Around the World and Web

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

Teitho May/June Challenge: Joker

The time has come for a Joker Theme for May/June!

In a game of cards, you can use the Joker card to replace any other. Now you can pick ANY of our past challenges that stir your imagination and write a story or create art for it!

You can finally write that story you wanted to write for that challenge once but didn't have time for it, or never quite got polished to your satisfaction.

You could even write a story for some of the challenges that Teitho had before you knew about its existence! Or any of our recent ones!

We’d love to see your stories!

Please submit your stories before June 30, 2024, to teitho.contest@gmail.com.

Rules for the Teitho Contest can be found here.

Monstrous May 2024

Monstrous May was first established in 2021, and I've arranged prompts for each May since - for each day of the month of May, there is a prompt involving and invoking the monstrous.

Create art, sculpture, write fiction, poetry, make whatever you feel inspired to! Create for as many or as few days as inspire you, collaborate with friends, and have fun.

Fan creations are just as welcome as original ones, and naturally, erotic and adult creations are as well as SFW ones!

Prompts are available on Tumblr.

Have some questions? Here’s the FAQ from 2021 or ask on Tumblr.

Fellowship of the Fics: Modern AU May

You know what doesn't get enough love? Modern AUs! This event is a trope mash-up of sorts. You (or your followers) can combine an AU setting, character occupation, and dialogue prompt. You have all month to make as many different combinations as you want!

Prompts are available on Fellowship of the Fic's tumblr.

And, of course, don’t forget to send us your fics when you are done so we can put them in our queue using this form!! Happy writing!

May challenge at tolkienshortfanworks

The May challenge has been posted to the tolkienshortfanworks community on Dreamwidth. 
The thematic challenge for May is: name.
Tolkien has some interesting thoughts on naming.
Elves, depending on their background, can have mother names, father names and later given or adopted names, as well as adaptations of their names into other languages. Galadriel has all of these!
Dwarves, depending on the period, may have their own secret internal names and outward-facing names in Mannish languages.
Aragorn and Gandalf canonically both have multiple names, too.
The Quenya word for "name" is also the name of a Tengwa.
The Long List of the Ents has at its core a list of names.

The formal challenge is: acrostic.
This means that the first letters of your lines, sentences, paragraphs or sections should spell a word (or name!).
There is a selection of examples (prose and poetry) from the Tolkien fandom here on AO3.

Acrostics often spell out names or phrases containing names, but they can spell out any other word you like.
Also, as usual for these challenges, you can write about names or write an acrostic entirely independently of each other.
They can also be freely combined with prompts from other challenges, such as SWG's.

More details on the challenge at the linked entry.

New participants welcome!

 

May 2024 Calls for Papers

Oxonmoot 2024

Oxonmoot is an annual event hosted by The Tolkien Society which brings together over 500 Tolkien fans, scholars, students and Society members from across the world. Oxonmoot 2024 will be our 51st, and will be held over four days, from the afternoon of Thursday 29th August until the afternoon of Sunday 1st September, and will be held at St Anne’s College, Woodstock Road, Oxford and Online.

We are pleased to welcome contributions of all types to the programme for Oxonmoot 2024.

The Talks and Papers strand will run through the Friday, Saturday, and Sunday mornings. Papers may be presented in person in Oxford or online via Zoom.

The Call for Papers is now open! Presentations may be submitted here. Deadline to submit a talk or paper is midnight UK time on May 12th.

The Talks and Papers will be balanced by a wide range of other Activities – these could include, but are not limited to, workshops, demonstrations, discussions, games, physical activities, films & videos and social activities – but any and all offers are most welcome. Activities may take place in Oxford, online, or combine both online and in person participation, and may be scheduled alongside the Talks & Papers, or in the Evening (local time) time depending on the nature of the Activity. The Call for Activities will open later in the year.

Participants with questions may contact the Activities Programme Co-Ordinator, or for social activities the Social Programme Co-Ordinator.

See the Oxonmoot 2024 page for more information or to register!

