Around the World and Web

Around the World and Web includes announcements and items of interest from beyond the SWG.

Ainur Week 2026

Ainur Week will be returning from November 16 to 22, 2026.

Glorthelion Week 2026

𝐖𝐞𝐥𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐆𝐥𝐨𝐫𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐖𝐞𝐞𝐤 𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟔

Hello everyone and welcome to another year of Glorthelion week! An entire week dedicated to Glorfindel and Ecthelion relationship.

The event will run on Tumblr from November 16th to November 22nd. All creations are welcome, as long as it is created by you. Don't forget to tag #glorthelionweek and mention the blog (to make sure I can see your creation in case tags don't work).

Prompts are not mandatory! You can follow them, be inspired by them or let your imagination go wild and create whatever you want! Event rules can be found here.

Prompts 2026:

↳ Day one: A Glance across the Square | The Bells of Festivals | Gifts of the Heart

↳ Day two: Words in the Dark | Following the Star | The Weight of the Sword

↳ Day three: Silver and Gold | Sun and Moon | The Roar of the Waterfall

↳ Day four: Silver Flutes | The Language of Flowers | Water Mirrors

↳ Day five: A Final Glance | Entrusted Secrets | "I will find you again"

↳ Day six: Ashes and Sorrow | Waiting in Mandos | Forever Changed

↳ Day seven: Beyond the Circles of the World | Constellations | The Promise Kept

Happy creating!

Nolofinwëan Week 2026

Nolofinwëan week welcomes fan creations centering any members of the House of Fingolfin and their descendants through the ages. 

Nolofinwëan week welcomes fan creations centering any members of the House of Fingolfin and their descendants through the ages. 

To Participate:

  • Create fanfiction, fanart, headcanons, close readings and musings, moodboards, photography, rec lists or anything else that inspires you to celebrate Nolofinwëan characters. 
  • Mention the blog @nolofinweanweek in your post and include the hashtag #nolofinweanweek2025 in the first 10 tags. 
  • If you would like, add your work to the AO3 collection.
  • Take inspiration from the nonmandatory daily prompts.
  • Complete one or more of the community challenges.

Rules & Requirements:

  • There are no minimum or maximum requirements; anything goes!
  • There are no content restrictions or rules on tagging beyond what AO3 requires of you. If you post to tumblr and your fill is Mature or Explicit, and/or falls under one of AO3’s major warnings, please provide tagging on your post, though!
  • That said, please refrain from using genAI.
  • This fest operates firmly under the premises of ‘don’t like; don’t read,’ ‘ship and let ship’ and ‘your kink is not my kink but that’s okay’ (if you’re unfamiliar with these concepts, see this post). We will not tolerate any shaming, harassment, or attempts to police content.

The mod runs on CET, but folks can post content or interact with the blog at their convenient time.

All prompts are non-obligatory—feel free to interpret as loosely or closely, to cross-match, or to ignore altogether!

Day 1: It Was But a Dream

  • Characters: Turgon, Anairë, Idril
  • Silmarillion Phrase: “poured forth their joy in music and song”
  • Inspirational art:

Amber Fort, Jaipur #1 Photograph by Inger Hogstrom 

Day 2: Breath of Darkness

  • Characters: Elenwë, Argon
  • Silmarillion Phrase: “there was now no returning”
  • Inspirational art:

The Night Is Stirring (Anger) by Zao Wou-Ki

Day 3: Light Splinters the Sky

  • Characters: Eöl, Eärendil, Gil-galad
  • Silmarillion Phrase: “as a naked flame”
  • Inspirational art:

First sunrise by Kimura Buzan 

Day 4: Embraced in the Mist

  • Characters: Fingon, Aredhel
  • Silmarillion Phrase: “green things even among the pits and broken rocks”
  • Inspirational art:

Shan-Shui style painting by Yang Tianyou 

Day 5: Flames Arising in Might

  • Characters: Fingolfin, Maeglin
  • Silmarillion Phrase: “shadows of madness and despair”
  • Inspirational art:

Burning the Slums of Nairobi by Kiure Francis Msangi

Day 6: The Sea’s Embrace

  • Characters: Elros, Elwing, Tuor
  • Silmarillion Phrase: “still hope may seem bright”
  • Inspirational art:

Moon Trace Art Installation by Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts 

Day 7: New Beginnings; Old Longings

  • Characters: Elrond, Celebrían, Peredhil Descendants
  • Silmarillion Phrase: “love would lead me”
  • Inspirational art:

Yesterdays Gone by Thomas Hjelm

14th International Tolkien Mailing Competition

The Hungarian Tolkien Society invites you to join the international “Quendi” category of the Tolkien Mailing Competition: five rounds of quizzes, riddles and creative tasks. This category is organised in English, open to any individual participant, and also to teams of 2–5 people. The five rounds of the competition will last from November to April. Application deadline: 5 November, 2026.

