New Challenge: Gates of Summer
Choose a summer-related prompt or prompts from a collection of quotes and events from Tolkien's canon and his life.
SWG News
Mereth Aderthad Interview: Interview with Varda delle Stelle by Shadow
Varda delle Stelle is the featured artist for cloudyhymn's Mereth Aderthad 2025 presentation "The Design of Dragons and the Doom of the Dwarves." Shadow spoke with Varda about her own connections to the earth and concepts in cloudyhymn's presentation, her creative process, and her hopes for her Mereth Aderthad paintings.
Mereth Aderthad Interview: Interview with Kai by Shadow
Kai is the featured artist for Maglor's Mereth Aderthad 2025 presentation, "Gil-galad was an Elven King: Kingship and Personhood in the last High King of the Noldor." Shadow spoke with Kai about his wide range of interests and inspirations in the legendarium and why Maglor's presentation so intrigued him that he finished the art for it the first night.
Mereth Aderthad Interview: Interview with Reese by Dawn
Reese is the featured author for polutropos's presentation "'Kidnap Fam' and the Living Legendarium" at Mereth Aderthad 2025. Dawn spoke with reese about the silences storytellers leave, mythology, and the appeal of alternate universe fanfiction.
New & Updated Fanworks
[Writing] to taste you like the sun by queerofthedagger
“Have you ever kissed anyone?”
Findekáno stills, and finally looks at Maitimo. Finds him already staring back, unflinching and—hungry, almost, Findekáno would call it, if he did not know better.
“I have not,” he says, his heart…
[Writing] She Hath My Love (Drabbles about Women) by Elrond's Library
A collection of drabbles about women in Tolkien's Legendarium.
[Writing] High in the Clean Blue Air by StarSpray
They passed out of Lhûn and the wider coastline of Middle-earth opened up before his eyes. He had wandered those shores for centuries, and even now he felt the pull of that same wanderlust, and knew he would miss them for the rest of his life. Their wildness, the untamed waves, the rocky…
[Writing] Star in the Darkness by StarSpray
Now a great crowd of spirits, both Elves and lingering Men, were gathered before the newest tapestry as it fell open down the wall, luminous, gold and silver threads glittering in the pale light of Mandos.
[Writing] Banked Fires Blaze by Chestnut_pod
What is it to be made for a kinder world?
[Reference] So You Want to Present at a Tolkien Conference? Giving the Presentation by SWG Newsletter Staff
Video and materials from our session on how to give a presentation at a Tolkien conference. The session covers how to practice, plan, and prepare for the presentation; what to expect on the day of the presentation; tips for participating in the Q&A; and how to plan ahead for common worries…
[Reference] Interview with fish by Shadow by fish, daughterofshadows
Fish is the featured artist for Stella's Mereth Aderthad 2025 presentation "Cherished antagonist, despised protagonist - a defence of Elu Thingol." Shadow spoke with fish about his creative process, the importance of both tragedy and eucatastrophe to Tolkien's works, and the appeal of "greyness…
Current Challenge
Random Challenge
Birthday Bash
Daily word, image, and poetry prompts are loosely structured around events and milestones leading up to our 20th birthday. Read more ...
New in References
So You Want to Present at a Tolkien Conference? Giving the Presentation by SWG Newsletter Staff
Video and materials from our session on how to give a presentation at a Tolkien conference. The session covers how to practice, plan, and prepare for the presentation; what to expect on the day of the presentation; tips for participating in the Q&A; and how to plan ahead for common worries and mishaps.
Interview with fish by Shadow by fish, daughterofshadows
Fish is the featured artist for Stella's Mereth Aderthad 2025 presentation "Cherished antagonist, despised protagonist - a defence of Elu Thingol." Shadow spoke with fish about his creative process, the importance of both tragedy and eucatastrophe to Tolkien's works, and the appeal of "greyness" in Silmarillion characters like Elu Thingol.
Interview with Varda delle Stelle by Shadow by Varda delle Stelle, daughterofshadows
As the featured artist for cloudyhymn's Mereth Aderthad 2025 presentation "The Design of Dragons and the Doom of the Dwarves," Varda delle Stelle describes her idea for this presentation as springing fully formed as Athena from Zeus's head. Varda chatted with Shadow about what drew her to this presentation, her approach to painting, and her hopes for her Mereth Aderthad work.
