Around the World and Web

Around the World and Web includes announcements and items of interest from beyond the SWG.

Tolkien Native Language Appreciation Fest 2025

This is an event aimed to celebrate the diversity in the Tolkien fandom, which takes inspiration both by Tolkien's profession as a linguist and inventor of all the languages in his opus, and his own characters' prowess in several languages. The event will run on Tumblr from 16-22 June 2025.

The event aims at giving all creators a chance to use their creativity to explore and experiment with all languages. All types of fanworks and all languages (including English and Tolkien's invented languages) are welcome.

Rules

  • NO AI GENERATED CONTENT.
  • No stealing/plagiarizing of anyone's work.
  • Please tag properly your work and use warnings for mature/sensitive content, so people are able to filter it, should they wish to.
  • NSFW: please use the "read more" function, or link it through a different website such as AO3 and use tags and warnings accordingly, so people are able to filter the content, should they wish to.
  • GOLDEN RULE: COMMON SENSE

To be able to participate, please follow the below steps.

  • Reblog this post and follow this blog.
  • Use #jrrtlanguagefest preferably in the first five tags, so I am able to reblog your creations
  • Mention the languages used in the caption of your post - a translation is encouraged so everyone can enjoy your creations
  • There is no limit per day, you can post as many creations as you wish.

Prompts

You can use as many of these prompts as you like. Please specify in your post if you are using any of these.

  • 16th June: Yellow - Shine - Opposites - Song
  • 17th June: Orange - Sunset - Flowers - Dance
  • 18th June: Red - Passion - Wounds - Rain
  • 19th June: Purple - Noble - Valiant - Fading
  • 20th June: Blue - Calm - Creation - Divine
  • 21st June: Green - Envy - Trees - Fading
  • 22nd June: Black - Grief - Moonlight - Deep

Send an ask if you have additional questions.

Russingon Week 2025

Russingon Week is a Tumblr and AO3 event for fanworks that center a romantic or queerplatonic relationship between Maedhros and Fingon. Russingon Week will run June 16th to June 22nd, 2025.

Rules

  1. Be kind and courteous! No shaming, harassment, or bigotry will be tolerated.
  2. Works featuring any interpretations, themes, and topics are welcome. We encourage creators to use appropriate archive tags and content warnings where needed.
  3. Creations of any sort (fanfic, fan art, meta, moodboard, fan song, rec list, interpretive dance, rescuing a loved one who is currently chained to a cliff) are encouraged!

How to Participate

  • Make a work of any sort that centers a romantic or queerplatonic relationship between Maedhros and Fingon. If you post on tumblr, @ this blog (russingon-week) or tag it #russingonweek and we’ll reblog it!
  • Sometimes tumblr notifs can be wonky, so feel free to message us or send us an ask if we haven’t noticed/reblogged your work.
  • You can also feel free to anonymously submit anything you’d like using the “submit” function on the blog.

Prompts

Day 1 – June 16th: Beginnings and Renewal

  • Valinor
  • Childhood friends to lovers
  • Re-embodiment
  • Children and parenthood
  • First time
  • Modern AU

Day 2 – June 17th: Devotion and Desertion

  • Losgar and the Helcaraxë
  • Weddings and oaths
  • Infidelity & Betrayal
  • Role reversal AU
  • Allies and enemies

Day 3 – June 18th: Despair and Defiance

  • Rescue from Thangorodrim
  • Battles and Kinslayings
  • Angry sex
  • "Make it worse" AU
  • Lies and truths
  • Breaking taboos

Day 4 – June 19th: Peace and Ennui

  • The Long Peace
  • Fluff
  • Tender sex
  • Time loop AU

Day 5 – June 20th: Memory and Song

  • Epistolary
  • In-universe writing or art
  • Laws and Customs of the Eldar
  • Salacious letters/erotica
  • AUs based on another work of fiction

Day 6 – June 21st: Tragedy and Doom

  • Nirnaeth Arnoediad
  • Foresight and ósanwë
  • Fantasy/ghost sex
  • Greek Myth AU

Day 7 – June 22nd: Endurance and Survival

  • Post-rescue from Thangorodrim
  • Fix-it AU
  • Legacy
  • Nature
  • Ritual sex

Tolkien South Asian Week

Welcome to Tolkien South Asian Week running from June 16th to June 22th, 2025 on Tumblr.

