Around the World and Web

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

Ainur Week 2026

Ainur Week will be returning from November 16 to 22, 2026.

Glorthelion Week 2026

𝐖𝐞𝐥𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐆𝐥𝐨𝐫𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐖𝐞𝐞𝐤 𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟔

Hello everyone and welcome to another year of Glorthelion week! An entire week dedicated to Glorfindel and Ecthelion relationship.

The event will run on Tumblr from November 16th to November 22nd. All creations are welcome, as long as it is created by you. Don't forget to tag #glorthelionweek and mention the blog (to make sure I can see your creation in case tags don't work).

Prompts are not mandatory! You can follow them, be inspired by them or let your imagination go wild and create whatever you want! Event rules can be found here.

Prompts 2026:

↳ Day one: A Glance across the Square | The Bells of Festivals | Gifts of the Heart

↳ Day two: Words in the Dark | Following the Star | The Weight of the Sword

↳ Day three: Silver and Gold | Sun and Moon | The Roar of the Waterfall

↳ Day four: Silver Flutes | The Language of Flowers | Water Mirrors

↳ Day five: A Final Glance | Entrusted Secrets | "I will find you again"

↳ Day six: Ashes and Sorrow | Waiting in Mandos | Forever Changed

↳ Day seven: Beyond the Circles of the World | Constellations | The Promise Kept

Happy creating!

Nolofinwëan Week 2026

Nolofinwëan week welcomes fan creations centering any members of the House of Fingolfin and their descendants through the ages. 

Nolofinwëan week welcomes fan creations centering any members of the House of Fingolfin and their descendants through the ages. 

To Participate:

  • Create fanfiction, fanart, headcanons, close readings and musings, moodboards, photography, rec lists or anything else that inspires you to celebrate Nolofinwëan characters. 
  • Mention the blog @nolofinweanweek in your post and include the hashtag #nolofinweanweek2025 in the first 10 tags. 
  • If you would like, add your work to the AO3 collection.
  • Take inspiration from the nonmandatory daily prompts.
  • Complete one or more of the community challenges.

Rules & Requirements:

  • There are no minimum or maximum requirements; anything goes!
  • There are no content restrictions or rules on tagging beyond what AO3 requires of you. If you post to tumblr and your fill is Mature or Explicit, and/or falls under one of AO3’s major warnings, please provide tagging on your post, though!
  • That said, please refrain from using genAI.
  • This fest operates firmly under the premises of ‘don’t like; don’t read,’ ‘ship and let ship’ and ‘your kink is not my kink but that’s okay’ (if you’re unfamiliar with these concepts, see this post). We will not tolerate any shaming, harassment, or attempts to police content.

The mod runs on CET, but folks can post content or interact with the blog at their convenient time.

All prompts are non-obligatory—feel free to interpret as loosely or closely, to cross-match, or to ignore altogether!

Day 1: It Was But a Dream

  • Characters: Turgon, Anairë, Idril
  • Silmarillion Phrase: “poured forth their joy in music and song”
  • Inspirational art:

Amber Fort, Jaipur #1 Photograph by Inger Hogstrom 

Day 2: Breath of Darkness

  • Characters: Elenwë, Argon
  • Silmarillion Phrase: “there was now no returning”
  • Inspirational art:

The Night Is Stirring (Anger) by Zao Wou-Ki

Day 3: Light Splinters the Sky

  • Characters: Eöl, Eärendil, Gil-galad
  • Silmarillion Phrase: “as a naked flame”
  • Inspirational art:

First sunrise by Kimura Buzan 

Day 4: Embraced in the Mist

  • Characters: Fingon, Aredhel
  • Silmarillion Phrase: “green things even among the pits and broken rocks”
  • Inspirational art:

Shan-Shui style painting by Yang Tianyou 

Day 5: Flames Arising in Might

  • Characters: Fingolfin, Maeglin
  • Silmarillion Phrase: “shadows of madness and despair”
  • Inspirational art:

Burning the Slums of Nairobi by Kiure Francis Msangi

Day 6: The Sea’s Embrace

  • Characters: Elros, Elwing, Tuor
  • Silmarillion Phrase: “still hope may seem bright”
  • Inspirational art:

Moon Trace Art Installation by Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts 

Day 7: New Beginnings; Old Longings

  • Characters: Elrond, Celebrían, Peredhil Descendants
  • Silmarillion Phrase: “love would lead me”
  • Inspirational art:

Yesterdays Gone by Thomas Hjelm

14th International Tolkien Mailing Competition

The Hungarian Tolkien Society invites you to join the international “Quendi” category of the Tolkien Mailing Competition: five rounds of quizzes, riddles and creative tasks. This category is organised in English, open to any individual participant, and also to teams of 2–5 people. The five rounds of the competition will last from November to April. Application deadline: 5 November, 2026.