Mythcon 53: Fantasies of the Middle Lands

The Mythopoeic Society’s annual conference, popularly called “Mythcon,” will be held in Minneapolis, Minnesota this year, from 2-5 August 2024. The idea of “middle-ness” can suggest stability—the center of an object is less likely to break than its edges. It can also suggest the opposite: something in a state of change can be said to be “in the middle”—neither one thing nor another. Mythcon 53, located in the middle of the continental U.S., welcomes papers exploring the concept of “middle-ness” as it is worked out in fantasy, science fiction, and related genres. Paper topics can cover a wide range of possibilities, including but not limited to the following:

  • Locations: This could mean the implications of a place name including the word “middle,” such as Middle-earth or Midgard; places in our world that either shape or appear in fantasy such as the English Midlands or Middle America as in Stranger Things or American Gods; or even liminal places that appear in fantasy such as train stations, purgatory, or The Wood Between the Worlds.
  • Characters: the middle child in a family (Arya Stark, Edmund Pevensie); adolescents negotiating that in-between space (Luce in The Owl House; Ged in Earthsea); individuals or people groups who are a mix of others (Tolkien’s Númenóreans; Percy Jackson).
  • Textual middle-ness: intertextuality, genre-crossing, multiple media, even the middle books/movies of a trilogy (The Empire Strikes BackThe Two Towers).
  • Authors: considering the location of the con, Midwestern authors and scholars such as Tim O’Brian, Jack Zipes, Lois McMaster Bujold, or Philip Jose Farmer.

We also welcome papers on the work of either of our Guests of Honor, Brian Attebery and Eleanor Arnason. Because this conference is happening in conjunction with Diversicon, a multicultural, multimedia event dedicated to improving contacts among groups and individuals interested in speculative fiction, we are also interested in papers on their traditional Posthumous Guest, who this year is L. Frank Baum. And, as always, we welcome papers focusing on the work and interests of the Inklings (especially J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, and Charles Williams), and other fantasy authors and themes. Papers from a variety of critical perspectives and disciplines are welcome.

Each paper will be given a one-hour slot to allow time for questions, but individual papers should be timed for oral presentation in 40 minutes maximum. Panels are also welcome, and both papers and panels may be presented virtually or in person. Paper abstracts of no more than 300 words, along with contact information, should be sent to the Papers Coordinator at papers@mythcon.org by May 15, 2024. Please include your A/V requirements and the projected time needed for your presentation. If your programming interests are more in line with Diversicon’s focus (see http://www.diversicon.org/), then please send your proposal to scottl2605@aol.com.

Additional Links:
Mythcon 53 Conference Page
Mythcon 53 Registration

German Tolkien Society Seminar: Tolkien and His Editors

Tolkien, in paratextual parts of his main work The Lord of the Rings, introduced himself as the editor and translator of the Red Book of Westmarch. A similar conjecture can be found in Farmer Giles of Ham, which comes with a scholarly preface and purports to be the translation of a medieval manuscript. These rather playful examples should be set alongside the real-world editors of Tolkien’s works. In his will, Tolkien made his youngest son Christopher (1924-2020) his ‘literary executor’ with “full power to publish edit alter rewrite or complete any work of mine which may be unpublished at my death or to destroy the whole or any part or parts of any such unpublished works as he in his absolute discretion may think fit and subject thereto” (official copy of Tolkien’s will, 23 July, 1973). Until his death (16 January 2020), Christopher actively fulfilled his role as ‘literary executor’ and edited and made available to a wide audience countless texts from Tolkien’s estate – and thus strongly influenced the perception and understanding of the works already published during Tolkien’s lifetime. Above all, The Silmarillion (1977), which he edited and, as was established in retrospect (Kane 2009), was heavily modified by him, had a major influence on Tolkien research.

In addition to the central figure of Christopher Tolkien, who could have celebrated his 100th birthday in 2024, the roles of the editors Stanley and Rayner Unwin, the biographer Humphrey Carpenter (BiographyLetters), the student and later colleague Alan Bliss (Hengest and Finn), the daughter-in-law Baillie Tolkien (The Father Christmas Letters) or the Elvish Linguistic Fellowship should also be examined.

The aim of this seminar is to bring together researchers from different disciplines to explore the various questions and problems posed by the publication of Tolkien’s work.

Possible starting points for presentations would be:

  • Christopher Tolkien (1924-2020) as ‘co-author’ of Tolkien’s work
  • Censorship and restriction: the search for the ‘true’ Tolkien biography
  • Tolkien’s posthumous academic work
  • The publication of the works on the Elvish (and other) languages
  • Access to and handling of Tolkien’s manuscripts and notes in the Bodleian and the Marquette

The 20th Seminar of the German Tolkien Society is supported by Walking Tree Publishers and will take place in a hybrid format at the RWTH Aachen from 11-13 October 2024. 

Interested applicants are requested to send a short synopsis (no longer than one page) and a short biography as well as their preference (attendance in person or online presentation) to Thomas Fornet-Ponse by 31 May 2024: hither-shore@tolkiengesellschaft.de

See the full call for papers here.

Signum University Regional Moots

These small, regional conferences are held at various dates and locations. See the Regional Moots page for more details.


