Mereth Aderthad 2025

The Silmarillion Writers' Guild Presents Mereth Aderthad 2025 - July 19, 2025, Burlington, VT and online - A celebration of creativity and scholarship inspired by the works of J.R.R. Tolkien. Registration is open!

In July 2005, the Silmarillion Writers' Guild came to life as its original moderators, Dawn Felagund and ford_of_bruinen, invited their friends to a new group intended to serve as a writers' workshop for creators of fanfiction based on The Silmarillion.

This coming July marks the twentieth anniversary of the Silmarillion Writers' Guild, a group that has expanded well beyond its modest origins and now hosts all types of fanworks from hundreds of creators and serves as a resource for information and discussion about the complex work that is the "Silmarillion." As we commemorate twenty years, we seek to bring together the creative and research arms of our group's mission with a daylong hybrid event that celebrates the incredible creative and scholarly responses of our members and the broader "Silmarillion" community.

The event will feature presentations of research and scholarship alongside fiction, art, and other creative responses to the topics addressed. Ideally, each topic will have a research work, a poem or story, and a work of art that respond to the topic and dialogue with each other, along with opportunities for attendees to ask questions and converse with the various creators and presenters.

The Basics

Date: July 19, 2025

Location: South Burlington Library Community Room, Burlington, Vermont, United States and online via Zoom

How to Follow This Event:

All Tolkien fans are welcome to join us as presenters, creators, and attendees! You do not need to be a member of the SWG to participate. How do you want to get involved?

Program 

We are pleased to share the program for presentations of meta and scholarship! Fanworks that will be shared as part of these sessions will be added soon as well. All times are in Eastern U.S. time.

9:00-9:15 Welcome!

9:15-9:45

  • "Cherished antagonist, despised protagonist - a defence of Elu Thingol" by Stella Getreuer-Kostrouch
  • "Elu's decision" by Idrils Scribe
  • "Of Thingol and the Silmaril: A Sonnet" by Flora-lass
  • Featured art Grey by fish

9:45-10:15

  • "The Aromantic in Tolkien" by Shadow
  • "Unexpected Commonalities" by chrissystriped
  • Featured art A Spectrum by Silmalope

10:15-10:45

  • "The Design of Dragons and Doom of the Dwarves" by cloudyhymns
  • Written fanwork by bunn
  • Featured art The Dragons, the Earth and the Dwarves by Varda delle Stelle

10:45-11:15

  • "Gil-galad was an Elven King: Kingship and Personhood in the last High King of the Noldor" by Maglor
  • "Arisen" by Shadow
  • Featured art Banner of Stars by Kai

11:15-11:45

  • "Exile, Ruin and Resistance: Beleriand as Postcolonial Palimpsest" by Dr. Zara Ashkenazi-Khan
  • Story by cloudyhymns
  • Featured art by Navy

11:45-12:15

  • "By Guile Committed: Comparing Tolkien’s Thieves to Beowulf" by Savannah Horrell
  • "Thieves' Triptych" by Dawn Felagund
  • Featured art by bunn

1:00-1:30

  • "Mythmakers vs. the made myths: Exploring a reader’s levels of religious alienation and connection in works about and by J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis" by Acha Rezak (Quente)
  • "Great Stories" by Janeways
  • Song by Zdenka

1:30-2:00

  • "Love, Grief, and Alliterative Verse in Tolkien’s Legendarium" by Paul D. Deane
  • Poem by Zdenka
  • Featured art Fragments of Feelings by Anérea

2:00-2:30

  • "Tolkien, Lunatic Physicists, and Abnegation" by Cynthia (Cindy) Gates a.k.a. pandemonium_213
  • "Lightborn" by Azh, Admirable Monster
  • Featured art by Grundy

2:30-3:00

  • "Twilight, Child Of: Comparisons Between Tinúviel, Lómion, and Undómiel" by JazTheBard
  • Story" by Maglor
  • Featured art Three twilight children for the elven-kings under the sky by sesame

3:00-3:30

  • "How To Make a Star From a Tree: The Science of Telperion and Laurelin" by Zhie
  • "Light of the World" by Shadow
  • Featured art Light of the Two Trees by Anérea

3:30-4:00

  • "'Kidnap Fam' and the Living Legendarium" by polutropos
  • "Lost Stars" by reese
  • Featured art by Tang Wen Xi

Attending Mereth Aderthad 2025 

Mereth Aderthad 2025 is open to both in-person and virtual attendees, and registration for both is free. Registration will remain open through the day of the event, so there is no deadline to register!

