New Challenge: Bollywood
This month's challenge offers songs, films, and tropes from Bollywood, the world's largest film industry based out of India, as prompts for fanworks.
SWG News
Cultus Dispatches: Fandom Chocolate … or Authors Love Comments
Tolkien Fanfiction Survey data provides insight into how comments benefit authors and which authors are most impacted by a lack of comments, with a digression on authors' perspectives one-click feedback like kudos.
A Sense of History: Passing Ships
As Tolkien's characters in various texts gaze out to the sea, what do they see? What is brought by the ships coming out of the West?
Beta-Reader List Now Available
The beta-reader list and profiles have been moved into our new system and are available again.
New & Updated Fanworks
[Writing] No Time Have I by Flora-lass
A Silmarillion acrostic.
[Writing] I called it Fate that I should fail by AdmirableMonster
Nimruzimir, a natural philosopher recently out of his apprenticeship, hardly considers himself very important to anyone, least of all his colleagues. When his strange, prophetic fits bring him to the attention of the High Priest, however, he may find that his existence is less superfluous than…
[Writing] All of you by chrissystriped
Elrond and Celebrían celebrate their anniversary with their family.
[Writing] Lament for the Singer by daughterofshadows
A short thing about Maglor, death and grieving.
[Writing] Cosmological Poems of Arda by AaronAzrael
I would like to share my revelations of Tolkien's Universe in the form of narrative and emotional poems.
[Writing] Eä's Redemption by AaronAzrael
This is my new poetical attempt to add my own interpretation to Tolkien's Cosmology as to Eru's Creation and the Valar's minds and behind-the-scene providence reasons and mechanisms.. I often review Eä as part of our own world, just in another dimension, this is why I have always seriously…
[Artwork] Map of Valinor by Aprilertuile
My newly drawn map of Aman, as complete as I could make it.
Current Challenge
Bollywood
Prompts this month are films, songs, and tropes from India's dazzling film industry, Bollywood. Read more ...
Random Challenge
Holiday Party
No matter if you're in the Northern or Southern hemisphere, it's a time of year to think about holidays. Whether you're bundling up in blankets or slipping a swimsuit into your suitcase, we invite you to an SWG holiday party! Read more ...
New in References
Fandom Chocolate … or Authors Love Comments by Dawn Walls-Thumma
[]Tolkien Fanfiction Survey data shows that authors view comments as driving their motivation to create fanfiction. However, perception of comments by authors is part of a larger shift in fandom around how and how often fans interact with each other.
Passing Ships by Simon J. Cook
[]The arrival and departure of ships across the Great Sea carries mythic significance for the peoples of Middle-earth. The image of ships crossing out of and back into a mysterious West appears as well in Beowulf and is alluded to in Tolkien's tower analogy in his lecture "Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics," where the tower allows those who climb it to observe the passage of the ships.
Fanfiction and the Serious Business of Writer's Craft by Dawn Walls-Thumma
[]Tolkien Fanfiction Survey data shows that while most authors self-identify as taking their craft seriously, a growing subset of authors may be pushing that norm.
Beyond the Silmarillion
[Writing] Staging a Battle by StarSpray
[]He and Diamond were visiting, though Pippin had been disappearing every afternoon, and taking Frodo and Elanor and most other lads and lasses in the neighborhood with him—though why they couldn’t use Pippin’s own pony, Sam couldn’t imagine.
[Writing] From whose bourn no traveller returns by losselen
[]So gathered they were to Bree, what lieutenants who could be spared, from their scattered watches west and east, for their chieftain had returned from his long sojourn in lands godless and mountains strange.
Aragorn returns from the South to tells his tales. Halbarad listens.
[Writing] Sand Sorcery by StarSpray
[]It is well known that Psamathos does not leave his cove. He does not like to get his feet wet, and prefers to spend his days dozing under the sun.
