SWG News

Live Reading: Celebrations

Posted by SWG Moderators on . Last updated on .

We are in a season of celebration! Many of our members celebrate holidays during the month of December. For some of us, it is the season when darkness begins to again give way to light. For our group, we spent the last year celebrating our 20th birthday, and at the end of the month, many of us will welcome a new year and the sense of renewal that brings.

We will be hosting a live reading on our Discord server around the theme of celebrations. The reading will be held on Sunday, December 28, at noon Eastern Time. (Find this time in my timezone.)

Anyone is invited to read. If you want to be on the event program, you can sign up here. Fanworks on the program will be linked so that attendees can follow along, read your full fanwork if you are presenting just an excerpt, and leave comments. There will also be an open mic block at the end of the program that is open to anyone who wants to read.

  • You can read a selection from Tolkien or a fanwork that you wrote that connects to the theme of celebrations. Celebrations is meant very broadly. Selections do not have to focus on seasonal celebrations. Excerpts of longer fanworks are welcome but should be able to stand on their own reasonably well.
  • You must be the author of the fanwork you sign up. If you want someone else to read your fanwork, that is fine, but it is up to you to find a reader. (And please don't sign up until you do!) During open mic, however, you should read only fanworks you authored.
  • Please limit your reading to five minutes or less, thereabouts, and sign up one piece. Additional selections can be read during open mic if time permits.
  • You will need to join our Discord to participate. Not a member of our Discord? If you are an SWG member, log in and scroll to the bottom of the page for an invite link in the footer. Non-SWG members can contact the mods for an invite link. An open invite will also be posted on SWG social media shortly before the event begins.

We also welcome people to attend who just want to listen.

Program

Harp and Liar by AdmirableMonster
Stinging from his defeat in a musical competition at the Mereth Aderthad, Maglor unexpectedly makes friends with a deaf child.

Moth to a Flame by Zhie
Nerdanel’s first Masquerade party does not turn out exactly as she had hoped.

After the Festival by Himring
At Ivrin, during the aftermath of the Mereth Aderthad.

His Luxury by polutropos
The music enchants, but it is the minstrel’s silks that enthrall Maglor.

Excerpt from The Children of Húrin, read by Marguerite

The invisible worm by Our Ouroboros
Annatar causes a scene.

Detour by Dawn Felagund
It is the Fifth Age of Arda. Finarfin has unkinged himself and declared Tirion a democracy, and the Noldorin people are alive with the possibilities to be found in their new existence. Yet Maedhros, more than ten years after his release from the halls of Mandos, has retreated to a life of apathy and loneliness, until one day, Anairë comes to deliver him news that he never hoped to receive: His cousin Fingon has been released from Mandos.

SeaLight by Anérea
A Telerin Elf's first experience of the waters of Belegaer, at the end of the Great Journey.

Open Mic

Instadrabbling Sessions for January, February, and March

Posted by SWG Moderators on . Last updated on .

Anna (IdleLeaves) will generously be continuing to host monthly instadrabbling sessions on our Discord server on the first Saturday of each month! We welcome all creators to join us for an few hours of creating, squeeing, and hanging out with fellow fans on the following dates:

What is instadrabbling? Instadrabbling is a long-standing community activity in the Tolkien fanfiction fandom. A group of friends gets together on chat, someone throws out a prompt or four, and everyone writes a drabble (or whatever comes to mind). We share our creations in the server and admire each other's work. Instadrabbling is low-pressure and casual, and all are encouraged to participate to whatever degree they are comfortable. Instadrabbling responses shared on our server can be about any aspect of Tolkien's legendarium, not just Silmworks.

When we instadrabble, we meet on the #instadrabbling channel on our Discord server. Discord invites can be requested at any time from the moderators. All are welcome to join the Discord, whether you want to instadrabble with us or not!

New Challenge: Great Beleriand Bake-Off

Posted by SWG Moderators on . Last updated on .

Ready? Set? Bake!

For the next two months, we invite you and your favorite characters out to the tent to demonstrate your prowess in baking … metaphorically, that is! (Though actual baked fanworks are of course welcome!) This challenge will feature a daily prompt calendar of baked goods from around the world, many of them suggested by our members.

Sundays are the exception—on Sundays, there will be a baking-themed comment challenge. Notify the mods if you complete a comment challenge—there are stamps for each individual comment challenge! Comment challenges apply to any fanwork on the SWG archive, not just Great Beleriand Baking Show challenge responses.

Just like baking, you can make this challenge as intense or easygoing as you like. You do not need to complete every prompt and can pick and choose as you'd like from the prompt calendar. Prompts do not need to be completed on the day they are posted. Post early! Post late! Perfect crumb and soggy bottoms are all welcome. If you'd like Paul Hollywood-level intensity, you can of course try for Star Baker and do all of the prompts.