When you register for the event, you will be asked to provide a name and email address. While names will not be shared beyond a limited number of event organizers with access to the EventBrite account, we welcome attendees to register under a name they are comfortable using. Fannish pseudonyms are fine!

We will contact registrants only with updates about the event.

Please do not register for the event if you do not plan to attend. Seating is limited at the event venue, and our costs go up for the virtual event as the number of attendees increases. We have the budget for these costs but would rather not spend it on empty seats! Registration is open through the day of the event so if you realize you can join us last-minute, please do!

Likewise, if you register and something comes up that you cannot attend, please cancel your registration. Contact our moderators if you need help doing this.

Travel Resources

The resources below are provided by SWG members and volunteers and are not endorsements of any businesses or services listed.

  • Getting Here:
    • By air: Patrick Leahy International Airport (BTV)
    • By train: Amtrak Ethan Allen Express (New York Penn Station to Burlington) and Amtrak Vermonter (Washington, DC Union Station to Essex Junction via Philadelphia, New York, Connecticut, and western Massachusetts)   

      Note that the Vermonter stops at BWI airport. The following East Coast airports, while not direct stops, can connect to the route via local rail and/or Amtrak: DC National, PHL, EWR, NYC, BOS.
    • By car: I-91N to I-89S or, if traveling via upstate New York, Lake Champlain Ferries runs ferries between two crossing points, Grand Isle VT - Plattsburgh NY and Charlotte VT - Essex NY. They carry passenger vehicles, bicycles, and pedestrians.
  • Hotels Near the South Burlington Public Library

Day-of-Event Information

The Community Room is located on the second floor of the library. Elevators are located to the left of the lobby entrance, next to the circulation desk. The room is clearly signed on the wall over the entrance, visible from the top of the stairs on the second floor.

  • Parking: There is ample free parking in a public lot across from the library and free street parking.
  • Grocery Stores: There is a Hannaford and a Target on Dorset Street, across from Market Street, and a Trader Joe's a short distance down Dorset Street.
  • Lunch Options: The following restaurants are within 1,000 feet of the library on Market Street. Note that there are many other options on Dorset Street and Williston Road for those who wish to range further.

Accessibility

  • The virtual event will be held on Zoom with closed captioning enabled. Please note that closed captioning only works when you run Zoom off the app (mobile or desktop); it does not work when Zoom runs in the browser. If you are attending the live event and would like closed captioning on your device as well, register for both in-person and virtual tickets.
  • Elevators are located to the left of the lobby entrance, next to the circulation desk.
  • The South Burlington Public Library has a hearing loop available for T-coil hearing aids. If you would like to know more about using this feature at Mereth Aderthad, contact the moderators, and we will work with the library to get you the information that you need.
  • COVID-19 Policy. Mereth Aderthad will follow all health and safety precautions recommended by the State of Vermont and the South Burlington Public Library. As of this writing, there are no COVID-19 restrictions in place. Masks and social distancing stickers will be provided at the event, and attendees are asked to please wear a mask if they are showing symptoms of or recovering from an illness. For those preferring to eat outdoors, there are benches along Market Street and Datillio Drive and a park about a block down Datillio Drive.
  • If you need an accommodation that is not detailed here, please reach out to the organizers and let us know!

Donation Policy

An event like this costs money to run, and some people have expressed that they would like to help offset the costs. When you register, you will have the option to register and donate to help cover costs of the event. This is optional, and we cannot stress enough that we would rather a person be able to attend than to have an extra few bucks toward the cost of the event!

Donations will be used as follows, in order of priority:

  • First, any volunteers who made purchases toward Mereth Aderthad will be reimbursed.
  • Next, donations will be used to provide benefits or offset costs for attendees, such as purchasing snacks or covering costs of the zine for contributors. The event's logistics committee will make decisions on how money will be spent to improve the event for attendees. Donations from virtual attendees will not be used to pay for any perks available only to in-person attendees.
  • Finally, donations will be used to reimburse Dawn for costs associated with the event.

After the event, full disclosure of donations and what costs they were used to cover will be made publicly available.

Any remaining funds will be donated to the Abenaki Nation of the Missisquoi, the people upon whose stolen homeland our event will be held.

You can also donate to the event even if you are unable to attend.

Information for Fanworks Creators 

The call for fanworks is now closed except we still have a few presentations that will need artwork. If you are an artist interested in possibly creating a featured artwork for Mereth Aderthad 2025, contact us for a list of presentations for which art is needed.

