Around the World and Web

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)

  1. 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.
  2. 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).
  3. As a matter of fairness, please make your story more than 750 words (1000 is better).
  4. 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.
  5. 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.
  6. 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

Prompts are available here.

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.

Acorns and Oak Leaves also has a Discord server!

Around the World and Web Archive

Events listed here are no longer active but are listed on the site for historical purposes.

Fellowship of the Fics: Modern AU May

You know what doesn't get enough love? Modern AUs! This event is a trope mash-up of sorts. You (or your followers) can combine an AU setting, character occupation, and dialogue prompt. You have all month to make as many different combinations as you want!

Prompts are available on Fellowship of the Fic's tumblr.

And, of course, don’t forget to send us your fics when you are done so we can put them in our queue using this form!! Happy writing!

Monstrous May 2024

Monstrous May was first established in 2021, and I've arranged prompts for each May since - for each day of the month of May, there is a prompt involving and invoking the monstrous.

Create art, sculpture, write fiction, poetry, make whatever you feel inspired to! Create for as many or as few days as inspire you, collaborate with friends, and have fun.

Fan creations are just as welcome as original ones, and naturally, erotic and adult creations are as well as SFW ones!

Prompts are available on Tumblr.

Have some questions? Here’s the FAQ from 2021 or ask on Tumblr.

May challenge at tolkienshortfanworks

The May challenge has been posted to the tolkienshortfanworks community on Dreamwidth. 
The thematic challenge for May is: name.
Tolkien has some interesting thoughts on naming.
Elves, depending on their background, can have mother names, father names and later given or adopted names, as well as adaptations of their names into other languages. Galadriel has all of these!
Dwarves, depending on the period, may have their own secret internal names and outward-facing names in Mannish languages.
Aragorn and Gandalf canonically both have multiple names, too.
The Quenya word for "name" is also the name of a Tengwa.
The Long List of the Ents has at its core a list of names.

The formal challenge is: acrostic.
This means that the first letters of your lines, sentences, paragraphs or sections should spell a word (or name!).
There is a selection of examples (prose and poetry) from the Tolkien fandom here on AO3.

Acrostics often spell out names or phrases containing names, but they can spell out any other word you like.
Also, as usual for these challenges, you can write about names or write an acrostic entirely independently of each other.
They can also be freely combined with prompts from other challenges, such as SWG's.

More details on the challenge at the linked entry.

New participants welcome!

 

May 2024 Calls for Papers

Oxonmoot 2024

Oxonmoot is an annual event hosted by The Tolkien Society which brings together over 500 Tolkien fans, scholars, students and Society members from across the world. Oxonmoot 2024 will be our 51st, and will be held over four days, from the afternoon of Thursday 29th August until the afternoon of Sunday 1st September, and will be held at St Anne’s College, Woodstock Road, Oxford and Online.

We are pleased to welcome contributions of all types to the programme for Oxonmoot 2024.

The Talks and Papers strand will run through the Friday, Saturday, and Sunday mornings. Papers may be presented in person in Oxford or online via Zoom.

The Call for Papers is now open! Presentations may be submitted here. Deadline to submit a talk or paper is midnight UK time on May 12th. (UPDATE: The deadline for online presentations has been extended to midnight June 12!)

The Talks and Papers will be balanced by a wide range of other Activities – these could include, but are not limited to, workshops, demonstrations, discussions, games, physical activities, films & videos and social activities – but any and all offers are most welcome. Activities may take place in Oxford, online, or combine both online and in person participation, and may be scheduled alongside the Talks & Papers, or in the Evening (local time) time depending on the nature of the Activity. You can submit a proposal for an activity here. Activities have a deadline of 8 am UK time on 1 August 2024.

Participants with questions may contact the Activities Programme Co-Ordinator, or for social activities the Social Programme Co-Ordinator.

See the Oxonmoot 2024 page for more information or to register!