About

We are back after two years! I started my Everyone in Middle-Earth is Brown series five years ago to imagine Tolkien characters as people like me. Tolkien South Asian Week (TSAW) stemmed from there and is a fandom-wide event to celebrate South Asian peoples, cultures and lives through Tolkien’s Legendarium.

Guidelines

  • Reblog this post
  • Tag your entries with #tsaw25 and mention me @arwenindomiel;
  • Everyone is free to participate, you don’t have to be South Asian;
  • Creations of all kinds are welcome: edits, gifs, art, fic, meta etc;
  • You can post whenever you are ready, including after the event;
  • NSFW and incest are not allowed.

Prompts

Here are the suggested prompts. You can interpret them however you like, combine them or even disregard them. 2021 and 2022 prompts for further inspiration.

  • Day 1 (16th): Ring bearers | Love | Courage is found in unlikely places
  • Day 2 (17th): Kingdoms | (Im)mortality | Home is behind, the world is ahead
  • Day 3 (18th): Home | The Ages | More fair than Mortal tongue can tell
  • Day 4 (19th): Artefacts | Songs and Tales | No living man am I
  • Day 5 (20th): the Fellowship | Lineages | The doom lies in yourself
  • Day 6 (21th): A people | Oaths | The stories that matter
  • Day 7 (22th): Free form | World building | Worthy of remembrance

Scribbles and Drabbles 2025

Scribbles & Drabbles is an annual Tolkien event where artists create artwork and writers then write stories (a drabble or longer) inspired by the art.

So you want to be an...

Sign-ups (this form covers both artists and authors!)

Website!

Discord!

Schedule

  • June 1st: Sign-ups and art submissions open 
  • June 30th: Artist Sign-ups close 
  • July 15th: Art submissions close 
  • July 25th: Gallery opens 
  • July 26th & 27th: Art Viewing Parties 
  • July 27th: Author Sign-ups close 
  • August 2nd: Claims Day 
  • August 3rd: Additional claims open 
  • August 4th: Art posting begins 
  • November 1st: Drop-out deadline
  • November 15th: Fic posting deadline November 29th: Fics revealed

Camp Tolkien 2025

Welcome to Camp Tolkien!

This writing event is meant to be a little retreat in the middle of summer, giving writers the chance to work on a beloved project in the company of fellow writers.

Writers are invited to bring a project to Camp Tolkien--whether you're brainstorming, outlining, drafting, or editing--and spend the two weeks at camp working on your project. While other Inklings Challenge events are geared toward short stories, Camp Tolkien is meant to give writers a chance to make progress on larger projects. You can work on a short story if you wish, but since we're not aiming to finish the project by the end of the event, this is also a chance to work on whatever project is nearest and dearest to your heart at the moment--a novel, a play, an epic poem, whatever you like.

Camp Tolkien will be in session from June 9, 2025 through June 21, 2025. Every day from Monday through Friday, Camp Tolkien will offer four different summer-camp-themed activities. Each of these activities will be a writing prompt or challenge meant to inspire you in your project and/or add some fun to the writing process. Writers will choose at least one of the four activities to join in, though you can choose to complete multiple activities if you wish.

The prompts will be aimed at different parts of the writing process. Some will be better-suited for drafting, while others will work better for people who are outlining or brainstorming, and some are more about adding some excitement to the writing process itself, no matter which stage you're in. The hope is that everyone attending Camp Tolkien will find at least one activity per day that they can apply to their stage of the writing process.

For example, a day's list of Camp Tolkien Activities might look something like this:

  • Photography: Find at least five reference pictures that visualize the setting or characters of your project
  • Friendship Bracelets: Tell us about two characters who are currently friends, or talk about a childhood/former friend of a character
  • Nature Walk: Go on a walk outside and use something about the experience (a sensory detail, something you saw) as inspiration for your project
  • Rock Climbing: Set a timer for thirty minutes and try to finish as much of a draft of a scene as you can in that time

After finishing for the day, writers are invited to reblog that day's post, telling us which activity they joined, and either sharing what they wrote or telling us how the process went.

