Around the World and Web includes announcements and items of interest from beyond the SWG.
Eönwë Week 2024
We are pleased to announce the coming of Eönwë Week, a fandom event dedicated to our favourite Herald. The event will run from August 12th to 18th 2024 on Tumblr.
Prompts
August 12th: Genesis | Air | Almaren
August 13th: Friendships | Herald | Valinor
August 14th: War | Celeg Aithorn | Beleriand
August 15th: Romance | Mercy | Taniquetil
August 16th: Lost Tales | He Of The Sun | Son of Manwë
August 17th: Eagles | Duty | Noldor
August 18th: Freeform
Rules
- Have fun!
- This event should not be the vehicle to characters hate, bigotry, racism, transphobia and other less savoury behaviours. This is a safe event for lgbtqia+ people and behaviours reflecting any type of threats against this community will be blocked without any tolerance. it’s 2024, get over yourself.
The mods hold the rights to arbitrarily refuse someone’s participation to the event following that user’s behaviour toward others in the fandom. - Nsfw / dark content / dead dove are accepted but should be tagged properly.
- No AI generated works will be accepted, including ai generated art, writing, photo manipulation etc.
- Prompts are here as a general guidance, you are free to interpret them as you want.
- Respect other users’ entries. If something is not to your liking you are not entitled to let it known. Simply scroll down. it is that easy.
- Tag your entry with #eonweweek or mention this blog in your post to be reblogged.
Teitho August/September Contest: Do you remember ...?
Our prompt for August/September is “Do you remember . . .”
This prompt can be used for any character, any book, any timeframe in Tolkien’s work! We can’t wait to see what memories you will use for your stories and art this month!
Will you have your characters think back on good times or bad? Difficult days or ones of joy? A simple day or a fraught one?
Is it a thought going back to the Light of the Two Trees? The first sunrise over Beleriand?
The shadows of Menegroth? The caves of Nargothrond? The Halls of Theoden? Sunlight on a river?
Or perhaps three stone Trolls? A raven? Or the taste of strawberries on a spring day in the Shire?
Please do remember to submit your story/art for this prompt to teitho.contest@gmail.com by September 30, 2024!
August challenge at tolkienshortfanworks on Dreamwidth
The August challenge has been posted to the tolkienshortfanworks community on Dreamwidth.
The thematic challenge is: magic trees.
This could be any variety and degree of enchantment, powers or sentience: the Trees of Valinor, the White Tree, Old Man Willow, Huorns, Mirkwood, etc.
The formal challenge is: call and response.
This is essentially the idea that there is a leader or lead voice that makes the calls and a group that responds, whether in music and song, in poetry, or in dialogue and maybe other forms of prose.
Typical for call and response are all kinds of working songs from all over the world, choral music with solo voices, and some religious traditions. Think also of cheerleading and political speech-making and any kind of gathering where someone is trying to whip up a mood.
But feel free to adapt in any way you like. At a pinch, your chorus doing responses can be a group of one and you could have just two participants!
Either prompt can be filled independently of each other and combined with other challenges that allow that, such as the SWG monthly challenges.
More details at the linked post.
New participants welcome.
August 2024 Call for Papers and Proposals
Journal of Tolkien Research Special Issue: Asexuality and Aromanticism in Tolkien’s Legendarium
Queer scholarship in Tolkien studies has made great strides in recent years, from David Craig’s “‘Queer Lodgings’: Gender and Sexuality in ‘The Lord of the Rings’” (2001) to Jane Chance’s Tolkien, Self and Other (2016) and Christopher Vaccaro and Yvette Kisor’s Tolkien and Alterity (2017). At a critical juncture of growth, this sub-field is poised to evaluate and address any gaps that exist as the field moves forward. One such gap, in both Tolkien studies and queer studies, is asexuality and aromanticism, which, while part of the LGBTQIA+ umbrella, are significantly underrepresented in scholarship and interpretation.
Asexuality, defined broadly as not experiencing sexual attraction to other people, and aromanticism, not experiencing romantic attraction to other people, convey a spectrum of individual experiences (ace-spectrum, or aspec). Aspec perspectives not only represent these individual identities and experiences but also illuminate and refresh understandings of love, desire, relationships, communities, and culture. Implemented within literary interpretation, an aspec lens offers insights into characters, plots, themes, narrative structures, and much more.