Featured Themed Collection
Part of our Themed Collection series for our newsletter, this collection features fiction, artwork, and essays that transcend the idea of Orcs as the enemy, instead considering their humanity.
Alliterative Verse for Arda by Rhunedhel
Part of our Themed Collection series for our newsletter, this collection features alliterative poems about Middle-earth.
Beyond the Silmarillion
[Writing] Remembrance by StarSpray
They found Elrond’s sons with Legolas and Gimli, and with Éomer King and Lady Éowyn, standing before an enormous fresco of a charging army of horsemen. “Why, isn’t that what just happened, the way it was told to us?” Sam exclaimed, looking up at it.
“No! This is a painting of the Battle…
[Artwork] Floating through the Forest River by Varda delle Stelle
Bilbo and Thorin's Company are arriving to Lake Town floating through the Forest River with the barrels
[Writing] The Wondrous Tale of the Bee-wolf by bunn
Once upon a time, JRR Tolkien wrote a fairy-tale retelling, an attempt to reconstruct an alternative version of the ancient poem called Beowulf, and he called it Sellic Spell: 'strange tale' or 'wondrous tale'.
Once upon a time, on the long road home from the Lonely…
Around the World and Web
Teitho June/July Challenge: Inheritance
The theme for the June/July Teitho challenge is "inheritance."
Kidnap Fam Survey
Polutropos is collecting survey data as part of her research on the "Living Legendarium", i.e., how the legends of Arda, from their earliest drafts by Tolkien to the posthumously published Silmarillion edited by Christopher Tolkien to the creative engagements by fans, are inherently indeterminate and mutable, inviting many and diverse interpretations.
Tolkien Native Language Appreciation Fest 2025
This Tumblr event aims to celebrate the diversity in the Tolkien fandom by giving all creators a chance to use their creativity to explore and experiment with all languages.
Russingon Week 2025
Russingon Week is a Tumblr and AO3 event for fanworks that center a romantic or queerplatonic relationship between Maedhros and Fingon.
Tolkien South Asian Week
Tolkien South Asian Week is a fandom-wide event on Tumblr to celebrate South Asian peoples, cultures, and lives through Tolkien’s Legendarium.
SWG News
20th Birthday Event Feedback Needed
Posted by SWG Moderators on 26 July 2024. Last updated on 17 August 2024.
In one year, the SWG will turn twenty years old! We are planning to hold an event to celebrate twenty years of fanworks, community, and friendships made as part of the SWG's two decades of existence.
As we begin planning, we need an idea of how many people might be interested in this event so that we can select a venue that meets our needs. We appreciate you letting us know your thoughts on if and how you would likely attend. It's one question and will take about a minute, if you read all the stuff at the top of the page too!
You can share feedback for the initial planning of the event here.
Watch this space for more information in the weeks to come, including a call for presenters!
Call for Contributors: Themed Collections
Posted by SWG Moderators on 20 July 2024. Last updated on 28 September 2024.
Are you passionate about a topic related to Tolkien or fanworks? (Of course you are! Why else would you be here?) Maybe you have been collecting bookmarks and favorites of your favorite stories, meta, art, and other fanworks?
We are excited to introduce a new column that will be featured periodically in our newsletter! Themed collections are just what they sound like: collections of fanworks around a topic, curated by people who are interested in the subject and familiar with the fanworks around it.
What are we looking for? A collection of five to ten fanworks about a topic with a brief introduction. That's all! Fanworks can be of any type and do not need to be posted with the SWG. The topic of the collection can be as broad or specific as you like. It can include only fanworks of a particular type (say, meta or music) or it can include a mix.
The full Call for Contributors has more information. If you have questions, feel free to comment here or reach out to the moderators through the usual channels.
New Challenge: Bollywood
Posted by SWG Moderators on 11 July 2024. Last updated on 15 August 2024.
The world's largest film industry isn't Hollywood, with its stars and scandals and endless sequels but Bollywood, the film industry that originated in Bombay in the late 19th century, more than a decade before Hollywood got its start. This month's challenge celebrates the lively dances, glittering costumes, towering emotions, and music you can't get out of your head of Bollywood.