If you have already signed up as a creator, here is the schedule for fanworks creators:

  • February 15: sign-ups for fanworks creators open
  • April 15: progress check-in
  • Fanwork Due Dates:
    • May 15: zine fanworks due
    • July 1: artwork and pre-recorded presentations/readings due
    • July 12: last day for changes to the program (titles, names, etc.)
    • July 12: all fanworks should be posted unpublished to the SWG website (or sent to us to post)

Completed fanworks should be sent or shared with moderator@silmarillionwritersguild.org.

Read the full guidelines for fanworks creators

Tolkien wrote eloquently of his desire to create a Secondary World that enticed readers beyond the words he placed on the page and into the "new vistas" that they imagined. Since at least the 1950s, Tolkien fans have been crafting stories, poems, art, music, crafts, and every other type of creative response imaginable as they seek these imaginative vistas. At the same time, fanworks creators have engaged with the deep questions and ideas that Tolkien's works provoke, using creative media instead of traditional scholarship to engage with the legendarium.

We are seeking creators interested in making fanworks for Mereth Aderthad 2025. These fanworks will match the topics and possibly respond to the research and scholarship being presented at the event. Ideally, each topic has a research/scholarly presentation, a story or poem, and a work of art, demonstrating the diverse ways that fans engage with the legendarium and the questions and ideas it poses.

How It Works

Here is a more detailed breakdown of how the process will work:

  • Read through the guidelines below; the sign-up link follows. You will choose to create a fanwork in one of the categories below for one of the Mereth Aderthad 2025 presentations.
    • Featured Art: a work of visual art related to the presentation it accompanies that will be displayed on the screen at Mereth Aderthad 2025 before the presentation begins and during the fanwork reading afterward.
    • Featured Writing: a written fanwork (ficlet, poem, or excerpt of a longer work) that will be presented at Mereth Aderthad 2025 following the presentation it accompanies. The work should be able to be presented in ten five minutes or less.
    • Performing Art: a performing art (music, drama, dance, etc.) that will be performed at Mereth Aderthad 2025 following the presentation it accompanies.
    • Zine Art: a work of visual art in black-and-white/grayscale, created to accompany a presentation, that will be included in a zine available to Mereth Aderthad 2025 participants.
    • Zine Writing: a written fanwork, created to accompany a presentation, that will be included in a zine available to Mereth Aderthad 2025 participants.
  • You will hear from an event volunteer after sign-ups close to confirm your assignment. This person will be your contact person as you work on your fanwork. You may also be put in touch with the person who will be doing the presentation your fanwork will accompany. (You will have this information available at sign-ups and should only sign up to create for presentations where you are comfortable with the level of collaboration requested by the presenter.)
  • On April 15, your contact person will reach out to check in on the progress of your fanwork.

General Fanworks Creators Guidelines

  1. Your fanwork will be created to accompany a presentation at Mereth Aderthad 2025. Presenters will vary in the amount of collaboration they want with you, and this information will be available when you sign up. However, your fanwork is your work in response to the topic or theme of the presentation. Presenters do not approve and cannot require changes to the fanworks that accompany their presentations. If presenters want to collaborate, they may have ideas for fanworks to accompany their presentation, but you are not required to use these. Along those same lines, fanworks creators do not get to approve or require changes in presentations.
  2. Mereth Aderthad 2025 is a public event that welcomes everyone, so fanworks shared at the event should be SFW (safe for work), meaning that they should not include graphic sexual content or graphic violence. Check in with an event volunteer if you're not sure if something you're planning is appropriate for the event. Excerpts read at the event may link to Adult-rated content on the SWG archive.
  3. Fanworks created for the zine may include any content, including adult content.
  4. The SWG does not allow fanworks that are wholly or partially generated by AI. All fanworks created for Mereth Aderthad must adhere to our AI policy.
  5. All fanworks should be created for the event in response to the presentation they accompany.
  6. We deeply appreciate if fanworks are not shared publicly prior to the event on July 19, 2025. However, after the event, we hope that you will share them widely and on whatever archives and social media you choose!
  7. While we hope to see fanworks creators (in-person or online!) at Mereth Aderthad 2025, creating a fanwork for the event does not require you to attend.