 

The Tolkien Mailing Competition ("TLV" abbreviated from its Hungarian equivalent "Tolkien Levelező Verseny") takes place for the 21st time this year—and it is international for the 14th time. In the first years it was organised only in Hungarian, and only for groups of Hungarian students aged 10–18-years. As many people above this age group became interested in the competition, we launched a separate category for individuals in Hungarian, and at the same time we decided to go international. The outcome was definitely encouraging. In the past few years the international Quendi category had many participants (and for a while even an organiser) from various foreign countries: you can see here the final results of the previous competition.

(Click here for the Hungarian article about all categories.)

In the international Quendi category both the challenges and the communication will be entirely in English—but you don't have to be perfectly fluent in English for taking part in the competition. You only have to be able to understand the texts by Tolkien, and maybe to write a story or an essay—it does not have to be of academic level. The competition was originally devised for middle and high school students, and we did not make big changes in the style, but it is open to anybody who feels young enough for it. You can always choose to count your years by Elvish standards!

Participation in the Quendi category requires a thorough knowledge of The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion. Other works by Tolkien may be needed occasionally, as some questions (riddles, quizzes, etc.) can refer to those, but you will have about four weeks for each round, that is, plenty of time to look up in the books everything you might need.

Besides the quizzes, there will be creative challenges. For example, you may be asked to describe a situation, write a short poem, make a drawing or take a photograph, etc. We would like to be proud of our participants, so we ask you to share the rights of your creative productions royalty-free (and you accept this condition by your registration for the competition). Your works—with due credit to authors/artists—might be published by the Hungarian Tolkien Society, e.g. on our website, www.tolkien.hu, or in our journal, the Lassi Laurië. (You can read about Lassi Laurië in English here.) Please do not publish these works yourself without consulting us first, and especially not before the end of the competition. (Artwork submitted by teams is credited as teamwork by default, but you can add the name of the actual author/artist for each piece.)

You can participate in the Quendi category alone as an individual competitor, or you can participate as a member of a team of 2–5 people. The individual competitors and the teams will receive the same set of tasks, but the winner will be announced separately for individuals and teams.

As an individual competitor, you can make the decision to solve only the quizzes or only the creative tasks in each round: besides the absolute winners of the individual and team subcategories, the separate winners of the lexical and the creative parts will also be announced. This choice is only available for individual competitors, teams are expected to do the full version!

We will go on with the team competition only if we receive at least 5 applications from teams. If we have to cancel the team competition, team members will have the opportunity to compete on their own or to withdraw their application. There is also a maximum limit of 60 competitors (individuals and teams counted together) in the Quendi category (and we got quite close to this limit last year).

The contest starts in November and continues until April. Every month you will receive the questions of the next round (five rounds overall), and you will have to submit your solutions until the indicated deadline (you will have about four weeks for each round). Communication is done via e-mail. Our e-mail address is tlv[at]tolkien.hu: questions and comments are always welcome there. We are happy to answer all your questions about the competition—except disclosing the solutions of the actual tasks.

Not submitting your solutions for two consecutive rounds means quitting the competition.

There will be no prizes in the international category, only the public announcement of your achievement and a certificate sent by e-mail. There is no registration fee, either.

If you want to participate, please fill in this online registration form.

Registration as an individual competitor: choose the “I am competing alone.” option on the form.

Registration as a team: each team member should fill in a registration form separately, choose the “I am a member of a team of 2-5 people.” option, and provide the same team name. We also need a contact person for each team. Please agree on a unique team name and choose a contact person from the team before starting the registration.

You should see an automatic confirmation message after the successful registration, but if you are in doubt about the success of your registration, ask the organisers via e-mail whether they have received your registration or not! You should receive the first round of tasks during the week after the application deadline. If you do not receive it, write to us!

The application deadline is:

5 November, 2026

Tolkien Food Week 2026

Tolkien food week 2026 themes

2nd of November- Dùnedain travel food

3rd Nov- plant-based

4th Nov- hobbit hole recipes

5th Nov - Elven feasts

6th Nov - at the Prancing pony

7th Nov- Dwarven banquets

8th Nov - at the Valar's table 🦅

Fics, recipes, ficlets, art, photos, polls, crack... have fun

These are mere suggestions ofc, you absolutely can post when you want on theme or not 😉

(Headers/banners here if you want)

The White Oliphaunt 2026

Sign ups will open on November 1st, 2026. See the blog linked in this announcement for more details.