Each Saturday will be a Free Day, where writers can look over all the activities offered from the previous week and choose any activity they wish to use for that day's prompt. This could be a chance to complete an activity from a day you missed, or to complete an extra activity that you never got to.

The final day of camp, June 21, 2025, writers will get the chance to talk about their progress on their project and how the overall camp experience went.

This is a very low-key event, meant to make the writing process fun. People can join in as much or as little as they wish, and there is no sign-up process. Writers are just invited to check the blog each day and join in the fun of Camp Tolkien.

And that's Camp Tolkien! Now go forth and create!

Boromir Week 2025

Bring your Boromir fics, art, gifs, moodboards, and headcanons for a week of being absolutely normal about our beloved Captain of Gondor! Boromir Week will run from June 14-20, 2025 on Tumblr.

Rules

  • Please tag any ships and/or triggers, and place NSFW/graphic submissions under a "Read More" and tag as such.
  • No AI.
  • This event is intended to show Boromir in a positive light and show our appreciation for the character, so anything that is blatantly anti-Boromir is strongly discouraged. Submitting an AU where Boromir succeeded in obtaining the One Ring or writing a Dark!Boromir AU is different (and hot, let's be real).
  • This also applies to commenting on submissions. Don't like, don't read. Don't yuck on someone else's yum. Ship and let ship. Please keep your comments respectful.
  • The main tags I will be using are #Boromir Week and #Boromir Week 2025. However, Tumblr's tag search is pretty much useless, not only showing results that have nothing to do with what you searched for, but also omitting a lot of results. So, the best way for me to know that you've posted is to tag @boromir-week

Prompts

Day 1: Brother of Faramir, Childhood, Protector and Teacher

Day 2: Son of Finduilas, Maternal Family, Grief and Loss

Day 3: Son of Denethor, Paternal Family, Thorongil

Day 4: Teen Years, Captain of Gondor, Friend of Rohan

Day 5: The People's Prince, Rivendell, Member of the Fellowship

Day 6: Change of Fate, Fourth Age, Alternate Universe

Day 7: Freeform

Celebrimbor Week 2025

In honour of the greatest of the Elven-smith, we will be having a week celebrating the Lord of Eregion, Celebrimbor. Anything from the series to the books is allowed in this little event, all are welcome here.

Join us in celebrating his life and legacy throughout the story that is the Lord of the Rings, The Silmarillion, and The Rings of Power. Through art, writing, and gifs, telling a story of ambition, what ifs, love, and betrayal.

Seven days!

Seven prompts!

June 9th - June 15th

#celebrimborweek2025

June challenge at tolkienshortfanworks on Dreamwidth

The June challenge has been posted to the tolkienshortfanworks community on Dreamwidth. 

The thematic challenge for this month is: Reward - Regard.
Did you know that these two words, "reward" and "regard" were originally borrowed into English from two different forms of the same French verb (regarder) and, furthermore. that the second element is etymologically related to "guard"?
Your piece should either simply contain the word pair (regard - reward, as nouns or verbs) or somehow make a connection between rewarding and regarding, in any way you like.
Bonus points if you bring in "guard" as well.

The formal challenge this time is: your piece should make use of alliteration in some significant way.
"Reward" and "regard" both start with r-, so you could achieve alliteration just by using the thematic prompt.
But this can be any form of alliteration, in prose and verse.
Side note: in the most strict form of traditional alliterative verse, alliteration would have to be on stressed syllables, so "reward" and "reward" would alliterate on w- and g-. This is not required for this challenge.

More details on these challenges at the linked post.

As always, these prompts can be filled separately or combined freely with other challenges that allow this. 

New participants welcome; a Dreamwidth account is required.

Joyful June 2025

Welcome to Joyful June: a fanworks event where the goal is to let our favourite characters be happy!

The prompt calendar above is designed for maximum flexibility: if you can't do something for every single day in a week, you can still do one thing based around that week's theme!

(Or you can just do as much as you can anyway, whatever, the point is also for us to have some fun, but the completionism urge is strong)

Tag #JoyfulJune and #JoyfulJune25!

