Our newly formatted newsletter is closing out its second month. We hope that our subscribers are enjoying the links and content we've been able to share these past eight weeks! However, we also hope that this is just the first phase of a growing endeavor.

At the SWG, we believe strongly in the power of fan perspectives in the field of Tolkien Studies. We believe that fans—you—have a lot to offer to the conversation. Our newsletter is one way that we hope to encourage and spotlight the contributions of fans.

To this end, we are hoping to expand our newsletter to add a third column. A Sense of History was started by Angelica many years ago as a short column for discussing historical connections to Tolkien. We are hoping to relaunch this column and are looking for a lead writer to lead this endeavor! A lead writer would not just create content for the column but would support other writers working on the project. We have many more details about the lead writer role here.

As always, we're open to contributions on our two existing columns, Character of the Month and Cultus Dispatches. We're also open to feature articles or proposals for new columns. See our newsletter contribution page for more.

And if you're reading this, thank you for taking this next step of the SWG's journey with us!

Although Tolkien is best known for his works set in Middle-earth, he wrote a lot more than those. We kicked off a new challenge yesterday that aims to bring some of the more tantalizing lines from those other works to the forefront of our creators' imaginations. For the On a Different Page challenge, you will be assigned a prompt from one of Tolkien's non-Middle-earth works. Sound intriguing? Reply to this email to request a prompt!

Please keep in mind that we are still a Silmarillion-focused archive, and while prompts come from non-Ardaverse texts, to be eligible for the challenge, responses should have a connection to The Silmarillion. To be eligible for a stamp, responses should be posted to the archive on or before May 15th.

In other challenge updates, check out last month's Arda on Ice responses! And if you missed February's challenge and want to give it a go, the unassigned "Opposites Attract" prompts can be found here.

Fifteen years ago this July, the SWG ran an event called Seven in '07 in honor of the House of Fëanor. As part of it, each member of the House was given a short biography "illustrated" with fanworks. This project was a precursor to our Character of the Month, which would begin just a few months later.

However, since the Fëanorians were done, we didn't include them in the Character of the Month column. As Oshun pushed the Character of the Month into more and more detailed territory, however, those original Seven in '07 biographies began to seem inadequate, especially for characters as influential in the texts—and the fandom—as the Fëanorians. We've been working to replace them, and this month, after almost fifteen years, Maedhros finally gets his moment in the spotlight.

Maedhros is one of the fandom's favorite—and most controversial—characters. Fan interpretations run the gamut from seeing him as an innocent victim of his circumstances to an evil architect of the horrors of the First Age. This month's biography is the first of two parts and looks at his early life, up to the turning point marked by his captivity by Melkor. During this time, he was pulled between two brilliant parents: the impetuous and rebellious Fëanor and the patient and thoughtful Nerdanel. As the eldest son, he was a leader in his house, and his choices in these early years show the influence of Fëanor and Nerdanel, the first driving him to the disastrous oath but the latter shaping how he would respond to political and familial conflicts across the centuries as the head of his house.

Oshun's biography of Maedhros covers his early life, until his captivity by Melkor: the influence of the oath, his parents, and the ultimate development of his leadership role among the Noldorin princes. Maedhros is the most popular character on the SWG archive. Check out the variety of fan interpretations of Maedhros from among the 774 fanworks about Maedhros (and growing!) on our archive.

"The world has changed." With these words, the Fellowship of the Ring film opens. Yes, of course, it is describing a world darkened by the presence of the One Ring. But for Tolkien fans, this line could have just as easily described their fandom communities, which were undergoing massive transformations due to the rise of home Internet use, changes in the Internet landscape, and of course, the films.

This month, in our Cultus Dispatches column, we offer the first in what will be a series of articles about the impact of the two Jackson film trilogies on the Tolkien fandom. This month's column focuses on the fanfiction fandom and uses data from the Tolkien Fanfiction Survey to consider the question of initiation: How the films brought fans to the fic fandom and the kinds of stories those fans wrote once they arrived.