Many thanks to Robin Anne Reid and her Online Conference Project for handily compiling this information on a regular basis!

Angbang Week 2024

 

Welcome one and all to the third annual Angbang appreciation event! Angbang Week will run 6-12 May 2024 on Tumblr.

We will be accepting any and all original creations for the upcoming event - visual, written or auditory, which is including but not limited to fanfiction, poetry, art both traditional and digital, playlists or other musical creations, moodboards, and anything else you may come up with. So long as they're new, or as of yet unpublished, created by you and feature Angbang, we want to see them and feature them!

Prompts

  • Day 1 - May 6th: Scars | Injuries*
  • Day 2 - May 7th: Haste | Malice
  • Day 3 - May 8th: Spying | Shapeshifting
  • Day 4 - May 9th: Mountains | Iron
  • Day 5 - May 10th: Fire | Lava
  • Day 6 - May 11th: Order | Chaos
  • Day 7 - May 12th: Prompt of choice from the previous weeks**

*We are aware of the nature of the first prompt. Due to this, we do ask that in addition to all relevant tags, you add the correct tag of either "scars" or "injuries" to your work on day 1 should you choose to post it, especially the latter, so that people could filter it out. We will likewise add relevant tags to works featuring these prompts so that anyone may filter it out if they so wish.

**As you've noticed, this year's final "free" prompt is a bit more restrictive, and would encourage using one of the prompts from previous years, found here and here. One of them is free space, but we do encourage using one of the non-day-7 ones if you can.

Like in the previous years, we encourage you to pick whichever prompt you like better of the two offered that day (you can also wait for another day if you don't like either prompt, or combine the two if you prefer, or even make content for both prompts if you're really looking for a challenge / prefer not sleeping during the month of May, whatever you like). Once you've picked a prompt and made content for it, use the current year's Angbang Week tag, which is either #AngbangWeek2024 or #Angbang Week 2024, or tag this blog directly when posting your prompt for us to reblog it. Try not to post it before the event starts (you can queue up specific posts for specific days to help with that), do not worry about being late, and most importantly, enjoy! No need to stress yourself out over silly ship stuff.

For any additional questions, requests, or additional clarification regarding anything event-related, feel free to send an ask or a DM at anytime!

Tolkien Ekphrasis Week 2024

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.

For example: "Day N. Art form: Metalwork. Formal prompt (writing): Epistolary format. Formal prompt (visual art): Mixed media. Thematic prompt: Trade and cross-cultural connection."

If you miss the day, or are desperate to create work about some form of art not included in the prompts, don't worry! Posting amnesty/prompt free-for-all day will be June 17, and posting here and in the AO3 Collection will be open for a year from June 10, 2024.

How it works: Prompts are currently being posted! Participants will have slightly more than two months to create whatever sort of art they like inspired by one or more of those prompts. Then, no later than June 9 at 5 PM PST, they will post their works to the AO3 Collection (linked above), tagged with the appropriate day. The mod will do a quick check, and then the week of reveals will begin. During the week of June 10-June 16, pre-posted fanworks will be revealed daily according to theme (see calendar) in the AO3 Collection and reblogged on Tumblr. On June 17, anyone who missed the deadline will have an opportunity to post their late works and have them celebrated on Amnesty Day.

In short, the timeline is:
- Read prompts starting March 17.
- Create!
- Post tagged work to AO3 before June 9 deadline.
- Enjoy daily reveals between June 10 and June 16.
- 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 that have aired (so yes to Rings of Power, no to the yet-unreleased Rohan animated series), 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, 2024: Submit all works to the AO3 Collection by this date

June 10-16, 2024: Reveals

Housekeeping

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

Prompts will also be posted 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 Tolkien Ekphrasis Week Dreamwidth post.

Links

Tumblr Blog | Dreamwidth Community | AO3 Collection | FAQ

Teitho April/May Challenge: Quotes

Teitho is a monthly fanfiction contest. Our April/May prompt uses the source material directly for inspiration. Choose any of the following quotes as inspiration for your story.

1. From The Silmarillion: “the deeds that we shall do shall be the matter of song until the last days of Arda.”

2. From The Hobbit: “There is nothing like looking, if you want to find something. You certainly usually find something, if you look, but it is not always quite the something you were after.”

3. From The Lord of the Rings: “All’s well as ends Better!”

What thoughts and feelings do these quotes inspire? They may come from different books and from different characters, but they can encompass many moments from Tolkien’s legendarium.

The tales of Beleriand may have inspired song but so did the events of the Last Alliance, the search for the Entwives, the destruction on the One ring, the ride of the Rohirrim.

