SWG News

Mereth Aderthad Interview: Interview with Stella Getreuer-Kostrouch by Quente

Posted by SWG Moderators on 28 February 2025. Last updated on 18 March 2025.

Stella Getreuer-Kostrouch, who writes under the penname LadySternchen on our archive, will be presenting her paper "Cherished antagonist, despised protagonist – a defence of Elu Thingol" at Mereth Aderthad 2025 in July. Quente chatted with Stella about Thingol and what draws her to his character, despite him not being widely liked by the fandom overall. As Stella notes, many Silmarillion characters are complex. What leads some to be fan favorites and others actively villainized?

You can read Quente's interview with Stella here.

And find out more about our upcoming hybrid Mereth Aderthad event here.

Mereth Aderthad Interview: Interview with Acha Rezak (Quente) by Shadow

Posted by SWG Moderators on 22 February 2025. Last updated on 7 March 2025.

Acha Rezak, who writes under the penname Quente on our archive, will be presenting her paper "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" at Mereth Aderthad 2025 in July. Shadow sat down with Acha to ask her about her paper, its inspiration, and the topic of religion in Tolkien.

You can read Shadow's interview with Acha here.

And find out more about our upcoming hybrid Mereth Aderthad event here.

Fanworks Sign-Ups for Mereth Aderthad Now Open!

Posted by SWG Moderators on 16 February 2025. Last updated on 2 April 2025.

At Mereth Aderthad 2025, we hope to bring together the meta and scholarship SWG members do along with the fanworks we create. We've put together a program of twelve speakers on a range of topics and are now looking for fanworks to accompany those talks. We are also looking for submissions for a fanzine we are creating for the event. If you are interested in one or both, carefully read the guidelines below, then use the sign-up form at the bottom of the page to sign up.

Schedule/Timeline

• February 15: sign-ups for fanworks creators open
• April 15: progress check-in
• Fanwork Due Dates: TBD

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 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.

New Challenge: Dark Matter

Posted by SWG Moderators on 13 February 2025. Last updated on 15 March 2025.

Dark matter is a substance found throughout the universe that goes unseen and is known to exist only because of its interaction with objects around it. This month's challenge seeks to imitate the mystery that is dark matter: a prompt that isn't there yet shapes the fanwork around it.

This month's prompts are anti-prompts, and your challenge is to create a fanwork where those prompts don't exist or that is shaped around their lack of existence. Prompts are selected using a randomized prompt generator. There are three categories to choose from: motifs and tropes, literary techniques, and words and letters. You can select your prompt from whichever of the three categories you wish (and if you're really feeling the dark energy, you can try prompts from two or all three categories in the same fanwork!)

We know this challenge is an unusual approach, so prompts range from very easy to just-about-impossible (don't use the letter E?!) You can reroll the prompt generator as many times as you want until you find a prompt that you can work with.

Dark Matter Prompt Generator

Thank you to Independence1776 for this month's banner and stamps!

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

Instadrabbling Session for Maedhros & Maglor Week

Posted by SWG Moderators on 30 January 2025. Last updated on 15 February 2025.

Maedhros & Maglor Week will run on Tumblr from February 16th-22nd. To get in the spirit of the event, 0ur_Oroboros and Idle Leaves will be hosting an instadrabbling session focused on the relationship between Maedhros and Maglor on Saturday, February 15, 18:00/6PM UTC (find this in my timezone).

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. This session will be focused on fanworks about the relationship between Maedhros and Maglor.

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!

January Challenge: Jubilee

Posted by SWG Moderators on 17 January 2025. Last updated on 15 February 2025.

We always like to start the new year fresh and with creativity. To that end, we begin the year with an amnesty, allowing you to create a fanwork for any of the previous year’s challenges. To celebrate the SWG’s 20th anniversary year, we’re expanding that in our second ever Jubilee. (Yes, we know Jubilees are traditionally every 25 or 50 years. We’re not that patient, so we’re making our own Jubilee tradition—do one when it feels right.)

Any challenge from January 2017 onward is fair game for the amnesty this January! If there’s a challenge you’ve been eyeing that was before your time, or one you’ve been kicking yourself for missing, this is your moment. If you started a challenge response but never finished it, here’s your chance. Done them all? We are in awe. Also, you can create for any of them—just make sure you post to the Jubilee challenge to get your stamp.

If you’re all worn out from all 2024 threw at you but ready to go on a fanworks binge, the Jubilee includes commenting stamps.

You can find full details on the Jubilee challenge page and can find past challenges to tempt your muses here.

Mereth Aderthad 2025: Call for Fanworks

Posted by SWG Moderators on 13 January 2025. Last updated on 16 February 2025.

Mereth Aderthad 2025 is a hybrid event held in honor of the Silmarillion Writers' Guild's twentieth birthday that seeks to celebrate the creativity and insightfulness of the Tolkien fandom. The event will feature presentations of meta, research, and scholarship. Each presentation will be accompanied by fanworks on the same topic or theme.

We are currently seeking fanworks creators who are interested in creating fanworks to be shared at Mereth Aderthad 2025.

