Founded in 2005, the Silmarillion Writers' Guild exists for discussions of and creative fanworks based on J.R.R. Tolkien's The Silmarillion and related texts. We are a positive-focused and open-minded space that welcomes fans from all over the world and with all levels of experience with Tolkien's works. Whether you are picking up Tolkien's books for the first time or have been a fan for decades, we welcome you to join us!
Sign-Up to Hand Out Scavenger Hunt Prompts Our May challenge will be a Matryoshka built around a scavenger hunt. If you'd like to hand out prompts (and receive comments on your work for doing so!), you can sign up to do so.
New Challenge: Everyman Create a fanwork about an ordinary character in the legendarium using a quote about an unnamed character as inspiration.
Cultus Dispatches: Fanworks, AI, and Resistance by Dawn and Grundy The fan studies column Cultus Dispatches returns with a history of how Tolkien fanworks fandom has reacted and resisted generative AI by drawing strong boundaries in a way that is not typical for the fandom.
The thing about forgiveness, he thought, was that it was so much easier when the object of it was far away—or dead. It was so much easier to let it all go when those responsible were far away and unable to do any more harm.
Inspired by collecting the prompts for the Everyman challenge, this essay considers how ordinary people are subsumed and silenced in The Silmarillion, which begins a three-book arc that ends with the rise of the humble and ordinary.
A Teleri fishing boat captain turns to farming on abandoned Noldor lands after her ship is stolen. A Noldor farmer returns with Finarfin to find that his land belongs to the Teleri now.
In his old age, Isildur's former esquire Ruinamacil, known to later histories only as Ohtar, writes his own account of his escape from the ambush at Gladden Fields and journey to Imladris, and the history of his friend whom Isildur ordered to flee with him.
These were simply flashes, a hint of a wider, greater world. A tantalizing glimpse of more, always at the edge of awareness, never within reach. Míriel would grasp it, if something as intangible as the concept of color could overflow in bounteous wonder over her hands.
But…
Current Challenge
Everyman
Create a fanwork about an ordinary character in the legendarium using a quote about an unnamed character as inspiration. Read more ...
By definition, fanworks fandom does not draw a lot of boundaries, but community archives and events have taken a strong stance against AI-generated fanworks due to ethical considerations and member input.
In a book as full of death as the Quenta Silmarillion, grief and mourning are surprisingly absent. The characters who receive grief and mourning—and those who don't—appear to do so due to narrative bias. Grief and mourning (or a lack of them) serve to draw attention toward and away from objectionable actions committed by characters.
This presentation for Mereth Aderthad 2025 discusses the parallels between the concept of abnegation in the scientific work surrounding the atomic bomb and in The Silmarillion. The relinquishment of self-interest in favor of the interests of others, abnegation was identified by Tolkien as a powerful act of spirit and reason. The legendarium has many examples of the complexities of abnegation, which parallel similar discussions held by physicists during and after World War II.
Bilbo, the strange old hobbit with the wandering feet, senses something special in young Frodo the first time he sees the lad; as they become close, they find in each other a cameraderie not well understood by other hobbits. Five poignant moments between Bilbo and Frodo Baggins over the course…
The Silmarillion Writers' Guild is more than just an archive--we are a community! If you enjoy a fanwork or enjoy a creator's work, please consider letting them know in a comment.
Celebrimbor will probably make a few more appearances in Maedhros and Fingon's world, and Maedhros will probably visit his workshops in Tirion and Formenos. This particular Celebrimbor prefers to spend time in the North.
Oh, what an excellent explanation how Maedhros's attempt to decorate the room with lilac came about!
I was just sitting in the sunshine today with the printout of the next chapter of Midwinter's Feast and thinking what a wonderful cousin your Celebrimbor is to have, for Celebrian, despite all the looming issues.
And here, he is, being equally wonderful, extending understanding, encouragement, and forgiveness!
I think Celebrimbor is a very good cousin to Celebrian and I think he'd be a good kinsman and friend to Maedhros here. They've certain similarities in experience and in temperament that I think would help them to understand one another.
Celebrimbor, in A Midwinter's Feast, is an interesting character to write; we see him from Celebrian's perspective so it is a little softer than it might be from another view, much as that of her mother is sterner than might appear from another angle. I think, in the last chapter or two, there are certain complexities that may be more apparent about him and some of which are difficult, but he means so very well.
I think that is a lesson that Celebrimbor was, for understandable reasons, slow to learn, and I do not think he would want someone else to wait as long as he did to accept the fact and gift of being loved in whatever form love comes.
Himring's Maedhros and her Celebrimbor, though this one is a partly my own rendering, are very lovely, and I am very glad she asked for someone to play a little in the world she's made.
Thank you. It was lovely to write and to play in Himring's world of Maedhros and Fingon for a little while. I think, in this case, Celebrimbor would have a lot to offer his uncle.
Comments on In Bloom
The Silmarillion Writers' Guild is more than just an archive--we are a community! If you enjoy a fanwork or enjoy a creator's work, please consider letting them know in a comment.