"Not to be dramatic," says Tolkien fan artist Busymagpie, "but art is life for me."

I suspect if you (someone who subscribes to a thing called the "Silmarillion Writers' Guild Newsletter") are reading this, you do not find this statement dramatic at all. In this month's Tolkien Fanartics column, our art editor Anérea interviewed Busymagpie about her heart-meltingly beautiful character portraits, which range from warm family scenes to much, um, warmer interactions between couples, especially her favorite pairing, Maedhros and Fingon. (I am narrowly avoiding making a pun about Busymagpie's joyfully vivid portrait of Arien, featured among the art Anérea selected for this month's column.)

As part of her art-is-life credo, Busymagpie describes working on her art every day. Although she started drawing at a young age, Busymagpie is mostly self-trained. I mention this because, as someone who regularly endures the ridicule of school-age children about my whiteboard-drawing skills, it gives me hope and underscores the value of persistence, no matter one's creative craft.

If you'd like to read more about Busymagpie's creative process, her evolution as an artist, or how she once got a job by drawing a page full of bums, you can find this month's inteview with Busymagpie here.

Also remember that Anérea is open to ideas on future interview subjects, future column topics related to art, and guest columnists. Reply to this email if you'd like to make a suggestion or few!

SWG News

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Literature and art constantly refer back to each other using allusions, and this month's prompts are inspired by allusions to literature, myth, art, and history.

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New Challenge: Building Middle-earth
Let global architecture be your inspiration in this challenge, where you will work with a prompts that are architectural styles, locations in Arda, or both.

Instadrabbling Sessions for July, August, and September
Instadrabbling continues on the first Saturday of each month on our Discord server.

New Fanworks

Explain This by Elrond's Library [Writing]

Melkor demands an account of Mairon’s failures.

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Message in a Bottle by StarSpray [Writing]

Over the course of his very long life he had found a handful of messages in bottles, but it had been a very long time. So when he found the glass bottle on his little stretch of pebbly beach, he picked it up with the intention of tossing it into his recycling. But it wasn’t, he found, just another beer bottle.

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Nerdanel/Nienna moodboard by Independence1776 [Artwork]

A Nerdanel/Nienna moodboard.

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Updated Fanworks

The Stars of Home by Idrils Scribe [Writing]

Elrohir has been found after his long abduction by the Black Númenóreans of Umbar. He comes home to Rivendell, but all is not well: the Elf-child that was taken is now a Man grown. War and darkness have left Elrohir deeply scarred, and even at home there is danger...

An alternate universe for the Under Strange Stars series, in which Elrohir goes with Glorfindel instead of running away from him after the events of Under Strange Stars. This story can be enjoyed without having read the original.

Many thanks to Grundy and Marchwriter for their excellent beta-reading and brainstorming.

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A Thousand Winds that Blow by StarSpray [Writing]

When uneasy dreams bring him back into Beleriand, Daeron finds a pair of twins who have lost their home, and an enemy who has lost himself. The Shadow's reach is growing ever longer, and if they are to survive, they must do it together.

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From That Rubble by StarSpray [Writing]

Fëanor shrugged, studying the contents of his wine glass. “Something must be done about that house. It will fall down eventually.”
“It does not follow that it must be you that tears it down single-handedly. Are you sure you do not want help?”
“It’s not as though I have much else to do. I need to build something new there,” he said after a few moments. “To do that, I must first clear away the old and broken things.”

Decades out of Mandos, too many things in Fëanor's life remain broken. He can't do anything except wait for his sons to come to him, but he can do something about the old and crumbling house where they once lived. 

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Eä's Redemption by AaronAzrael [Writing]

This is my new poetical attempt to add my own interpretation to Tolkien's Cosmology as to Eru's Creation and the Valar's minds and behind-the-scene providence reasons and mechanisms.. I often review Eä as part of our own world, just in another dimension, this is why I have always seriously thought on the matter who the Ainur are, who Eru is, how he matches our own religious pantheon, and this has been conducted after serious research of many esoteric teachings of our own planet's heritage.

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Around the World and Web

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