Around the World and Web

Mythcon: "The Mythic, the Fantastic, and the Alien" Call for Papers

This year's Mythcon will be held in-person in Albuquerque, New Mexico, as well as online, July 29 - August 1, 2022.

Mythcon 52’s theme provides multiple opportunities to explore the Other in fantasy and mythopoeic literature. Tolkien spoke in “On Fairy-stories” of “the desire to visit, free as a fish, the deep sea; or the longing for the noiseless, gracious, economical flight of a bird.” We invite discussion about the types of fantasy that are more likely to put us into contact with the alien, such as time portal fantasy and space travel fantasy. In addition to Inklings, some writers who deal particularly well with the truly alien who might be explored include Lovecraft, Gaiman, Le Guin, Tepper, and others. Other topics that might be fruitfully explored are: depictions of the alien Other in film and television (Contact, Arrival, HBO’s Watchmen, etc.); developing constructed languages that are truly different from those of Earth-based humans; fantastical Others in indigenous myths (such as Coyote and Spider Woman from Native American mythology); and American folklore about the alien (flying saucers, alien abduction, Area 51, Roswell).

The Mythopoeic Society’s annual conference, popularly called “Mythcon,” has historically been held in late July or early August at a college or university campus, although in recent years hotels or conference centers have become more common as sites. Each conference is constructed around a theme related to Inklings studies and/or fantastic and mythic literature. Each conference also features an author and a scholar guest of honor. Papers, panel discussions, readings, entertainment, an art show, a dealers’ room, and other activities fill the four-day event. Another Mythcon highlight is our annual banquet, after which the Mythopoeic Awards are presented. A small (usually 100-200 people) size and intimate setting makes Mythcon an excellent venue for meeting people with common interests. You may see the full history and individual conference pages by visiting our Mythcon History page.

The Mythopoeic Society has always encouraged scholarship in mythopoeic and Inklings studies by providing a venue in which scholars, new and old, may present papers which may in turn be considered for publication in Mythlore, assisting scholars in need of financial aid to attend Mythcon, and recognizing student scholars with the Alexei Kondratiev Award.

For this conference, in-person and virtual options are available. Paper proposals are due May 15, 2022. See the full Mythcon call for papers for more details.

Sunflower Auction to Help Ukraine

What is Sunflower Auction?
Sunflower Auction is an online fanworks auction, designed to raise money for nonprofit organizations that help the people of Ukraine fight back against Russia's invasion.

What charities do you support?
Any listed on Defend Ukraine and/or Stand With Ukraine.

What fandoms are included?
Any of them, including original work! There are no restrictions on fandom or pairing/gen or rating or whatever. Anything goes and everyone is invited.

How do I participate in the auction?
You can signup as a creator using this google form.

You can offer multiple times. If you offer different media (eg: art and writing), you will need to submit the form for each medium. If offering multiple times the same medium, just specify in the notes. Please only offer what you can reasonably expect to fulfill.

How can I look at offers?
Since the offering period is still ongoing, the only way to look at offers is currently this google sheet. Once the offering period ends, individual tagged entries per creator will be created in this community.

AUCTION CALENDAR
April 25 2022 23:59 UTC to May 10 2022 23:59 UTC – creator signups – OPEN!
May 12 2022 23:59 UTC to May 30 2022 23:59 UTC – bidding
June 10 2022 23:59 UTC – proof of donation due from bidders
June 10 2023 23:59 UTC – Works are due

Sláva Ukrayíni!

See the Sunflower Auction Dreamwidth or the Sunflower Auction Tumblr for more information.

Angbang Week 2022

Angbang Week will run May 1-7 on Tumblr.

The list of Angbang Week prompts for the event is here. All format are accepted: fanfiction and other writing, art, playlists, original musical compositions, moodboards, screenshots from games (as long as they’re for the topic of the day, of course!), etc. So long as they’re original, and new, and yours, we want to see them!

Every day has a couple of prompts for you to choose from, for which you could create related work you would associate with the prompt in any way. The final day is a free for all - choose whatever topic you want!

When posting your works, please write the day number and the topic you chose, and tag the post “#Angbangweek2022″ or tag us directly and we will feature as many works as we can!

Here are the themes, feel free to start creating whenever the inspiration hits!