Many characters find something on their adventures—it could be an object but sometimes it’s a secret, unexpected information, or even something they learn about themselves.

Perhaps you would like to write about the moments those words reference? What did Mandos think of Fëanor’s words? Fingolfin? The Noldor gathered in that place?

There is no requirement to use the quote directly in your story but you are free to do so, if you like.

We are excited to read your submissions! Please email your stories to teitho.contest@gmail.com by May 31!

Find more about Teitho here.

Forgotten Ground Regained: Call for Submissions

The Fall issue of Forgotten Ground Regained is open for submissions. I am especially interested in poetry that explores themes of love, devotion, and desire – themes that are, thus far, relatively sparsely represented in modern English alliterative verse. Submissions should be sent to Paul D. Deane at the following email address: pdeane [at] alliteration.net.

Requirements

  • Submissions must be in modern English, but authors should feel free to submit poems that take advantage of the diction, rhythms, and syntax of particular language varieties and communities. I do not discriminate against Scots, Appalachian English, Black English Vernacular, Indian English, or any other language variety, though I do ask that authors be prepared to supply notes to explain any terms or expressions that outsiders to their communities may not readily understand.
  • Submissions should make skillful, systematic use of alliteration in ways that use alliteration to reinforce the rhythm and connect important ideas. Overall, I prefer poems that have the strongest impact on readers when they are read aloud. I therefore encourage authors to include links to audio or video versions of their poems in their submissions.
  • I would love to see people experimenting with modern English versions of Old and Middle English alliterative verse, with Old Norse forms like ljoòahattr and drottkvætt or modern Icelandic rimur, or with new alliterative forms designed to highlight modern English rhythms and speech patterns. While my first preference is what traditional scholarship calls alliterative-accentual verse, I am also open to alliterative free verse or to alliterative versions of traditional forms, such as the ballad, as long as the alliteration is clearly a structural rather than a decorative feature of the form. 
  • I am open to work both by contemporary poets and to projects that would normally be considered to fall outside the literary mainstream, such as speculative poetry, SCA Bardic Arts projects, and fan fiction.
  • There is no hard upper length limit, though poems more than five to six pages in length are likely to be published separately on the website, with links provided from the Fall issue, rather than being included directly in the pdf magazine. Note that I love both both the lyrical and the narrative turns in poetry, so longer narratives will be given careful consideration.
  • Please submit your poem in the body of your email. I will not open attachments.

Submissions for the Fall Issue must be received by September 15th, 2024.

WIP Big Bang 2024

The WIP Big Bang has one goal in mind: to clean out your fanfic drafts folder. These are stories that were unfinished for whatever reason, that authors returned to and completed, and the art that goes with them!

Schedule

All times are by 11:59pm PST. Convert time zones.

Sign-ups Begin- April 15th
Sign-ups Close- May 21st
Check In #1- May 22nd
Check In #2- June 15th
Snippets Due- July 1st
Art Claims Begin- July 17th
Check In #3- July 22nd
Check In #4- August 6th
Rough Drafts Due- August 15th
Posting Claims Begin- August 23rd
Posting Claims Ends- September 1st
Final Drafts/Art Due- September 7th
Posting Starts- September 8th

FAQ | 2024 WIP Big Bang Sign Up

Tolkien Reverse Summer Bang (TRSB) 2024

First conceived in 2018, the Tolkien Reverse Summer Bang (or TRSB!) is a Tolkien-fandom-wide event celebrating the talent of our fanwork creators. At its core, the event is about bringing together the artistic side of our fandom with the literary talents it possesses, creating bridges between the separate areas of fandom experience for the enjoyment of all. During the late spring, signed up artists submit fan art pieces in progress or finished, which is then posted anonymously in our Gallery. The Gallery is open to the pool of writers who have signed up for the event only. Each writer is then invited to claim a piece of art to write for; the minimum word count is 5000.

We are open to all characters, genres, ships and ratings, and all canons that fall under the Tolkien fandom umbrella. This includes movieverse (i.e. the LOTR and Hobbit trilogies), lesser known works by Tolkien (such as The Father Christmas Letters), and/or other works with a clear link to his life or creative output (for example, Tolkien’s translations and academic texts, the 2019 Tolkien biopic, fan-made films like Born of Hope, and game canons such as Lord of the Rings Online). Crossovers between two or more Tolkien canons are permitted.