AO3 collection: joyfuljune25

Rules/FAQ

What sorts of works?

Fanart, fanfic, music, anything that you would normally consider fanwork.

What fandoms are allowed?

This event originated on the Linked Universe discord, but any fandom is welcome! Be sure to tag the fandom clearly and if you're creating for something in a nested fandom make sure you tag the right one (Linked Universe rather than Legend of Zelda; Rings of Power rather than Lord of the Rings, etc.).

Will you be reblogging work?

I'll be following the tag and will do some reblogging, but I am but one person and can't guarantee I'll get everything, especially if a lot of people take part.

Do I have to do/post work on the day listed in the calendar?

Nope!

Is NSFW allowed?

Sure, but please tag it #NSFW and note that it won't get reblogged here (I'm keeping this blog PG).

Can I use GenAI?

No.

Any other rules?

Don't be a jerk.

Prompts

Week 1: Seasons

1: New Year

2: Spring

3: Summer

4: Autumn

5: Winter

6: Birthday

7: Anniversary

Week 2: Nature

8: Sun

9: Moon

10: Stars

11: Animal

12: Sea

13: Sky

14: Mountain

Week 3: Comfort

15: Warmth

16: (Found) Family

17: Bath

18: Hugs

19: Sleep

20: Home

21: Quiet

Week 4: Fun

22: Dance

23: Games

24: Pets

25: Reading

26: Friends

27: Snacks

28: Music

Week 5: Time

29: Meetings

30: Memories

Teitho May/June Challenge: Weddings

Spring is a common time for weddings and it may be so for Middle-earth as well. For example, Aragorn and Arwen married in the spring.

Wedding rites may vary among the races of Arda. Will you give us stories of Elven weddings, the rituals of Dwarves, or the ceremonies of Men. What about Hobbits?

Weddings bring joy, they can unite families, they can also bring alliances.

How will you weave a wedding tale for us? Will it be a story of Fëanor and Nerdanel? Or Beren and Luthien?

The courtship of Sam and Rosie? Or a deeper look at Faramir and Eowyn?

We look forward to your wedding stories and art for this prompt!

Please submit your fic or art by June 30 to teitho.contest@gmail.com

Find more information about Teitho here.

Tolkien Ekphrasis Week 2025

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.

In short, the timeline is:

  1. Read prompts starting March 17.
  2. Create!
  3. Post tagged work to AO3 before June 9 deadline.
  4. Enjoy daily reveals between June 10 and June 16.
  5. 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, 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, 2025: Submit all works to the AO3 Collection by this date

June 10-16, 2025: Reveals

March 17, 2026: 2025 AO3 Collection and DW community close to posting.

Housekeeping

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

Prompts will also be posted here 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 Dreamwidth community's equivalent post.

Links


Around the World and Web Archive

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

Celedriel Week 2025

Celedriel Week is a Tumblr events for fanworks about Galadriel and Celeborn. It will run April 6-12, 2025, with the following prompts:

April 6 - First Meetings, Impressions, The Heart Stirs. (A Gaze Caught. The Fire Ignites. "Eru save me, I've found my doom.")

April 7 - Dedication, Courtship, The Heart Blooms. (Flowers and Letters. Words of Love. "My heart, my love, my eternity. My soul soars for thee.")

April 8 - Marriage, Vows, The Heart Bound In Love. (An exchange of rings. Families bound. "In joy and suffering, in life persevering, in death enduring, I take thee and thee alone.")

April 9 - Kingdoms, Refuge, The Heart Endures. (Crowns of silver. Realms rise and fall. "Blessed are they who stand before the darkness and do not falter.")

April 10 - Separation, Conflict, The Heart Grieves. (War and loss leave wounds. Paths diverge and change. "I must follow this thread alone, but not forever.")

April 11 - Lothlorien, Children, The Heart Heals. (Wounds become scars. A silver realm. "Let our children bring joy amidst darkness.")

April 12 - The West, Undying Love, The Heart is Eternal. (A test endured and passed. A goodbye, but not a farewell. "In life and eternity, endless bliss under golden trees.")