Each day's prompt includes a sweet and a savory option. There is a description and sometimes a recipe (and sometimes several recipes) for each item. You are welcome to use any part of the prompt: the name of the baked good, the description, the recipe, stuff you learned from the links, anything. Fanworks do not need to be about baking or include the foods from the prompt. As always, you are welcome to get as creative with the prompts as you want, which includes twisting prompts, finding loopholes, and going in weird directions the challenge mods never imagined.

Finally, remember that the SWG is an international community with members from regions and cultures all around the world. If you prefer to swap in a recipe for a featured baked good that reflects how your region or culture makes that item, you are welcome to do so! However, please remember that there is no single "correct" or superior way to make any of these items. Let's approach this challenge with appreciation for the diversity of our community and the unifying human experience of sharing food to communicate love and fellowship!

Find the Great Beleriand Bake-Off prompts here.

Thank you to Grundy for this month's banner and stamps!

In deference to the winter holidays that direct many people's lives at this time of the year, our final challenge of the year always spans two months instead of one. Furthermore, in January, we will run our annual amnesty challenge when you can post fanworks for any of 2025's challenges to collect stamps you missed. Even though the challenge calendar will only run through 15 January, you can receive a stamp for your fanwork if your response must be posted to the archive on or before 15 February 2026. At that point, you must step away from the fanwork and let Paullando and Pruefindel award your endeavor! For complete challenge guidelines, see the Challenges page on our website.

Public Comment Wanted: Proposed Change to Registration Policy to Better Manage Bots

Posted by SWG Moderators on . Last updated on .

On a recent review of new account registrations, the moderators discovered about 20% of them have never logged into their account after it was approved. This is typically not a problem; it's not a drain on our data or resources, and most of us have registered for a website before, with best intentions of using it, and then just didn't get around to it. It is an expected part of running a website like ours.

However, there have been a few recent instances where mods have had to contact new members regarding their account, and despite multiple attempts, do not receive a response. This is often paired with suspicious activity that led the mods to initiate contact in the first place. (Double registrations within minutes of each other from the same IP are a common example.) These accounts appear legitimate in every other way: the field where we ask people to share something about their interest in Tolkien (there to weed out bots) includes something legit-sounding about Tolkien or fanfic or both, and the username or email are Tolkien-related or -adjacent.

We deal with bot registrations regularly and have for the life of this site. Typically, bots go for quantity rather than quality and are therefore easy to spot and simply delete. However, the rising capability of AI tools means we are likely to see bot registrations that are harder to detect.

As a moderator team, we are absolutely okay with people registering and then never using their accounts. But we are not okay with harboring bot registrations, especially AI-assisted bot registrations. The SWG opposes the use of AI that harms fans and creators, and once approved, these accounts do have access to site features like leaving comments, sending messages to other members, and posting their own works, which makes them a risk to our members who are real people and using the site appropriately.

Given this, the mods propose the following change to our Site Etiquette and Terms of Service:

  • If six months pass and a new account is never logged into, we will contact that person using the email registered on the site to allow them to keep their account.
  • If we receive a reply, we will keep the account open. There is no obligation for the member to log into the account or use it or maintain any minimum level of activity.
  • If we don't hear a reply within two weeks, we will delete the account.
  • Note that this applies only to new accounts that have never been logged into. Once a person logs into their account, they can keep it forever and use it as much or as little as they like.

The moderators are looking for thoughts, concerns, and alternate ideas for how to manage this situation. Please feel free to comment here, use our Discord #town-hall channel, or email us at moderator@silmarillionwritersguild.org. We will leave the public comment period open until at least November 17.

New Challenge: The Only Thing to Fear

Posted by SWG Moderators on . Last updated on .

Fear developed for a good reason, to keep animals—including people—safe in dangerous and uncertain situations. For our characters in Arda, some of those fears make perfect sense in their world. But as we know from our world, fear can also manifest in maladaptive ways, causing us to react strongly when there is no danger present or even make unsafe choices to avoid the object of fear.

For this month's challenge, creators will make a fanwork about fear using one or more of the common fears from the prompt list below. While your fanwork should involve fear in some way, it does not need to be scary, and as always, we encourage creative interpretation of challenge prompts.

You can find The Only Thing to Fear challenge prompts here.

Thank you to Grundy for this month's stamps and Janeways for the banner!

In order to receive a stamp for your fanwork, your response must be posted to the archive on or before 15 November 2025. For complete challenge guidelines, see the Challenges page on our website.

New Challenge: Jumble Sale

Posted by SWG Moderators on . Last updated on .

