Today, the Silmarillion Writers' Guild is centered on its website and archive, but when the group started seventeen years ago, it began on social media: on Yahoo! Groups and LiveJournal. It took more than two years to open the website and archive, which arose only because of the thriving community that existed on Y!Groups and LJ.

The SWG continues to maintain accounts on Dreamwidth and Tumblr, mostly for posting announcements (though it's worth mentioning that fanworks are welcome in both places too!) However, by far our most active social account these days is our Discord. Initially used mostly by the gaming community, Discord allows text, voice, and video chatting. Our Discord server for the SWG ("servers" are simply what Discord calls the communities it hosts) is mostly text-based, though we do occasionally host live readings in the voice channel. Put plainly, on our Discord server, you can text chat with other Tolkien fans in real time.

We usually splash links to our site and socials everywhere, but we're a little more reserved with links to our Discord, which creates something of an aura of mystery like it's the SWG's secret clubhouse that requires a special handshake to get into. This couldn't be further from the truth. Because a troll can rampage much faster through a live chat server than through a blog, we don't tend to post public invites to our Discord unless we know we have the moderator presence to stop any shenanigans (yes, learned that one that hard way), but our Discord is open all Tolkien fans who are willing to follow the server's rules, and we welcome new members at any time with absolutely no special requirements to join.

What can you find there? We maintain multiple channels for discussing Tolkien and for different types of fanworks based on the legendarium. We have channels for asking questions, signal boosting events, and sharing links to your fanworks. There are channels always open for organizing "write ins" and "draw ins" with other writers and artists, and we regularly host events on our server too: live readings, instadrabbling, and fanfiction book clubs. In fact, we have a book club for explicit fanfiction next weekend happening on our Discord.

So how do you find this mysterious place? If you'd like to check it out now, here's an invite that's good for the next week. Feel free to share with others.

Logged-in members of the SWG archive can find a Discord invite link in the site footer. If you're not a member of our site, contact our moderators to receive an invite. Again, these links can be freely shared with other fans who might enjoy our server.

To those fans who remember the heady days of the early-mid aughts—of coming home to dozens of new emails from your Tolkien Yahoo! lists, daily updates on your favorite LJ comms, and meeting friends on AIM and YIM—our Discord server continues that legacy of gathering with other fans to discuss Tolkien and make fanworks together. Let's demystify the Discord! We welcome all to join us, no special handshakes required!