Founded in 2005, the Silmarillion Writers' Guild exists for discussions of and creative fanworks based on J.R.R. Tolkien's The Silmarillion and related texts. We are a positive-focused and open-minded space that welcomes fans from all over the world and with all levels of experience with Tolkien's works. Whether you are picking up Tolkien's books for the first time or have been a fan for decades, we welcome you to join us!
Sign-Up to Hand Out Scavenger Hunt Prompts Our May challenge will be a Matryoshka built around a scavenger hunt. If you'd like to hand out prompts (and receive comments on your work for doing so!), you can sign up to do so.
New Challenge: Everyman Create a fanwork about an ordinary character in the legendarium using a quote about an unnamed character as inspiration.
Cultus Dispatches: Fanworks, AI, and Resistance by Dawn and Grundy The fan studies column Cultus Dispatches returns with a history of how Tolkien fanworks fandom has reacted and resisted generative AI by drawing strong boundaries in a way that is not typical for the fandom.
Feanor and Fingolfin, from their youth to their fall.
"I will do this gladly," Fingolfin said, whispering into Feanor's mouth, grasping for reasons and sense. "Gladly, if it will bring peace between us. If it will end the madness."
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.
The thing about forgiveness, he thought, was that it was so much easier when the object of it was far away—or dead. It was so much easier to let it all go when those responsible were far away and unable to do any more harm.
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.
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.
By definition, fanworks fandom does not draw a lot of boundaries, but community archives and events have taken a strong stance against AI-generated fanworks due to ethical considerations and member input.
In a book as full of death as the Quenta Silmarillion, grief and mourning are surprisingly absent. The characters who receive grief and mourning—and those who don't—appear to do so due to narrative bias. Grief and mourning (or a lack of them) serve to draw attention toward and away from objectionable actions committed by characters.
This presentation for Mereth Aderthad 2025 discusses the parallels between the concept of abnegation in the scientific work surrounding the atomic bomb and in The Silmarillion. The relinquishment of self-interest in favor of the interests of others, abnegation was identified by Tolkien as a powerful act of spirit and reason. The legendarium has many examples of the complexities of abnegation, which parallel similar discussions held by physicists during and after World War II.
Bilbo, the strange old hobbit with the wandering feet, senses something special in young Frodo the first time he sees the lad; as they become close, they find in each other a cameraderie not well understood by other hobbits. Five poignant moments between Bilbo and Frodo Baggins over the course…
The Silmarillion Writers' Guild is more than just an archive--we are a community! If you enjoy a fanwork or enjoy a creator's work, please consider letting them know in a comment.
This is very tender and beautiful. In it, you say everything there is to say. I wish you would write a longer Findekamo/Maitimo- a sequel to AMC where they start to realise what there is between them. My dream come true that would be.
I don't quite know how you do this- make such a short scene so utterly complete. So much in this; the refusal to allow them to make Feanor a martyr (and it never occured to me before that they would try! Curufinwe's hands- that focus on their grime, their depserate scrbbling to save dust, is terribly poignant- and the heavy heavy irony of Maitimo (still) is so weighted. Brilliant.
This creates a wonderful image of darkness and a voice speaking out of it- the Odon myth is really interesting here. (and of course, the Christ myth too) An ordeal that yields gifts, not only th story but the voice too. I like the idea that Pengolodh is outside the lamplight.
Oh, this is a grim and sorrowful tale- but I think it is how Tolkien saw things too. Maedhros is the most tragic of all his characters I think and then slow grinding of his spirit the worse thing Tolkien inflivts upon him. Fingon's death seems to finish him and only the Oath keeps him alove.
This reminds me of the scene in AMC where he sees the squirrel and is distratced by its distress - I like the analogy of the trees -the oaks taking u more than their share of the sky, like their father, and the willows that bow with supple grace.
Great sense of the storm in this- the sea, senses, feeling overwhlemed and in terrible danger. I think back to him as he was in ANC- I have never bothered to find out anything about him before but just looked him up -power of your writing, Dawn.
There is a terrible bitterness and fury and grief in this one line:Curufinwë—hands ash-grimed from trying to gather their father into a box.
And of course the irony, although I am sure he knew this only too well when he choose to go and sortie with Morgoth, that maitimo went too - his choice, his price, his loss. He was willing to pay.
Comments on They Went in Haste
The Silmarillion Writers' Guild is more than just an archive--we are a community! If you enjoy a fanwork or enjoy a creator's work, please consider letting them know in a comment.