Neurodivergent Arda Week 2025

Neurodivergent Arda Week will run from March 30 to April 5, 2025 on Tumblr. This is an event to celebrate Neurodiversity in Tolkien's works. Although there are no characters who are explicitly Neurodivergent, many Neurodivergent folk have found themselves in Tolkien's world. All creations are welcome, such as art, writing, podfic, gifs, and more.

Neurodiversity is the realisation, celebration, and acceptance that there are many different ways for a brain to function. Diversity is a natural part of existence. All brains are valid and real, whether or not they may fit into categories. And the world needs every brain in order to function. There is no such thing as a “better” or a “worse” brain, they’re just different. And different is good. Diversity is a vital and natural part of our world.

Here are some prompts:

Day 1 - March 30 - Worldbuilding

Day 2 - March 31 - Characters

Day 3 - April 1 - Stimming

Day 4 - April 2 - Special Interests

Day 5 - April 3 - Assistive Technology

Day 6 - April 4 - Intersectionality

Day 7 - April 5 - Free Prompt

Submissions do not have to follow the prompts.

When submitting, please tag your post #neurodivergentardaweek and mention @neurodivergent-arda-week

Please include image descriptions on submissions.

Content or creators that endorse these prejudices are not allowed -

  • Homophobia
  • Transphobia
  • Racism
  • Ableism
  • Fatphobia and body shaming
  • Biphobia and panphobia
  • Polyphobia and sentiments against polyamorous folk
  • Radical feminism
  • Fascism and alt-right politics
  • Aphobia

Tolkien at UVM Registration Open

Event Description:

Keynote Speaker: John Garth

The theme for this year's conference is Tolkien and War. John Garth is a British journalist and author, known especially for writings about J. R. R. Tolkien including his biography Tolkien and the Great War and a book on the places that inspired Middle-earth, The Worlds of J. R. R. Tolkien. He won a 2004 Mythopoeic Award for Scholarship for his work on Tolkien.

Dates and Time:

Friday Fireside Reading with John Garth: Friday, April 4th, 2025 from 6:00 PM - 7:30 PM

Saturday Conference: Saturday, April 5th, 2025 from 8:00 AM - 5:00 PM

The registration deadline for this event is April 1, 2025.

Location:

Fireside Reading: Burack Lounge/Davis Center

Conference: UVM Campus, Lafayette L207, or virtually.

Cost:

$40

Register here.

Feanorian Week 2025

Feanorian Week is a Tumblr event offering optional prompts for fanworks about the sons of Feanor and their parents. The event will run March 24th-30th, 2025.

The prompts are as followed:

  • Day 1- Maedhros - > Childhood, Kingship, Angband, Coping, The Union, Relations with Different Races
  • Day 2- Maglor -> Childhood, Spouse, Music & Songs of Power, Elrond & Elros, Kingship, Maglor’s  Gap, Redemption
  • Day 3- Celegorm - > Childhood, Hunting, Orome & Huan, Strength & Beauty, Luthien, Nargothrond
  • Day 4- Caranthir - > Childhood, Spouse, Betrayal, Lordship, Dwarves & Humans, Marriage, Appearance
  • Day  5- Curufin - > Childhood, Spouse, Celebrimbor, Forge Work
  • Day  6- Ambarussa - > Childhood, Lordship, Regrets, Twin, Hunting, Nandor
  • Day 7- Nerdanel and Feanor-> Mahtan, Finwe & Indis, Marriage, Reunion, Traveling, Creation, Healing

Rules: You are allowed to post anything fanrelated on the days. If the prompts are not to your liking, you can do your own thing. The tracktag is #feanorianweek. Tag your work accordingly!  Have fun and be nice to others. Disrespect towards others will not be tolerated. 

C&C Week 2025

C&C Week is a Tumblr event for fanworks about Celegorm and Curufin. This year, the event will run from March 16-23, 2025, with prompts featured every other day.

Rules

  1. All pieces for the event must be an original work, made (at least in part) by yourself. You are allowed to reblog older pieces for the event, but new pieces are highly preferred.
  2. NO AI GENERATED CONTENT WILL BE ALLOWED. All of the work must be created by a human hand, or a prosthetic limb attached to a human.
  3. You don’t have to use the exact prompt for each day, but do stay somewhat on theme. Please. <3
  4. Finally, be nice to people. Celegorm and Curufin are not real. If you don’t like what you see, just block and move on.