Prompts this month come from Bollywood films and will be assigned by a moderator. You can request your prompt on Dreamwidth, Tumblr, the #monthly-challenges channel on our Discord, or by emailing the mods. You can specify whether you'd like a song, film title, trope, or color palette—or you can let us surprise you! (If you choose a song, let us know if you'd like a song with an English translation available.) As always, you can use any aspect of your prompt to inspire your fanwork.
In some cases, we provide an intentionally brief and vague synopsis of a film or definition of a concept so that creators can get started with a prompt without having to do additional research. However, creators are welcome to dig deeper into a prompt if they want to and use what they learn to inspire a fanwork. For example, you might find that the film in your prompt has a clever subplot you will write a story around, the music video for a song has costumes you will include in a drawing, or a concept has aspects not included in our definition that you wish to use to make a playlist. While this is not required, you should feel free to dig as deeply into the prompts if you want and use anything you find!
In order to receive a stamp for your fanwork, your response must be posted to the archive on or before 15 August 2024. In addition, July is Disability Pride Month, so we have a special stamp for fanworks that include characters with disabilities. Make sure it is clear from your summary or let a moderator know if you need this stamp. For complete challenge guidelines, see the Challenges page on our website.
Cultus Dispatches: Fandom Chocolate … or Authors Love Comments
Posted by SWG Moderators on 11 July 2024. Last updated on 3 August 2024.
Nearly every author knows the feeling: the anticipation when opening your inbox after posting a new story to see if you've received comments. The walking-on-air feeling a kind word can give. And the disappointment that comes when days pass with only silence.
This month's Cultus Dispatches column kicks off our forthcoming exploration of comments on fanworks, looking specifically at Tolkien Fanfiction Survey data to provide one perspective on how authors view comments. We know nearly every author enjoys receiving comments; that is not really at question. But why? What do authors gain from comments? What happens to authors when they don't receive comments? And how do authors feel about one-click feedback like kudos and likes on their work?
You can read this month's column, "Fandom Chocolate … or Authors Love Comments," here.
A Sense of History: Passing Ships
Posted by SWG Moderators on 22 June 2024. Last updated on 10 August 2024.
The arrival and departure of ships across the Great Sea carries mythic significance for the peoples of Middle-earth. The image of ships crossing out of and back into a mysterious West appears as well in Beowulf and is alluded to in Tolkien's tower analogy in his lecture "Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics," where the tower allows those who climb it to observe the passage of the ships.
For the past year, Simon J. Cook has been writing a series for our Sense of History column about towers: the tower analogy in the "Monsters and the Critics" essay (which has long fascinating critics and for which he offers a new reading) and the many towers the pepper the landscape of Middle-earth. In his latest installment, he considers the ships we view from the tops of those towers.
Beta-Reader List Now Available
Posted by SWG Moderators on 17 June 2024. Last updated on 18 June 2024.
The beta reader list and profiles are again available on our website!
Betas, please check your profiles to ensure that they are correct. If something looks amiss, comment here or contact us.
The beta directory can be found here.
To add yourself to the beta list or edit an existing profile, check out our beta-reader FAQ here.
Original Post, June 17:
Here on the archive, we have been battling a very annoying bug for months now that occasionally shuts down pages that have /user/ in the URL. We have been able to identify two modules that trigger the bug. One module we have been able to replace entirely with core software, and Dawn has been slowly chipping away at this over the past few months.
Russandol just moved over the configurations needed for the FINAL step in this process from our test site. For the next few days, the beta-reader list and profiles will not be available. Dawn will be moving the data from the old system to the new. We will post here when everything is set and will email all active beta-readers at that time as well so that you can check that your profile is correct.
Whenever we make changes to the live site, do let us know if something seems off. You can comment on this post or email the mods. We test pretty thoroughly before rolling changes over to the live site, but nothing replaces actual use.
New Challenge: Funky '70s
Posted by SWG Moderators on 9 June 2024. Last updated on 20 July 2024.
Break out the lava lamps, we’re getting groovy this month with a trip back in time to the funky 70s!