Twenty years of SWG challenges has seen all kinds of use of the prompts that (mostly) moderators cook up each month to tempt and torment our challenge creators. Some challenges are worn thin with love. Others lie, untouched and growing dusty, in the attic of the SWG Challenge page. This month, in honor of twenty years of challenges, we are upcycling our old challenges and dusting them off for a second chance at life.

Jumble Sale prompts are created by SWG members using past challenges and prompts. For this challenge, you can choose your prompt from the list below. Each prompt is indicated by a "For Sale" and may include multiple elements. As always, we welcome creative interpretations of prompts and use of any part of the prompt.

Make sure to tag all challenges included in the prompt if you would like the stamps for them. Challenges from before 2017 do not have stamps, but there is a special stamp for creators who venture into the deepest, dustiest recesses of the SWG attic by creating for a prompt that uses a challenge from prior to 2017!

You can find the full Jumble Sale guidelines and prompts here.

If you'd like to create prompts of your own but missed the original call, you're not too late! Submit Jumble Sale prompts here. Allow us forty-eight hours to update the website before querying.

Thank you to Varda delle Stelle for this month's stamps!

In order to receive a stamp for your fanwork, your response must be posted to the archive on or before 15 October 2025. For complete challenge guidelines, see the Challenges page on our website.

Instadrabbling Sessions for October, November, and December

Posted by SWG Moderators on . Last updated on .

Anna (IdleLeaves) will generously be continuing to host monthly instadrabbling sessions on our Discord server on the first Saturday of each month! We welcome all creators to join us for an few hours of creating, squeeing, and hanging out with fellow fans on the following dates:

What is instadrabbling? Instadrabbling is a long-standing community activity in the Tolkien fanfiction fandom. A group of friends gets together on chat, someone throws out a prompt or four, and everyone writes a drabble (or whatever comes to mind). We share our creations in the server and admire each other's work. Instadrabbling is low-pressure and casual, and all are encouraged to participate to whatever degree they are comfortable. Instadrabbling responses shared on our server can be about any aspect of Tolkien's legendarium, not just Silmworks.

When we instadrabble, we meet on the #instadrabbling channel on our Discord server. Discord invites can be requested at any time from the moderators. All are welcome to join the Discord, whether you want to instadrabble with us or not!

Mereth Aderthad Presentations Available

Posted by SWG Moderators on . Last updated on .

The majority of the presentations from Mereth Aderthad are now available as videos with accompanying transcripts or full papers. If you missed a presentation or want to give one a second (or more!) look, we invite you to check them out! Everything Mereth Aderthad-related can be found on the interactive program, which is continuously updated as new material comes in.

Here are the videos that have been posted, alphabetical by title:

The Aromantic in Tolkien by Shadow (video and transcript)
Presented at Mereth Aderthad 2025, this paper makes the case that, although the term "aromantic" had not yet been coined in Tolkien's day, many of his characters can be read as aromantic. The paper takes a closer look at Aredhel, Bilbo, and Boromir as three examples of characters who can be read as aromantic.

By Guile Committed: Comparing Tolkien’s Thieves to Beowulf by Savannah Horrell (video, full paper, and handout)
Theft is heavily stigmatized in the Old English legal literature. This stigma carries over to fictional sources, including Beowulf. As a professor of Anglo-Saxon, Tolkien was heavily influenced by these sources. Multiple characters in Middle-earth shy away from the label of "thief", even as they take actions which many would describe as stealing (see Bilbo, Beren, Lúthien). The balance between historical stigma and the more modern hero thief is mediated by judicious word choice and framing.

Cherished Antagonist, Despised Protagonist- a defence of Elu Thingol by Stella Getreuer-Kostrouch (video and full paper)
Elu Thingol is a complicated character in The Silmarillion. Faced with tough choices, he makes both good and bad decisions. But, as this paper argues, the Silmarillion fandom tends to file Thingol away as a convenient villain. This paper makes the case that many of his decisions are more complex than fans tend to assume and defends his place as one of the legendarium's complex characters and deserving of empathy.

Gil-galad was an Elven King: Kingship and Personhood in the last High King of the Noldor by Maglor (video and transcript)
This Mereth Aderthad 2025 presentation considers what we know of Gil-galad beyond his primary role in the text as king. While we have some information about his character, such as his appearance, other facts—names and parentage, for instance—remain unsettled. In other areas, we know almost nothing about Gil-galad, especially compared to the other Noldorin kings, which "leads to him feeling unmoored in the narrative." Gil-galad does not speak, performs no actions outside of kingship, and is given no meaningful relationships. Basic facts, such as his burial, are missing. He is seen from the outside, becoming a side character despite being the longest-reigning Noldorin king. It becomes the task of fans to answer the question Merry asks in "The Lord of the Rings": Who was Gil-galad? Fan creativity plus tantalizing glimpses of his character have filled in the blanks Tolkien left.