When we started this event, one thing we absolutely agreed on was our desire for maximum inclusivity. In practice this means that:

  • We encourage participation from all sections of the Tolkien fandom, whether you prefer bookverse, movieverse, game canon, smaller canons, or Tolkien’s academic papers.
  • Fan creators should ALL feel safe and able to join in, regardless of experience levels or perceived ability. This means that everybody is welcome, whether they’re a professional artist/writer or a complete beginner, whether they’ve been a fan for decades or fell in love with the films last weekend.
  • As far as practically possible, all styles of art and all types of fic are permitted. We do not set restrictions on genre, style, rating or ship, although we do keep NSFW art submissions behind a lock, for the safety of our younger participants.

Above all, the event is supposed to be fun. Fandom should not be a place of difficulty, conflict and stress. With this in mind, we ask participants to be kind, inclusive, respectful and welcoming at all times.

Schedule

March 17 – 2023 Gallery Opens

The Gallery for 2023 is live at last! Enjoy all the beautiful pieces created for last year’s TRSB!

March 24 – Suggestion Form Opens

This form gives potential authors (or anyone else who wants to play!) the opportunity to suggest characters, places and scenarios they would like to see in the submitted art. We will post a link to the form on our Tumblr blog and here on the website. The answers will feed into a publicly available spreadsheet listing the ideas submitted; artists can peruse this to get inspired!

April 14 – Sign-ups Open

We post links to our sign up form on all the usual platforms. You can then sign up as an artist, an author, a beta, a cheerleader, a pinch hitter, or as two or more of these. Please see the ‘Signing Up’ section of the FAQ for more details on what these terms mean.

May 5 – Artist Sign-up Deadline

May 10 – Discord Server Opens

May 13 – Art Draft Due

Participating art submissions must be sent to the mods by this date to be eligible for the Claims Gallery.
For more details on how to do this, see the ‘Art Submissions’ section of the FAQ. Artists may submit up to two pieces of art, for claiming by two separate authors.

May 17 – Art Preview Opens

Our online gallery will be visible to signed up participants only.  Signed up authors can browse the artworks and see which pieces appeal to their muses!

May 18-19 Discord Art Talks

Repeating the fun from last year, these will be live chats on discord with mod presence – start times to be announced – where we go through the beautiful gallery and admire the work of our artists.

May 20 – Author Signups Deadline

May 25 – CLAIMS – 17:00 UTC

Authors submit a ranked list of the artworks they would like to claim to write fic for. Claims are on a first come, first served basis. One artwork will be allocated to each claiming author in the first instance; the mods will email you to confirm which piece you have successfully claimed and how to get in touch with your artist. See the ‘Claims’ section of the FAQ for more information.

What time is that for me?

TBA – Additional Claims

If a number of artworks are left unclaimed, we may allow authors to claim second and third pieces of art to write for. However, we don’t know until after claims night whether this will be needed, so this is likely to be announced at short notice – keep an eye on the blog and on your emails to avoid missing out.

June 7 – Post-Claims Check-in

The mods will email each artist/author pair to ensure that you have successfully established contact – even if you are not planning on a close collaboration, it is polite to check in with your partner, say hello, and make sure you’re both clear on must-haves and do-not-wants. One person from your pair must respond and confirm that you have done this!

June 16 – Free Rein Art Due

We know some artists like to give their authors as much creative freedom as possible and we have a dedicated collaboration option for this (see ‘Art Submissions’ FAQs). However, this means we require these artists to provide finished art to their authors much earlier than artists who are prepared to be more involved. See ‘Completing the Artwork’ in the FAQs for more details on how this works.

June 28 – Check-in #2

The mods will email each pair to ensure everything is on track. One person from your pair must respond – see ‘Check Ins’ in the FAQ.

June 26 – Check-in #3

The mods will email each pair to ensure everything is on track. One person from your pair must respond – see ‘Check Ins’ in the FAQs.

August 9 – Final Art Due

Artists should share a copy of the final art to their authors – but don’t post it yet!

Don’t email it to the mods.

August 16 – Final Check-in (#4)

Deadline to abandon your fic to a pinch hitter. There will be no penalty for dropping out on or before this date.
As per other check ins, except the mods will be providing instructions about promotional posts (see ‘Promotional Posts’ FAQ for more information). We will also ask you:

  • Whether you have discussed posting logistics with your artist (if you’re embedding art in your AO3 story, for example)
  • Whether you have specific posting needs re publicizing date/time frame (e.g. not wanting us to reblog your art/fic on Shabbat as you will be unable to respond)

August 26 – Art Can Be Posted

August 30 – Final Fic Due In Collection

Authors should post their stories in our AO3 collection with the artwork embedded or linked. (If you are writing a last minute pinch hit we can be a bit flexible with this deadline.)