Day 1 -May 1st: Seduction | Adoration
Day 2 - May 2nd: Creation | Corruption
Day 3 - May 3rd: Years of the lamps | Years of the trees
Day 4 - May 4th: Utumno | Angband
Day 5 - May 5th: Dragons | Werewolves
Day 6 - May 6th: War of Wrath | Dagor Dagorath
Day 7 - May 7th: Free space!

The Inaugural Gates of Summer Exchange

We are so pleased to welcome you to Gates of Summer, a fandom-wide digital gift exchange.

We, the mods of @officialtolkiensecretsanta, have had five years of wonderful fun and success running our winter exchange. As we wrapped up last year’s event and contemplated its next iteration, we decided that we would love to bring the energy and enthusiasm of the community into the middle of the year as well.

Thus, Gates of Summer was born. Inspired by the Gondolin holiday of the same name, it exists as a shorter gift exchange running around the same time as many other wonderful fandom events like the @tolkienrsb. Gates of Summer will run from 28th April to 21st June - please check our event guide for the full schedule.

The mechanics of the exchange are similar to the Secret Santa: you fill out a form, and we match you by hand to an anonymous gift-giver who will prepare a digital gift specially for you. The main difference is that there is no anonymous posting for this summer event - you post your gift and tag your giftee on 21st June, the day of reveals!

Running concurrently alongside the gift exchange will be a series of weekly prompts, posted to our blog starting May 24th. You are welcome to complete prompts as and when you like during the exchange period. You don’t have to participate in the exchange itself to fill out the prompts. Just be sure to read the guide to make sure you tag your work correctly so we can reblog it to our blog!

The sign-up form will go live on 28th April. Do follow this blog to stay up to date with us and so you can sign up as soon as the form is open!

Unconventional Fanworks Exchange

Unconventional Fanworks Exchange is a gift exchange for fanwork besides traditional fic and art, including (but not limited to): meta, in-universe documents, vids, podfic, audio not!fic, chatfic, and multimedia fanwork.

Important Links:

AO3 Collection
Medium Tagset
Fandom + Character Tagset
Mod Contact: flowersforgravesfics @ gmail (dot) com, or Dreamwidth private messages. I do not answer mod questions via Discord.

Schedule:

All times, unless otherwise specified, will be 12:59 AM (00:59) UTC.

Nominations: April 24 - May 8 (countdown to close)
Signups: May 15 - May 29 (countdown to close)
Assignments Out: on or before June 1
Assignments Due: July 9 (countdown)
Works Revealed: July 16
Creators Revealed: July 23

See the Unconventional Fanworks Exchange community on Dreamwdith for complete guidelines.

Teitho April/May Challenge: One True Pairing

For our April/May challenge we have the prompt OTP–One True Pairing.

Choose whichever characters you consider your one true pairing and tell us a story about them. These can be canon pairings like Luthien and Beren, Aragorn and Arwen, Celeborn and Galadriel, but they can also be pairings that perhaps didn't get their chance to be together–like Aegnor and Andreth, or Nimrodel and Amroth.

Perhaps you want to write more about Turgon and Elenwë, Idril and Tuor, or how Earendil and Elwing met?

Or choose an AU setting and let your favorite characters have their happy ever after!

You don't have to limit yourself to canon pairings for this challenge–if there is a non-canon or rare-pair that speaks to you, give us their story.

We know Curufin had a wife – how did they meet, fall in love, grow apart?

It does not have to be a love story or a happy ever after. The choice is yours. Give us love or loss, happy ever afters or angsty twists to the tales of "what if."

This is your chance to explore any and all relationships between characters you love! We look forward to reading your stories!

Please submit your stories to teitho.contest@gmail.com by May 31.

BBC Ways of Being: Tom Shakespeare on J.R.R. Tolkien

Ways of Being is a BBC series where artists, writers and thinkers tell us about the ways they have been shaped by their ‘ways of being’, their individual bodies—what freedoms they allow, and their sensitivities or limits. Tom Shakespeare is a writer, social scientist, bioethicist, and a regular broadcaster for BBC Radio. Tom is the fifth essayist to let us into their particular 'way of being' and into their relationship with a cultural touchstone. In this essay, Tom considers the character of J.R.R. Tolkien's hobbits, and his experience of reading about them as a child with restricted growth—a child who adored books.