Mythcon 53: Fantasies of the Middle Lands

The Mythopoeic Society’s annual conference, popularly called “Mythcon,” will be held in Minneapolis, Minnesota this year, from 2-5 August 2024. The idea of “middle-ness” can suggest stability—the center of an object is less likely to break than its edges. It can also suggest the opposite: something in a state of change can be said to be “in the middle”—neither one thing nor another. Mythcon 53, located in the middle of the continental U.S., welcomes papers exploring the concept of “middle-ness” as it is worked out in fantasy, science fiction, and related genres. Paper topics can cover a wide range of possibilities, including but not limited to the following:

  • Locations: This could mean the implications of a place name including the word “middle,” such as Middle-earth or Midgard; places in our world that either shape or appear in fantasy such as the English Midlands or Middle America as in Stranger Things or American Gods; or even liminal places that appear in fantasy such as train stations, purgatory, or The Wood Between the Worlds.
  • Characters: the middle child in a family (Arya Stark, Edmund Pevensie); adolescents negotiating that in-between space (Luce in The Owl House; Ged in Earthsea); individuals or people groups who are a mix of others (Tolkien’s Númenóreans; Percy Jackson).
  • Textual middle-ness: intertextuality, genre-crossing, multiple media, even the middle books/movies of a trilogy (The Empire Strikes Back, The Two Towers).
  • Authors: considering the location of the con, Midwestern authors and scholars such as Tim O’Brian, Jack Zipes, Lois McMaster Bujold, or Philip Jose Farmer.

We also welcome papers on the work of either of our Guests of Honor, Brian Attebery and Eleanor Arnason. Because this conference is happening in conjunction with Diversicon, a multicultural, multimedia event dedicated to improving contacts among groups and individuals interested in speculative fiction, we are also interested in papers on their traditional Posthumous Guest, who this year is L. Frank Baum. And, as always, we welcome papers focusing on the work and interests of the Inklings (especially J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, and Charles Williams), and other fantasy authors and themes. Papers from a variety of critical perspectives and disciplines are welcome.

Each paper will be given a one-hour slot to allow time for questions, but individual papers should be timed for oral presentation in 40 minutes maximum. Panels are also welcome, and both papers and panels may be presented virtually or in person. Paper abstracts of no more than 300 words, along with contact information, should be sent to the Papers Coordinator at papers@mythcon.org by May 15, 2024. Please include your A/V requirements and the projected time needed for your presentation. If your programming interests are more in line with Diversicon’s focus (see http://www.diversicon.org/), then please send your proposal to scottl2605@aol.com.

Additional Links:
Mythcon 53 Conference Page
Mythcon 53 Registration

German Tolkien Society Seminar: Tolkien and His Editors

Tolkien, in paratextual parts of his main work The Lord of the Rings, introduced himself as the editor and translator of the Red Book of Westmarch. A similar conjecture can be found in Farmer Giles of Ham, which comes with a scholarly preface and purports to be the translation of a medieval manuscript. These rather playful examples should be set alongside the real-world editors of Tolkien’s works. In his will, Tolkien made his youngest son Christopher (1924-2020) his ‘literary executor’ with “full power to publish edit alter rewrite or complete any work of mine which may be unpublished at my death or to destroy the whole or any part or parts of any such unpublished works as he in his absolute discretion may think fit and subject thereto” (official copy of Tolkien’s will, 23 July, 1973). Until his death (16 January 2020), Christopher actively fulfilled his role as ‘literary executor’ and edited and made available to a wide audience countless texts from Tolkien’s estate – and thus strongly influenced the perception and understanding of the works already published during Tolkien’s lifetime. Above all, The Silmarillion (1977), which he edited and, as was established in retrospect (Kane 2009), was heavily modified by him, had a major influence on Tolkien research.

In addition to the central figure of Christopher Tolkien, who could have celebrated his 100th birthday in 2024, the roles of the editors Stanley and Rayner Unwin, the biographer Humphrey Carpenter (Biography; Letters), the student and later colleague Alan Bliss (Hengest and Finn), the daughter-in-law Baillie Tolkien (The Father Christmas Letters) or the Elvish Linguistic Fellowship should also be examined.