TBA – Discord Art Reveals Event

September 6 – COLLECTION REVEALS

September 13 – Staggered Tumblr Reblogs Begin

September 20 – Gallery Submission

October 6 – Discord Server Closes

Other Links

Acorns and Oak Leaves: A Year of Bagginshield

Throughout 2024, the Bagginshield community Acorns and Oak Leaves offers monthly prompts to encourage new creations of all kinds (i.e. art, fics, gifs, etc) - but don't worry, there are no deadlines. Pick and choose whatever prompts you like, and be sure to tag the @acorns-and-oakleaves blog on Tumblr so we can share your Bagginshield creations!

Monthly prompts for the Year of Bagginshield can be found here.

Acorns and Oak Leaves also has a Discord server!


Around the World and Web Archive

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

LotR20

LOTR20 (11–17th December 2023) is a week-long event celebrating the Lord of the Rings film trilogy. The event will run from Monday to Sunday, with three prompts for each day. You can choose one or more of these prompts, and you can decide how you'd like to interpret them.

Tag your original works with #lotrweek (not #lotr20) and they will be reblogged here!

Any questions? FAQ list

LOTR20 prompts:

Day 1 (11th Dec): memory | history | home

Day 2 (12th Dec): language | culture | beauty

Day 3 (13th Dec): fear | courage | adventure

Day 4 (14th Dec): friendship | family | loyalty

Day 5 (15th Dec): loss | sacrifice | despair

Day 6 (16th Dec): triumph | healing | hope

Day 7 (17th Dec): free day – 20th anniversary of The Return of the King

Thorin's Spring Forge 2024

Calling all Thorin fans! We are happy to announce that sign ups for Thorin’s Spring Forge (TSF) 2024 are now open! 

What is TSF? TSF is a minibang style event where writers and artists come together to create fanworks centred on Thorin Oakenshield. Fanworks can be based on the book or the movie version of the character. Any pairing or gen are welcome and we look forward to seeing what you create!

You can participate in this event as a:

  • Writer;
  •  Artist;
  •  Beta reader;
  •  Pinch hitter (writer);
  • Pinch hitter (artist).

Explanations of what each of these roles is can be found in our FAQ. You may sign up for more than one role, but there is a maximum of two fanworks per participant (i.e. you may write two fics, or create two artworks, or do one of each). 

Participating authors create a short summary/synopsis of a fic, which is posted anonymously for artists to view and claim. Artists will then create art based on the fic they chose, and authors will write a complete fic (minimum 2,500 words). 

Sign up as a writer

Sign up as an artist

Sign up as a beta reader or pinch hitter

Sign ups for authors and artists will be open until January 5th 11:59 pm EST.

Sign ups for beta readers and pinch hitters will remain open for the duration of the event!

Please be sure to familiarise yourself with our rules and schedule before signing up! 

Questions? Visit our FAQ or contact us via thorinsspringforge@gmail.com, send us ask or DM on Tumblr

We have also opened up a form to submit prompts!

If you are unsure of what you want to write: Check out the submissions.

If you have an idea you want to share: Add something to the form.

Prompt amnesty at tolkienshortfanworks on Dreamwidth

As previously, the December challenge at the tolkienshortfanworks community on Dreamwidth is a prompt amnesty.

Although our challenges don't expire and prompt fills can be posted at any time, this is a special invitation for you to write any idea a prompt may have given you and that you didn't get around to writing, or complete a prompt fill you had started working on, or cross-post something that you wrote for another challenge with one of our prompts in mind and never got around to posting to the community.

Also, you can just pick any previous prompt or challenge that tickles your fancy and recombine prompt elements, too, if you like. 

Check out the linked post for a full prompt list and more details on these challenges.

December 2023 Calls for Papers

Centre for Fantasy Literature Studies: Magic System as the Key Element in Fantasy Worldbuilding

This conference is hosted online on 25th –26th January at 11am (+2 GMT) by the Centre for Fantasy Literature Studies at the Taras Shevchenko Institute of Literature, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine.

How does one choose a magic system for a fantasy world? How do we employ magic to build a dialogue with reality? Fantasy fiction is brimming with magic systems ranging from ritual magic to elemental, from dominating and manipulative magic to the one that is shaped by a dialogue between equals. A magic system in fantasy literature can be defined as a conglomeration of magic sources, manifestations, practices and implements that interact with one another and the environment and are employed by magic users to produce an impact on the world at various levels or to create an illusion of such an impact in accordance with the in-universe laws. You are invited to participate in a conversation about the principles of magic system modelling and functioning in fantasy fiction. Issues to be discussed include but are not limited to:

  • Magic systems in fantasy short stories / novels / series / worlds;
  • Magic systems typology within one world or at the metagenre level;
  • Magic systems in action: sources, mechanisms, implementations, potentials and limitations;
  • Magic systems as a space for creative experiments and collaboration between
  • the author and the reader. Magic systems and fandoms;
  • Magic system analysis through the prism of poetics, genre, narrative theory, etc;
  • Correlation of fantasy magic systems with contemporary social, psychological, political concerns (gender, postcolonial, environmental studies, etc.).