In order to address a gap in queer scholarship in Tolkien studies and to solicit new perspectives that can deepen understandings of Tolkien’s work, we invite submissions for a proposed special issue in Journal of Tolkien Research that focuses on asexuality and aromanticism in Tolkien’s work.
Topics can include but are not limited to:
- Aspec readings of individual characters
- Interpretations of love/relationships beyond (but not necessarily excluding) romantic, sexual, and/or platonic love
- Intersections between aspec theory and gender, disability, race, or other critical theory
- Comparative readings between Tolkien’s work and other fiction
- Amatonormativity or aspec aspects in Tolkien’s work, life, and historical context
- Reception of Tolkien’s work by aspec readers
- Aspec interpretations within adaptations of Tolkien’s work
- Interpretations focused on specific identities within the ace-spectrum, including demi-
- sexual/romantic, grey-sexual/romantic, etc.
Proposals/abstracts of a maximum of 300 words, along with a short bio and working bibliography (not included in word count), should be sent via email to aspectolkien@gmail.com no later than midnight Eastern Time on August 31, 2024.
Tolkien at Kalamazoo 2025
Hosted by the Medieval Institute at Western Michigan University, the International Congress on Medieval Studies is an annual gathering of thousands of scholars interested in medieval studies. The Congress embraces the study of all aspects of the Middle Ages, extending into late antiquity and the early modern period, including—but not limited to—history, language, literature, linguistics, art, archaeology, religion, science, medicine, music, drama, philosophy, gender, sexuality, mysticism and technology, as well as medievalism. The 60th International Congress on Medieval Studies takes place Thursday, May 8, through Saturday, May 10, 2025. Find more at the conference website.
Tolkien at Kalamazoo will be offering a total of eight sessions (paper sessions and roundtables), two of which are co-sponsored. The sessions are a mix of in-person, virtual, and hybrid as identified below. Send 100-word abstracts or complete papers to Christopher Vaccaro (cvaccaro@uvm.edu) and Yvette Kisor (ykisor@ramapo.edu) by the1st of September.
Tolkien and Medieval Conceptions of the Sea (in-person paper session): HYBRID
The Medieval Roots of the Poems of J. R. R. Tolkien (in-person roundtable): HYBRID
Tolkien and Old Norse (hybrid / in-person paper session): HYBRID
Tolkien and Medieval Feminisms (in-person paper session)
Medieval Languages and Tolkien's Language Invention (in-person paper session)
Medieval Resonances in Tolkien's Letters (in-person roundtable)
Fire, Dragons, & Jewels, O My!: Medieval Poems & J.R.R. Tolkien (co-sponsored with the Pearl-Poet Society, virtual paper session)
Return of the Franchise: The Ongoing Reception and Interpretation of Tolkien's Medievalism (co-sponsored with the Tales after Tolkien Society, virtual paper session): HYBRID
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.
Many thanks to Robin Anne Reid and her Online Conference Project for handily compiling this information on a regular basis!
Innumerable Stars 2024
Innumerable Stars is a Tolkien fandom gift exchange for all works by Tolkien or associated with Middle-earth.
People Who Participate in Innumerable Stars are:
- Interested in and excited about multiple Tolkien-based canons.
- Interested in their fellow fans’ creativity in fanfiction and fanart, and excited to explore their own.
- Open to creating and receiving any one of a number of different prompts or ideas.
- Happy to read and comment on the fanwork(s) they receive with thanks first of all, but also to read and comment on other fanworks in the exchange.
People Who Participate in Innumerable Stars will:
- Generally read and create for a variety of slash, gen, het, adventures, fluff, dark, erotica, worldbuilding, etc.
- Create their fanwork following their recipient’s prompts in good faith, and receive the fanwork(s) that have been given to them in good faith also.
- Also write or draw “treats” for others in the exchange, if their own time and inspiration permits after they have completed their assignment,. These are not required but they add to the fun and excitement of the exchange!
- Create their fanwork without the use of AI, be it in writing or art.
What Innumerable Stars is NOT:
You do not have to be open to or interested in every type of fanwork to participate. However, Innumerable Stars is not for anyone interested in just one character, pairing, or scenario. Nor is it for people who find stories or art containing material they are not interested in offensive because it exists. If either of these apply, we wish you well, but this is not the exchange for you.