 

The Tolkien Mailing Competition ("TLV" abbreviated from its Hungarian equivalent "Tolkien Levelező Verseny") takes place for the 21st time this year—and it is international for the 14th time. In the first years it was organised only in Hungarian, and only for groups of Hungarian students aged 10–18-years. As many people above this age group became interested in the competition, we launched a separate category for individuals in Hungarian, and at the same time we decided to go international. The outcome was definitely encouraging. In the past few years the international Quendi category had many participants (and for a while even an organiser) from various foreign countries: you can see here the final results of the previous competition.

(Click here for the Hungarian article about all categories.)

In the international Quendi category both the challenges and the communication will be entirely in English—but you don't have to be perfectly fluent in English for taking part in the competition. You only have to be able to understand the texts by Tolkien, and maybe to write a story or an essay—it does not have to be of academic level. The competition was originally devised for middle and high school students, and we did not make big changes in the style, but it is open to anybody who feels young enough for it. You can always choose to count your years by Elvish standards!

Participation in the Quendi category requires a thorough knowledge of The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion. Other works by Tolkien may be needed occasionally, as some questions (riddles, quizzes, etc.) can refer to those, but you will have about four weeks for each round, that is, plenty of time to look up in the books everything you might need.

Besides the quizzes, there will be creative challenges. For example, you may be asked to describe a situation, write a short poem, make a drawing or take a photograph, etc. We would like to be proud of our participants, so we ask you to share the rights of your creative productions royalty-free (and you accept this condition by your registration for the competition). Your works—with due credit to authors/artists—might be published by the Hungarian Tolkien Society, e.g. on our website, www.tolkien.hu, or in our journal, the Lassi Laurië. (You can read about Lassi Laurië in English here.) Please do not publish these works yourself without consulting us first, and especially not before the end of the competition. (Artwork submitted by teams is credited as teamwork by default, but you can add the name of the actual author/artist for each piece.)

You can participate in the Quendi category alone as an individual competitor, or you can participate as a member of a team of 2–5 people. The individual competitors and the teams will receive the same set of tasks, but the winner will be announced separately for individuals and teams.

As an individual competitor, you can make the decision to solve only the quizzes or only the creative tasks in each round: besides the absolute winners of the individual and team subcategories, the separate winners of the lexical and the creative parts will also be announced. This choice is only available for individual competitors, teams are expected to do the full version!

We will go on with the team competition only if we receive at least 5 applications from teams. If we have to cancel the team competition, team members will have the opportunity to compete on their own or to withdraw their application. There is also a maximum limit of 60 competitors (individuals and teams counted together) in the Quendi category (and we got quite close to this limit last year).

The contest starts in November and continues until April. Every month you will receive the questions of the next round (five rounds overall), and you will have to submit your solutions until the indicated deadline (you will have about four weeks for each round). Communication is done via e-mail. Our e-mail address is tlv[at]tolkien.hu: questions and comments are always welcome there. We are happy to answer all your questions about the competition—except disclosing the solutions of the actual tasks.

Not submitting your solutions for two consecutive rounds means quitting the competition.

There will be no prizes in the international category, only the public announcement of your achievement and a certificate sent by e-mail. There is no registration fee, either.

If you want to participate, please fill in this online registration form.

Registration as an individual competitor: choose the “I am competing alone.” option on the form.

Registration as a team: each team member should fill in a registration form separately, choose the “I am a member of a team of 2-5 people.” option, and provide the same team name. We also need a contact person for each team. Please agree on a unique team name and choose a contact person from the team before starting the registration.

You should see an automatic confirmation message after the successful registration, but if you are in doubt about the success of your registration, ask the organisers via e-mail whether they have received your registration or not! You should receive the first round of tasks during the week after the application deadline. If you do not receive it, write to us!

