Compiling this newsletter each week and numbering the issues becomes a sort of sandglass of the year. Here we are on Week 48, almost through another year and starting over with Issue 1 (and approaching the SWG closing in on two decades of existence!)

First, this month's article is Never Mind the Dwarves by Simon J. Cook. If you've been following Simon's work over the past few months, you know he has been interrogating the tower analogy in Tolkien's lecture/essay "Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics," in many cases pushing back on the work of established scholars (who have not all reacted well to his series), as part of our A Sense of History column. This month's column is a much lighter approach, itself an analogy that blends scholarship, fiction, and fandom. I asked Simon how he would introduce his own piece:

We all know that feeling of hearing a scholar speak about Tolkien's stories and wondering how a human being could so utterly fail to notice the actual art. Words drop from their lips like acid rain falling on virgin snow. Yet one brave band of scholars has broken out of this mould. While spurning imagination, as all scholars must, they nevertheless have seen with their own eyes the profound architecture of the stories that the rest of us love. What is the secret of those very few who take this left-path of scholarship? What allows them and nobody else direct and unmediated vision of the Truth? Simon's research has long grappled with this question and, after many many weary hours rummaging in the archives of the Lore section of the 'Lord of the Rings Fanatics Plaza', he now reveals the story of the Boffin Stone, which even today may be touched by those who know how to access the hidden chamber in the highest tower of the Fanatics Plaza.

This is also the time of year when the SWG moderators begin to plan the next year on our community, specifically the challenges. One of our favorite parts of our challenges are the stamp collections: the chance to receive a small postage stamp graphic on your profile to commemorate the various ways to participate in challenges. If you are an artist and would like to help make stamps for next year's challenges, you can learn more here. Reply to this email for questions or to gain access to the sign-up document!

As we look forward to the next year, we'd also love to hear from you if you have ideas of how the SWG can continue to grow and serve Tolkien fanworks creators. You can always reply to these newsletters to reach our moderator team.