged and felt inspired. Maybe you just missed the first sign-up window.
If you want to join in on the fun, now is your chance! Scribbles & Drabbles welcomes another round of authors!
Minimum word count is 100, and fics must be in the collection by November 11.
Any questions? Drop us an ask!
Hungarian Tolkien Society: 11th International Tolkien Mailing Competition
The Hungarian Tolkien Society invites you to join the international “Quendi” category of the Tolkien Mailing Competition: five rounds of quizzes, riddles, and creative tasks. This category is organised in English, open to any individual participant—and this year also to teams of 2–5 people! The five rounds of the competition will last from November to April. The application deadline has been extended to 5 November, 2023.
Participation in the Quendi category requires a thorough knowledge of The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion. Other works by Tolkien may be needed occasionally, as some questions (riddles, quizzes, etc.) can refer to those, but you will have about four weeks for each round, that is, plenty of time to look up in the books everything you might need.
There will also be some creative challenges. For example, you may be asked to describe a situation, write a short poem, make a drawing or take a photograph, etc. We would like to be proud of our participants, so we ask you to share the rights of your creative productions royalty-free (and you accept this condition by your registration for the competition). The best of your works—with due credit to authors/artists—might be published by the Hungarian Tolkien Society, e.g. on our website, www.tolkien.hu, or in our journal, Lassi Laurië. (The last issue of which is boasting a TLV Quendi solution on the front page!) Please do not publish these works yourself without consulting us first, and especially not before the end of the competition. (Artwork submitted by teams is credited as teamwork by default, but you can add the name of the actual author/artist for each piece.)
You can participate in the Quendi category alone as an individual competitor, or you can participate as a member of a team of 2–5 people. The individual competitors and the teams will receive the same set of tasks, but the winner will be announced separately for individuals and teams.
As an individual competitor, you can make the decision to solve only the quizzes or only the creative tasks in each round: besides the absolute winners of the individual and team subcategories, the separate winners of the lexical and the creative parts will also be announced. This choice is only available for individual competitors, teams are expected to do the full version!
The contest starts in November and continues until April. Every month you will receive the questions of the next round, and you will have to submit your solutions until the indicated deadline.
If you want to participate, please fill in this online registration form.
Registration as an individual competitor: choose the “I am competing alone.” option on the form.
Registration as a team: each team member should fill in a registration form separately, choose the “I am a member of a team of 2-4 people.” option, and provide the same team name. We also need a contact person for each team. Please agree on a unique team name and choose a contact person from the team before starting the registration.
The application deadline is 5 November 2023.
For more information, sample challenges, and contact information, see the Hungarian Tolkien Society's Tolkien Mailing Competition webpage.
Fact-Checking Community little_details Is Back, Now on Dreamwidth
Little Details is a community that helps writers with their research and fact-checking. We're here to answer questions such as:
- If I drop a brick on someone's head from twenty stories high, what will happen?
- How big does an asteroid need to be to destroy the Earth?
- How do I say "it's not you, it's me" in French?
- Can people have freckles on their penises?
All types of fiction writers (professional, amateur, fanfiction, original, dungeon masters) are welcome to post questions. Our focus is factual accuracy rather than general writing advice.
This is the new home of the (now defunct) Little Details community on LiveJournal. Welcome back, everybody!
Fictober 2023
This event is open to all fanfiction and original fiction.
Start October the First. You do not have to do the prompts in order. Tag your posts with #fictober23. Please state if your entry is original fiction or fanfiction and what fandom at the top. State common warnings and triggers at the top and tag accordingly. I reserve the right to not reblog fics that I find inappropriate. I will reblog things here on @fictober-event, follow this blog to see all the entries.
Check the rules for any questions.
- "It's not too late, let's go."
- "Don't worry, I got you."
- "Okay, show me."
- "Do you even know what this means?"
- "You're the smartest person I know."
- "I can't wait for you."
- "Do you recognise this?"
- "Give me that, before anything happens."
- "I wouldn't do that if I were you."
- "It's alright, I'm here now."
- "You lost it. Well, we lost it."
- "I'm not saying I didn't like it."
- "Come with me, hurry."
- "If you don't stop now —"
- "Fine, explain it to me."
- "Do you know a way out of here?"
- "I never said it would be easy."
- "We can't do this on our own."
- "What if we're wrong?"
- "This better be good."
- "Just in case this doesn't work."
- "Who takes care of you?"
- "No, you won't understand, ever."
- "Is it over? Is it really over?"
- "Do I look like I knew that?"
- "Honestly, why would I care?"
- "I don't know if they will accept this."
- "I may not get another chance to say this."
- "That's all? Easy."
- "Are you with me?"
- "It's not your fault."
Panfandom Hanukkah Bingo 5784
WHAT: A fanworks bingo celebrating Jewish (and Jew-ish) characters across any and all fandoms. Write fanfiction and/or create graphics (moodboards, edits, vids, whatever you like) to fill prompts on this overall bingo card. During the 8 nights of Hanukkah, submit your fills to the AO3 collection and/or post them on Tumblr to be reblogged and added to the Bingo Masterpost.
WHY: Jewish characters and Jewish fans are often overlooked or erased during the Winter Holiday Season in favor of “Secret Santa” exchanges, Christmas-themed fics, and the idea that ~Hanukkah is Jewish Christmas~ (which spoiler for all fics in this bingo: it’s not). This panfandom Bingo challenge is to celebrate Hanukkah on its own terms and give Jewish characters and fans a place to breathe. :)
Signing up is totally optional. If you want to sign up and get an individualized Bingo Card, then you have between 10/1/2023 (October 1) and 12/1/2023 (December 1) to do so. If you want to use the GENERAL Bingo Card, which will be posted on Tumblr on 10/7/2023, then you do not need to sign up to participate. You can sign up to receive an individualized Bingo Card here.
Participation is open to anyone! You do not need to be Jewish to participate in the Panfandom Hanukkah Bingo! If you are not Jewish, though, we request that you have a Jewish sensitivity reader or beta reader before posting your piece and that you reblog and promote the work of Jewish creators in the event. MESSIANIC STORIES ARE NOT ALLOWED.
Please let us know of any character(s) or fandom(s) we should promote this event to, and please feel free to promote this event yourselves on Discord, Twitter, Instagram, whatever! We would love to see this event grow this year.
Whumptober 2023
We’re very excited to see the community come together once more and be a wild, chaotic bunch of creators and consumers of whump. Go wild with the prompts, and support your fellow creators—we wish you all the fun!
Please make sure to read the Event Info carefully, as most of your questions will be answered there already. For everything else, you are welcome to come to our ask box or ask questions in our Discord server here.
This year’s AO3 Collection can be found here.