Schedule
Nominations Open: Sunday, 04 August 2024, 8:00 PM UTC
Nominations Close: Sunday, 18 August 2024, 8:00 PM UTC
Sign-ups Open: Sunday, 18 August 2024, 11:59 PM UTC
Sign-ups Close: Sunday, 01 September 2024, 8:00 PM UTC
Assignments Out: Monday, 02 September 2024, 8:00 PM UTC
Assignments Due: Sunday, 6 October 2024, 8:00 PM UTC
Works Revealed: Sunday, 13 October 2024, 8:00 PM UTC
Authors Revealed: Sunday, 20 October 2024, 8:00 PM UTC
Tolkien Pinup Calendar 2025 Sign-Ups Open
The Tolkien Pinup Calendar compiles a calendar of risque fan art of your favorite Tolkien characters! The majority of the art is commissioned, and in that way, we are helping to support fan artists. In addition to the calendar, Commissioners can also submit fics inspired by the art! There will be an AO3 collection with the fics revealed at the end of the event. Because of the nature and content of the art, the event itself is an 18+ event. More details and rules can be found on the event's FAQ page.
If you are interested in signing up to be a Main Commissioner, click here.
If you are interested in signing up to be an Artist, click here.
If you are interested in being a Pinch Hitter, click here.
To submit any ideas or view those others suggested, take a look at our Ideas Form! Or submit your own idea!
Forgotten Ground Regained: Call for Submissions
The Fall issue of Forgotten Ground Regained is open for submissions. I am especially interested in poetry that explores themes of love, devotion, and desire – themes that are, thus far, relatively sparsely represented in modern English alliterative verse. Submissions should be sent to Paul D. Deane at the following email address: pdeane [at] alliteration.net.
Requirements
- Submissions must be in modern English, but authors should feel free to submit poems that take advantage of the diction, rhythms, and syntax of particular language varieties and communities. I do not discriminate against Scots, Appalachian English, Black English Vernacular, Indian English, or any other language variety, though I do ask that authors be prepared to supply notes to explain any terms or expressions that outsiders to their communities may not readily understand.
- Submissions should make skillful, systematic use of alliteration in ways that use alliteration to reinforce the rhythm and connect important ideas. Overall, I prefer poems that have the strongest impact on readers when they are read aloud. I therefore encourage authors to include links to audio or video versions of their poems in their submissions.
- I would love to see people experimenting with modern English versions of Old and Middle English alliterative verse, with Old Norse forms like ljoòahattr and drottkvætt or modern Icelandic rimur, or with new alliterative forms designed to highlight modern English rhythms and speech patterns. While my first preference is what traditional scholarship calls alliterative-accentual verse, I am also open to alliterative free verse or to alliterative versions of traditional forms, such as the ballad, as long as the alliteration is clearly a structural rather than a decorative feature of the form.
- I am open to work both by contemporary poets and to projects that would normally be considered to fall outside the literary mainstream, such as speculative poetry, SCA Bardic Arts projects, and fan fiction.
- There is no hard upper length limit, though poems more than five to six pages in length are likely to be published separately on the website, with links provided from the Fall issue, rather than being included directly in the pdf magazine. Note that I love both both the lyrical and the narrative turns in poetry, so longer narratives will be given careful consideration.
- Please submit your poem in the body of your email. I will not open attachments.
Submissions for the Fall Issue must be received by September 15th, 2024.
Tolkien Reverse Summer Bang (TRSB) 2024
First conceived in 2018, the Tolkien Reverse Summer Bang (or TRSB!) is a Tolkien-fandom-wide event celebrating the talent of our fanwork creators. At its core, the event is about bringing together the artistic side of our fandom with the literary talents it possesses, creating bridges between the separate areas of fandom experience for the enjoyment of all. During the late spring, signed up artists submit fan art pieces in progress or finished, which is then posted anonymously in our Gallery. The Gallery is open to the pool of writers who have signed up for the event only. Each writer is then invited to claim a piece of art to write for; the minimum word count is 5000.
We are open to all characters, genres, ships and ratings, and all canons that fall under the Tolkien fandom umbrella. This includes movieverse (i.e. the LOTR and Hobbit trilogies), lesser known works by Tolkien (such as The Father Christmas Letters), and/or other works with a clear link to his life or creative output (for example, Tolkien’s translations and academic texts, the 2019 Tolkien biopic, fan-made films like Born of Hope, and game canons such as Lord of the Rings Online). Crossovers between two or more Tolkien canons are permitted.