The application deadline is:

5 November, 2026

Tolkien Food Week 2026

Tolkien food week 2026 themes

2nd of November- Dùnedain travel food

3rd Nov- plant-based

4th Nov- hobbit hole recipes

5th Nov - Elven feasts

6th Nov - at the Prancing pony

7th Nov- Dwarven banquets

8th Nov - at the Valar's table 🦅

Fics, recipes, ficlets, art, photos, polls, crack... have fun

These are mere suggestions ofc, you absolutely can post when you want on theme or not 😉

(Headers/banners here if you want)

The White Oliphaunt 2026

Sign ups will open on November 1st, 2026. See the blog linked in this announcement for more details.


Around the World and Web Archive

Events listed here are no longer active but are listed on the site for historical purposes.

Guild of Scribes Discord Server Open to New Members

Guild of Scribes is a community of Tolkien fanfic writers who want to receive and give constructive feedback on their own and others' works in a supportive and safe space. The goal is for members to participate as both writers and reviewers/readers. As a writer, you set the parameters for the types of feedback you are looking for and as a reviewer, you sign up for the works based on your own areas of comfort and knowledge. Except for 'asynchronous review' (similar to beta but with the potential for more in-depth feedback from more people), each work receives its own private channel for review, open only to the author and the participants (3-5) who have signed up to review and comment on that particular work.

To keep the server small and manageable for now, we’re inviting members by request only. If you have any questions or want an invite please message @polutropos (she/they) or @Minubell on Discord, or @polutrope on Tumblr or polutrope@gmail.com.

Library of Moria Moving to AO3

The Library of Moria, a Tolkien slash, femslash, gen, and RPF fanfiction and fanart archive, is being imported to the Archive of Our Own (AO3).

The Library of Moria was founded in 2002 as one of the first Lord of the Rings archives, but quickly grew in scope and popularity. The archivists have lovingly kept the Library of Moria running for nearly two decades, but with the announcement that the eFiction software that runs the archive will not be updated, they realize it is only a matter of time before the archive is rendered unusable. They are moving the archive to the AO3 to ensure that it stays online for all of those who have enjoyed it over the years to revisit for decades more.

The purpose of the Open Doors Committee’s Online Archive Rescue Project is to assist moderators of archives to incorporate the fanworks from those archives into the Archive of Our Own. Open Doors works with moderators to import their archives when the moderators lack the funds, time, or other resources to continue to maintain their archives independently. It is extremely important to Open Doors that we work in collaboration with moderators who want to import their archives and that we fully credit creators, giving them as much control as possible over their fanworks. Open Doors will be working with Talullah, Azzy and Half Elf Lost to import the Library of Moria into a separate, searchable collection on the Archive of Our Own. As part of preserving the archive in its entirety, all images currently in the Library of Moria will be hosted on the OTW’s servers, and embedded in their own AO3 work pages. Eventually links to the old site will redirect to the collection on AO3, which can be searched and filtered in order to locate individual imported works.

If you are an author on the Library of Moria, check the announcement from the Open Doors Project for more information on how authors will be contacted and works migrated, as well as contact information for the Open Doors Project.

Polyship Week 2022

Polyshipping week is a multifandom celebration of love that will run March 7-14, 2022. Find them on their website, Tumblr, Twitter, and AO3.

Event Guidelines

  • Please tag us @PolyshipWeek or use the hashtag #polyshipweek22 so we can retweet your creations!

  • Participate in one, a few, or all the days as you prefer! Feel free to choose just one prompt, mix and match, or whatever sparks your imagination!

  • Works may be in any medium — fics, art, gifsets, multimedia, etc. — as long as they are original creations with all collaborators credited.

  • Works accepted to the AO3 collection through the end of March.

  • No ship or character bashing please — let's make this fun for everyone!

Prompts

Day 1: "two hands" - vee | compersion | meet cute

Day 2: solo polyamory | date night | only one (big) bed

Day 3: metamours | growing old | scifi AU

Day 4: open relationships | meet the family | domestic fluff

Day 5: kitchen table | queerplatonic | magic

Day 6: comets | scheduling as romance | historical AU

Day 7: triads | mapping the polycule | soulmates

Day 8: Free Day

Priscilla Tolkien has died (announcement on the Tolkien Society website)

Priscilla Tolkien, youngest daughter of J.R.R. Tolkien, passed away on 28 February 2022  after a short illness. She was a trustee of the Tolkien Estate and the Tolkien Trust, Vice President of The Tolkien Society, and involved in the publication of The Tolkien Album, Mr Bliss and The Letters from Father Christmas.