See the FAQ for more information.

Prompts

Mar. 16 - 17th: Celegorm | Deities

Mar. 18 - 19th: Curufin | Flames

Mar. 20 - 21st: Post canon

Mar. 22 - 23rd: Reminiscing

And here are this year’s prompts! You don’t have to follow them exactly, they’re just general themes to get ideas going.

Teitho March/April Challenge: Mothers

Exploring the idea of mothers in Tolkien lets us go behind the scenes. We have quite a few mothers directly in the narrative, primarily in the Silmarillion—where we see Miriel, Nerdanel, Morwen, Idril, Aredhel, Luthien, Elwing, and even have mentions of Anaire and Earwen.

In The Lord of the Rings we read of Galadriel being Celebrian’s mother and Arwen’s grandmother. Aragorn’s mother Gilraen, Faramir and Boromir’s mother Finduilas, and Rosie Cotton—Sam’s wife—are all mentioned in the narrative. The Hobbit gives us a memory of Belladonna Took, Bilbo’s mother, and mentions of Thorin’s sister Dis—the mother of Fili and Kili. The stories of any of these characters would make for fascinating fic! Or art!

There are many who remain unmentioned and unnamed—Legolas’s mother, Gimli’s, the mothers of generations of Dunedain, of Gondorians, of the Rohirrim, of the Shire. And consider Ungoliant, mother of Shelob! And mothers among the ranks of orcs.

We are excited to see where this prompt takes you and which character gives you inspiration! Please submit your fic or art by April 30 to teitho.contest@gmail.com

Find more information about Teitho here.

March Challenge at tolkienshortfanworks

The challenge for March has been posted to the tolkienshortfanworks community on Dreamwidth. 

The thematic challenge for this month is: return.
Bonus prompts:
Include one of the following three canonical phrases from the Legendarium:
a) Well, I'm back.
b) the return of the king
c) the return of the Noldor
(Use those phrases any way you like.)

The formal challenge this time is simply: any multiple of 100 words (100 words, 200 words, etc.).

The two parts of the challenge can be filled separately and freely combined with other challenges and prompts that allow this. 

More details about these challenges at the linked post and at the  linked DW community.

New participants welcome.

March 2025 Calls for Papers and Proposals

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.

Tolkien Society Seminar: Arda's Entangled Bodies and Environments

The relationship between the body and the environment is at the heart of Tolkien’s writing. He even called his secondary world “Arda Marred” after Melkor’s discord led to all matter, vegetal and organic, having a “Melkor ingredient”. Yet even as early as ‘The Book of Lost Tales’ and in his writings not related to the legendarium, Tolkien shows a keen interest in the connection and ongoing relationship between the body and the earth, often linking the land’s health to the beings that inhabit it. Frequently the environs within his writing indicate they might be sentient, suggesting possible greater agency in Arda and his other worlds beyond his humanoid characters. Likewise, over the course of his writing career, Tolkien developed his ideas concerning the body, which play out in complex and even contradictory ways in his metaphysics and within his narratives.

This seminar invites analyses that explore the complexities of bodily experiences and environments. Building on a strong tradition of scholarship on embodiment and ecology in Tolkien’s writings and their adaptations, this seminar invites new and innovative readings of the entangled body and earth across Tolkien’s oeuvre and its adaptions.

Papers may address but are in no way limited to the following topics as they pertain to Tolkien’s writings and their adaptations:

  • Bodies (physical, mental, emotional) and the environment;
  • The built environment;
  • (Non) Anthropocene and the biosphere;
  • Medical studies (e.g. disability, ageing, motherhood/reproduction, trauma) and Environmental Bioethics (e.g. environmental law, ethics of the body and earth, climate change, pollution, agricultural practices, biodiversity);
  • Temporality and spatiality;
  • Intersectional studies (e.g. gender, race, sexuality, religion, disability, age, ethnicity, nationality) of the body and the earth;
  • Liminality, borders, and boundaries;
  • Travel and ecological symbiosis;
  • The body, food, agriculture;
  • Technology and industry;
  • Enlightenment (e.g. rationality, categorisation, progress, science) and Romanticism (e.g. sensibility, sensation, subjectivity, earth as mental symbol, sublime, beautiful, picturesque, vast and minute);
  • Historical perspectives;
  • Linguistics and philology;
  • Ecology, Dark Ecology, ecoGothic.

