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December challenge at tolkienshortfanworks (on Dreamwidth)

December at tolkienshortfanworks is an amnesty month for all the previous monthly challenges posted to the community.

New joiners to the Dreamwidth community are always welcome!

More details plus a list of all the challenges at the linked post.

Sign-ups for Tolkien Secret Santa 2021 (on Tumblr) are open

The Tolkien Secret Santa sign ups for the main event are open till November 20th (on Tumblr). The closing date for  sign-ups to the  Advent Calendar companion event  is 11 November.

TSS is a digital gift exchange, where Tolkien fans sign up to make and receive small winter-themed gifts.

More details and links to  instructions, etc. at the linked post.

The LOTR SeSa prompt meme is now open for sign-up and posting prompts

The LOTR Sesa exchange is running in the form of prompt meme this year. 

Timeline (2021):

- Prompt Posting: November 1st to 30th.

- Claiming: December 1st to 22nd.

- Collection Open for Posting: December 1st to 31st

- All Fills Due: December 31st.

Open to all the Peoples and Ages of Middle-earth (Fictional persons only, no RPF).

The prompt meme runs on AO3. Admin announcements are posted to Dreamwidth, Livejournal and Tumblr.

More details and links in the linked post.

November Challenge at tolkienshortfanworks posted

The November Challenge at the tolkienshortfanworks community on Dreamwidth has been posted. (New members are always very welcome to join the community.)

The thematic prompt is Poppy.

The formal challenge is to write an elegy, either in the narrower sense of a poem of mourning and memorial for the dead or in the wider sense of a poem of serious or melancholy reflection.

These prompts can be filled independently.

(For  bonus quotation prompts and more details on the challenges, see the linked Dreamwidth post.)

"Pictures by J.R.R. Tolkien" to Be Republished

This collection of pictures, with a text by Christopher Tolkien, now reissued after almost 30 years confirms J.R.R. Tolkien’s considerable talent as an artist. It provides fascinating insight into his visual conception of many of the places and events familiar to readers of The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion.

Examples of his art range from delicate watercolours depicting Rivendell, the Forest of Lothlorien, Smaug, and Old Man Willow, to drawings and sketches of Moria Gate and Minas Tirith. Together they form a comprehensive collection of Tolkien’s own illustrations for his most popular books.

Also included are many of his beautiful designs showing patterns of flowers and trees, friezes, tapestries and heraldic devices associated with the world of Middle-earth. In their variety and scope they provide abundant visual evidence of the richness of his imagination.

This enchanting gallery was personally selected by Christopher Tolkien who, through detailed notes on the sources for each picture, provides unique insight into the artistic vision of his father, J.R.R. Tolkien. Pictures by J.R.R. Tolkien goes on sale 11 November 2021 for a price of £25.00.

Preorder Pictures by J.R.R. Tolkien on the HarperCollins website.

Holly Poly Sign-Ups Open October 22-31

Holly Poly is, as the name implies, an exchange for polyamorous relationships. OT3s, OT4s, OT6s, orgies, open relationships, sedoretus, whatever strikes your fancy, as long as it involves three or more entities. Participants are able to offer and request fanart, fanfiction, fanvids, or podfic. Sign-ups run from 22-31 October 2021.

Participants will have an option to select whether they want to receive fanart, fanfiction, fanvids, and/or podfics. Signups must include 3-10 fandoms, and each fandom must have 1-20 relationships from the list of nominated relationships. 

Participants may offer to create fanfart, fanfiction, fanvids, and/or podfic. You may offer between 3-10 fandoms, with 1-20 relationships per fandom.

Complete rules and FAQs can be found on the Holly Poly AO3 collection.

Holly Poly can also be found on Dreamwidth, Twitter, and Tumblr.

Fanlore Seeks Input on Image Policy about Images of Fans

Fanlore is the fandom history wiki and is a project of the Organization for Transformative Works. Through 31 October 2021, they are seeking public input on their proposed policy on how the wiki will handle uploaded images that include pictures of fans. To read the proposed policy and comment, see the post on Fanlore's Dreamwidth.

German Tolkien Society Annual Seminar: Tolkien and Politics

This year our Tolkien Seminar will take place from 29th - 31st October at the University of Marbug. The topic is "Tolkien and Politics". Due to the current situation, the seminar will take place for the first time in hybrid form with the possibility to participate on site and online. If you would like to attend on site, please register here. Registration is free!

Call for Papers: Popular Culture Association Conference Tolkien Studies Area

This year's Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association (PCA/ACA) Conference will be held in Seattle, April 13-16, 2022. Paper proposals are being accepted through November 15, 2020. Note that PCA/ACA offers a dedicated Tolkien Studies area!

The Tolkien Studies Area (TSA) welcomes proposals for individual papers, paper sessions (with four proposals), and roundtables (with five-seven participants) in any area of Tolkien studies. All PCA sessions are scheduled in 1.5-hour slots. Individual presenters should plan for fifteen minutes to present, and roundtable participants should plan for 5-7 minutes each.

We welcome scholars in all period specializations, from any disciplinary perspective, including interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary, and using any critical theory. Tolkien studies includes but is not limited to: the Legendarium, adaptations and transformative works, reader reception and fan studies, source studies, literary studies, critical race studies, cultural studies, tourism studies, medieval and medievalist studies, media and marketing, religious studies.

Academics, independent scholars, and graduate students are invited to submit through the online submission page. At this time, we are not accepting proposals from undergraduate students.

The Tolkien Studies area page has more information on how to submit a proposal.

Comfortween Prompts Open

There will not be new prompts this year as mods have been busy, but we would like to repost last year's if anyone would like to use them this year! There is a Ao3 Collection for posting to! This is a casual thing, do as many or as few as you would like. Post them out of order! Put your own spin on them! This is just for fun. You can find the Comfortween prompts here.