Tolkien famously wrote that The Lord of the Rings was a "fundamentally religious and Catholic work." Of course, he was writing to a Catholic priest when he said this (and when it was less expedient to emphasize possible religious connections, he wrote that a weakness of the Arthurian tradition was that it "explicitly contains the Christian religion").
Over the next few months, we will be featuring interviews by presenters and fanworks creators who will be sharing their work at Mereth Aderthad. "[Tolkien] accidentally made a mythology that is so inclusive, and draws upon so many sources of diverse history and his own invention, that his audience became all of us," said Acha Rezak in a recent interview with Shadow about her forthcoming Mereth Aderthad presentation "Mythmakers vs. the made myths: Exploring a reader’s levels of religious alienation and connection in works about and by J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis." Acha goes on to say, "By 'us' I mean—myself and all the other non-English—a half-Asian kid growing up in Bangkok, stumbling across The Silmarillion in the British Council Library."
Religion has often been use to exclude and gatekeep in Tolkien fandom, including today, when Tolkien has been co-opted by some Christian nationalists. But Acha argues that Tolkien's work had the opposite effect on her, describing Tolkien as opening doors that she only perceived as shut when she encountered critics who read his work as essentially Christian. Acha's presentation will explore that sense of alienation, as a reader raised in a Buddhist country who found deep spiritual meaning in Tolkien.
"Nature as written by Tolkien does call to the spiritualist in me," Acha explains. "It's the clear manifestation of the growing and creative nature of existence, and I honor how he wrote it."
You can read Shadow's full interview with Acha about her paper here.
If you want to participate in Mereth Aderthad 2025, it is not to late! While we have set our program of twelve intriguing research presentations, we are still looking for fanworks to accompany those presentations. Interested? Check out our call for fanworks here!
SWG News
New Challenge: Allusive
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.
Cultus Dispatches: "The Rings of Power" Is a Ripple (So Far)
Tolkien Fanfiction Survey data for 2025 shows that "The Rings of Power" TV series has not had the same impact on the fandom as the film trilogies did ... so far.
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.
Fun and Games
We periodically feature Tolkien-themed puzzles made by our members. The New York Times' game Connections requires players to group a set of words into four groups of four. Tolkien Connections #4 can be accessed here. Find full directions on how to play here. If you'd like to make a puzzle, reply to this newsletter or contact us. Past games can be found in the Tolkien Connections collection.
Featured Article
Interview with Acha Rezak (Quente) by Shadow
Shadow spoke to Acha Rezak about her upcoming presentation for Mereth Aderthad, which reads Tolkien less as a Catholic Christian work and more as a world inclusive of many religions, especially in its focus on nature and landscapes.
Art Credit: Nessa by Perplexingly (Tumblr)
New Fanworks
Explain This by Elrond's Library [Writing]
Melkor demands an account of Mairon’s failures.
Read more ...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.
Read more ...Nerdanel/Nienna moodboard by Independence1776 [Artwork]
A Nerdanel/Nienna moodboard.
Read more ...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.
Read more ...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 ...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 ...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
Finwean Sibblings Prompt Fest 2026
A prompt-based fandom event aiming to focus on celebrating Finwë's children: Fëanor, Findis, Fingolfin, Lalwen, & Finarfin - ships, gen relationships, or character-centric
Gigolas Week 2026
Gigolas Week is a tumblr event focusing on the relationship between Legolas and Gimli
Innumerable Stars 2026
A character-based Tolkien fandom gift exchange is returning for another year of gifting.
Tolkien Sapphic September
Tolkien Sapphic September is a month long event focusing on Sapphic relationships and characters in Tolkien and adjacent materials.
