Two years ago, we announced our Year of History: an endeavor to ensure that historical materials that had become unavailable or difficult to access due to our site migration and closure of various social media would continue to be available. This was and is a big job. The SWG is twenty years old, so that is twenty years of fanworks, conversations, and documents that trace our evolution from a small Silmarillion-focused social group—one among thousands at the time—to one of the only Tolkien fanfiction archives still online.

Working with the editors of The Fëanorian Zine pushed us to resurrect the Special Projects section of our site, where the zine would be hosted, and we've slowly been bringing the various special projects hosted there back online.

These are mid-2000s static HTML pages. Some of them used PHP includes, which was very fancy technology to me at the time! But beyond that and the obligate linked stylesheet, all that makes them tick lives in those HTML files, and when we migrated from a site that was partly static HTML pages and partly eFiction to a site that was entirely Drupal, the effect on many of our special projects was like dumping a bucket of freezing water over them. They technically still lived on the site, but their layouts and displays were broken when Drupal took over the site, and many of the links no longer worked.

Seven in '07 is the latest to come back online. This was our very first special project, focusing on the house of Fëanor and inspired by the calendar date 7/7/07. The SWG's archive opened on June 6 that year. Apparently, sometime in mid-June, I realized that the calendar that year contained the date 7/7/07, and that was an opportunity we could not pass up. On June 13, I opened a call for submissions for Seven in '07. My husband and I were in the middle of buying our first house. We moved in on June 29, without internet. My sister handled the updates to our web server, and Tárion Anaróre, one of my comoderators, handled announcements. Seven in '07 debuted on July 1 and featured a Fëanorian a day until the fateful date of 7/7/07 (Amrod and Amras shared a day). I have a distinct memory of logging into the internet at a Panera Bread to look at the project because I still did not have internet. Later, the project was popular enough that we decided to add pages for Nerdanel and Celebrimbor, which were posted at the end of July.

The central concept was that each day's character would have a short biography, presented along with fanfiction and fan art about that character. Oshun authored the biography for Fëanor, which also marked a turning point toward more detailed Character of the Month biographies that she'd lead for over a decade before passing into the West in 2024.

It was a big moment for our group, orchestrated in about two weeks and endeavored only about a week after opening the fanworks archive that is now the center of our site and itself a significant accomplishment at the time. Seven in '07 would encourage future special projects: opportunities to present and promote Silmarillion fanworks in a way that we hoped made them special (and I'll admit that I loved designing all those static HTML pages and their obligate linked stylesheets!)

As the Fëanorian Zine attests, we are still open to new special projects, so if you have an idea or would like to collaborate, just reply here or email the moderators to start the conversation!

Each year, we generally offer ten shiny new challenges for creators on our site. Sometimes, each challenge will have dozens or even hundreds of prompts. The aim of the challenge mods is to offer innovative approaches to making new fanworks while also having something for just about everyone. We want Silmarillion creators to be able to turn to our site and find something in our challenges to dismantle their writer's block or encourage a new approach to writing about the legendarium.

But with each challenge running for just a month, this means that creators often can't participate in all of them and get the stamps. Our challenges never close, so creators can always use past challenges to inspire fanworks and tag those challenges when posting their work. But practicality means that we only hand out stamps for the month the challenge is officially underway. Except in January! In January, creators can go back to the previous year's challenges and choose one they missed, pick a new prompt, or finish a fanwork they started but didn't finish.

Called New Year's Resolution, our annual amnesty challenge aims to encourage our members to do something creative or fannish to start the new year. You can find a recap of 2025's challenges here.

January becomes an odd month challenge-wise. Our Great Beleriand Bake-Off challenge is still running, with new prompts through January 15th. Both Great Beleriand Bake-Off and New Year's Resolution will give stamps to fanworks posted no later than February 15th, when we will unveil the next challenge.

Wishing all of our members and friends an inspiring New Year!

This week, we were very pleased to be able to host The Fëanorian Zine, a gorgeous full-color fanzine with fiction and art from thirty creators, which can be read and downloaded for free on the SWG. At over 150 pages, it promises hours of enjoyment if you're lucky to have time off during the December holidays. The SWG moderators would like to offer our congratulations to editors JoeTamy and StarsOfArda and all of the zine's contributors for their achievement! We hope you will check it out and share your appreciation if you enjoy it! (Note that you must be logged in to our site to comment. If you're not an SWG member and want to pass along your compliments, you can reply to this email too, and we will forward it to the editors.)

