"The West" is a place numinous and longed for in Tolkien's world. It captures the sense that many of us have, standing on the shores of the sea and gazing at the pale line where sky meets sea, that something lies just over the horizon, just out of view yet somehow still perceptible as a longing in the heart. In Middle-earth, characters pine for the West. Who goes (and doesn't go) into the West is a big deal. Imagery of ships sailing toward that horizon, never to return, recurs throughout Tolkien's books, and the occasional characters allowed to transgress the boundary imposed by the sea and venture into the West act within key turning points in the narrative.

In this month's A Sense of History column, Simon J. Cook continues his series on the tower analogy in Tolkien's lecture-turned-essay "Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics," and this month he too turns toward the West. In 1936, two towers arose in Tolkien's writings, both coming from drafts where they formerly did not appear. There is, of course, the tower in "Monsters and the Critics," but a tower appears in that year too in The Fall of Númenor.

As Simon has documented in his series, Tolkien scholars have engaged in a "punch up on the lawn" about what the tower in "Monsters and the Critics" actually means. Simon makes the point that they are overlooking the key connection with The Fall of Númenor and Tolkien's other towers: those familiar within his imagined world of Middle-earth. The tower in "Monsters and the Critics," like so many others in the legendarium, was built with the express purpose of looking West.

You can read Simon's article "The Peaks of Taniquetil" here.

On the radio the other day, I heard a piece about the number of people who make New Year's resolutions only to break them, sometimes within a matter of days. Anyone who creates knows that, although many of us know those near-magical days when the words and ideas and paint seem to effortlessly flow, there are also days when we have to make ourselves work on creative projects.

For many years now, the SWG has run Resolution as the first challenge of the year. While ostensibly it exists to get us all off on the right foot as creators by encouraging us to start the year creatively, it in fact lets us make up for our regrets and foibles from the previous year. Did you miss a challenge (or two or ...) that you wanted to do during 2023? Did you start a challenge piece that you never got around to finishing? Request a prompt you wanted to use but didn't? During the month of January until 15 February, the Resolution challenge lets you start and finish those fanworks like real life never got in the way during 2023!

A few tips to help make Resolution a more successful challenge:

• There is no minimum word count for challenges. Any type of fanwork counts as long as it is Silmarillion-based.
• You can combine multiple prompts into a single challenge response. Have a couple you missed doing and want to mash them up into a single fanwork? Go wild!
• If a challenge initially required you to request a prompt from the moderators, those challenges are now self-select prompts. You can find all of the challenges listed on the Resolution challenge page, and the prompts listed under the challenge you want to complete. The only exception is Secret Gate, last year's Matryoshka challenge. If you want to try that one, message the mods and let us know if you want two, three, five, or seven prompts. (Replying to this email accomplishes the same thing!)

If you're new to our challenges, the challenge guidelines are here. Questions? Reply to this email, and we'll help you get started!

Finally, our challenges also have a comment component. Comment on a 2023 challenge fanwork to receive the commenter stamp for that challenge. (Challenge fanworks are listed on the page for the challenge.) If you've commented on a challenge prior to Experimental, let us know so that we can add the stamp to your collection. (Again, just reply here!)

Here's to creativity and community in 2024!

(Quick final note that Russandol and I fixed a pretty annoying error on the site this morning that has been impacting pages with /user in the URL for the past several months. Find more about the error and the fix here. If you're a registered member, check your profile and make sure everything looks okay. If it doesn't, you can just ... you know what I'm going to say, right?? Reply here!)

I teach geography (among other things), and I often present my students with maps that center a region of the world other than Europe, present the world "upside down," or allow them to see the true size of countries with Mercator-induced distortions. The hope is that this will help offset students' perceptions of the world enough that they can center the perspectives of peoples whose voices often are not heard.

In the Tolkien fanworks world, there are many creators devoted to doing the exact same thing. Mirra Kan is one such artist. A self-described orientalist, she seeks to recalibrate our understanding of Middle-earth to center the cultures and perspectives of characters from the south and east. As many fans have observed over the years, characters from the Middle-earth equivalent of the Global South are not just marginalized but demonized, reduced to convenient villains.