Specific Fanworks Creators Guidelines

Featured Artwork
  1. Featured artwork will be displayed at the beginning of the presentation it accompanies and during the fanwork reading afterward. All types and formats of artwork are welcome.
  2. We may include the title of the presentation and fanwork alongside your artwork. We will not include the title over top of your work or any additional modifications to your artwork without seeking your permission first.
  3. Because this work will be displayed on the screen at both the in-person and virtual events, it should have dimensions, coloring, and composition suited to this purpose.
Featured Writing
  1. Featured writing will be presented live at Mereth Aderthad 2025. If you sign up to create one of these fanworks, it is up to you what format this uses. You can, of course, read your work live (in-person or online). You can have someone else read your work for you. You can pre-record your work (or have someone else pre-record it) and have it played at the event.
  2. Featured writing may be in any format: ficlet, excerpt of a longer story, poetry, dramatic reading, etc.
  3. Featured writing should be presented in five minutes or less. Excerpts of longer works are fine but should be able to stand on their own.
  4. You can opt whether or not your written fanwork is also included in the zine. See Zine Writing below for more specifics.
Performing Art
  1. Performing arts include forms such as music, drama, and dance and will be presented live at Mereth Aderthad 2025.
  2. If you are not planning to attend the event in-person, consider whether the performance will be suitable for a virtual presentation.
  3. We will consult with performing artists about the length of the performance given the constraints of our schedule.
Zine Artwork
  1. Zine artwork will not be presented on screen but will appear in a zine available to all Mereth Aderthad participants. The zine will be available in a digital format and may be printed as well. Zine artwork will be designed to accompany one of the presentations.
  2. Zine artwork should be able to be printed in grayscale.
Zine Writing
  1. Zine writing will not be presented live but will appear in a zine available to all Mereth Aderthad participants. The zine will be available in a digital format and may be printed as well. Zine writing will be designed to accompany one of the presentations.
  2. Zine writing may be in any format: ficlet, excerpt of a longer story, poetry, etc.
  3. There is no word count limit for zine writing; however, we will only print the first 2,000 words in the zine itself. The remainder of the work will be posted on the SWG archive with a link and/or QR code in the zine to continue reading on the archive.

Rights Acquired

The SWG seeks first-time worldwide publication rights for all fanworks created for the Mereth Aderthad 2025 event. All creators retain the copyright to their work. What that means in plain English: We would like to be the first to share your fanwork as part of our event, but it is your fanwork, and you can share it and do with it as you please after that!

First rights includes:

  • The fanwork will be posted on the SWG archive (silmarillionwritersguild.org). All creators will be provided with an SWG account, if they do not have one already, and so will maintain full control over their work on the archive. Creators can edit or add to their work on the archive. While we hope that they will not do so, creators can also delete their work from the archive.
  • Featured artwork and writing will be displayed or read at the Mereth Aderthad event, which will also be available on a virtual platform. No fanworks will be recorded at the event without prior approval from the creator.
  • Zine artwork and writing and featured artwork and writing where the creator chooses to do so will be published in a zine that will be available to Mereth Aderthad attendees. This zine will also be available to download in PDF format on the SWG website (silmarillionwritersguild.org). This zine will not be edited or deleted after publication.

Fanworks Creator Sign-Up

Make sure you have read the guidelines above. If you have questions, use our contact form and ask before proceeding.

The sign-up form below contains a link to the presentation abstracts, including keywords and specific requirements for each.

Sign ups are on a first-come basis. We will update the sign-up form with what fanworks remain available for sign-up. This is managed by a human, so it won't be perfect but we hope to minimize disappointment!

Sign up to create a fanwork for Mereth Aderthad here.

You will hear from us to confirm your assignment(s) as soon as possible. If you do not receive a response within forty-eight hours, please query.

Call for Presenters for Meta, Research, and Scholarship 

The call for presenters is now closed.

In the lead-up to Mereth Aderthad, we will be holding virtual sessions on how to write a proposal for and present at a Tolkien conference. These sessions will be recorded for those who cannot attend live. If you need to change your display name before or during the event, learn how to do that here.

Read the call for presenters

Download a PDF version of the call for presenters.

The SWG is foremost an organization for fanworks but has also, throughout our twenty-year history, recognized that within the broader Tolkien fanworks fandom, it is almost impossible to separate creative and scholarly works for many creators. Our community has offered space for discussing and better understanding the legendarium, and our archive hosts hundreds of research and scholarly works created by fans.

A component of Mereth Aderthad will therefore be the sharing of meta, research, and scholarly works about Tolkien's legendarium.

  • Presentations will be delivered live, either in-person or virtually.
  • Presentations should be 15 minutes in length.
  • While any topic related to Tolkien's works is acceptable, priority will be given to presentations with a significant Silmarillion component.
  • Proposals are due by January 15, 2025.