When JoeTamy and StarsOfArda first contacted us about hosting the zine, this nudged us to get the Special Projects section of our site back up and running. Since the first special project in 2007 (Seven in '07), special projects have taken a variety of forms and are sometimes, like The Fëanorian Zine, done in collaboration with other fandom groups. When we migrated the archive from eFiction to Drupal, the formatting broke on many of our special projects, which were sometimes housed on custom webpages. It has been easy to put off the work of getting these back up and running again, but we've begun to do so, and if you visit the Special Projects page (housed under the Extras menu), you will see The Fëanorian Zine now keeps company with Mereth Aderthad 2025 and two historical special projects, Akallabêth in August and Back to Middle-earth Month 2008, which are in the process of being restored.

Special Projects is an area of our site we hope will continue to grow, including supporting projects outside the SWG that benefit from the infrastructure we can provide through our website and archive. When the SWG was founded in 2005, we were committed to collaborating, not competing, with other fandom groups and projects, and that value remains important to us. If you're considering a special project or know someone who is, we'd love the help support your project if we can!

Finally, tomorrow (Sunday, December 28) we will host a live reading on the theme of celebrations on our Discord. It's not to late to sign up if you want to be on the program, but if you're not sure, there will be an open mic session at the end. Fanworks, excerpts, and passages from Tolkien on the theme of celebrations are all welcome! Find more information, including the program so far, here. The reading will begin at noon Eastern Time (find this in my timezone) on the #live-readings stage channel on our Discord, found under SWG Events. The channel will open a half-hour early to provide the opportunity to tech and sound checks from participants. We hope you can join to listen in or read!

In January 2017, we reconfigured our long-running creative challenges to the current format. Participation to this point had fallen off to where many challenges had no participants at all, and our moderator team at the time decided to change things up a bit in a last-ditch effort before shutting down challenges. By this point, many of us had gained experience running fandom events through annual events like Back to Middle-earth Month, and one thing we had learned was that small graphics as "prizes" were motivating and were win-win: participants liked getting them, they didn't cost a thing but the time it took to make them, and, for organizers, creating these graphics was often one of the most fun tasks to complete! We decided to offer small "postage stamps" for both creators and commenters who participated in the challenges.

We are entering our tenth year of the revised challenge system and, therefore, also the tenth year of challenge stamps. Three years ago, we decided to also ask around to see if fandom artists wanted to help with creating these stamps, and we're at that time of the year again! No matter your experience level, if you'd like to make a set of stamps for this year, reply to this email or contact us through the site. On Monday, we will share a sign-up for stamp creators.

You can find more information about the process and expectations for the finished stamps here.

Be aware that the stamp creator sign-up will include brief descriptions of the 2026 challenges and so will be slightly spoiling! If you like to be surprised each month, this might not be the best fit for you.

Also, as many of our members are celebrating the winter holidays, hopefully enjoying some time off, and perhaps wanting to make and share some fanworks, we will be hosting some events on our Discord in the coming weeks.

Tomorrow, 21 December, we will be hosting the Great Beleriand Bake-Off PLUS! Instadrabbling. Get some challenge fanworks created using prompts that offer a twist or go beyond the challenge prompts. The event starts at noon Eastern Time (find this in my timezone). If you've never instadrabbled, you can learn more about it here.

Next Sunday, December 28, we will be hosting a live reading of Tolkien excerpts and fanworks at noon Eastern Time (find this time in my timezone). Anyone is invited to read. If you want to be on the event program, you can sign up here. There will also be an open mic block at the end of the program that is open to anyone who wants to read. All are welcome to listen in as well!

You can join our Discord here. We hope to see you at one of our upcoming events!

As we draw close to the end of the year, we often try to host a few events: opportunities to gather with other Tolkien fans and make, enjoy, and celebrate fanworks and the world Tolkien built. We have a few events coming up in the next month and hope you can join us!

Himring and Dawn will be co-hosting an instradrabbling session in the next couple of weeks, which will include prompts from our current Great Beleriand Bake-Off challenge with additions and twists for the non-bakers among us! We are still in the process of firming up a date and time, so watch our website or social media spaces for the final details. (Not sure what instadrabbling is? Keep reading because the amazing Anna will continue to offer more opportunities for quick, collaborative fanwork-creating in 2026 as well!)

On December 28 at noon Eastern Time (find this in my timezone), we will be hosting a live reading around the theme of celebrations. 2025 was, of course, a major year for celebrations for the SWG: We turned 20 years old and gathered as part of the second-ever Mereth Aderthad event. The season presents many more reasons for celebration: holidays, a new year, and the return of light for those of us in the north.

