The SWG's birthday is a rather inexact thing. The SWG was established on March 15, 2005, but we did not begin recruiting members until the end of July that year, making it so (just like an Elf) we have both a begetting day and birthday. However, as people trickled into the group across the course of several days, it is hard to pin down just one of them as our birthday.
It is, however, somewhere around this time, nineteen years ago. Nineteen, as a birthday, is pretty unremarkable, sandwiched between legal adulthood at 18 in many countries and the big 2-0 that marks the exit from teenagedom. Nineteen, in fandom terms, is pretty respectable, though. While there are some truly venerable fannish institutions, most do not last this long. In my research on archives, I have found some that lasted only a year or two. Most of the sites that seemed like big sisters to the SWG when it trickled to life at the end of July 2005 are now gone.
Just like a human birthday, we won't treat our nineteenth birthday as a milestone. We'll mark it and be mildly impressed that we've made it this far. But next year? Next year we turn twenty!
We are planning an event for our twentieth birthday next year. It will be hybrid, occurring both in-person and online. Because, as an organization, we have produced both fanworks and scholarship (the latter through a fannish versus academic approach), we will welcome presentations of both—watch this space in the weeks to come for more details on what this will look like, including a call for presenters if you want to share your work as part of marking our twentieth year!
Right now, we are working to secure a venue, and the most important thing we need is to know how many people would like to attend, assuming they are able to do so. This is not an RSVP or any kind of sign-up; we're not even collecting names. It is more of an attempt to gain a sense of whether we should expect a small gathering in a library community room or whether we should rent something larger.
Please answer the one question on this form to help us gather this information. It is also helpful if you can signal boost this survey outside of the SWG in any fandom spaces where it is acceptable to do so. This will not be an SWG-only event, and we want to welcome as many Tolkien fans as want to attend, whether they are SWG members or not.
Finally, thank you to everyone who has supported us in the many ways needed that we have nearly survived our teens! (If you're reading this, that's you!) It has been an incredible nineteen years!
SWG News
New Challenge: Epic 80s
This month's challenge features hundreds of fresh prompts from the bodacious decade of the 1980s.
Cultus Dispatches: Communities Do Comment
Comment data from the SWG underscores community as an essential component to a robust commenting culture.
Instadrabbling Sessions for July, August, and September
Instadrabbling continues on the first Saturday of each month on our Discord server.
Minor Snag in Character Field When Posting Fanworks
A few weeks ago, we made a change to the Character field on fanworks submissions forms so that typing any version of that character's name will return the correct tag on our list. (For example, typing "Mairon" returns "Sauron.") The idea was to make finding the correct tag easier, since so many characters have multiple names.
We have hit a minor snag with the new system: Typing in a character name that appears as part of the name of many other characters sometimes means that the actual character will not show up. For example, if you type in "Finwë," you will get many of the characters whose names end in -finwë but not the guy himself.
While we fix this issue, we've set this field so that you can also add characters by ID. (Hover over a character tag and the ID is the number in the URL.) However, it is probably easier to just request the character you need in the Moderator Request field rather than hunting down a character's ID. It is fine to do this and know that we are working on a solution to this issue!
New Fanworks
Is it raining with you? by AdmirableMonster [Writing]
In the last days of Númenor, two very different men meet in Umbar and fall in love.
(Please note that while this work is heavily inspired by Disco Elysium, no knowledge of the game is necessary to read the fic!)
Read more ...Wrensong and Roses by Isilme_among_the_stars [Writing]
Concerned by his responses to the paraphernalia of healing, Fingon steals Maedhros from his room for an impromptu garden excursion. Maedhros battles with dark thoughts.
Read more ...Bon(e)fire by Fuin [Writing]
On the night before the battle, Caranthir and his ally share thoughts about their peoples' traditions:
Burning bones ward off evil.
Read more ...McShady by Babblecat [Writing]
Melkor has himself a bad time in the Void.
Read more ...
Updated Fanworks
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.
Read more ...Nasyalossë by Lovimmy3365 [Writing]
Erestor lay up against a tree, brown washed to black in the wet of the snow. The black disc of the new moon sailed across the dark sky. Erestor wished it were gone. He had no need to look into dark eyes any longer.
He was dying.
(AKA Erestor unwittingly travels back in time to the days between the Dagor Bragollach and the Nirnaeth Arnoediad, meets the sons of Feanor, Thingol and his ilk, many Laiquendi, many Dwarves, and Men besides, and THEN decides to solve the drowning of Beleriand himself. This has nothing to do with his personal problems. Nope. Not at all. Erestor is having regular feelings.)
Read more ...Until the Stars are All Alight by Dagstjarna [Writing]
Reembodied in Aman, Celebrimbor decides to return to Middle earth to help heal the darkness and hurt wrought by the ring.
Read more ...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.
Read more ...The Mirror Crack'd by AdmirableMonster [Writing]
Rescued from a brutal Angband hunt, an ex-thrall with a strange and powerful artifact embedded in his spine is brought to Himring, for it is one of the only places in Beleriand which welcomes such folk. Though he has no memories of his life before, Anniavas slowly becomes accustomed to his new life and finds he has a queer connection with Maedhros, Himring's lord. As their intimacy grows, however, so do the dangers surrounding them, both without and within. What secrets are hidden inside the depths of Anniavas's lost memories--and how will those with whom he is forging and deepening bonds react, when those secrets are at last revealed?
Read more ...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.
Read more ...Around the World and Web
Scribbles and Drabbles 2026
Scribbles & Drabbles is a fic and art exchange with a minimum word count of 100 words.
Tolkien Disability Pride 2026
This Tumblr event focuses on ALL creative works focusing on disability in Tolkien's universe.
Tolkien Gen Week 2026
Tolkien Gen Week will run from July 6-12, 2026 to appreciate all of the incredible characters and relationships within Tolkien’s legendarium that fall under the broad category of “gen.”
