New Challenge: Epic 80s
This month's challenge features hundreds of fresh prompts from the bodacious decade of the 1980s.
Founded in 2005, the Silmarillion Writers' Guild exists for discussions of and creative fanworks based on J.R.R. Tolkien's The Silmarillion and related texts. We are a positive-focused and open-minded space that welcomes fans from all over the world and with all levels of experience with Tolkien's works. Whether you are picking up Tolkien's books for the first time or have been a fan for decades, we welcome you to join us!
New Challenge: Epic 80s
This month's challenge features hundreds of fresh prompts from the bodacious decade of the 1980s.
Cultus Dispatches: Communities Do Comment
Comment data from the SWG underscores community as an essential component to a robust commenting culture.
Instadrabbling Sessions for July, August, and September
Instadrabbling continues on the first Saturday of each month on our Discord server.
New Challenge: Scavenger Hunt
In this Matryoshka-with-a-twist, you will solve clues that point you to the challenge prompts.
[Writing] Is it raining with you? by AdmirableMonster
In the last days of Númenor, two very different men meet in Umbar and fall in love.
(Please note that while this work is heavily inspired by Disco Elysium, no knowledge of the game is necessary to read the fic!)
[Writing] Nasyalossë by Lovimmy3365
Erestor lay up against a tree, brown washed to black in the wet of the snow. The black disc of the new moon sailed across the dark sky. Erestor wished it were gone. He had no need to look into dark eyes any longer.
He was dying.
(AKA Erestor unwittingly travels back in time to the…
[Writing] From That Rubble by StarSpray
Fëanor shrugged, studying the contents of his wine glass. “Something must be done about that house. It will fall down eventually.”
“It does not follow that it must be you that tears it down single-handedly. Are you sure you do not want help?”
“It’s not as though I…
[Writing] Eä's Redemption by AaronAzrael
This is my new poetical attempt to add my own interpretation to Tolkien's Cosmology as to Eru's Creation and the Valar's minds and behind-the-scene providence reasons and mechanisms.. I often review Eä as part of our own world, just in another dimension, this is why I have always seriously…
[Writing] Wrensong and Roses by Isilme_among_the_stars
Concerned by his responses to the paraphernalia of healing, Fingon steals Maedhros from his room for an impromptu garden excursion. Maedhros battles with dark thoughts.
[Writing] The Mirror Crack'd by AdmirableMonster
Rescued from a brutal Angband hunt, an ex-thrall with a strange and powerful artifact embedded in his spine is brought to Himring, for it is one of the only places in Beleriand which welcomes such folk. Though he has no memories of his life before, Anniavas slowly becomes accustomed to his new…
[Writing] Bon(e)fire by Fuin
On the night before the battle, Caranthir and his ally share thoughts about their peoples' traditions:
Burning bones ward off evil.
Epic 80s
Create a fanwork using on of our righteous prompts based on popular culture from the 1980s. Read more ...
Laws and Customs
Place the a law, custom, or tradition of Middle-earth as the focus of a fanwork. Read more ...
Communities Do Comment: Expanding the 3C's of Commenting with SWG Data by Dawn Walls-Thumma
Expanding on my 2018 article "Why People Don't Comment," comment data from the SWG underscores community as an essential component to a robust commenting culture.
Fandom Draws the Line: Fanworks, AI, and Resistance by Dawn Felagund, Grundy
By definition, fanworks fandom does not draw a lot of boundaries, but community archives and events have taken a strong stance against AI-generated fanworks due to ethical considerations and member input.
Grief, Grieving, and Permission to Mourn in the "Quenta Silmarillion" by Dawn Walls-Thumma
In a book as full of death as the Quenta Silmarillion, grief and mourning are surprisingly absent. The characters who receive grief and mourning—and those who don't—appear to do so due to narrative bias. Grief and mourning (or a lack of them) serve to draw attention toward and away from objectionable actions committed by characters.