The CfP deadline is Friday 28th March.

We invite proposals of no more than 300 words for 20-minute papers with 5 minutes of questions and 500 words for 45-minute panel discussions with 15 minutes of questions. Bionotes for all authors should be no more than 100 words each.

Please submit your paper proposal here.

Please submit your panel proposal here.

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.

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.

March of the Quendi 2025

March of the Quendi is a month-long Tumblr event to celebrate the long walk the Elves took from their home on the shores of Cuiviénen, across great and unknown lands, to the blessed realm of Aman with weekly Great Journey-themed prompts. The event runs March 1-31.

How do I participate?

Post something regarding the march and mention @march-of-the-noldor. Everything made will be reblogged here. You can also use the tags #march of the noldor and #march of the quendi but make sure to also tag this blog.

Go forth and create something new!

This is also a great time to appreciate the lovely works already made in our fandom! So, please consider digging up posts that would fit into this event from the past and tagging this blog so that they can be shared anew!

What is allowed?

EVERYTHING!

Art, fic, meta, moodboards, poems! It's all welcome!

Want to do a character study? Awesome!

Make a collage of the kind of wild life the elves might encounter? Amazing!

Want to write a little essay about the ecological impacts of mass migration? Fantastic!

Want to consider what would happen if the Quendi were late leaving, or early? Bring it on!

However, we do ask that you refrain from using generative AI.

Is there a prompt list?

There is no official prompt series for this event. This event to meant to be very laid back where anyone can make what catches their fancy. However, if you appreciate a little more structure to follow please consider:

part 1: 1st - 8th The Great Departure

  • what did leaving look like?
  • how did the Quendi choose to organize themselves?
  • the joys and pains of starting a new adventure in life.

part 2: 9th - 16th Those Left Behind

  • this land of Aman might very well be good and joyous, but what good and joyous things had to be left being?
  • how were those to chose to stay affected but the departure?
  • and yet the elves who stayed must continue living.

part 3: 17th - 23rd Trials on the Trail

  • what amazing things happen while travelling?
  • many elves turned back or were lost, what happened to them?
  • they will catch up, we must keep moving.

part 4: 24th - 31st The End is in Sight!

  • after all this time, the end is insight, how do people feel?
  • how does it feel for those who decided to end their journey early?
  • I am so tired, I think I will lay down, just for a while once we reach Aman.

B2MeM 2025: Basketball Championship

Two basketball conferences have been battling for supremacy for centuries. This March, the madness comes to a head with the B2MEM Basketball Championship.  

Choose your team. Attend the draft and put together a roster that you and your fellow creators can use to go head-to-head with other teams in this year’s championship.

When you sign up, you’ll have a chance to choose a team to ‘coach’. You’ll be asked for your first, second, and third choice.  Each team can have up to five (5) coaches.  

If your first choice is available, you will be assigned to that team.  If that team is already full, you’ll be assigned to your second choice, and so on.

Each team already has a team captain.  Only members of that team may create entries that utilize that character.

Additional characters are available during the draft.  If your team drafts a character, then only your team may use that character – unless you trade with another team. (Your team captain cannot be traded.)

To draft players, each team will need to fill out a form listing your top 20 choices of characters from the roster in order of preference.

The draft will have 14 rounds, giving each team a total of 15 players (captains have already been determined). Should all characters on a team’s list be claimed already, a random character will be assigned.

Drafted characters can only be used by the team that drafts them.

With over 750 named characters in the legendarium, it will still leave over 550 characters which are fair game to any team as substitutions.

There will be a live event where we go through the lists and announce the players drafted by each team. Attendance is optional, and the final lists of drafted players will be sent to each team afterwards.