Around the World and Web Archive

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

Survey: Asexuality and Aromanticism in Fanfiction

Sidney Garner, a Masters student at the University of Texas at Austin, seeks participants for a survey study about aromantic and asexual fanfiction and how those authors engage with the canon. You do not need to be on the aromantic or asexual spectrum yourself, only write characters in your fanfiction who are. You must be over 18 years of age to participate. Find out more details about participating in the study here.

The Lord of the Rings Secret Santa 2022 Prompt Meme Sign-Ups Are Open

The Lord of the Rings Secret Santa 2022 Prompt Meme sign-ups are open.

Time to sign up for the Lord of the Rings Secret Santa exchange! Slash, femslash, het and gen, fic and fanart; you can request it all.



Lord of the Rings Secret Santa started as a traditional exchange and has been running as a prompt meme since 2020.



This year's timeline (2022):



- Prompt Posting: November 1st to 30th.

- Claiming: December 1st to 31st.

- Collection Open for Posting: December 1st to 31st

- All Fills Due: December 31st.

You will be able to post up to 2 prompts, and the mods will do their 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.) The challenge is open to all the Peoples and Ages of Middle-earth!

Admin posts are made to the Dreamwidth community and can also be followed on Tumblr.

Fills are posted to the collection on AO3. 

More details at the linked post.

 

November challenge at the tolkienshortfanworks community (Dreamwidth)

The November challenge prompts have been posted to the tolkienshortfanworks community on Dreamwidth. 

Here is our thematic prompt and our formal challenge for November:



The thematic prompt is: "spooky" or "eerie".

The formal challenge is "children's or nursery rhyme".



As always, the two prompts can be filled independently, if you wish, or combined with prompts from other challenges.

New participants welcome!

More details on the challenge in the linked post.

Call for Proposals: Tolkien Society Seminar 2023 – The Mighty and Frail Númenor

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 Mighty and Frail Númenor will be held on Sunday 2nd July as a hybrid event at The Hilton, Leeds. This is a free event.

The seminar aims to examine the role that Númenor plays in Tolkien’s legendarium. Although the island was pivotal to the secondary world narrative of the Second Age, it also re-emerged consistently in Tolkien’s writing and thinking from The Lost Road (1936-37), through The Lord of the Rings (1954-55) and The Notion Club Papers (1945), to ‘Aldarion and Erendis: The Mariner’s Wife’ (1965) and other late essays. Númenor, then, is central to the growth of Tolkien’s legendarium and is a catalyst for seismic change in Arda.

Although Tolkien consistently refers to Númenor as the greatest human kingdom, its overwhelming military splendour and grand civilisation mask its frailty, which only grows over time. As is seen with the fractions of the King’s Men and the Faithful, Númenor’s fall may have been inevitable from its conception. However, its legacy in the Black Númenóeans and the kingdoms of Gondor and Arnor evince that its legacy is still somewhat alive after its downfall.

Papers may consider, but are not limited to:

  • Númenor’s historical significance
  • Species, race, and hierarchy
  • Gender
  • Hubris, hamartia, corruption, and manipulation
  • Political tension (internal and/or external to the island)
  • Death and the lust for corporeal immortality
  • Colonialism and post-colonialism
  • Adaptations of Númenor
  • Legacy and posterity in Middle-earth
  • The metaphysics of time and age

The Tolkien Society invites abstract submissions of no more than 300 words, for a 20-minute paper and 5 minutes of questions. The call for papers’ deadline is midnight Friday 13th January 2023.

To submit an abstract for the seminar, please click here. The seminar welcomes papers presented in person and online.

Half-Elven Week, October 10-16

After last year, the Half-Elven Week returns to Tumblr. Half-Elven Week is an event dedicated to appreciating some of Tolkien’s beloved characters. To note – as half-elven, we count all characters who have the blood of elves and some other race, no matter if they are called so in the canon.

This week is organized by @armenelols and @yellow-feathered-faerie and is held on October 10th – October 16th 2022.

Prompts remain the same as last year:

Day 1 - Being Different; Doriathrim - Lúthien, Dior, Eluréd, Elurín, Elwing

Day 2 - The Choice; People of Sirion - Elwing, Eärendil, Elrond, Elros

Day 3 - Heritage; Númenoreans - Elros, his children and descendants

Day 4 - Power; People of Rivendell - Elrond, his children and descendants

Day 5 - Legacy; Princes of Dol Amroth - Galador, Gilmith and their descendants

Day 6 - Loss; Parents of half-elves - Melian, Thingol, Tuor, Idril, Beren, Nimloth, Celebrían, Elros’s wife, Imrazôr, Mithrellas, and others

Day 7 - Freeform

Rules:

- prompts aren’t mandatory, only a source of inspiration

- all kinds of content are allowed - art, fanfiction, headcanons, meta, character analysis, moodboards, fancast, aesthetic, etc.