[Writing] Down the Long Years by Isilme_among_the_stars
Bilbo, the strange old hobbit with the wandering feet, senses something special in young Frodo the first time he sees the lad; as they become close, they find in each other a cameraderie not well understood by other hobbits. Five poignant moments between Bilbo and Frodo Baggins over the course…
[Artwork] The Mirror of Galadriel by skywardstruck
Smoke rises from the Mirror, where the Lady of Lothlórien awaits to share its visions.
[Writing] Bar-en-Eladar by Gabriel
Out of the shadow, light is born anew.
A Chieftain is dead. And whilst the events surrounding his death are unclear, a son tries to come to terms with his loss.
Tolkien Gen Week 2026
Tolkien Gen Week will run from July 6-12, 2026 to appreciate all of the incredible characters and relationships within Tolkien’s legendarium that fall under the broad category of “gen.”
Tolkien Disability Pride 2026
This Tumblr event focuses on ALL creative works focusing on disability in Tolkien's universe.
Scribbles and Drabbles 2026
Scribbles & Drabbles is a fic and art exchange with a minimum word count of 100 words.
Use the generator below to develop a random prompt for our Gnome Tome challenge! Click each button to roll a random prompt. Loathe your result? Click again to reroll as many times as you want.
Site © Dawn Felagund
Logo © Bunn
All copyrights for creative work hosted on this site are retained by their creators.
This site is built using Drupal and the theme W3CSS.
Characters and stories associated with J.R.R. Tolkien's works remain the property of his estate. Creative work using this material has been written solely for the enjoyment and enlightenment of its creator and their associates. No profit is made on the materials shared on this site.
This is a splendid mix of…
This is a splendid mix of prompts!
170 of them! :D Thank you!
170 of them! :D Thank you!
I agree with you! This is a…
I agree with you! This is a great idea!
Excited about this. I…
Excited about this. I finally got my copy of NoMe earlier today. (I realize one does not need it to participate but am happy to finally feel like I can catch up!) I picked something related to Melian that I can use in a story. Hooking up my new monitor also today. So I feel like I just got rescued from a desert island.
Woohoo! I'm excited for you…
Woohoo! I'm excited for you and will be sooo glad to have you back! This weekend, I am tying up some loose ends, SWG-wise, that I started over the summer and had to let go once the busyness of moving + starting back to school set in, which got me wondering how you were doing, but knowing you were working on a small screen, I didn't want to bug you. And about an hour later, this comment appears! I promise give you some time to enjoy your new monitor and rejoin the world before I start pestering you about the bio again. :D I'm planning on writing Osse this month.
I have about 20 pages left in the NoMe and really need to do a more detailed reading again, taking better notes and doing more text-to-text comparison and all that ... but overall, I found it a really fun book. It felt totally different to me than the HoMe books, even though I saw it described in some places as a "13th HoMe"--perhaps what the HoMe might have looked like if CT wasn't so concerned with consistency.
I found the bit about Melian limiting herself to one child because she didn't want to lose more of her powers to the drain of pregnancy and childbirth extremely intriguing. A woman chooses career over children! It might be enough for me to forgive Tolkien for what was to come later in the book. ;)
I found the bit about Melian…
That is exactly what ensnared me and made me want to try to write a short something!
I could barely stand to be online on my tiny laptop. Now I can breath again. Basically, updating all my programs on big old computer and looking at the photos I took this summer. (I take photos so I can look at them on a big monitor and see what I have done and where I have been!) I bought a new keyboard too. That means I can type better also. (Not promising that will eliminate all typos!) I am getting ready to look at where I was on Maedhros when this all started!
Osse should be a terrific bio. Don't set the bar too high for me and make get writers block!
I am so happy you are in your new home! What a year. But it looks beautiful and pristine!
I suspected that's the bit…
I suspected that's the bit you found too! I've never been much interested in writing about Melian. That got me.
Enjoy the new computer! This summer, living at the dacha with Internet that was very spotty and stuck doing most of my work on a bed with a laptop (something I've never found comfortable, despite all the stock photos of smiling people happily tapping away on laptops amid their blanket nests), now having a desk again and a bookshelf and Internet that is on way more than it is off feels amazing, so I can only imagine how you feel. I'm psyched for you!
I'll keep the bar low for Osse. :D