"Tolkien is so much more than that," Mirra tells Anérea in this month's interview for Tolkien Fanartics, "and I felt that creative fire burning inside—the urge to tell, to share, and to spotlight some things people tend to ignore: colonial past, slavery, dark cults, necromancy, and people staying faithful with no Elves to guide them." Mirra's work amplifies the canon that shows that the people of the south and east of Middle-earth were not inherently evil but striving for the same hopes, dreams, and sense of safety as any human, and her vibrant, realistic artwork brings to life to people who live in the margins of the stories.

You can read Anérea's interview with Mirra Kan here.

When the SWG began in 2005, the year 2023 was firmly located in the realm of futuristic science fiction. And indeed, from our humble beginnings as a Yahoo! Group, LiveJournal community, and website built using a text editor and a web browser, when the idea of interacting online was very new to most of us, where we are now would have been almost impossible to imagine back then.

Every year at the New Year, I experience gratitude (and, not gonna lie, a bit of awe) for the continued existence of the SWG. And not even just a continued existence, frozen in time, where we preserve the fanworks of the past, but an ongoing thriving community that continues to make fanworks about Tolkien's world and build community among Tolkien fans.

So far for 2023 (because it's not over yet!), we've had 548 fanworks added to or updated on our archive. 139 of those fanworks were created for our 2023 challenges. We welcomed 74 new members to the archive.

Importantly, this occurs within a larger fandom context that has, for many years now, tilted toward consolidation onto large multifandom archives and social sites, which means that our own success as a small, independent archive and fan site is not accidental: It is created through the hard work of our volunteers and the dedication of our members, who continue to create, post, read, view, and discuss fanworks with us in a time when most small archives have gone inactive—or gone offline altogether. When I've occasionally mentored archive and event admins over the years, I've told them that the Field of Dreams mentality does not apply in today's fandom world. In this 1989 film, the saying goes, "If you build it, they will come," and maybe that was true of archives in the early 2000s, but it certainly is not today. A lot of effort and commitment go into fandom archives that remain active, and I am so grateful to each of you who choose to share your creativity, wisdom, and fellowship with us.

I hope everyone has a wonderful New Year and looking forward to an excellent 2024!

When I was a relatively new site owner in Tolkien fandom, I remember grousing with another site owner about how difficult it was to get Tolkien fans interested in new platforms. We (as tech as well as Tolkien nerds) wanted our friends to play on the same new toys we did, and we found they were mostly just not interested. Tolkien fans are, in other words, the Galadriels of the fandom world: They find their Lothlórien, find their people, and make magic rings to stay forever.

This was just one way—keeping a foot in Tolkien fandom and also the "acafan" community—that I found most Tolkien fans differed from fandom as a whole. As a Tolkien fan studies researcher, I have always been fascinated by how the two differed but struggled to document this as more than just a vague feeling (including, as a general rule, the complete lack of any discussion of Tolkien fandom and fans, despite the longevity of the former and number of the latter, in the fan studies scholarship).

So when the OTW 16th Annual Survey results were released and I saw there were some overlaps with my own Tolkien Fanfiction Survey, I couldn't wait to check out the results side by side. It's perilous work, comparing two different survey datasets, and I caution that this month's Cultus Dispatches should be read with a huge grain of salt. However, I there are some interesting overlaps, namely that we are Galadriels: When you look at the platform data between the two surveys, we Tolkien people show a preference for sites that aren't necessarily older but have an early-internet vibe.

You can read this month's article, "Duel of Surveys: Comparing Tolkien Fanfiction and OTW Survey Data," here.

Take a look down the page at our Around the World and Web listings, and you'll see we're entering a busy season of Tolkien fandom events. It's always been important to us to help promote events and work being done by other Tolkien groups—it's even in our mission!—which includes welcoming fanworks created for other events on our archive.