- OCs are welcome - children of Caranthir/Haleth, Aegnor/Andreth, any elf/other race pair

- tag your work #halfelvenweek and tag us @halfelvenweek so we can find your post

- if you have any questions, asks are open!

October Challenge at tolkienshortfanworks (Dreamwidth)

The  prompts for October have been posted to the tolkienshortfanworks community on Dreamwidth.

The thematic prompt is: "bridge" or "bridges".

These could be real bridges, of which there are plenty in the Legendarium, for example, the ill-fated bridge of Nargothrond or the Last Bridge over the Hoarwell, where Glorfindel left the beryl, or metaphorical bridges that you build or burn.

The formal challenge is "inscription".



The inscription could be on the bridge but, as always, the two prompts can be filled independently, if you wish, or combined with prompts from other sources.

More details on these monthly challenges at the linked post.

Finwëan Ladies Week 2022

This is a week-long Tumblr event celebrating the ladies of the line of Finwë! There have been events within the Silmarillion fandom focused on the sons of Finwë and their descendents, and to add to the fun this week was established to give his wives, daughters, and other female descendants their own time to shine.

Finwëan Ladies Week began in 2019 and has run every year since. We are back for more in our fourth year, this time from September 19-25, 2022!

Any content and creations about the ladies of Finwë’s line are welcome! You can create edits, gifs, fanart, fanfic, fanmixes, and more!

Below are some prompts for each day of the week. They are not mandatory, but they are here to inspire you. This page will lead to a detailed explanation for each one.

DAY ONE: Míriel Þerindë and Indis
DAY TWO: Findis and Írimë Lalwen
DAY THREE: Aredhel and Galadriel
DAY FOUR: Later Generations
DAY FIVE: Ladies Who Married In
DAY SIX: Original Characters
DAY SEVEN: Freeform

This event is being organized by mods Anna @arofili and Elle @elesianne If you have any questions or suggestions, feel free to message this blog or reach out to Anna on their main blog. Anna runs on Pacific Standard Time, and Elle runs on Eastern European Summer Time, so we will be active and modding on those schedules, although you are free to post your content at the time most convenient to you!

For further clarification, check out our about, FAQ, and prompts pages! Happy creating!!

Mobile links are accessible here.

Spook Me Multifandom Ficathon 2022

When the chill winds of autumn rattle the bare limbs of the trees, and dark clouds race across the face of the moon, the veil between worlds lifts to reveal:

The Spook Me Multi-Fandom Halloween Ficathon 2022!

Halloween is the best time of year for reading stories that offer pulse pounding thrills, blood curdling dread and hair-raising horror.

All fandoms are welcome. Stories can be Gen, Het, Slash or Femslash. All ratings are accepted.

Dates to Know:

September 5: Sign ups start.
September 15: Sign ups end.
September 17: Prompts sent out.
October 20: Reminder posted here - please friend if you want to get the reminder.
October 26: Master Post opens, stories are due!

Participants will choose a monster prompt from a list and receive two artwork prompts from the moderators.

Complete Spook Me guidelines can be found here.

Tolkien Short Fanworks September Prompts Posted

Here is our thematic prompt and our formal challenge for September:

The thematic prompt is: "harvest".
The formal challenge is "work song".

As always, the two prompts can be filled independently, if you wish, or combined with prompts from other challenges.

Usual reminder that although you can fill the prompts in any way you like, in order to post the fill to this community or to the related collection on AO3, the fanwork can only have a word count up to 1000 words and must be linked to a Tolkien fandom.
Rec lists and podfics can be posted as fills for thematic prompts, as long as the fanworks concerned meet those conditions.

Also we continue to welcome other pieces unrelated to any challenge, of course, including cross-posts and older stories!

Tolkien Fandom Against Gatekeeping

In anticipation of The Rings of Power bringing new fans to the fandom, this Tumblr blog seeks to stop gatekeeping behavior that has plagued the fandom in the past. Run by longtime SWG member Independence1776, it urges us to "Be like Elrond, kind as summer," when interacting with new and less knowledgeable fans.

The SWG stands with Indy in our opposition to gatekeeping in the Tolkien fandom and continues to welcome fans with all levels of experience with the legendarium and fans who came to the fandom through all means: books, games, films, shows, and other entry points. You can find our reblog of Indy's post here.