The aim of this seminar is to bring together researchers from different disciplines to explore the various questions and problems posed by the publication of Tolkien’s work.

Possible starting points for presentations would be:

  • Christopher Tolkien (1924-2020) as ‘co-author’ of Tolkien’s work
  • Censorship and restriction: the search for the ‘true’ Tolkien biography
  • Tolkien’s posthumous academic work
  • The publication of the works on the Elvish (and other) languages
  • Access to and handling of Tolkien’s manuscripts and notes in the Bodleian and the Marquette

The 20th Seminar of the German Tolkien Society is supported by Walking Tree Publishers and will take place in a hybrid format at the RWTH Aachen from 11-13 October 2024. 

Interested applicants are requested to send a short synopsis (no longer than one page) and a short biography as well as their preference (attendance in person or online presentation) to Thomas Fornet-Ponse by 31 May 2024: hither-shore@tolkiengesellschaft.de

See the full call for papers here.

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.

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!

Angbang Week 2024

 

Welcome one and all to the third annual Angbang appreciation event! Angbang Week will run 6-12 May 2024 on Tumblr.

We will be accepting any and all original creations for the upcoming event - visual, written or auditory, which is including but not limited to fanfiction, poetry, art both traditional and digital, playlists or other musical creations, moodboards, and anything else you may come up with. So long as they're new, or as of yet unpublished, created by you and feature Angbang, we want to see them and feature them!

Prompts

  • Day 1 - May 6th: Scars | Injuries*
  • Day 2 - May 7th: Haste | Malice
  • Day 3 - May 8th: Spying | Shapeshifting
  • Day 4 - May 9th: Mountains | Iron
  • Day 5 - May 10th: Fire | Lava
  • Day 6 - May 11th: Order | Chaos
  • Day 7 - May 12th: Prompt of choice from the previous weeks**

*We are aware of the nature of the first prompt. Due to this, we do ask that in addition to all relevant tags, you add the correct tag of either "scars" or "injuries" to your work on day 1 should you choose to post it, especially the latter, so that people could filter it out. We will likewise add relevant tags to works featuring these prompts so that anyone may filter it out if they so wish.

**As you've noticed, this year's final "free" prompt is a bit more restrictive, and would encourage using one of the prompts from previous years, found here and here. One of them is free space, but we do encourage using one of the non-day-7 ones if you can.

Like in the previous years, we encourage you to pick whichever prompt you like better of the two offered that day (you can also wait for another day if you don't like either prompt, or combine the two if you prefer, or even make content for both prompts if you're really looking for a challenge / prefer not sleeping during the month of May, whatever you like). Once you've picked a prompt and made content for it, use the current year's Angbang Week tag, which is either #AngbangWeek2024 or #Angbang Week 2024, or tag this blog directly when posting your prompt for us to reblog it. Try not to post it before the event starts (you can queue up specific posts for specific days to help with that), do not worry about being late, and most importantly, enjoy! No need to stress yourself out over silly ship stuff.

For any additional questions, requests, or additional clarification regarding anything event-related, feel free to send an ask or a DM at anytime!

Tolkien Society Seminar: Tolkien's Romantic Resonances

The Tolkien Society Seminar is a short conference of both researcher-led and non-academic presentations on a specific theme pertaining to Tolkien scholarship.The Society held three seminars in 2021 (Twenty-first Century Receptions of Tolkien, Tolkien and Diversity, and Translating and Illustrating Tolkien) and their online setting has seen increased interest with over 700 attendees from 52 countries at ‘Tolkien and Diversity’. After the seminar, all paper recordings from the seminars are uploaded onto the Tolkien Society’s YouTube channel. We are delighted to run hybrid seminars where delegates can enjoy discussions on Tolkien in person and online.

The seminar on Tolkien's Romantic Resonances will be held Saturday, 6th July 2024 at the Hilton Leeds City and online. This is a free event!

