What passage in Tolkien made you see the world with fresh eyes or experience Middle-earth as though you were in it? Tolkien's rich worldbuilding is one of the qualities of his work that fans consistently identify as drawing them into the story. Many of us have scenes that took our breaths away and made the barrier between our world and Tolkien's Secondary World dissolve.

This week, as part of our ongoing series of interviews of fanworks creators for Mereth Aderthad, Shadow spoke with two artists whose work will be featured as part of the event. Varda delle Stelle is our assistant art editor, whose input helps to bring us the artwork featured each week with newsletter articles, and she is also the featured artist for cloudyhymn's presentation The Design of Dragons and the Doom of the Dwarves.

"One of the first memories that I have of reading The Silmarillion is about Varda Elentari lighting the starry vault," Varda told Shadow, "... it was like I saw the Stars for the first time too and I fell in love with them from the deepest part of my soul." Varda's pen name reflects her deep connection with the stars in Tolkien's work, a connection reflected in the luminous quality of her artwork. Varda spoke with Shadow about her inspirations, her approach to art, and her not one but two Mereth Aderthad artworks.

You can read Shadow's interview with Varda here.

For fish, the featured artist for Stella Getreuer-Kostrouch's presentation "Cherished antagonist, despised protagonist - a defence of Elu Thingol," it is appropriately enough the shades of gray that draws him to Tolkien and inspires his art. Like Tolkien himself, fish sees the turn to eucatastrophe as an essential and inspiring element of the legendarium. "I think I've always been something of a romantic in the literary sense, or at least a believer in what Tolkien called 'fairy-stories,'" he told Shadow. "That eucatastrophe is what keeps me coming back to Tolkien—it can't exist without dyscatastrophe, and that feels real to me." But he also loves the complexity of character that Tolkien draws in The Silmarillion and other works.

For Stella's presentation, fish was drawn to the concept of grayness in conjunction with Thingol's character, who cannot be seen solely as a villain or a hero, like most Silmarillion characters.

You can read Shadow's interview with fish here.

Today was also our third and final installment in our So You Want to Present at a Tolkien Conference? series and focused on giving the presentation: how to practice, plan, and prepare to deliver a presentation and Q&A that is effective and fun while taking mishaps in stride. You can find the entire series on YouTube here and on the SWG as part of our Master Class column.

And finally, our new challenge, the Gates of Summer, debuts tonight with prompts from Tolkien's life and books that focus on summer, as half of the world welcomes the summer and the other half bids it farewell. As always, we invite creative interpretation and use of the prompts. If you're new to our challenges, find the full challenge guidelines here.