Proposals are accepted till 10th January 2024.

To submit a proposal, please fill in the form.

Languages: English and Ukrainian

25-minute presentations will be followed by 5-minute discussions

Tolkien at UVM 2023: The Psychologies of Middle-earth

This hybrid conference will be held 13 April 2024 at the University of Vermont.

This is our 20th annual conference. The theme is The Psychologies of Middle-earth. We are excited to have Dr Sara Brown as our keynote!

Please submit abstracts (150 words) to Dr. Chris Vaccaro (at cvaccaro@uvm.edu) by the deadline of January 15th 2024. The registration fee is $25 and covers breakfast and lunch and helps to pay for our tech support for the virtual modality.

Abstracts can cover various applications of psychology including myth, religion, art, sexuality, world building, race and ethnicity, feminism, queer theory, class consciousness, ideology, PTSD, trauma, desire, disability, and much more.

Proposals Due: January 15, 2024

Note that SWG members often attend this conference! Message Dawn if you are thinking of attending and want to meet up.

Mythmoot X: Homeward Bound

This hybrid conference will be held 22-25 June 2024 at the National Conference Center in Leesburg, Virginia.

Mythmoot annual conference brings together students, fans, staff, and friends of Signum University, the Mythgard Institute, Signum SPACE, and Signum Academy. Our online and in-person completely hybrid event combines the best of scholarship and friendship in four glorious days.

The call for papers for this conference has not been posted yet. The conference webpage is here.

Signum University Regional Moots

These small, regional conferences are held at various dates and locations. See the Regional Moots page for more details.


Many thanks to Robin Anne Reid and her Online Conference Project for handily compiling this information on a regular basis!

"Disability in Tolkien Studies" by Clare Moore

Clare Moore is a Tolkien scholar who works on disability in Tolkien, among other areas. Her annotated bibliography includes a list of scholarship that investigates this topic.

White Oliphaunt Gift Exchange 2023

Welcome! The White Oliphaunt is a Tolkien fandom gift exchange. Similar to a other gift exchanges, everyone who signs up to participate will make and also receive a present from someone else. As with real-life White Elephant exchanges, we encourage-but do not require-gifts to be humorous in nature!

Schedule

  • November 17th: Sign-up forms are open

Use this form to sign up for the exchange!

  • November 30ths: Sign-up forms are closed

Sign-ups close at 23:59 EST

  • December 1st: Assignments are sent via email

As there is currently only one mod, this date is an approximation. If there is a delay, I will be sure to let you know!

  • December 25th: Anonymous posting and last call for dropouts

Starting on December 25th, you may post your gift anonymously. Simply do not tag the recipient of your gift (Make sure you remember to tag them on the 31st!)

  • December 31st: Gift reveal!

Post your gift and tag your giftee! All gifts should be tagged with your giftee’s blog, this blog @WhiteOliphaunt and use the hashtag #WO202 (If you do not wish to have your gift reblogged by White Oliphaunt, please let us know). All gifts MUST be posted by January 1st 23:59 EST

Links

Sign-up Form
FAQ

Tolkien Family Week 2023

Tolkien Family Week is a Tumblr event dedicated to showing appreciation for familiar relationships in Tolkien's work, be it The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, The Silmarillion, or beyond.

Below is a list of non-mandatory prompts to take some inspiration from:

Day One Parent-child relationship - From Lúthien and Dior to Samwise and Elanor, on this day we encourage you to explore the relationships between mothers and fathers and sons and daughters!
Day Two Siblings - Tolkien presents us with many pairs of siblings throughout all the ages of Arda. This day is devoted to relationships between brothers and sisters, such as Fili and Kili or Galadriel and Finrod.
Day Three Extended Family - Cousins, uncles, nieces, grandparents. Family trees goes beyond the traditional household members. Finwë with his numerous grandchildren, Théoden with Éomer and Éowyn - this day is dedicated to them.
Day Four Cut Ties - Families can break apart. Disagreements, rivalries, separation, death - their presence is a never-leaving shadow in Arda. One only has to look at the likes of Fëanor and Fingolfin.
Day Five Found Family - Families can break apart, yes, but at other times, they can also be in found in unlikely places. From kidnap fam to adopted distant cousins, this day is for exploring them.
Day Six Ancestors and their Legacy - Every family has its roots somewhere. On this day we look back to where the great families in Tolkien's works came from and what those ancestors left behind for their descendants.
Day Seven Freeform - Did we forget about something or is there a prompt you want to revisit? Feel free to use this day for any family related content!

