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.
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.
These were simply flashes, a hint of a wider, greater world. A tantalizing glimpse of more, always at the edge of awareness, never within reach. Míriel would grasp it, if something as intangible as the concept of color could overflow in bounteous wonder over her hands.
But…
Current Challenge
Everyman
Create a fanwork about an ordinary character in the legendarium using a quote about an unnamed character as inspiration. Read more ...
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.
Thank you so much! I feel like, if one were an in-universe child in Arda, and the Silmarillion stories are something like a mix between your culture's epics and their holy texts, there are going to be those who's strongest reaction is "but that's not fair!' and want to go back and save everyone.
Oh, this is beautiful! I love the scene, and Gilraen's temper and need to fix the things that unfortunately couldn't be fixed, and how she reasoned with her brother. Wonderfully written, heart-warming and touching story! Thank you :)
Thank you so much, so glad you enjoyed. "Needing to fix things that couldn't be fixed": yes, my reaction to this prompt was a bit "meta"--in some ways this impulse lies behind so much great SWG writing! But I ended up seeing it through the eyes of one who hears these stories, in-universe.
You're welcome! So glad you enjoyed. I think that often we have some of our most pure reactions to stories when we were children: what made us sad, what we saw as unfair; because we haven't become inured to the world and its injustices.
In LOTR, I love the way characters like Aragorn access memories of the First Age through song, through stories & lays; then when you read the Silmarillion, it becomes like a fascinating geology of layers underneath the Third Age.
And I'm glad you liked the dynamic between girl and father; I drew on certain memories of being read to, as a kid.
What an original perspective to discuss subcreation, free will, Aragorn's relation with his kids and what the stories of the Elder Days mean to later people in Middle-earth.
Thank you so much! Aragorn would have an especially poignant, lived relationship to this question, which is woven throughout the early Silm chapters: why Morgoth, and in his turn, why Sauron?
Comments on In the Beginning
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.