When we started this event, one thing we absolutely agreed on was our desire for maximum inclusivity. In practice this means that:
- We encourage participation from all sections of the Tolkien fandom, whether you prefer bookverse, movieverse, game canon, smaller canons, or Tolkien’s academic papers.
- Fan creators should ALL feel safe and able to join in, regardless of experience levels or perceived ability. This means that everybody is welcome, whether they’re a professional artist/writer or a complete beginner, whether they’ve been a fan for decades or fell in love with the films last weekend.
- As far as practically possible, all styles of art and all types of fic are permitted. We do not set restrictions on genre, style, rating or ship, although we do keep NSFW art submissions behind a lock, for the safety of our younger participants.
Above all, the event is supposed to be fun. Fandom should not be a place of difficulty, conflict and stress. With this in mind, we ask participants to be kind, inclusive, respectful and welcoming at all times.
Schedule
March 17 – 2023 Gallery Opens
The Gallery for 2023 is live at last! Enjoy all the beautiful pieces created for last year’s TRSB!
March 24 – Suggestion Form Opens
This form gives potential authors (or anyone else who wants to play!) the opportunity to suggest characters, places and scenarios they would like to see in the submitted art. We will post a link to the form on our Tumblr blog and here on the website. The answers will feed into a publicly available spreadsheet listing the ideas submitted; artists can peruse this to get inspired!
April 14 – Sign-ups Open
We post links to our sign up form on all the usual platforms. You can then sign up as an artist, an author, a beta, a cheerleader, a pinch hitter, or as two or more of these. Please see the ‘Signing Up’ section of the FAQ for more details on what these terms mean.
May 5 – Artist Sign-up Deadline
May 10 – Discord Server Opens
May 13 – Art Draft Due
Participating art submissions must be sent to the mods by this date to be eligible for the Claims Gallery.
For more details on how to do this, see the ‘Art Submissions’ section of the FAQ. Artists may submit up to two pieces of art, for claiming by two separate authors.
May 17 – Art Preview Opens
Our online gallery will be visible to signed up participants only. Signed up authors can browse the artworks and see which pieces appeal to their muses!
May 18-19 Discord Art Talks
Repeating the fun from last year, these will be live chats on discord with mod presence – start times to be announced – where we go through the beautiful gallery and admire the work of our artists.
May 20 – Author Signups Deadline
May 25 – CLAIMS – 17:00 UTC
Authors submit a ranked list of the artworks they would like to claim to write fic for. Claims are on a first come, first served basis. One artwork will be allocated to each claiming author in the first instance; the mods will email you to confirm which piece you have successfully claimed and how to get in touch with your artist. See the ‘Claims’ section of the FAQ for more information.
TBA – Additional Claims
If a number of artworks are left unclaimed, we may allow authors to claim second and third pieces of art to write for. However, we don’t know until after claims night whether this will be needed, so this is likely to be announced at short notice – keep an eye on the blog and on your emails to avoid missing out.
June 7 – Post-Claims Check-in
The mods will email each artist/author pair to ensure that you have successfully established contact – even if you are not planning on a close collaboration, it is polite to check in with your partner, say hello, and make sure you’re both clear on must-haves and do-not-wants. One person from your pair must respond and confirm that you have done this!
June 16 – Free Rein Art Due
We know some artists like to give their authors as much creative freedom as possible and we have a dedicated collaboration option for this (see ‘Art Submissions’ FAQs). However, this means we require these artists to provide finished art to their authors much earlier than artists who are prepared to be more involved. See ‘Completing the Artwork’ in the FAQs for more details on how this works.
June 28 – Check-in #2
The mods will email each pair to ensure everything is on track. One person from your pair must respond – see ‘Check Ins’ in the FAQ.
June 26 – Check-in #3
The mods will email each pair to ensure everything is on track. One person from your pair must respond – see ‘Check Ins’ in the FAQs.
August 9 – Final Art Due
Artists should share a copy of the final art to their authors – but don’t post it yet!
Don’t email it to the mods.
August 16 – Final Check-in (#4)
Deadline to abandon your fic to a pinch hitter. There will be no penalty for dropping out on or before this date.