As early as The Book of Lost Tales (1910s-1930s) Tolkien’s prose and poetry was infused with elements of the stylistics, aesthetics, and philosophies of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Romantics. Although it has been shown that Tolkien learnt about and read a range of Romantic works, his dialogue with Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s “willing suspension of disbelief” in ‘On Fairy-stories’ has dominated the intersections between Romantic and Tolkien studies. This has overshadowed the role that Romantic influences played in the shaping of Middle-earth, as well as the Romantic legacies in Victorian literature and art that had a significant impact on Tolkien’s writing. While Tolkien clearly rejected certain forms of Romanticism, he worked within a literary tradition that was partially shaped by the Romantics.

Sign up to attend this years hybrid seminar here.

An informal innmoot—a visit to the local pub—will be held on Friday 5th July.

The program can be found on the event page here.

Tolkien Ekphrasis Week 2024

Ekphrasis: the description or interpretation of a piece of art, usually visual, in a different artistic medium.

Material culture and art add vibrancy to our lives, and it seems that there are so many options in Middle Earth ripe for interpretation! A poem on Nerdanel's statues, a tapestry capturing Nessa's dance, a prose fic describing the impact of seeing Númenor's frescoes, a painting exploring the beautiful quotidian architecture of a Hobbit hole…

This is a Tolkien-fandom-wide event dedicated to the art of ekphrasis in Tolkien's worlds. Its goal is to illuminate the artistic surroundings of the places, people, and stories we love, in as many media as possible. As such, fanworks are welcome to take almost any form: see the FAQ for the full list!

The prompts are multi-part. The first part of the prompt is mandatory, describing the kind of art to be interpreted. The subsequent parts are optional thematic, formal, or visual add-ons that people may choose to incorporate or not.

For example: "Day N. Art form: Metalwork. Formal prompt (writing): Epistolary format. Formal prompt (visual art): Mixed media. Thematic prompt: Trade and cross-cultural connection."

If you miss the day, or are desperate to create work about some form of art not included in the prompts, don't worry! Posting amnesty/prompt free-for-all day will be June 17, and posting here and in the AO3 Collection will be open for a year from June 10, 2024.

How it works: Prompts are currently being posted! Participants will have slightly more than two months to create whatever sort of art they like inspired by one or more of those prompts. Then, no later than June 9 at 5 PM PST, they will post their works to the AO3 Collection (linked above), tagged with the appropriate day. The mod will do a quick check, and then the week of reveals will begin. During the week of June 10-June 16, pre-posted fanworks will be revealed daily according to theme (see calendar) in the AO3 Collection and reblogged on Tumblr. On June 17, anyone who missed the deadline will have an opportunity to post their late works and have them celebrated on Amnesty Day.

In short, the timeline is:
- Read prompts starting March 17.
- Create!
- Post tagged work to AO3 before June 9 deadline.
- Enjoy daily reveals between June 10 and June 16.
- Amnesty day June 17 for late posters.

Inclusion

Tolkien Ekphrasis Week is open to all characters, genres, and ratings, and all Tolkien canons. This includes books, movies both live-action and animated, fan-made films like Born of Hope, TV shows that have aired (so yes to Rings of Power, no to the yet-unreleased Rohan animated series), and game canons such as Lord of the Rings Online. It also includes Tolkien's non-Arda fictional works, such as Roverandom. Crossovers between two or more Tolkien canons are welcome.

Tolkien Ekphrasis Week wants to be as inclusive as possible. As such:

  • All canons and versions of canon are equally welcome and encouraged to participate.
  • Fan creators of all levels of experience should feel more than welcome to join in the fun.
  • All languages are welcomed, and works in languages other than English are actively encouraged.
  • All styles of art and all types of fic are permitted. Apart from following the Art Form content prompt for each day, there are no restrictions on genre, style, rating, or ship. There are two exceptions: first, no character bashing; second, no AI-generated writing or art.

Above all, this event is supposed to get us thinking and feeling about art, which is for everyone. With this in mind, TEW asks participants to be respectful and inclusive at all times. In particular, TEW values its queer and trans participants and participants of color and will moderate as necessary to ensure that this event remains a welcoming space.