Academia Lunare Call for Papers: Religion in Fantasy and Science Fiction

Academia Lunare is an award-winning annual edited volume from Luna Press Publishing. They explicitly welcome submissions from writers with all levels of experience. The theme of the annual Call for Papers 2022 is Religion, including those created specifically for a fictional work.

Religions, and the social and cultural structures related to them, have played a fundamental part in human history – for better or worse, as witnessed in reality or in fictional worlds.

On a mental level, they can influence a person’s perception of the world and the values they hold or discard; they influence the individual’s identity, regardless of whether they consider themselves to be religious or not. On a social level, they provide purpose, hope, belonging and a support network, but also chains and oppression.

Writers are invited to explore the concept of religion in all its forms and presentations, from an angle of their choosing, and its development in SFF literature, games, movies and TV.

Proposals are due by 30 September 2022 for consideration. For more information on the publication and submission requirements, as well as a list of possible approaches to the topic, see the full call for papers.

2022 Tolkien Collector's Guide Recording of Tolkien Reading Day Available

Tolkien Reading Day is celebrated worldwide on March 25th in honor of the destruction of the One Ring. Listen to our guests and panels talk about their love and friendships around Tolkien and his books.

Chapters:

00:00 - start of the livestream

05:13 - Artists Panel - Jenny Dolfen, Emily Austin, Anke Eissmann, Donato Giancola, Ted Nasmith

1:05:00 - The Tolkien Experience Podcast - Dr. Luke Shelton, Dr. Sara Brown, Sarah Westvik

1:36:45 - More Podcasting - Shawn Marchese and Alan Sisto (The Prancing Pony Podcast), Marcel Aubron-Bülles (SmallTolk Podcast), Chad Bornholdt and Chad High (The Texas Tolkien Talk Podcast)

2:04:00 - Digital Humanities and Education - Elise Trudel Cedeño and James Tauber

2:37:30 - Video and Media - Matt Graf (Nerd of the Rings) - Note that Clifford "Quickbeam" Broadway (TheOneRing.net) was unavoidably delayed and appears later in the event instead

3:10:00 - Guides to Middle-earth - Dick Plotz (Founder of the Tolkien Society of America, 1965) and Robert "Bob" Foster (author of The Guide to Middle-earth and The Complete Guide to Middle-earth)

3:36:50 - Audio and Audiobooks - Jordan Rannells

4:16:20 - Open Mic! Joined by Clifford Broadway (TheOneRing.net), Pieter Collier (The Tolkien Library) and many more

Sign-Ups Open for the Silmarillion Remix Challenge 2022

What is a remix?

A remix is a retelling of an existing work. The idea is to retain the spirit of the story, while creating a new work of your own in a different manner or style.

We see this done with art when it comes to the DTIYS challenge (Draw This In Your Style); remixing fic is similar. Remix it in your style! How would you have told that story? Would you have picked a different point of view? Would you have made it more serious, or rather more comical? Would you have included a flashback, or begun the narrative earlier, or later? Would you have arranged the chronology differently? Maybe instead of telling the story over several scenes, you would have chosen only one, and expanded on it, or vice versa? In your hands, keeping the plot the same, how would the story change?

Some ways to remix a story include:

• retelling it from someone else’s point of view
• writing a prequel or sequel
• taking the story and adding or subtracting an element (e.g. magic)
• taking the story and changing its setting, location, or time period
• taking a minor event in the original story and focusing and expanding on it
• taking a minor character in the original story and focusing on them

In this remix challenge, we’re offering the chance to remix someone’s story, and to have one of your own stories remixed. A remix challenge is a great opportunity to flex some creative muscles and celebrate how transformative and collaborative fandom can be!

For this round of the event, only Silmarillion fanfiction is eligible for remixing. We may open up to other Tolkien fandoms and mediums in the future, but this time around it’s Silm fic all the way!

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2022 Schedule:

April 1 - Signups open
April 7 - Signups close
April 10 - Assignments sent out
May 6 - Default deadline
May 15 - Works due at 11:59pm PST
May 21 - Works revealed
May 28 - Creators revealed

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Please read the rules carefully to understand the parameters of this exchange! You can find the rules on our tumblr (mobile // desktop) or our AO3 Collection.

This event is being run by @arofili​ and @arrivisting​! If you have event-related questions, please email us at tolkienremix@gmail.com or send an ask to this blog!

SIGN UP FOR THE SILM REMIX HERE!

Mobile links are accessible here.