As per other check ins, except the mods will be providing instructions about promotional posts (see ‘Promotional Posts’ FAQ for more information). We will also ask you:
- Whether you have discussed posting logistics with your artist (if you’re embedding art in your AO3 story, for example)
- Whether you have specific posting needs re publicizing date/time frame (e.g. not wanting us to reblog your art/fic on Shabbat as you will be unable to respond)
August 26 – Art Can Be Posted
August 30 – Final Fic Due In Collection
Authors should post their stories in our AO3 collection with the artwork embedded or linked. (If you are writing a last minute pinch hit we can be a bit flexible with this deadline.)
TBA – Discord Art Reveals Event
September 6 – COLLECTION REVEALS
September 13 – Staggered Tumblr Reblogs Begin
September 20 – Gallery Submission
October 6 – Discord Server Closes
Other Links
- Rules
- Sign-Ups
- Frequently Asked Questions
- TRSB on Tumblr | Twitter | Instagram | Dreamwidth
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.
Innumerable Stars Exchange running in 2022
Innumerable Stars is a Tolkien fandom gift exchange for all works by Tolkien or associated with Middle-earth. It runs on AO3, Dreamwidth and Tumblr.
The schedule for the Innumerable Stars Exchange for 2022 has been posted to the Dreamwidth community (the post is linked) and is as follows:
Nominations Open: Sunday, 14 August 2022, 8:00 PM UTC
Nominations Close: Sunday, 28 August 2022, 8:00 PM UTC
Sign-ups Open: Sunday, 28 August 2022, 11:59 PM UTC
Sign-ups Close: Sunday, 11 September 2022, 8:00 PM UTC
Assignments Out: Monday, 12 September 2022, 8:00 PM UTC
Assignments Due: Sunday, 23 October 2022, 8:00 PM UTC
Works Revealed: Sunday, 30 October 2022, 8:00 PM UTC
Authors Revealed: Sunday, 06 November 2022, 8:00 PM UTC
Guidelines and Rules for the exchange in 2022 can be found at this DW post.
Silvergifting Week 2022
Silvergifting Week will happen on Tumblr August 8-14, 2022!
This week-long Tumblr event celebrates the relationship between Celebrimbor and Mairon | Annatar | Sauron. The event mod is @elennalore. The purpose of this event is to encourage people to create all kinds of fanworks that are focused on Celebrimbor/Mairon pairing (including Celebrimbor/Annatar and Celebrimbor/Sauron). Fanart, fanfiction, headcanon, moodboards, fan crafts, meta … you name it!
The content created during this event will be reblogged on this blog if tagged #silvergiftingweek or if your post mentions @silvergiftingweek.
All different interpretations of Celebrimbor/Mairon | Annatar | Sauron relationship are welcome! Diverse takes are encouraged. DL; DR rule is active in this event. So, if you don’t like it, don’t read it.
This is a Ship and Let Ship event. If you don’t like this ship or a certain interpretation of it, do not bash others for liking them. Ship hate or homophobia is not welcome.
I ask people to respect general Tumblr content posting rules when participating in this event. NSFW text entries and potentially triggering content are allowed, but they should be posted under cut “read more”. When reblogging content on this blog, nfsw entries and potentially triggering content will be tagged accordingly. If you need a specific tw (trigger warning) you can DM the mod.
Prompts
Day 1 (August 8): Beginnings | First times
First meetings. Developing relationship. First kiss. First time.
Day 2 (August 9): Happy times | Living together
Deepening feelings. Falling in love. Is it genuine love? From both sides? Or not? Living together in Ost-in-Edhil. Comfort. Happiness.
Day 3 (August 10): Collaborators | Community
Working together. Interaction with other people. How do others see their relationship? Ambition. Crafting Rings of Power together.
Day 4 (August 11): Betrayal | Bad Ending
Suspicions. Identity reveal. Secret side projects in Ring-making. Lovers to enemies. War against Eregion. Captured by your former lover. Celebrimbor’s tragic fate.
Day 5 (August 12): Post-canon | New beginnings
What happens after canonical events? Trauma healing. Reconciliation. Halls of Mandos. Valinor. Fourth Age and onwards. Will they find each other again?
Day 6 (August 13): Canon divergence | Alternative universe
What if... Silvergifting happened in an alternative universe? An ending different from canon? What about a modern AU? A steampunk AU? Give your AU view of their relationship.
Day 7 (August 14): Freeform
A place for your own personal take on their relationship not covered in previous prompts.