Live readings are held on the stage channel on our Discord server. Participants can read a selection up to five minutes long, either an excerpt from Tolkien, a fanwork they created, or an excerpt from a fanwork they created.

If you know you want to participate as a reader, you can sign up here. Signing up ahead of time gets your name on the program, which means the audience can follow along with your fanwork as you read, read the full fanwork if you're just presenting an excerpt, and leave you comments. However, you do not have to sign up ahead of time! Not sure if you can make it or still mustering the courage? There will be an open mic session at the end of the program for anyone who wants to read!

Reading selections should be related to the theme of celebrations, but as always, we interpret this broadly and loosely. In other words, your choice does not have to focus on seasonal celebrations, winter celebrations, or holidays.

You should only sign up a fanwork that you wrote. However, if you'd like someone else to read your fanwork for you, you can do so, but please make these arrangements prior to signing up.

And of course listeners are most welcome! Even if you don't want to read, we hope you will join us to hear the wonderful fanworks and Tolkien passages that our readers choose to share!

Finally, as noted above, Anna (IdleLeaves) is generously hosting another round of monthly instadrabbling sessions on the first Saturday of January, February, and March at 18:00/6PM UTC. You can find more details, including these dates and times in your timezone, here. This round will mark a full year of monthly instadrabbling hosted by Anna—truly something to celebrate! If you've never instadrabbled before, this is a longstanding Tolkien fanworks tradition where creators gather in a chat, toss out prompts, and make quick, impromptu fanworks to share with each other and squee over. It is low-key and fun, and all are welcome to join!

All of these events are hosted on our Discord server. Not a member? You can join our Discord server here.

Saturday, our monthly instadrabbling session will take place on our Discord, kindly hosted by Anna (IdleLeaves). Instadrabbling has been a creative social activity in Tolkien fanfic circles for more than twenty years. The concept is simple but powerful: create small fanworks in a chat with other creators and share them in real time.

Instadrabbling isn't the only way we have used our Discord server to celebrate Tolkien and fanworks together! We also hold fanfiction book clubs and live readings of fanworks. Like instadrabbling, these are very often hosted by members, not moderators, so if you'd like to gather with fellow fans to discuss fanworks or read your favorite works to each other, check out the FAQs I linked and let a moderator know of your interest! (You can just reply to this email.) We'll work together to help you set up and run your event. And of course, if you have an idea for an event of a type we've never run before, propose your idea, and we'll try to make it happen!

For more casual creative gatherings, we also have the #write-ins and #art-studio channels, if you are looking for some support and fellowship from other fans to get words or paint on the page.

All of this speaks to fanworks as a community as well as solo-creative endeavor. We often think of writers, artists, and creators as solitary types. Fanworks challenge that stereotype, as so much of what we do is done for and in conversation with each other.

We hope you can join us for instadrabbling on Saturday!

This past week was the Thanksgiving holiday in the US, which is a good reminder to me to pause and reflect with gratitude on the many people who make the SWG possible. A group of this scope would be impossible for one person to run; the SWG would have folded years ago, by necessity, if not for the ongoing support of our moderators and volunteers.

First, I want to recognize Saelind, who after six years as a moderator on Discord, is stepping back to pursue other exciting opportunities outside of fandom. Serving as a Discord mod is a role with unique challenges. Our moderator channel looks rather like the stereotypical firehouse, where the firefighter-mods are mostly playing cards, cooking chili, and throwing a ball for the firehouse Dalmatian, until ... fear, fire, foes! Discord allows us to interact in real time, but this also means that conflicts kick off in real time too, and our server mods often must drop what they're doing to handle situations that, in the moment, can feel a lot like a house on fire. Saelind has spent six years helping us through these moments and has always given wise counsel. We wish her the best in her new endeavours!

Also on our mod team, Grundy is a server and challenge mod. She is the person who gives out the challenge stamps! Anyone who remembers the stamp collections on the old site knows I was not so timely as she is! Shadow, also a Discord mod, has stepped up as a third challenge mod in Lyra's old role, as Lyra is on hiatus, and I am grateful for their willingness to take on this new role. Challenges are one of the aspects of our site that keeps it vibrant and lively, but twenty years in, coming up with fresh and new approaches to making fanworks is, pardon the pun, a challenge. Thank you, Janeways, our final Discord mod and the creator of many of the beautiful banners that are featured for our newsletter articles. I am grateful for your willingness to share your artistic talents and to jump in wherever you're needed!