"Kidnap Fam" and the Living Legendarium by polutropos (video and transcript)
This paper looks at the origins of the popular fanfiction "kidnap fam" trope in the editorial history of the published "Silmarillion." With much of the attack on Sirion written in 1930, prior to Tolkien writing The Lord of the Rings, Christopher Tolkien was faced with an editorial choice in how to reconcile this event with the later invention of the character of Gil-galad. Adding Gil-galad and Círdan to the tale of Sirion's destruction, however, raises questions for many readers about the motives and choices of Maglor and Maedhros in choosing to take Elwing's sons. Survey data, shows that readers tend to interpret characters' morals and motives based on what they believe those characters knew. The introduction of Gil-galad and Círdan by Christopher Tolkien, therefore, generates the moral complexity that drives the wealth of fanfiction about the "kidnap family." These many layers of intervention in the story—by Tolkien, by Christopher, by fan creators—mimics the storytelling tradition and creates a living legendarium: not a mess, as some readers despair of the multiple contradictory "Silmarillion" texts, but an opportunity.

Love, Grief, and Alliterative Verse in Tolkien's Legendarium by Paul D. Deane (video and transcript)
Presented at Mereth Aderthad 2025, this paper considers how the themes of love and grief run parallel throughout The Silmarillion and are central to Tolkien's imagination. Also central is alliterative verse, and the paper discusses Tolkien's use of alliterative verse in the legendarium, his literary and scholarly influences, and his professional interest in alliterative verse. The paper draws parallels between alliterative verse in the legendarium and in the English literary tradition, making the case that alliterative verse was used in-universe by the Elves. Finally, the paper uses this evidence to advocate for fanworks that use alliterative verse.

The 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; video and full paper)
Or, a critical reading and primary source reinterpretation of documents that contributed to John Hendrix’s The Mythmakers.

Twilight, Child Of: Comparisons Between Tinúviel, Lómion, and Undómiel by Jaz (video and transcript)
This presentation for Mereth Aderthad 2025 discusses the many similarities between Tolkien's three "twilight children," Tinúviel, Lómion, and Undómiel (Luthien, Maeglin, and Arwen) in terms of appearance, plot, and cultural background. Yet these three characters play very different roles in the text.

 

Print Mereth Aderthad 2025 Fanzines Available to Order

Posted by SWG Moderators on . Last updated on .

As part of our twentieth birthday celebration at Mereth Aderthad 2025, we put together a fanzine to honor the fannish traditions of our foremothers, who in the pre-internet days, gathered in living rooms to squee over their fandoms and assemble and mail zines by hand. Without the internet to zip our thoughts halfway around the globe in less than a blink, this is how early fan communities celebrated and debated the texts that they loved. (If you're curious about early Tolkien fanzines, check out Marquette University's online Tolkien fanzine archive.)

We have thirty print copies of the zine left that we are now making available to anyone who wants a copy! The cost of the zine is the cost of printing ($7.70 USD) plus shipping. No profit is made on the zine. (You can view the Mereth Aderthad 2025 financial information here for full details.) A free digital copy of the zine can be downloaded here.

We are using the third-party provider Shopify to handle financial transactions. If Shopify cannot ship to your country, contact us and we will try to find another way to get your zine to you.

The last day for zine sales will be September 30.

You can order your copy of the Mereth Aderthad 2025 fanzine here.

New Challenge: Kids These Days

Posted by SWG Moderators on . Last updated on .

If there is a unifier among generations, it is complaining about the kids and teens in the generations coming up behind them. There was likely an ancient Mesopotamian complaining about the brainrot effects of that newfangled cuneiform and kids carving their names on the ziggurat walls. Likewise, there is no reason to believe our beloved Tolkien characters were immune to these timeless worries and whinges about the young people around them (or experienced the ever-helpful "advice" of their elders when they were themselves whippersnappers).

This month's challenge will offer a bingo card chock-full of perennial complaints about kids and teens. Choose one or several prompts to include in your fanwork. Numbers will not be called; you can select any prompt you want at any time. Your fanwork does not have to be about kids and teens; as always, we welcome creative interpretations of our prompts.

There are special stamps available for completing rows, columns, diagonals, or (if you are old enough to withstand the effort of going uphill both ways) a full card blackout where you manage every prompt. Note that, to complete rows and blackouts, you do not need to use all of the prompts in a single fanwork but can use them across multiple fanworks. Let the moderators know if you need one of the special stamps.

You can find the bingo card and text prompts for the Kids These Days challenge here.

Thank you to hîn_isil for this month's adorable stamps!

In order to receive a stamp for your fanwork, your response must be posted to the archive on or before 15 September 2025. For complete challenge guidelines, see the Challenges page on our website.