August Challenge at tolkienshortfanworks posted
The August challenge at the tolkienshortfanworks community on Dreamwidth has been posted. The thematic prompt is: "art or craft found in unexpected places". The formal challenge is "diary entry". They can be filled independently and combined freely with other prompts.
In order to post the fill to the Dreamwidth community or to the related collection on AO3, the fanwork can only have a word count up to 1000 words and must be linked to a Tolkien fandom.
Rec lists and podfics can be posted as fills for thematic prompts, as long as the fanworks concerned meet those conditions.
New community members always welcome!!
Tolkien of Colour Week on Tumblr
The mod of Tolkien of Colour Week writes in their announcement post:
I am very excited to announce Tolkien of Colour Week from 1st - 7th August 2022!
This is a week to celebrate Tolkien fanworks with characters of colour. Below are the themes and prompts for each day (you do not have to use the prompts but they are there to encourage creativity!) If you have questions about the prompts or anything else please send me a message or ask and I will be happy to respond.
Prompts
Day 1: Family – Connection to Lands – Connection to Waters
Day 2: Music – Language – Stories
Day 3: Friendship – Celebration – Cross-Cultural Ties
Day 4: Cultural Pride – Pride in Identity – Growing Up
Day 5: Faith and Religion – Life and Death – Environment
Day 6: Multicultural Identities – Migration – Time
Day 7: Intersectionality – Gender – Sexuality – Disability
Tag #tocweek2022 and mention @tolkienofcolourweek in your posts so that I see it and reblog. This event is run by @brighter-arda.
Tolkien OC Week on Tumblr
This week on Tumblr is a fandom event for OCs and underdeveloped characters in Tolkien's world. It celebrates both characters of Tolkien’s world and original characters that need more love, by creating and reblogging all kind of fanworks, like fanfiction, fanart, fanvideos, fancrafts, headcanons, playlists, edits, moodboards etc. It will run from 25th July - 31st July 2022.
Event schedule for 2022:
Day 1 (25th July): Diversity - Whether it’s sexual orientation, gender, disability, neurodiversity, or race, create a fanwork about an OC who adds diversity to Tolkien’s world.
Day 2 (26th July): Shipping - Create a fanwork about an OC that you ship with a canon character. An established marriage, a developing queerplatonic relationship, or a one-night stand… canon compliant or AU… it can be any sort of ship you want!
Day 3 (27th July): Gaps and Ghosts - Curufin didn’t pull Celebrimbor out of thin air, so who was the other parent? Who are the Blue Wizards and where did they go? And did you know that the ringbearer was originally written as Bilbo’s son Bingo? Create a fanwork based around an abandoned or never-established character, or flesh out someone who we know nothing about, such as Nazgûl #6.
Day 4 (28th July): Mary Sues - Do you have an OC who is Galadriel’s powerful younger daughter, sent to modern times for her protection, who reappeared as a teenager just in time for her to join the Fellowship? Well, so do I! Here is your permission to use any and every Mary Sue trope you can think of in your fanwork. Modern girls in Middle Earth. Self inserts. Tenth walkers. Play it straight or make it a parody, we’ll take anything.
Day 5 (29th July): Background Characters - Who else was watching Frodo’s song at the Prancing Pony? What’s it like to be a rank-and-file Fëanorian, going into exile over an argument that has nothing to do with you? What’s it like to work at the Houses of Healing, unable to stop your patients from dying of the black breath? Create a fanwork exploring a character you would find in the background of the main action.
Day 6 (30th July): Original Peoples- Instead of just one character, create a fanwork about a group of people who aren’t explored in canon, like the Avari, the Drúedain, the dwarves of the Iron Hills, or anything else you imagine might exist in Middle Earth. You can even invent your own race of speaking people!
Day 7 (31st July): Freeform - OC week is all about freedom, so today, create a piece of fanwork about whatever you want!
More details at the linked post.
Teitho Challenge for July and August
The Teitho competition is back up and running with a challenge for July/August, asking for a special recipe with five fictional ingredients.
They write:
For the months of July and August, we once again have a special recipe for you to prepare. The ingredients are all listed below, but how you mix-n-mash them is completely up to you! As all great cooks make recipes their own by adding little touches and intriguing twists, don’t forget to spice the result with your favourite flavours. This month, let's see what you can bake for our hungry Middle-Earth and Arda appetites!
