We are taking a break this week from Mereth Aderthad interviews, and next week, we will be taking the site down briefly on Saturday, April 19, for a major software upgrade. We are swiftly approaching four years since we reopened the site after rebuilding it from the ground up in Drupal (and eighteen years since I built our original archive), so it seems a good weekend for a digression about some of the technical history of how the SWG came to be and continues to exist and why next week's upgrade is happening.
The SWG was not intended to be an archive. I did not have the skills for such an endeavor when the group was founded in 2005, but popular sentiment that we should be an archive (and not a writers' workshop, as I intended) pushed me to gain those skills very quickly. Our archive opened in June 2007. It was built in eFiction, an open-source fiction archive software developed by Rebecca Smallwood, who created it for her own Tolkien and other fan sites and then made it available to all.
The best way to describe eFiction compared to Drupal (our current software) is that both have the ability to make archives—fandom houses in this analogy—but eFiction is a dollhouse that you buy assembled, take out of the box, and can play with right away. You can decorate it and make small adjustments as you want, but you can't fundamentally change what it is without cracking it open and rebuilding it.
Several developers after Rebecca, eFiction stopped being actively maintained, and in 2016, our archive began to show the first signs that its aging software wasn't going to work for us forever. We began researching options and eventually settled on Drupal. If eFiction is a dollhouse, Drupal is a box of LEGO bricks. The essential shapes are there, but you put them together into the structures you want, and you are in no way required to build a house. You could also build a barn, windmill, or shopping mall ... or a house attached to a barn on top of a shopping mall with a windmill attached to the side. When we rebuilt the site in Drupal, this is what we did, first reconstructing the fiction archive more or less how it was in eFiction, then adding on lots more: the ability to archive other types of fanworks, a system for sharing news, a beta-reader directory, and lots of behind-the-scenes tools that help the mods and volunteers keep the site running with minimal fuss.
We are doing a major software upgrade on Drupal next weekend, so if you notice the site offline on Saturday morning Eastern time (afternoon in Europe, Africa, and Asia, and hopefully those west of me are still getting their morning coffee when it's back up), this is why. I'm looking forward to more effective HTML permissions (so that those of you working on pages with me don't get frozen out of edits by my admin powers!) and the ability to more seamlessly handle coauthored fanworks.
The developers of eFiction are almost never mentioned, but we owe so much to Rebecca, Tammy, Artphilia, and Sheep Control, whose work gave us our original home, where we learned and built our community so that we could one day move into the site we have today. Beyond us, so many communities and fanworks would never have existed without their generosity in sharing their skills and time.
If you want to meander more through SWG history, check out our Birthday Bash challenge, which centers on a new event from our history each day (and is almost over, so it's pretty complete as of this writing).
SWG News
New Challenge: Title Track
Tolkien's titles range from epic to lyrical to metaphorical. This month's challenge selected 125 of them as prompts for fanworks.
Instadrabbling Sessions for January, February, and March
Instadrabbling continues on the first Saturday of each month on our Discord server.
Character of the Month: Marhwini
A minor character who doesn't appear in any of Tolkien's major works, Marhwini nonetheless plays a key role in the histories of Rohan and Gondor, and his character exemplifies the essential theme of the importance of acting in service of an alliance.

New Fanworks
Umnenyalië by by Serinquanion [Writing]
He was going to die. The molten rocks would burn him just like the cursed gem in his palm did. Maybe less painfully but still being burnt hurt and Maedhros knew it. He intimately knew it from his time in Angband where Þauron burnt him often in frustration and to toy with him and his master burnt his skin even more often just to mock his ancestry. At least here he would pass on to Mandos and not linger in pain only to be sewed back together to be tortured again and again.
But it wasn't true for his next clear memory was of the same pain from which he escaped soon and half-mad entered the Girdle to never never leave till now.
Read more ...Winter Warmth by by Serinquanion [Writing]
A winter night in Himring. But inside the quarters where fire blazed in hearth was warmer, and not only from the fire or quilt.
Read more ...In Early Spring by by Serinquanion [Writing]
In what Maedhros was re-embodied early and was sent back to Middle Earth on his volition with Glorfindel.
This isn't about what happened right then but years after Fall of Sauron when he still refused to return to Valinor.
He found a strange sapling at the shore of what remains of Cuiviénen.
Read more ...Who Will Hear Me? by by XirinOfArvada [Writing]
A lonely elf finds a flute half buried beneath the sand and wonders if its owner will hear him when he calls.
