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!
New Challenge: Title Track Tolkien's titles range from epic to lyrical to metaphorical. This month's challenge selected 125 of them as prompts for fanworks.
Our Annual Amnesty Challenge: New Year's Resolution Start 2026 off with creativity! If you missed a challenge or didn't get to finish or post a challenge fanwork, complete any 2025 challenge before 15 February to receive the stamp.
He was going to die. The molten rocks would burn him just like the cursed gem in his palm did. Maybe less painfully but still being burnt hurt and Maedhros knew it. He intimately knew it from his time in Angband where Þauron burnt him often in frustration and to toy with him and his master…
“Come on.” Maedhros grabbed his hand and pulled him along down the path, both of them quickening their pace now, until the trees opened up into a wide meadow filled with flowers, bright yellow celandine and dandelions and sweet-scented pale chamomile mingling with cornflowers and irises. On…
Aldarion storms off towards Middle-earth. For the Title Track challenge.
Current Challenge
Title Track
Create a fanwork using our collection of 125 titles from Tolkien's books, chapters, essays, poems, and fragments as inspiration. Read more ...
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.
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.
Presented at Mereth Aderthad 2025, this paper makes the case thata, 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.
“There’s a goblin hiding in the taters, Dad!” Pippin hefted the pan, which was much too big for him to carry, let alone wield.
Around the World and Web
March Challenge - Tolkien Short Fanworks
Tolkien Short Fanworks is running a challenge for the month of March to create a Back to Middle-earth Month themed challenge.
Tolkien Fashion Week 2026
This two-week-long Tumblr event is dedicated to honoring the world of fashion and textiles Tolkien wrote about in his books.
Celegorm and Curufin Week 2026
Celegorm and Curufin Week is a Tumblr week celebrating the relationship between Celegorm and Curufin Feanorion
Back to Middle-earth Month 2026
Back to Middle-earth Month is returning for it's 20th year with many prompts and archival efforts.
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.
Lovely poem! I can imagine this as a part of a Numenorean history.
(Completely spurious question: how did you get the format to work? I can't seem to get even simple line-spacing right, even with HTML, and as for indentation *shudders*. I'm curious as to how you've managed to fix the formatting, and completely in awe of your skils!)
Thank you, Wavesinger! I'm glad you liked it! About the formatting, this is the only archive where I didn't do anything more than copy-paste from Word--no skill involved. Everywhere else I posted I either fiddled with it until I gave up, or just ... gave up without fiddling!
This is fantastic, DW! I can "hear" the Middle-earth equivalent of a skäld reciting these verses, and the entirety of the poem is very immersive, eliciting that frisson when you feel like you've entered another time and place, e.g., in a smoky hall of the Men of Westernesse in the Angle, for example, during their waning years in the Third Age. Hence, very Tolkienian!
Thank you, Pandë! I'm so glad it works--that was exactly my intention! In my framework of "Sam's Book of Tales", he collected it either in Rohan, as a tale brought south, and handed down, or in some little village he passed through during his travels.
It certainly did not appear the way the bards of old are said to have composed, extemporaneously, but little by little, a couple words at a time over several months. So that part was not very Tolkien-like, as he seems to have been much more like those old bards in his abilities! I'm thinking of his "The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth Beorthelm's Son" (for example), the short play in alliterative verse, which he apparently just dashed off!
This came out wonderfully well. I'm not familiar with this poetic format but it looks and sounds great, and that could not have been an easy task to accomplish. I'm a sucker for dragon stories and I could picture this ancient dragon collecting and guarding her treasure over time too vast to comprehend, then having to start all over again. I especially like the last line that she might still be out there somewhere sleeping on her hoard, ready to rise again to protect it.
Thanks so much! You are right, I found this difficult and time-consuming. Although I am fairly pleased with the result (except I wish it were longer!), I think I'll stick with prose, and maybe a little rhyming verse.
I have wanted to add a dragon story for the longest time (I love dragons too, as you know), and this style seemed perfectly apt for one. Also, I didn't want to make her an out-and-out villain, but for her to maaaaybe still be hibernating with her treasure in some remote snowy mountain.
Comments on Dragon's Journeys
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.