This brings up what we term our MFAQ: Most Frequently Asked Question. If the SWG is for Silmarillion-based fanworks, what makes a fanwork count as adequately Silmarillion-based for our site? The long answer is at the link in the preceding sentence. The short answer is that we are almost always more liberal in our definition of "Silmarillion fanwork" than people think we are. If it involves Lord of the Rings or Hobbit characters in ages outside of the main plots of those books—characters like Aragorn, Tom Bombadil, or Thorin Oakenshield who clearly had important stories before their appearances in those books—then those works are welcome with us. If it is a multi-age work, it is welcome with us, as long as a significant portion of the work counts as a "Silmarillion fanwork" under our definition.

If you have Tolkien fanworks that are not Silmarillion-based but that you'd like to archive with us, we also offer the Beyond the Silmarillion section, which accepts all Tolkien-based fanworks and is available to use by creators who have posted at least five fanworks or 10,000 words of writing on our archive. Anyone can read and view Beyond fanworks!

If you ever have questions about which of your fanworks are eligible for our site, never hesitate to reach out to our moderators. It is helpful to provide a summary of the fanwork or a link to the fanwork archived elsewhere on the web.

Compiling this newsletter each week and numbering the issues becomes a sort of sandglass of the year. Here we are on Week 48, almost through another year and starting over with Issue 1 (and approaching the SWG closing in on two decades of existence!)

First, this month's article is Never Mind the Dwarves by Simon J. Cook. If you've been following Simon's work over the past few months, you know he has been interrogating the tower analogy in Tolkien's lecture/essay "Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics," in many cases pushing back on the work of established scholars (who have not all reacted well to his series), as part of our A Sense of History column. This month's column is a much lighter approach, itself an analogy that blends scholarship, fiction, and fandom. I asked Simon how he would introduce his own piece:

We all know that feeling of hearing a scholar speak about Tolkien's stories and wondering how a human being could so utterly fail to notice the actual art. Words drop from their lips like acid rain falling on virgin snow. Yet one brave band of scholars has broken out of this mould. While spurning imagination, as all scholars must, they nevertheless have seen with their own eyes the profound architecture of the stories that the rest of us love. What is the secret of those very few who take this left-path of scholarship? What allows them and nobody else direct and unmediated vision of the Truth? Simon's research has long grappled with this question and, after many many weary hours rummaging in the archives of the Lore section of the 'Lord of the Rings Fanatics Plaza', he now reveals the story of the Boffin Stone, which even today may be touched by those who know how to access the hidden chamber in the highest tower of the Fanatics Plaza.

This is also the time of year when the SWG moderators begin to plan the next year on our community, specifically the challenges. One of our favorite parts of our challenges are the stamp collections: the chance to receive a small postage stamp graphic on your profile to commemorate the various ways to participate in challenges. If you are an artist and would like to help make stamps for next year's challenges, you can learn more here. Reply to this email for questions or to gain access to the sign-up document!

As we look forward to the next year, we'd also love to hear from you if you have ideas of how the SWG can continue to grow and serve Tolkien fanworks creators. You can always reply to these newsletters to reach our moderator team.

"[O]ne cannot make a map for the narrative, but must first make a map and make the narrative agree."

In 1943, Tolkien wrote the line above to his publisher. He was speaking of The Lord of the Rings, but the belief described applies equally across all of his works and reflects in the kinds of stories he would write, stories where people sprawl across the map, out on quests and migrating and marching into battle. Tolkien's stories depend heavily on geography, so it probably comes as no surprise that the earliest known Silmarillion map was drawn as early as 1926 and was contemporaneous with Tolkien's first writings of the texts that would become The Silmarillion.

In this month's Tolkien Fanartics column, Anérea continues her series on fan-created maps, focusing this month on the maps of Beleriand. Beleriand (as is true of many Silmarillion locations) is an interesting place, being gone from Arda by the time the narrator writes of it, giving it a lost, legendary feel even in the Silmarillion itself. Coupled with the sometimes scanty and contradictory details that comprise the "Silmarillion" texts, making maps of Beleriand serves various functions for the artists who undertake them. Featuring the work of seven mapmakers, Anérea's article shows that maps can visualize the canon anew, offer new perspectives on place, serve as research and inspiration for fanworks, and bring to life locations that receive only cursory attention in the texts.

