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.
Reembodied in Aman, Celebrimbor decides to return to Middle earth to help heal the darkness and hurt wrought by the ring.
Current Challenge
Everyman
Create a fanwork about an ordinary character in the legendarium using a quote about an unnamed character as inspiration. Read more ...
Random Challenge
Anniversary Contest
To celebrate the 30th anniversary of the publication of <em>The Silmarillion,</em> we hosted a writing contest for Silmarillion-based fiction. 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.
There was so much hope in this story for Maglor. I found myself cheering him on and then the sudden shock that he wasn't going to make it, staring me in the face. Yet he took it as if he had been preparing himself for ages for just such an event. Almost as if he wanted to go-staring at that button that reminded him of his father and a past life dead and gone, as he succumbs to his watery grave.
Thank you so much! Maglor is indeed working through his issues here - which is exactly why the Valar can't let him live, since then he'd free himself from the Doom. But yes, what else could all those years wandering the shores have been if not a preparation to die?
Thank you! When Maedhros set out to ambush Morgoth, he had only ever seen him in Valinor, and we all know that Morgoth was on his best behaviour there. And at that point Maedhros knows about death and slaughter, but not yet about the astounding cruely Morgoth is capable of. But that would soon change...
Maglor is very strong, and while writing this I was tempted to have him survive, but ultimately decided against it. There are enough stories where he lives on until modern times, and not enough about his eventual demise. Gosh, that makes me sound so mean!
This feels very true to Celegorm - the restlessness, the hunger for life. Even the callousness and selfishness match Tolkien's portrait of him in Nargothrond and Doriath. I like his reflections at the end; it's fascinating how Luthien's legacy and Feanorian heritage mingle together in Elrond and Elros.
You create some interesting details - the "looping halls" (hard to tell where you are!), the tapestries out of order with time. It gives Mandos an intriguing tinge of otherworldliness.
Thank you! I have some very specific headcanons for Celegorm, and I just threw them together in this little fic. Add a healthy dose of Mandos-magics and general otherworldliness, and here you are. ;)
I've always been interested in the childhood of Elrond and Elros and the consequences of being raised by the House of Fëanor. We all know about Elrond at the end of the Third Age, but I can't imagine everyone just accepted them, when he still rode with Kinslayers.
Comments on Falling Stars
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.