Schedule/Timeline

• If you are interested in creating a fanwork for Mereth Aderthad 2025, you should first complete the interest form. We will be in contact after that with next steps.
• January 12 - February 15: interest sign-ups for fanworks creators open
• January 15: call for meta/research/scholarship closes
• February 7: presentation list sent out to all creators who have submitted an interest form
• February 15: sign-ups for fanworks creators open
• April 15: progress check-in
• Fanwork Due Dates: TBD

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

• Sign up on our interest form if you would like to receive a link to the presentation list once it is available. Signing up on the interest form does not obligate you to sign up or create a fanwork for Mereth Aderthad 2025.
• On February 7, we will email a link to a list of the meta/scholarship presentations and a summary for each.
• On February 15, the sign-up for fanworks will open. We will email you again with a link to sign up. You will choose to create a fanwork in one of the categories below for one of the Mereth Aderthad 2025 presentations. Sign ups are on a first-come basis.
  • 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 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 ten 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

If you are interested in creating a fanwork for Mereth Aderthad, use this form to share an email address where we can reach you. You will hear from us on February 7 with the presentation list and more information on sign-ups, then again on February 15 with a link to the sign-up form. Filling out the interest form does not require you to sign up.

Character of the Month: Vidumavi of the Northmen

Posted by SWG Moderators on 11 January 2025. Last updated on 11 January 2025.

Vidumavi of the Northmen is one of those characters who exists entirely in the margins, her name not mentioned once in The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, or The Silmarillion. Yet she is a linchpin in the history of the realms of Mortals in the Third Age and her story captures key themes from across Tolkien's works.

In our newest Character of the Month biography, Secondborn discusses Vidumavi's character and her importance to the legendarium. A Third Age woman from the people who would become the Rohirrim, Vidumavi married the Gondorian prince Valacar, an act that was controversial enough in Gondor to act as the spark that would ignite the Kinstrife after her death due to concerns of her inferior bloodline tainting the line of kings. However, as Secondborn notes, Vidumavi carried herself with honor and courage in what appears to be a true marriage of love. As a character, she stands as a testament against the idea that some people have bloodlines purer or superior to others, an idea that Tolkien addresses throughout his work.

Vidumavi also illustrates important themes that Tolkien frequently explored, such as love, honor, the role of fellowship, and the effects of the fading of "faerie" during the later ages. Vidumavi becomes one of the many woman characters in the legendarium whose importance far exceeds her meager mentions in the text.

You can read Secondborn's biography of Vidumavi here.

Jubilee Instadrabbling, January 18-19, 2025

Posted by SWG Moderators on 28 December 2024. Last updated on 19 January 2025.

This year, in honor of our upcoming twentieth birthday, our annual amnesty challenge will be a Jubilee, meaning that you can receive challenge stamps for any challenge from 2017 onward! As part of the Jubilee, we will be hosting two instadrabbling sessions on Saturday, January 18, and Sunday, January 19. The format will be open but will definitely include challenge prompts to help with stamp-collecting efforts!

Session 1: Saturday, January 18, 15:00/3PM UTC (find this in my timezone)
Session 2: Sunday, January 19, 18:00/6PM UTC (find this in my timezone)

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). All types of fanworks are welcome as long as they are Tolkien-related! (Keep in mind that we give challenge stamps only for Silmarillion fanworks, however.) 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.

When we instadrabble, we meet on the #instadrabbling channel on our Discord server. Discord invites will be posted on the dates of instadrabbling to our tumblr or 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!

So You Want to Present at a Tolkien Conference? Writing the Proposal

Posted by SWG Moderators on 22 December 2024. Last updated on 13 January 2025.

Mereth Aderthad 2025 is coming in July, and we are looking for presenter willing to share meta, research, and scholarship about Tolkien. We are specifically welcoming fans—including fans who have never presented anything like this before—to submit proposals for presentations because we believe strongly that fans have a lot to offer as we collectively read and work to better understand and interpret Tolkien's world.

But presenting at a conference feels like a big deal! And even in a field as friendly to fan and independent scholarship as Tolkien studies is, the trappings of academia remain and, unless you have academic training, can be a barrier to participation.

To help demystify conference proposals and presentations, over the next few months, we will be holding sessions aimed at helping fans make the sideways step to Tolkien scholarship by presenting their work at a Tolkien conference. Our first session will be about writing proposals. Join us in a virtual (Zoom) session to learn about how Tolkien conferences work and how to put together a proposal!

Date: Saturday, 4 January 2024 
Time: 1:00 PM Eastern Time (what is this in my timezone?) 
Location: RSVP to have the link emailed to you | join the session

After the session, there will be time for questions, and we will stay online for a proposal writing session for anyone who is interested.

Attending the session does not require you to submit a proposal to Mereth Aderthad or attend the event. All are welcome to attend and participate to whatever extent they feel comfortable! (In other words, you can keep your camera off and there are no breakout rooms.)

Can't make it on January 4? We will record the session so that anyone can view it.

If you need to change your Zoom display name before or while attending, learn how to do that here.