Each week will consist of two matches – one within your own conference, and one against a team in the other conference, where points are doubled. These matches happen on different days.

Each match will have a theme.  The theme will be announced at the beginning of the week; creations should fit the theme of the challenge and must be posted by the end of the week.

Schedule

Games 1 through 6 run March 1st-9th

Games 7 through 9  run March 11th-17th

Games 10 through 13 run March 19th-24th

At the end of the four weeks, teams will face off after being seeded in their brackets. All teams will play in the championship and have a chance to win!

The winners of these matches will go head to head to determine which conference is the winner of the B2MEM Basketball Championship!

Find full B2MeM Basketball Championship information here.

Sign up for a B2MeM team here.

Daily Prompts

If you don't have time to commit to an event the size and intensity of the Basketball championship, but still want to celebrate Back to Middle-Earth month, don't worry, we've got you covered. And in case you're busy this March, here they are already, so you can get a head start! Just like every year, we've prepared some general prompts to use in March (or whenever else you have time)! This year, it's a list of daily prompts, one for each day of March.
They range from simple prompt words, to more involved activities on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays. If you want to share your creations with us, an Ao3 collection will be available, and you can also tag us on tumblr (@spring-into-arda) and we'll share what you come up with!

Week 1

Optional weekly theme - Community, Fun, First Times
March 1 ‒ Coming home | Reunions | Missing somebody
March 2 – Community Sunday! Comment on a fanwork that was created over 1 year ago | Listen to a podfic | Rec your top 3 comfort fics
March 3 ‒  Chaos | Troublemakers | Out of Bounds
March 4 – Experimental Tuesday! Write a songfic! | Experiment with textiles | Try out an Alternate Universe
March 5 ‒  First Meetings | Games | Connections
March 6 – Meta Thursday! Share your meta/headcanons about a Tolkien character.
March 7 ‒ Audience | Ball | Court 
March 8 – International Womens’ Day! Create, comment, or recommend fanworks featuring women as main characters.
March 9 – Community Sunday! Read and comment on a story about a character you’ve never read about before! | Comment on/reblog art that features the colour purple | Listen to a fan song

Week 2

Optional weekly theme - Test, Struggle, Progress
March 10 ‒ Conflict | Exploration | Windmill
March 11 – Experimental Tuesday! Write a poem | Experiment with a monochrome palette | Compose a short piece of music
March 12 ‒ Difficult Decisions | Darkness | Defense
March 13 – Meta Thursday! Share your meta/headcanons about a place in Tolkien’s world.
March 14 ‒ Build up | Challenge | Block
March 15 ‒ New Horizons | Negotiations | Now or Never
March 16 – Community Sunday! Comment on a fanwork featuring poetry | Comment on/reblog art that doesn’t include people | Share your favourite trinkets that remind you of Tolkien’s works
March 17 ‒ Survival | Back-up | Endurance

Week 3

Optional weekly theme - Setbacks, Loss, Resilience
March 18 – Experimental Tuesday! Write a fic without dialogue | Experiment with woodcarving/sculpting/pottery | Try out a new pairing
March 19 ‒ Grief | Comfort | Rebound
March 20 – Meta Thursday! Share your meta/headcanons about an event in Tolkien’s world.
March 21 ‒ Failed Experiments | New Ideas | Recovery
March 22 ‒ Hope | Escape | Trap
March 23 – Community Sunday! Get together with friends for a live-reading session to celebrate Tolkien Reading day!
March 24 ‒ Collapse | Reinvent | Bench

Week 4

Optional weekly theme - Rivalry, Competition, Victory
March 25 – Experimental Tuesday! Record a podfic | Create art that uses 2+ different media | Try out a new genre
March 26 ‒ Shot | Song | Creation
March 27 – Meta Thursday! Share your meta/headcanons about a culture in Tolkien’s world.
March 28 ‒  Dunk | Hide & Seek | Water
March 29 – Theft | Emotions | Journeys
March 30 – Community Sunday! Tell us about your favourite part of Tolkien | Tell your favourite fan creators what you enjoy about their work | Say thank you to somebody who has made your fandom experience better in the last year
March 31 – Triumph | Hunt | Travel