Around the World and Web

Jeff LaSala completes blog post series on orcs on Tor.com

As part of his series Deep Delvings into Middle-earth on Tor.com, Jeff LaSala has completed a mini-three series of three blog posts on continuities and change in the portrayal of the orcs in Tolkien's Legendarium and their implications. The first post covered The Lord or the Rings and The Hobbit, the second covered Unfinished Tales and The Silmarillion and the third covers treatment in the History of Middle-earth.

Survey: Sociolinguistics in Fandom

Interested in online sociolinguistics in fandom? Then have we got the survey for you! We were contacted by a researcher at Bellevue College, who asked about boosting their study, so we’re passing this along. The study is about sociolinguistics in online fandom, and really digs into how individuals personally define various fannish terms. There’s a particular focus on shipping and antis, and a portion of the survey is optional and uses trigger warnings for potentially upsetting content around antis and anti discourse.

The number of survey questions vary depending on your answers. People have finished in around 20-30mins, and some have really dug into the optional, long-form questions and have taken an hour! We figure around 30-45mins is a good estimate for length.

For more information:
Project FAQ
Take the Survey

Tolkien Short Fanworks: June Challenge

The tolkienshortfanworks community on Dreamwidth has a thematic prompt and a formal challenge for June.

You can combine the thematic prompt and the formal challenge, but they can be filled entirely independently.



Thematic prompt: the solstice, Mid-Summer, respectively Mid-Winter, as turning points of the solar year.

For Mid-Summer you could also think of Middle-earth equivalents like Loëndë or Lithedays, and perhaps of traditions like bonfires or herbs such as St John's Wort and others.



The formal challenge is to write a a 'dribble' or half-drabble, 50 words, also themed to go with the solstice or half-way through the year.

 

Although you can fill the thematic prompt any way you like, in order to post the fill to the Dreamwidth 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. 

The next challenge will be posted at the beginning of June, but the prompts don't expire and late fills are always welcome!

New participants are welcome. (A Dreamwidth account is required for posts to the Dreamwidth community.)

Tolkien Society Seminar Registration Open

The Tolkien Society Seminar is a short academic conference of both researcher-led and non-academic presentations on a specific theme pertaining to Tolkien scholarship. The theme for this year's conference is "Tolkien and Diversity" and recognizes the growing need for discussion of diversity and representation in Tolkien's works and adaptations of those works.

This year's seminar will be held online via Zoom and livestreamed on the Tolkien Society's YouTube channel on Saturday, July 3rd and Sunday, July 4th. Registration is free, and you can now register on the Tolkien Society website.

"In Memoriam: Richard C. West" by Janet Brennan Croft

A pioneer in the field of Tolkien studies, Richard C. West died in late 2020 of COVID-related causes. Croft's essay reviews West's contributions to the field of Tolkien studies.

Tolkien Lecture on Fantasy Literature with Guy Gavriel Kay

The eighth annual J.R.R Tolkien Lecture on Fantasy Literature, broadcast online from Pembroke College, Oxford on Tuesday May 11th 2021, features fantasy author and Silmarillion collaborator Guy Gavriel Kay with his lecture "Just Enough Light: Some Thoughts on Fantasy and Literature."

(If you didn't know, Kay was instrumental in assisting Christopher Tolkien in compiling the published Silmarillion!)

Tolkien Short Fanworks: May Challenge

The thematic prompt for May is: The old custom of Maying

Associated quotation prompt:

There's not a budding boy or girl this day / But is got up and to bring in May. / A deal of youth ere this come / Back, and with white-thorn laden home. (Robert Herrick Corinna's Going a-Maying)

Associated picture prompt: Arthur Rackham - How Queen Guenevere rode a-maying into the woods and fields beside Westminster.

The formal challenge is to write a zejel.

(You can find a link to the picture and explanation of the zejel form in the linked challenge post.)

Athough you can fill the thematic prompt any way you like, in order to post the fill to the Dreamwidth 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.

The next challenge will be posted at the beginning of June, but the prompts don't expire and late fills are always welcome!

Gondolin Week Runs May 16-23

From May 16-23, Gondolin Week will post Gondolin-related location and character prompts to inspire fanworks about the Hidden City. The goal of this event is to inspire creators to make and share art with the world, to show their appreciation for the works of Tolkien, and for the continued efforts of their peers to keep these worlds alive.

To post your content:

• Post on Tumblr with the tag #gondolinweek2021 or send a submission to the Gondolin Week tumblr.
• Add your fanwork to the Gondolin Week AO3 collection.

A preview of this year's Gondolin Week prompts can be found here.

Multifandom Poetry Fest 2021

This year brings the fifth annual Multifandom Poetry Fest, a prompt fest for poetry for all fandoms! How it works:

1) Leave a prompt in the form of fandom, characters or relationships, prompt. If you don’t want to specify the fandom or characters, you can say "any." One prompt per comment. Leave as many prompts as you like.

2) Reply to other people’s prompts with poems. The poems can be any length or form, or no form. Quality isn’t important--the point is to have fun, not to produce deathless works of art. (Any deathless works of art produced are just a bonus.)

Multifandom Drabble Exchange 2021

The Multifandom Drabble Exchange is an exchange for stories of exactly 100 words. All fandoms are welcome, no matter how small or large, including original works and crossovers. Timelines for each step of the exchange (except matching) is a week, to keep it simple, and there is no punishment for defaulting.

Links

• FAQ
• 2021 Round One AO3 Collection
• 2021 Round One AO3 Tagset
• Information on past rounds

2021 - Round One Schedule

• Nominations: Sunday, April 18 through Saturday, April 24
• Sign Ups: Sunday, April 25 - Saturday, May 1
• Matching: Sunday, May 2 - Saturday, May 15
• Assignments Out: sometime Sunday, May 16
• Assignments Due: Sunday midnight, May 23
• Pinch Hits/Treat Writing: Monday, May 24 - Saturday, May 29
• Collection Opens: Sunday, May 30 (not before 8 a.m. EDT)
• (And Round 2 will start in July — schedule here.)

As in previous rounds, we will keep a loose schedule where nominations and signups close sometime the next morning when we wake up. Assignments due also receive grace by a variable number of hours as we deal with them in the morning when we wake up. There is no guarantee how many hours grace.

Nominations and signups will not close early. Reveals will not happen early. There's a little grace on getting in a late nomination, signup, or your assignment before we start defaulting people. Multifandom Drabble is meant to be a low stress exchange built around the idea of making it easy and fun for you and easy and fun for us.

Complete rules for the Multifandom Drabble Exchange can be found here.