Read more ...Loyal, Faithful by by Himring [Writing]
Late in the Second Age, one of the Faithful reflects critically on past developments. (Free verse.)
Read more ...East Away! by by Flora-lass [Writing]
Aldarion storms off towards Middle-earth. For the Title Track challenge.
Read more ...Don't You Ever Look Away by by Elrond's Library [Writing]
“They can’t just assume we’ll let them leave us behind.”
“But they are, and they will. Our fathers are the Heads of their Houses. Fëanáro is king. Defiance would be treason, beloved.”
“I am his firstborn.”
“You are his only daughter.”
“I have done everything to be the son he wished me to be.”
“And yet, you are not.”
Findekánë and Maitindë do not go to Beleriand with their fathers. This changes very little, and yet so much.
For Scribbles and Drabbles 2025 SFW Slide 213 Two Queens
Break Me by by Elrond's Library [Writing]
“You’re not going to break me,” Russo huffed, finally cracking open his eyes, which were bright with amusement. “They could not, what makes you think you could?”
For Scribbles and Drabbles 2025 SFW Slide 33
Three Black Islands by by Idrils Scribe [Writing]
When Celebrimbor's attempts at forging the Rings of Power fail yet again, Annatar knows where to find the missing know-how.
For all the wrong reasons, Celebrimbor agrees to an expedition to the ruins of Angband to search Morgoth's own laboratory, deep in the icy Northern Wastes.
What awaits those two in the Hells of Iron?
A spooky season special, inspired by H.P. Lovecraft's 'At the Mountains of Madness'.
The Fall by by Elrond's Library [Writing]
Ossë raged.
Read more ...The Mirror Crack'd by 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 ...Beating Fate by by Paul Williams [Writing]
Lúthien, a woman who has spent her entire existence being acted upon — desired, directed, possessed, mourned, celebrated, but never truly seen — reaches the end of her borrowed life and discovers that death is not an ending but the first free choice she has ever been permitted to make.
Updated Fanworks
One Flesh, One Soul. Part I by by FellFireFan [Writing]
As beautiful as he is dangerous, Aegnor, an elven prince, stands against the looming shadows of Angband. Brother to Galadriel, he commands the siege with a fierce intensity, a duty that exacts a heavy toll on him. Beneath the iron walls he has built lies a broken soul, haunted by a devastating trauma and a well of deeply guarded secrets. His demons, kept at bay by his unyielding intensity that is both his greatest gift and his biggest curse.
Little does our Noldorin prince know that a chance encounter with a terrified young girl of men will set him on a collision course, igniting an extraordinary bond wrought with challenges, sacrifices, and intense love that threatens to unravel his guarded heart, and all he keeps within it.
Brace yourself for Part I of this captivating tale, where the primal power of love and devestating loss will tear lives apart forever.
Read more ...A Hundred Miles Through the Desert by by StarSpray [Writing]
“Come on.” Maedhros grabbed his hand and pulled him along down the path, both of them quickening their pace now, until the trees opened up into a wide meadow filled with flowers, bright yellow celandine and dandelions and sweet-scented pale chamomile mingling with cornflowers and irises. On the other side of it was a larger party than Maglor had ever seen in Lórien—five figures sitting in the grass. Huan barked again, and they all looked up. “It seems everyone has come to fetch us home,” Maedhros said, laughing, as all their brothers scrambled to their feet.
After years in Lórien, Maglor and Maedhros are ready to return to their family and to make something new with their lives--but to move forward, all of Fëanor's sons must decide how, or if, they can ever reconcile with their father.
Read more ...Beyond the Silmarillion Fanworks
here you will dwell, bound to your grief by by Elrond's Library [Writing]
Arwen grieves, and loves.
Read more ...Around the World and Web
March Challenge - Tolkien Short Fanworks
Tolkien Short Fanworks is running a challenge for the month of March to create a Back to Middle-earth Month themed challenge.
Back to Middle-earth Month 2026
Back to Middle-earth Month is returning for it's 20th year with many prompts and archival efforts.
Tolkien Fashion Week 2026
This two-week-long Tumblr event is dedicated to honoring the world of fashion and textiles Tolkien wrote about in his books.
Celegorm and Curufin Week 2026
Celegorm and Curufin Week is a Tumblr week celebrating the relationship between Celegorm and Curufin Feanorion