Please see the FAQ for all rules and full instructions on how to post and tag.

Calendar

June 9, 2024: Submit all works to the AO3 Collection by this date

June 10-16, 2024: Reveals

Housekeeping

The DW site is the primary home of Tolkien Ekphrasis Week: this is where to check first for dates, news, FAQs, links, and prompts!

Prompts will also be posted on Tumblr. The Tumblr blog will be used for event promotion ahead of the event, answering questions via the ask function, and reblogging your creations, if they are posted and tagged on Tumblr.

This event does not and will not exist on any other form of social media other than Tumblr and DW, though I encourage you to spread the word in your other online communities.

If you have any questions, you can get in touch with the mod, chestnut_pod, via Tumblr ask or comments on the Tolkien Ekphrasis Week Dreamwidth post.

Links

Tumblr Blog | Dreamwidth Community | AO3 Collection | FAQ

Glorfindel Week 2024

This is a Tolkien fandom week dedicated to Glorfindel, the character from The Lord of the Rings, The Silmarillion, and The Fall of Gondolin. Glorfindel has an epic tale of heroism, drama, rebirth, and happiness. As Tolkien wrote, “his face [was] fair and young and fearless and full of joy.” Come celebrate Glorfindel and his story by creating fanworks inspired by him! Glorfindel Week will run April 29-May 5, 2024.

You can create art, fics, graphics, meta, headcanons, or any other type of fanwork. When you post your work, make sure to mention this blog (@glorfindelweek) and put “glorfindel week” or “glorfindelweek” in the first 20 tags.

Rules

Basically, please be kind and respectful of other people. Here are the core rules:

1. Do not repost other people’s fanworks without their express permission.

2. Respect other people’s interpretations of Tolkien’s characters and relationships. Do you disagree with a certain ship or a creator’s perspective on a character? Please keep that to yourself.

3. Fanworks that are bigoted/ prejudiced in their messaging are not allowed. You may, however, depict instances of bigotry/ prejudice in your fanwork. E.g. You can write about characters experiencing sexism, but fanworks that endorse or promote sexism are not permitted. 

Violation of these rules will result in your being blocked.

See the FAQ for more information.

Prompts

Day 1: Valinor | Childhood | Family

Day 2: Traveling to Middle Earth | The Helcaraxë | Bonds Broken, Bonds Made

Day 3: Gondolin | House of the Golden Flower | Nobility | Friendship

Day 4: Romance | Celebrations | Hobbies

Day 5: Fall of Gondolin | The Balrog | Battle

Day 6: Reawakening | Relationship with the Ainur | Returning to Middle Earth

Day 7: Imladris | The Council of Elrond | Peace

Bonus prompts: Sunflower | Goldfinch | Braids | Gardening | Horseback riding

Teitho April/May Challenge: Quotes

Teitho is a monthly fanfiction contest. Our April/May prompt uses the source material directly for inspiration. Choose any of the following quotes as inspiration for your story.

1. From The Silmarillion: “the deeds that we shall do shall be the matter of song until the last days of Arda.”

2. From The Hobbit: “There is nothing like looking, if you want to find something. You certainly usually find something, if you look, but it is not always quite the something you were after.”

3. From The Lord of the Rings: “All’s well as ends Better!”

What thoughts and feelings do these quotes inspire? They may come from different books and from different characters, but they can encompass many moments from Tolkien’s legendarium.

The tales of Beleriand may have inspired song but so did the events of the Last Alliance, the search for the Entwives, the destruction on the One ring, the ride of the Rohirrim.

Many characters find something on their adventures—it could be an object but sometimes it’s a secret, unexpected information, or even something they learn about themselves.

Perhaps you would like to write about the moments those words reference? What did Mandos think of Fëanor’s words? Fingolfin? The Noldor gathered in that place?

There is no requirement to use the quote directly in your story but you are free to do so, if you like.

We are excited to read your submissions! Please email your stories to teitho.contest@gmail.com by May 31!

Find more about Teitho here.

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.