New and Updated Writing

Inspired by collecting the prompts for the Everyman challenge, this essay considers how ordinary people are subsumed and silenced in The Silmarillion, which begins a three-book arc that ends with the rise of the humble and ordinary.

Spring arrives at the Havens of Sirion.

Elwing can see that Earendil is about to go seafaring again.

As prince Curufinwë Fëanáro makes an historical speech from the high court of the King upon Túna, those at the back of the crowd strain to hear. 

A silly little scene inspired by Monty Python's "Blessed are the Cheesemakers" scene from The Life of Brian, written for SWG's Everyman Challenge April 2026, using the prompt:

"A great multitude gathered swiftly, therefore, to hear what he would say; and the hill and all the stairs and streets that climbed upon it were lit with the light of many torches that each one bore in hand." ("Of the Flight of the Noldor")

A Teleri fishing boat captain turns to farming on abandoned Noldor lands after her ship is stolen. A Noldor farmer returns with Finarfin to find that his land belongs to the Teleri now.

In his old age, Isildur's former esquire Ruinamacil, known to later histories only as Ohtar, writes his own account of his escape from the ambush at Gladden Fields and journey to Imladris, and the history of his friend whom Isildur ordered to flee with him.

Reembodied in Aman, Celebrimbor decides to return to Middle earth to help heal the darkness and hurt wrought by the ring. 

These were simply flashes, a hint of a wider, greater world. A tantalizing glimpse of more, always at the edge of awareness, never within reach. Míriel would grasp it, if something as intangible as the concept of color could overflow in bounteous wonder over her hands.

But then fire was caught, tamed and kept and cherished, and their world was suddenly awash with light. The world expanded, a pageantry of blues and greens and browns. A cacophony of color, overwhelming in its saturation.

In which Míriel falls in love with the colors in the earliest days, and Indis too.

An exchange is made during the Great Journey

A thrall lately escaped from Angband is turned away from Ladros and finds an unexpected welcome elsewhere.

Early in the history of Numenor, Elros's son Vardamir not only gathers much lore himself, but also assembles an early circle of loremasters around him. One of these is Tegilbor, who reflects about lore, Elvish and otherwise.

Trapped upon the bitter cliff, Maedhros dreams. Or hallucinates. Or endures the mental torments of the Dark Vala, Morgoth. Surely, one of those must be the case; for he cannot have been rescued from Thangorodrim's torturous peak. He cannot.

But then, why is Findekáno here?

Maedhros finds in many ways that those visions which do not end with his own blood and breaking are the worst of all: because they end instead in waking, and the inescapable knowledge that such things will never again be aught but dreams to him. That knowledge is a tighter shackle than the one that holds him to the cliff-face, and the pain of it around his heart is much sharper than that which throbs through his arm. An arm goes numb much faster than a heart, and there is a limit to how much pain a body can bear before the sensation of agony starts to crumble beneath the onslaught.

If there is a limit to how much pain a heart can hold, Maedhros has not yet found it.

On the morning of the day Fingon was to die, the sun rose bright over a shining sea of metal.

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 life and finds he has a queer connection with Maedhros, Himring's lord. As their intimacy grows, however, so do the dangers surrounding them, both without and within. What secrets are hidden inside the depths of Anniavas's lost memories--and how will those with whom he is forging and deepening bonds react, when those secrets are at last revealed?

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 have much else to do. I need to build something new there,” he said after a few moments. “To do that, I must first clear away the old and broken things.”

Decades out of Mandos, too many things in Fëanor's life remain broken. He can't do anything except wait for his sons to come to him, but he can do something about the old and crumbling house where they once lived. 

Lalwen comes to tell Elemmírë that the Noldor have resolved to leave Valinor. Elemmírë is devastated that she can't persuade her beloved to stay.

A fragment from a Dwarvish version of their creation story. (Drabble.)

Níniel regrets not knowing her past or her family, but at least she and Finduilas have each other.

The Hall of the Glass-cutters in Ost-in-Edhil had four panes of stained glass set in its front. (Drabble.)

Finrod is called to Mandos to speak with the spirit of a kinsman who is pardoned, yet refuses to rejoin the living.

The Eagles find a woman in the wilderness and bring her to Gondolin, and Maeglin's feelings are thrown into confusion.

A compilation of Tolkien-related drabbles.

Turgon yearns for happier days, days before he knew cold. But he knows in his heart that some things are forever lost, and wonders if he, too, is merely a remnant of the departed, a spent husk to be cleared if spring should ever bloom again.

There on the shores of the Lonely Isle we abode under the stars, and yet within sight of the radiance of the Blessed Realm.

"It is a fictional world, but so many readers, deep down, cannot help but entertain the possibility that in some universe, these stories may in fact be true..."

At a Tolkien conference in the Seventh Age, Findekáno listens to the inspiring words of a curious Quenya scholar among the Atani, and makes a new friend.

In Tirion, Nelyo and Findekáno. Realising