First and foremost, if you are joining us in-person for Mereth Aderthad 2025 and would like to join us for dinner on July 19 and breakfast on July 20, tomorrow is the last day to RSVP.

Mereth Aderthad is now less than a month away! If you've missed the last several months of these newsletters, we are gathering, both in-person and virtually, in honor of the SWG's twentieth birthday on July 19, with social events on either side of that event. We have twelve presenters sharing their research on various aspects of the legendarium with fanworks that respond to each presented alongside. The program and more on Mereth Aderthad can be found here, and you can register here.

As we approach the event, we've been interviewing presenters and creators about the work they will be sharing. We are bringing those interviews to a close, but this week, have conversations to share with two artists and a writer working on fanworks to accompany Mereth Aderthad presentations.

The featured artist for polutropos' "'Kidnap Fam' and the Living Legendarium," Tang Wen Xi creates artwork using vivid colors and a 3D style that often makes it seem that his landscapes and his warriors are pushing out of the page. Dawn spoke to him about his work; like many of our artists, he developed his unique style through studying tutorials (always comforting to those of us who are artists only in our dreams!) He also pushes beyond the Eurocentrism traditional to Tolkien fanart, depicting characters in dress and armor from cultures throughout the world. Tang Wen Xi finds this approach to be keeping with Tolkien's own work. "Haradrim and Easterlings are part of his worldbuilding," he said, "so it's apparent that he's not locked to the European side of Middle-earth."

You can read Dawn's interview with Tang Wen Xi here.

Anérea and Shadow are the featured artist and featured writer, respectively, for Zhie's "How To Make a Star From a Tree: The Science of Telperion and Laurelin," and they are both also interviewers for Mereth Aderthad. Therefore, it made sense that they interview each other about their fanworks for Zhie's upcoming presentation! There conversation spanned the various interpretations of light in Tolkien's world, the cartography of creating fanworks, and the challenges of pushing past imposter syndrome.

You can read and listen to Shadow and Anérea's conversation with each other here.

In other news, Anna (IdleLeaves) is generously continuing with monthly instadrabbling sesssions on the first Saturday of each month on the SWG Discord: July 5, August 2, and September 6 are the next three scheduled. Learn more about these instadrabbling sessions here and join the Discord here if you'd like to come create with us!