Of course, it's impossible to discuss this topic right now without considering the upcoming Rings of Power television series—and in fact, this series is deliberately timed as discussions about how the show will impact the fandom become increasingly common. As the title of this inaugural article suggests, the main impact of the films on the fic fandom has been to drive fans toward the books, helping to create the very book-centric Tolkien fic fandom we all enjoy today—part of the reason, in fact, that you are reading this now!

Remember, too, that we want to hear from you on this subject. Was this your experience or did you perceive the impact of the films on your communities differently? If you were in the Tolkien fandom before either (or both) of the film trilogies, we are seeking fan recollections of how the fandom did and did not change after the films for use in an upcoming column.

With the new Amazon series The Rings of Power now less than six months away, many Tolkien fans are understandably wondering how this new interpretation of Tolkien's world will affect the fan communities they participate in. Over the next few months, we'll be approaching this question from a few different angles. One way is by collecting accounts from the fans who were part of the fandom before one or both of the films. Does this describe you? We'd love to hear your memories of how fandom changed (or didn't) after the films were released!

The SWG has always valued fan history. If you want to share your history, we are always looking for new articles in our Cultus Dispatches column, and we encourage contributing to the OTW's Fanlore fan history wiki. Think of the future Ælfwines eagerly pawing through the Elven scrolls of old ...

Reminder! The female characters fanfiction book club is happening now, this weekend, on our Discord server. Find the schedule here. Not a member of our Discord server but want to join? Reply to this email and we'll send you an invite!

This week, we introduce our March 2022 challenge, Arda on Ice. While inspired by figure skating, it most definitely doesn't require you to use, mention, or even know anything at all about figure skating! This makes this a good challenge to illustrate our approach to challenges, which have been a part of the SWG since September 2005, when we introduced challenges with our Strong Women challenge. Since then we've offered over one hundred challenges.

When we design the challenges, we aim for maximum inclusivity. We do not want to exclude creators by forcing them to create about a specific character or other canon element or create a specific format of fanwork. That doesn't mean that every creator will like every challenge format, but we never want a creator to skip a challenge because it focuses only on Elves and they write about Dwarves, or because it requires poetry when they're a graphic artist.

Arda on Ice is an illustration of that. Creators choose three to eight very broad prompts to use in a fanwork. Those who know figure skating will pick up on the fact that the prompts are inspired by the figure skating moves. Those who don't know figure skating can pick the prompts they think work well together and never think about skating at all!

As the SWG expands to welcome all fanworks and not just writing, our moderator team is working on making sure our challenges and other site documents are maximally inclusive of all creators. If you have a question about how you can participate in a challenge or event with the type of fanwork you make, or you have ideas about how we can include more creators, just hit REPLY to this message and let us know!

The Tolkien fanworks community was abuzz this past week after the Tolkien Estate's FAQ on fanworks went viral on Tumblr. While we'd been leisurely planning our first Cultus Dispatches column for later in the month, we felt that the uproar around the Estate's FAQ justified pushing the column up and addressing the worries of many fans about what the FAQ means. So, this week, we are pleased to not only introduce our Cultus Dispatches column but also hope to ease the minds of our fellow creators that the FAQ does not spell the demise of Tolkien fanworks as we know them.

This week's column, which is linked below, was collaboratively produced, making this a good time to offer the reminder that the SWG is a community powered by the help of many volunteers. If you like this newsletter and would like to help us produce content, either writing an article or column of your own or collaborating with others, hit REPLY to this email and let us know, and we'll be in touch with how you can get involved!

In crafting titles, Tolkien loved returns. There's The Return of the King, "Of the Return of the Noldor," and The Return of the Shadow. As we mark the occasion of relaunching our newsletter, it seems appropriate to title this first new edition "The Return of the Newsletter"!

Our newsletter is older than our archive. The first edition was posted in September 2005, and we did not miss a month until April 2021, when our new site made the old newsletter format redundant. With this "Return of the Newsletter," we will be introducing a new format: a weekly email round-up of new and updated fanworks, SWG news, and announcements from around the fandom. We're also working on adding more original content to our newsletter, with feature articles and columns (including the return of the Character of the Month!) If you'd like to write an article or contribute to a column, see the News item below or reply to this email to reach the mods.

To all who are reading this, thank you for being here with us for our return!

Here is a test newsletter! Let's see if it works.