We explicitly welcome fans, not just academics and scholars, to submit a proposal to present meta, research, or scholarship about the legendarium. We believe that fans offer meaningful contributions to the scholarly and academic conversations around Tolkien's work and furthermore offer perspectives that career academics often miss. In order to encourage fan participation in this component of the event, we will offer support and resources to fans who are interested in presenting but aren't sure where to begin. To learn more about these opportunities, subscribe to the SWG's weekly newsletter, join our Discord server, follow us on Tumblr, or follow us on Dreamwidth.

Presentations of meta, research, and scholarship will be accompanied by fanworks that are crafted around the same topic. In submitting a proposal to present at Mereth Aderthad 2025, you acknowledge and accept that fanworks will be made to accompany your presentation. While presenters and fanworks creators can collaborate if both parties wish to do so, presenters and fanworks creators should understand that they will not be given the opportunity to approve or require changes to the pieces that accompany their presentation.

Proposals should be about 300 words in length and are due no later than January 15, 2025. Click here to submit a proposal. Questions are welcome at moderator@silmarillionwritersguild.org.

Volunteer for Mereth Aderthad 2025 

We are seeking volunteers to both help plan Mereth Aderthad 2025 and help on the day of event, both in-person and remotely. If you are interested in volunteering, we recommend that you join our Discord and watch the #announcements channel for more information on how to get involved. You can also email the moderators or contact us via any of our social media platforms for more information.

Commitment to Inclusivity 

We highly value the diverse membership base that has made the SWG the group it is today. We want the SWG to be a place that not only welcomes but celebrates diversity and the various perspectives different fans bring both to reading Tolkien and the creation of Tolkien-based fanworks.

That said, we also recognize that Tolkien fandom has been both explicitly and structurally hostile and dismissive of fans from marginalized groups, especially fans who are Black, indigenous, and people of color; LGBTQIA+ fans; and fans with disabilities. As the SWG is part of the fandom and has benefited as an organization from the status quo, we therefore strongly feel that the SWG must be part of the solution, including governing events such that all participants not only feel safe but encouraged to participate.

  • Use people's stated names and pronouns.
  • Avoid discriminatory and biased language.
  • Avoid making assumptions about other participants' identities.
  • Create space for everyone to speak and be heard. We especially ask fans who come from typically privileged groups to be aware of not monopolizing conversations.

Being more inclusive is a learning process for all of us. Any space where we discuss ideas around popular culture, literature, and art has the potential to become uncomfortable for some participants. We ask that participants manage their comfort at the event by opting out of presentations and discussions that they find upsetting. At the same time, all participants are expected to:

  • Give people space and pause communications if they ask for it. Do not follow, attempt to open conversations, or otherwise seek to engage with people who indicate that they do not want to engage. Unwanted, hostile, or threatening actions towards others is harassment and will not be tolerated.
  • Respond to feedback from organizers around language or behaviors that are not acceptable for the event by refraining from that language or behavior going forward.

The organizers reserve the right to remove participants from the event who we believe are acting with intention to create a hostile environment for other participants or who do not demonstrate that they are willing to learn and change their behavior based on feedback from organizers.

Commitment to Sustainability and Social Responsibility 

The SWG is a small organization, and a core philosophy of our organization is the value of community-powered spaces, especially in the shadow of ever-growing large social and fandom platforms. With this comes a commitment to a sustainable and just world, where people have the capacity and empowerment to participate in critical and creative endeavors. In order that the SWG and Mereth Aderthad work to bolster the existence of small communities, environmental and economic sustainability, and social responsibility, we commit to the following:

  • We will use locally sourced products and services whenever possible.
  • When choosing products and services related to Mereth Aderthad, we will give priority to purchases that support businesses and individuals committed to environmental sustainability.
  • Likewise, we will seek products and services from businesses and individuals that reflect social responsibility such as fair trade and fair labor practices.
  • Recognizing that making sustainable or responsible choices is not necessarily straightforward, we will be intentional in our choices around these objectives and invite input from all members of the relevant committee before making a decision.

Mereth Aderthad Staff

The following volunteers are making Mereth Aderthad 2025 happen!

Event Organizer: Dawn "Felagund" Walls-Thumma      
Tech Lead: Grundy      
Social Media Manager: Shadow      
Graphics Design: Janeways      
Logistics Committee: Elleth, Grundy, Gryph, Independence1776, Janeways, Maglor, Quente, Shadow, Zhie      
Promotions Committee: Aprilertuile, Grundy, Himring, Janeways, Saelind, Shadow, Zhie      
Event Discord Moderation: Shadow and Maglor      
Event Photographer: Independence1776