Around the World and Web
Fellowship of the Fics: Summer Stories 2024
Fellowship of the Fics offers four weeks of summer-themed prompts during the month of July.
Elrond Week 2024
Elrond Week is a fandom event dedicated to Elrond Peredhel that will run from July 10th to July 16th on Tumblr.
July challenge at tolkienshortfanworks posted
The tolkienshortfanworks challenge for July has been posted to the Dreamwidth community. The thematic challenge is: original character or unnamed canon character; the formal challenge: fixed length of multiple of 50 words. New participants welcome.
July 2024 Call for Papers and Proposals
Conferences and publications that have open calls for papers and proposals in July 2024.
Teitho June/July Challenge: Mentor
The June/July prompt for the Teitho challenge is "mentor" and invites fanworks about this relationship in Tolkien's works.
Fanworks Tagged with Character of the Month
Edrahil of Nargothrond by oshun
The capture of Edhrahil--one of Finrod's twelve companions--is among the most chilling in The Silmarillion.
Dior Eluchíl by oshun
The only child of Lúthien and Beren, Dior's legacy is mostly due to his place in the history of the Peredhil who would knit together the First, Second, and Third Ages.
Legolas of Gondolin by oshun
Everyone knows Legolas. Far fewer will remember much, if anything, about an Elf of Gondolin also named Legolas.
Rúmil of Tirion by oshun
Rúmil of Tirion is a Noldorin loremaster of great repute, notable among a people recognized for their creativity, avidity for knowledge, and love of words.
Mahtan by Dawn Felagund
The story of Mahtan, the father of Nerdanel, is one among many tales that illustrates the potential of knowledge to corrupt and lead to evil.
Eluréd and Elurín by oshun
Eluréd and Elurín enter the legendarium as the little lost princes whose tragic demise is recounted in the story of the assault upon Doriath.
Vëantur by oshun
Vëantur is the first and foremost among the early mariners and shipbuilders of Númenor and the first to renew contact between the island of Númenor and the peoples of Middle-earth. He is crucial in leading to the Númenóreans' self-definition as a seafaring people and masters of the vast seas of Arda to the east of its island kingdom.
Tar-Aldarion by oshun
Tar-Aldarion, the sixth King of Númenor, is best known for his penchant for sea voyages.
Erendis, the Mariner's Wife by oshun
Although never mentioned in The Silmarillion, Erendis rivals the most significant women in Tolkien’s legendarium in forcefulness of personality and certainly in sheer number of words expended upon her behalf.
Vairë the Weaver by Dawn Felagund
Although barely present in the published Silmarillion, Vairë emerges in Tolkien's earlier writings as a remarkably empathetic character and an apt foil to her cold-hearted husband Námo.
Gandalf (Olórin) by oshun, pandemonium_213
Whether in the guise of Gandalf the Grey or Gandalf the White, Tolkien’s most famous wizard plays the role of the nearly perfect guide, instigator, and mentor for the heroes of both The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit.
Varda Elentári by oshun
Varda Elentári is among the better known of Tolkien’s demigods and probably the best known of the Valier.
Tulkas by Dawn Felagund
Tulkas evolved from Tolkien's early work on the Silmarillion from a playful, youthful character to a character more associated with unapologetic violence.
Ecthelion of the Fountain by oshun
As one of the lords of Gondolin, Ecthelion appears in some of Tolkien's earliest writings about Middle-earth.
Huan the Hound of Valinor by oshun
The famed hound, Huan is one of the most if not the most truly noble beasts in The Silmarillion and a hero by the standards of almost any reader.
Gildor Inglorion by oshun
Gildor Inglorion is one of the many links between The Silmarillion and The Lord of the Rings, providing a final glimpse in the Third Age of the exiled Noldor.
Eärendil the Mariner by oshun
In addition to his essential role in the histories of the early ages, Eärendil is steeped in symbolic and mythic significance that elevates him to one of the most important characters in the legendarium.