The five ingredients are:
•Belt
•Grass
•Memory
•Sunrise
•Vessel
Each item on the list must appear in your story at least once, either physically or in dialogue. You don't have to use the exact same wording or meaning —for example, your story can have an actual belt or someone belting a song. It can reference a sunrise or take place at sunrise. Vessel has many meanings, from a physical mode of transport to metaphorical ones as well.
There are many ways to go about this challenge, and we look forward to seeing how you use the ingredients to create your master recipe! The deadline for this theme will be August 31.
More details about Teitho challenges on the linked website.
Multifandom Poetry Fest 2022
Welcome to the sixth annual Multifandom Poetry Fest, a prompt fest for poetry for all fandoms! This event takes place on Dreamwidth.
Rules
1) Leave a prompt in the form of fandom, characters or relationships, prompt. If you don’t want to specify the fandom or characters, you can say "any." One prompt per comment. Leave as many prompts as you like.
2) Reply to other people’s prompts with poems. The poems can be any length or form, or no form. Quality isn’t important--the point is to have fun, not to produce deathless works of art. (Any deathless works of art produced are just a bonus.)
You can leave prompts or check out the prompts already posted here.
Tolkien Appreciation Week 2022
Amidst all the incredible appreciation events going on, we want to invite you to join in on appreciating the literary works & cinematic adaptations of Tolkien! Tolkien Week 2022 is a 10-day event which will run from July 11th–15th and July 18th–22nd on Tumblr and AO3. Each day has three different prompts for gifs, art, fics and other media types! Feel free to do as many days as you’d like and whichever prompt(s) you prefer! Don’t forget to tag #tolkienweek so we can share your creations, and follow @tolkienweek on Tumblr for updates on the event!
We also have an AO3 collection here!
PROMPTS:
- July 11th: favorite character | space | journey
- July 12th: favorite location | colors | home
- July 13th: favorite quote | light & dark | love
- July 14th: favorite story arc | compare & contrast | beginnings/endings
- July 15th: favorite outfit | bruised & battered | heartbreak
- July 18th: favorite hero or villain | faceless/silhouettes | solidarity/comradery
- July 19th: favorite minor character | leaders | comfort
- July 20th: favorite motif | weapons & objects | mystery
- July 21st: favorite relationship | close ups | fellowship
- July 22nd: favorite movie | art/architecture | hope
New Collection of Tolkien's Second Age Writings Coming in November
J.R.R. Tolkien famously described the Second Age of Middle-earth as a "dark age, and not very much of its history is (or need be) told." And for many years readers would need to be content with the tantalizing glimpses of it found within the pages of The Lord of the Rings and its appendices, including the forging of the Rings of Power, the building of the Barad-dûr and the rise of Sauron.
It was not until Christopher Tolkien published The Silmarillion after his father’s death that a fuller story could be told. Although much of the book’s content concerned the First Age of Middle-earth, there were at its close two key works that revealed the tumultuous events concerning the rise and fall of the island of Númenor. Raised out of the Great Sea and gifted to the Men of Middle-earth as a reward for aiding the angelic Valar and the Elves in the defeat and capture of the Dark Lord Morgoth, the kingdom became a seat of influence and wealth; but as the Númenóreans’ power increased, the seed of their downfall would inevitably be sown, culminating in the Last Alliance of Elves and Men.
Even greater insight into the Second Age would be revealed in subsequent publications, first in Unfinished Tales of Númenor and Middle-earth, then expanded upon in Christopher Tolkien’s magisterial twelve-volume The History of Middle-earth, in which he presented and discussed a wealth of further tales written by his father, many in draft form.
Now, adhering to the timeline of "The Tale of Years" in the appendices to The Lord of the Rings, editor Brian Sibley has assembled into one comprehensive volume a new chronicle of the Second Age of Middle-earth, told substantially in the words of J.R.R. Tolkien from the various published texts, with new illustrations in watercolor and pencil by the doyen of Tolkien art, Alan Lee.
The new collection will be available beginning November 15, 2022.
July Challenge at tolkienshortfanworks (Dreamwidth)
The July Challenge at tolkienshortfanworks on Dreamwidth has been posted.
Here is our thematic prompt and our formal challenge for June:
The thematic prompt is: summer storms and other explosions!
The formal challenge is exposition, in any form you choose to interpret this.
You could write an exposition of an explosion, but the two prompts can be filled entirely independently.
The challenge can be freely combined with other prompts and new members are always welcome to join.
More details on the challenge at the linked post.