The week will run 20th to 26th November 2023 and will be hosted by @tilions and @armenelols. We will operate in a mixture of queued posts and direct reblogs.

Some minor clarifications:

  • Please tag @tolkienfamilyweek and put #tolkienfamilyweek in the first five tags of your post so that we can find it
  • Feel free to send us an ask should your post not be reblogged
  • OCs are welcome
  • All kinds of content is appreciated - edits, art, writing, headcanons, analysis, let your imagination run wild
  • The ask box is open for any remaining questions!

We are looking forward to your creations!

Writing With Color Askbox Is Open!

In the summer of 2014, bookworm Colette Aburime founded WritingWithColor, WWC for short, to help writers add diverse representation of People of Color (POC) to their creative works, with a focus on Western fiction. At the time, the majority white-run advice blogs were unequipped for POC-focused Q&A. Some even banned questions about writing POC outright. 

Having a passion for reading, especially books that actually had a variety of BIPOC main characters, she felt compelled to bridge the gap in the writing advice world. Thus, WritingWithColor was born.

Since then, WritingWithColor has gained over 100,000 followers! We are committed as ever to help writers create more respectful, diverse, and inclusive works. With a changing and ever growing team of diverse moderators, we serve a broader demographic to promote thoughtful representation of marginalized groups that are not one’s own.

Writing With Color opens their askbox during the month of November to aid writers who share their mission. If you'd like to ask a question, start here.

Ainur Secret Santa 2023

This event is there to celebrate all the Ainur across all Tolkien Works (the Silm, Lost Tales, The Hobbit, LOTR)

Upon registering you will be asked to submit your own prompt + additional information regarding your preferences (do not hesitate to be thorough, the more details the better the mod can assign you someone matching you)

The assignment will be done by grouping participants by similarities. 

  • The sign-up open on November 09th and will be closed on November 30th 12am(UTC+01)
  • The ao3 collection will open on January 16th and will remain open until January 26th, Midnight UTC+01
  • The Reveal will happen on January 27th, 3PM(utc+01)
  • If you happen to be unable to post on time please contact the mod and we will arrange a solution.

Rules

  • The total wordcount of your fic should be at least 1000 words.
  • AI generated works are prohibited without exceptions.
  • NSFW, Dead Dove and dark works are accepted, as long as they are properly tagged.
  • One submission by giftee.
  • Play the game and do not spoil the surprise to your giftee.

Additional Links

Sign-Up Form
Frequently Asked Questions
Ask Box

Lord of the Rings Secret Santa 2023

So, it's that time of the year again: time to sign up for the Lord of the Rings Secret Santa exchange! Slash, femslash, het and gen; you can request it all, so why not join in?

2023 is a year of special magnificence for this exchange, as it has now been going for TWENTY years! We'd love to see you join us for this anniversary.

Lord of the Rings Secret Santa has been a traditional exchange since its inception, but we continue to adapt and refine the exchange to best serve all participants. The exchange has been in the form of a prompt meme since 2020.

If you are new to the format, AO3 has a helpful FAQ here.

Timeline (2023)

  • 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 we will do our 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.) We're always open to all the Peoples and Ages of Middle-earth, which means that characters from The Hobbit and The Rings of Power are welcome too!

The Rules (2023)

  1. You will be able to post up to 2 prompts between November 1st and 30th, and we will do our best to make sure at least one of your prompts is filled.
  2. Your fill is due December 31st 11:59 pm Pacific Time (you can check what that is in your time zone here). Please post it to AO3 (and nowhere else, until January 10th).
  3. As a matter of fairness, please make your story more than 750 words (1000 is better).
  4. Once claiming has opened, please only claim a prompt if you plan on actually fulfilling your end of the bargain, and please only claim one prompt at a time. After you have completed your fill, you may claim a new one.
  5. Signing up: the sign up form can be found here (or here if the main link gives you an error message). If you need help with signing up, please don't hesitate to contact the mods at lotrsesa[AT]gmail.com.
  6. Claiming a prompt: use the "Claim" button next to the prompt you want to claim. (You can find open prompts under "Prompts" in the sidebar.) Several people can claim the same prompt. You can also claim a prompt without having submitted any of your own.
  7. It's a good idea to follow us here on Tumblr or join the Dreamwidth community so you can keep track of any admin posts.