Cultus Dispatches: 10 Important Moments in Tolkien Fanfiction History

For this year's International Fanworks Day, the Organization for Transformative Works issued a "10 challenge" for fandom history, requesting "10 things" essays about fandom.

In this month's Cultus Dispatches column, Dawn takes on that challenge. In her own tenth year of studying Tolkien fanfiction and its history, she has selected (after much angst) ten key "moments" that influenced the fandom's history.

Tolkien-based fanfiction has existed for more than seven decades. What has kept fans interested in drawing from a seemingly bottomless well of stories about this imagined world? While, of course, a lot of it is the world itself (you're probably not reading this if you don't find the legendarium deep and worth exploring!), some of it comes from circumstances well outside anything Tolkien, his Estate, fans, and fandom had anything to do with.

You can read Dawn's "ten things" essay "10 Important Moments in Tolkien Fandom History" here.

Posted on 24 February 2024 (updated 6 April 2024) by SWG Moderators