You can read Anérea's "Mapping Arda, Part II: Travels through Beleriand here.

And speaking of art and artists, we are again seeking artists who would like to see their work featured on our 2024 challenge stamps. Reply to this email to gain access to the sign-up list!

For the first part of Celegorm's biography, I described Tolkien's work as "checking all the boxes" of a villain. This mostly came about through the introduction and development of what Christopher Tolkien terms the Nargothrond Element: the public betrayal of Finrod, the contemplated coup in Nargothrond, and the attempt to force a marriage with Lúthien. After a confused beginning for Celegorm's character, the Nargothrond Element—in place relatively early—seems to have cemented his identity as a character.

But Tolkien wasn't done. In a collection of 1930s texts written just prior to beginning The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien develops Celegorm's character both in line with this established villainy and somewhat contrary to it. After LotR is published, Tolkien resumes work on the "Silmarillion" and makes some final refinements to Celegorm's character (including the introduction of his storyline with Aredhel). Furthermore, we have rare examples of Tolkien showing his thinking around characterization, and there seems little question that he didn't want Celegorm (and Curufin) to simply slide into the role of unmitigated villains. Many of the additions to Celegorm's story undertaken after the Nargothrond Element was in place—and discussed in the second part of Celegorm's biography—seem at least partially motivated by complicating Celegorm's character.

One of the most interesting parts of working on this biography (which I began researching in early August and so have been living with for some time now) is what we can see of how Tolkien worked—and sometimes even how he thought—as an author. Even though Celegorm is only mentioned fifty-two times in the published text, his character is documented in more detail than most in the texts that formed the published Silmarillion. Tolkien isn't often credited with writing complex characters. Critical attention has tended to focus on his skill with language and worldbuilding, not with writing emotionally realistic characters. Celegorm provides evidence that he did think about how to present his characters as complex people.

You can read Celegorm's biography here (and jump to Part 2 here).

In his lecture "On Fairy-stories," Tolkien wrote of the Tree of Tales, an image that resonates with many fanworks creators. Our works are part of a living tradition, drawing from Tolkien's legendarium and other works to come before them, yet constantly growing and branching from each other, creating an ever-more-elaborate web of story, art, and other creative works.

Every November and December, we feature a two-month challenge* for creators on our site. From a logistical standpoint, we do this because it is a busy season for most of our members, so we not only grant the extra time for the challenge but strive to come up with a challenge that can be completed quickly or extended across the two months, depending on a participant's availability.

* And really it can be extended to a third month, since January's challenge is always an amnesty challenge to complete any challenges you missed in the prior year.

This year's two-month challenge is Understory and extends Tolkien's arboreal metaphor of the Tree of Tales to consider that tree as part of a whole forest. Within our forest of fanworks are the understories: the characters, plots, and details that receive glancing mention and function similarly to the small trees and plants of of the forest understory. These have the potential to grow and join in the forest, if only given the nurturance they need.

Creators who choose to participate in this month's challenge will choose a character, plot point, or other small detail from another creator's fanwork. With that creator's permission, they will develop that detail into its own fanwork.

Because this is a two-month challenge, we have set aside the first week-and-a-half of the challenge to invite creators to complete our Understory permission form to state if and how you would like your fanworks used by other creators. We will post the list of creators who have opted in and out of the challenge on 23 November on the challenge page. Participants can contact and ask permission from creators who aren't on the list, of course, but having a list of creators to start with makes the challenge more accessible to creators who are shy, don't speak English comfortably, or might have other reasons for feeling nervous about contacting a creator directly. If you create fanworks and haven't yet completed the form, we really appreciate taking a moment to do so!

If you plan on participating in the challenge, make sure to review the full Understory challenge guidelines before you begin your fanwork, as there rules around permissions for the fanwork(s) you use as your inspiration. Have questions? Click Reply on this email and let us know!