For this month's challenge, select a prompt or prompts from the '70s-themed lists below. You can use any aspect of the prompt that you want and we encourage creative interpretation of the prompts. Want to dig up a particular episode of a show from the TV list and use that? A favorite book cover for one of the titles on the literature list? A line from the theme song from one of the movies on the Movies list? Go wild, moon child! (Of course, tamer interpretations of the prompts are acceptable too!)
You can find this month's '70s-themed prompts on the Funky '70s challenge page.
In order to receive a stamp for your fanwork, your response must be posted to the archive on or before 15 July 2024. For complete challenge guidelines, see the Challenges page on our website.
Thank you to Grundy for this month's lovely banner and stamps!
Fandom Voices: Commenting and Feedback
Posted by SWG Moderators on 1 June 2024. Last updated on 20 July 2024.
Comments and feedback provoke strong emotions throughout fanworks-centered fandoms. Creators wonder how to increase feedback from their readers/viewers and can assign a lot of meaning to feedback—especially a lack of feedback. On the other side, readers and viewers of fanworks have their own reasons for leaving—or most often, not leaving—feedback on a particular work, which can also generate strong emotions, in part due to social norms around comments and feedback that can leave what is intended as a simple act of appreciation feeling fraught.
Fandom Voices is a project that is a part of our monthly fan studies column, Cultus Dispatches, that seeks to record and collect the experiences of Tolkien fans around a variety of topics. As Cultus Dispatches prepares to dive into commenting and feedback over the next few months, we want to hear from people who create fanworks or read and view them about their experiences giving and receiving comments and feedback. If you create Tolkien-based fanworks or read/view them, you are eligible to participate! Responses will form the basis of an upcoming Cultus Dispatches column and will be collected on our site. You can receive attribution for your response or remain anonymous.
Cultus Dispatches: Fanfiction and the Serious Business of Writer's Craft
Posted by SWG Moderators on 25 May 2024. Last updated on 6 July 2024.
Most Tolkien fanfiction writers will tell you that their craft matters. They work at their writing and try to improve. Fandom institutions like awards, writer's workshops, lists of beta-readers, and selective archives reinforce that this is a fandom that takes its writing seriously.
But this is not a universal, and while authors who approach their stories differently are in a minority, there is some evidence to suggest they are a growing group. This month's Cultus Dispatches column considers fanfiction and writer's craft according to data from the Tolkien Fanfiction Surveys of 2015 and 2020, focusing on the authors who didn't agree that they took their writing seriously. While a small group, they doubled in number between the two surveys and show some intriguing demographic and motive-related data.
To learn more, check out Dawn's article Fanfiction and the Serious Business of Writer's Craft.
New Challenge: Crossroads of the Fallen King
Posted by SWG Moderators on 11 May 2024. Last updated on 15 June 2024.
The Nirnaeth is fought by superheroes. Elven history becomes a telenovela. Túrin rages through the five acts of a Shakespearean tragedy. Tolkien characters fall into favorite films and shows, and classic literature mixes with zombies … or Balrogs. Elves in space and Maglor in history—Tolkien crossovers that are nearly genres in their own right.
Crossover fanworks have a vibrant history in the Tolkien fandom, and the crossroads are fertile ground for new and unexpected creative endeavors. This month's challenge asks participants to create a crossover fanwork. The second text and how exactly you cross the two is entirely up to you!
Crossovers are fanworks that use elements from two or more fandoms or texts to create a fanwork. Crossovers can use characters, settings, and other elements from the second text. In the Tolkien fanfiction fandom, crossovers have also included fanworks that combine Tolkien's world with folklore, myth, and real-world history. As always, we encourage participants to get creative in how they interpret this month's challenge.
You can find a list of crossover texts already added to our site here. If you need a tag added to the Crossover Text list, you can let us know now or request it when you post your fanwork using the Moderator Request field on the fanwork submission form.
Note that, on the SWG, Silmarillion-based fanworks that use The Rings of Power show (and other media adaptations) are considered crossovers. Likewise, fanworks that cross The Silmarillion with any of Tolkien's non-Middle-earth works are counted as crossovers.
Many thanks to Independence1776 for this month's lovely banner and stamps!
In order to receive a stamp for your fanwork, your response must be posted to the archive on or before 15 June 2024. For complete challenge guidelines, see the Challenges page on our website.