More detail in the linked announcement by the Tolkien Society and also in this obituary.

Tolkienshortfanworks prompts for March posted

New prompts for March have been posted to the tolkienshortfanworks community on Dreamwidth; they are: new life (theme) and acrostic (form). The prompts can be freely combined with each other or with other prompts of current challenges elsewhere.

New joiners welcome.

More details at the linked post.

Gen Freeform Exchange 2022: Nominations and Sign-Ups

Gen Freeform Exchange is a multi-fandom exchange focused on gen fanworks, with freeform tag matching so that you can request and offer all your favorite gen tropes. We’re defining gen fanworks as works with no romantic or sexual content. Gen can focus on platonic relationships (friends, family, colleagues, enemies-with-whom-there-is-no-sexual-tension, etc), usually indicated by a & between characters rather than a /, or it can focus on a singular character with no particular focus on any relationship.

Both solo characters and gen character combos can be requested. Media allowed include fic, art, vids, and podfic. Participation requires an AO3 account.

The schedule:

Feb 25-March 5 11:59PM EST - Nominations
March 6-16 11:59PM EST - Signups
Mar 19 - Assignments sent by this date
May 1 11:59PM EDT - Assignments Due
May 7 11:59PM EDT - Work Reveals
May 14 11:59PM EDT - Creator Reveals

See the 2022 Gen Freeform Exchange sticky post for complete guidelines.

Revamped Tolkien Estate Website

The Tolkien Estate has revamped their website for the Seventh Age! The new site contains a timeline and biography of Tolkien's life, selected important scholarship, and important letters and writings from Tolkien.

Concerns over the Estate's stance on fanworks are addressed in this article here.

Tolkien Society Seminar on Tolkien and the Gothic (Call for Papers)

The Tolkien society has announced a seminar on the theme of Tolkien and the Gothic, which will be a hybrid event held online and in-person at the Hilton Hotel, Leeds on 3rd July 2022.

Tolkien’s engagement with the Gothic is not as straightforward as one may assume. His earliest understanding of the word and the language of the Goths can be traced to his reading of Joseph Wright’s A Primer of the Gothic Language (1892). His early fascination with Gothic consequently fed his own experimentations with language creation and legendarium.

However, his prose and poetry show a clear awareness of the Gothic literary tradition that had previously captured the imaginations of eighteenth and nineteenth century writers. Beyond his writing, Gothic influences can be found in Tolkien’s life: from the European fascination with Gothic architecture to the physical and psychological terrors of the Great War.

The seminar aims to explore the ways that Tolkien engaged with the various applications of the Gothic and how this in turn has influenced creative engagements with Tolkien.

The Tolkien Society invites abstract submissions of no more than 300 words, for a 20-minute paper and 5 minutes of questions. Submissions can be made here and should be submitted before end of day, Friday 1st April [UK time].

For more details see the Submissions page.

The seminar will be free for all attendees (both online and in-person). Sign-up for the seminar will open soon.

Reading Fictional Languages Symposium

This one-day symposium aims to bring together scholars from different disciplines to consider the nature of reading fictional languages. The event will be held in a fully integrated arena at the University of Nottingham, comprising both on-campus and online participants. It is thus designed to be accessible, enabling participants to attend from around the world, as suits their circumstances, as part of a truly hybrid event. The on-campus room will be as covid-safe as possible with a maximum occupancy. Refreshments and lunch will be provided in line with covid guidance. The symposium will be held on 11 March 2022 from 9:30-17:00, UK Time, and costs £10 for in-person participant (cost includes lunch) and £5 for online attendees. You can register to attend the symposium here.

T4Tolkien: A Trans-Positive Tolkien Discord Server

This is a space for uplifting trans-focused Tolkien fandom content, but anyone is welcome to join!

You do not have to be trans to get involved, and non-trans discussion is absolutely welcome. We wanted to create a space where trans identity is normalized and accepted, and in doing so that means integrating other aspects of everyday life into this server. This is a trans-positive, trans-friendly space, but it’s not a trans-only space!

See this post for more information on how to join T4Tolkien.