Around the World and Web

Call for Papers: Popular Culture Association Conference Tolkien Studies Area

This year's Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association (PCA/ACA) Conference will be held in Seattle, April 13-16, 2022. Paper proposals are being accepted through November 15, 2020. Note that PCA/ACA offers a dedicated Tolkien Studies area!

The Tolkien Studies Area (TSA) welcomes proposals for individual papers, paper sessions (with four proposals), and roundtables (with five-seven participants) in any area of Tolkien studies. All PCA sessions are scheduled in 1.5-hour slots. Individual presenters should plan for fifteen minutes to present, and roundtable participants should plan for 5-7 minutes each.

We welcome scholars in all period specializations, from any disciplinary perspective, including interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary, and using any critical theory. Tolkien studies includes but is not limited to: the Legendarium, adaptations and transformative works, reader reception and fan studies, source studies, literary studies, critical race studies, cultural studies, tourism studies, medieval and medievalist studies, media and marketing, religious studies.

Academics, independent scholars, and graduate students are invited to submit through the online submission page. At this time, we are not accepting proposals from undergraduate students.

The Tolkien Studies area page has more information on how to submit a proposal.

Comfortween Prompts Open

There will not be new prompts this year as mods have been busy, but we would like to repost last year's if anyone would like to use them this year! There is a Ao3 Collection for posting to! This is a casual thing, do as many or as few as you would like. Post them out of order! Put your own spin on them! This is just for fun. You can find the Comfortween prompts here.

Tolkien Society Autumn Seminar: Translating and Illustrating Tolkien Registration Open

Tolkien’s appeal has led to his fiction and non-fiction being translated into over fifty languages. The art of translation is immensely complex and when discussing the Dutch translation of The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien himself saw the task as “formidable”, offering his own supportive intervention to achieve a satisfactory result. The author’s invented names and languages prompt the question of how the translator should approach Tolkien’s immense mythology. Recent scholarship has emphasised the need for a wider range of Tolkien’s work to be translated in order for readers to gain a fuller understanding of Arda and the author’s development. But with a wealth of translated texts existing already, this seminar hopes to spark new interpretations about old texts and for unacknowledged translations to be brought to light and examined.

An illustrator of his own work, Tolkien had a keen eye for the visual representation of a text. He admired the work of illustrators such as Pauline Baynes, Cor Blok and Ingahild Grathmer (the Queen of Denmark) and others who illustrated the original English and translated versions of his texts. The manner in which illustrators have engaged with Tolkien’s stories varies dramatically and can often be influenced by culturally specific ideas. This seminar hopes to re-examine renowned illustrations of Tolkien’s work while calling for new or overshadowed illustrations to be discussed.

Registration is free for this online seminar, which will be held on 6 November 2021.

Teitho Contest September/October Challenge: Fruit

The Teitho challenge for September and October is Fruit.

How will you choose to approach this month’s prompt? Summer’s bounty in the Shire? A harvest meal with Tom Bombadil and Goldberry?

Or does your story follow the fruit of the vines and the vintages of Old Dorwinion that make their way to cellars in Middle-earth?

Or will you take us all the way back to Valinor, to the fruit of the Two Trees. Or perhaps Isildur’s brave action of stealing a fruit from Nimloth the Fair, the White Tree of Numenor.

Fruit can have other connotations as well: the fruit of one’s labours, an idea or concept coming to fruition, the satisfaction of a fruitful life.

Whatever path you choose we wish you fruitful endeavors with this month’s story!

Remember submissions are due by October 31. Please email them to teitho.contest@gmail.com.

LOTRO Coupon Code for Free Quest Packs

Get caught up just in time for the upcoming Lord of the Rings Online (LOTRO) Fate of Gundabad Expansion with a special coupon Code that will let you acquire all currently-available quest packs permanently on your account(s)! However, you will need to act quickly, as this Coupon Code is available to redeem through November 30th, 2021.

The coupon code and a list of quest packs included is available on the LOTRO site.

Finwëan Ladies Week

This is a week-long event on Tumblr celebrating the ladies of the line of Finwë! There have been events within the Silmarillion fandom focused on the sons of Finwë and their descendants, and to add to the fun this week was established to give his wives, daughters, and other female descendants their own time to shine. We are back for our third year, from October 4-10, 2021!

Any content and creations about the ladies of Finwë’s line are welcome! You can create edits, gifs, fanart, fanfic, fanmixes, and more! Please tag your posts with #finweanladiesweek AND @ mention this blog @finweanladiesweek so they can be easily found. If your submission turns into a long post, please put what you can beneath a “Keep reading” divider.

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 Galadrield
DAY FOUR: Later Generations
DAY FIVE: Ladies Who Married In
DAY SIX: Original Characters
DAY SEVEN: Freeform

October Challenge at tolkienshortfanworks

The October Challenge at the tolkienshortfanworks community on Dreamwidth has been posted. (New members are very welcome to join the community.)

The thematic prompt is Apple.

The formal challenge is to write a piece in blank verse. either unrhymed iambic pentameter (the most common kind of blank verse in English) or other similar unrhymed metre.

(For  bonus quotation prompts and more details on the challenges, see the linked Dreamwidth post.)

Fall for Tolkien: Scribbles & Drabbles

Scribbles & Drabbles (Fall For Tolkien):

An autumn exchange pairing artist with writers, with lower minimum requirements.

Artist Sign-ups end on September 25th

What counts as art? If you say it's art, it's art. Digital art. Drawings. Paintings. Music. Playlists. Mood boards. Animations. Toilet paper tube Elves. Cosplay. Your pet in cosplay. Photos. Crafts. Calligraphy. Maps. Food. Finger-painting. Sculpture. Paper Bag Puppets. I could keep going, but you get the idea. As the name 'scribbles' implies, you can submit your piece as 'unfinished' -- just think of how much Unfinished Tales has inspired people to create content.

Author & Beta Sign-ups are now open! Author sign-up end October 3rd.

What's the minimum word count? 100 words. As the name 'drabbles' refers to, your submissions need only be 100 words minimum to count. You can write a drabble, a scene, a character study, a dialogue exchange, a headcanon, a poem--you get the idea. And like the art, your piece is as 'finished' as you feel like it needs to be.

There is a website on Weebly (linked),  an AO3 collection, and a Discord.

More details and the schedule at the linked website.

Half-Elven Week starting on Tumblr on 13 September

Half-Elven Week will run 13 to 19 September on Tumblr, a week to appreciate Tolkien’s half-elven characters (characters who have the blood of elves and some other race, no matter if they are called so in the canon).

Characters and themes as prompts by day of the week:

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

- 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

- book-related content is preferred, but movie content is still welcome

More details at the linked post.

September Challenge at tolkienshortfanworks

The September Challenge at the tolkienshortfanworks community on Dreamwidth has been posted. (New members are very welcome to join the community.)

This month, both parts of the challenge are in honour of Bilbo's and Frodo's birthday on 22 September.





The thematic prompt is based on Bilbo's farewell party: your piece must either contain mention of the

number 144 or the word "gross" (in any sense of that word).



The formal challenge is to write a piece based on any of the verse forms used by Bilbo, from any of Tolkien's works, whether simpler or more intricate–as, for example, I sit beside the fire, Attercop, Earendil, the Bath Song, or any others you can think of.

(For more details on the challenges, see the linked post.)