Russandol is my co-admin in running the site from a tech standpoint. She manages much of the backend of the site. She and I have spent many white-knuckle hours in DMs, trying to figure out why the site is broken or running updates that we hope won't break the site. "Why, Drupal, why??" is our motto. I always appreciate her willingness to share her tech skills with us to keep our site secure and running!

On our newsletter staff, our art editor is Anérea, whose vast knowledge of the art side of Tolkien fandom means we have diverse and lovely artwork to accompany newsletter articles. Varda delle Stelle is the assistant art editor and also helps source art and with gaining permissions. Elrond's Library is our Around the World & Web editor, who keeps the announcements in our newsletter updated so that, we hope, SWG members can connect with events and challenges that enchant their muses.

Also assisting on Discord are our Istari, Ettelenë and Nienna, who help to welcome newcomers and answer questions. Anna (IdleLeaves) has been running monthly instadrabbling sessions on Discord as well for the better part of a year, and these are always a highlight of the month! (One is coming up next week.)

I want to note as well something that I've observed about volunteers in my two decades of running this group. Everyone here does much more than what I recognized them for. Despite what is already on their plate as volunteers, theirs are the hands that raise first when something needs to be done, and many of them run events outside of the SWG as well. Much of this work goes unseen and unsung.

Tolkien fandom has existed for many decades now. Thank you to ALL of the fandom volunteers, past and present, who have given their time, energy, and talents to keeping the gates of Middle-earth open so that we can return again and again.

In many temperate climates right now, we are in what we call "stick season" in Vermont: either waiting for winter or waiting for the trees to realize it's spring. At this time of year, evergreen plants are the only color in the landscape in some parts of the world. These trusty trees are always there, always available!

We also have evergreen volunteer roles on the SWG, and so this time when evergreens are so prominent for many of us seems a good time to remind about them. These are volunteer roles that are always open and accepting new volunteers. First is our inclusivity committee. Making the SWG an inclusive space for all Tolkien fans is one of our priorities as an organization. Our inclusivity focus group serves two roles in advancing that goal. First, they consult with our mod team when we are making policies or addressing issues where inclusivity plays a part. Secondly, the inclusivity focus group is available for members to consult with, if they have concerns about inclusivity on the group that the mod team has not be able to satisfactorily resolve. Any SWG member who belongs to a group that has ben marginalized in fandom is welcome to join. You will be able to participate when you can and input is needed, so there is no regular obligations for this role. We meet on Discord but are willing to make accommodations for fans who are unable to use this platform.

Next, we also are always looking for scouts: people who run fandom events and want to post about their events on our site, as part of Around the World & Web. If you run a fandom event and would like the scout role, or if you'd like to join the inclusivity focus group, just reply to this email!

All open volunteer roles can be found here.

Finally, we have updated our Site Etiquette and Terms of Service to better address bot registrations, which due to the ubiquitous creep of AI, have gotten better at outsmarting the barriers we have in place. The addition to the SE/ToS reads as follows:

Once an account is approved, if six months pass and the account is never logged into, we will contact the member using the email registered with the site to confirm their interest in keeping their account open on the site. If we do not receive a reply within two weeks, the account will be deleted. Note that this applies only to accounts where the member never takes the next step after account approval of logging into the account. Once a member logs into their account for the first time, the account will remain open with no requirement of minimal activity. If a member's account is deleted because it is never logged into and that member wishes to set up an account at a later date, they will be able to register again.

As always, reply to this email or contact a moderator with questions!

Today, we are excited to unveil our November/December challenge, the Great Beleriand Bake-Off! Traditionally, we offer a challenge that spans November and December to meet both sets of needs that tend to arise around this season: Those who want to participate but are swamped with holiday-related commitments, and those who lay low from the world of fellow humans and want to lose themselves in fanworks. The Great Beleriand Bake-Off is a daily prompt calendar spanning November 15 through January 15. If you want to immerse yourself in fanworks-making, you can try for as many prompts if you want. If you want the stamp but could use a reprieve from a high-pressure anything, you only need to complete a single prompt to receive the creator stamp. You can complete prompts at any time; you don't have to do them on the day they are featured. Full challenge guidelines can be found here.

Grundy has done an amazing job sourcing baked goods from around the world, some contributed by our members, with a sweet and savory prompt for each day. Prompts are baked goods, each with a description and most with a recipe (or a few!) As always, you can use any part of the prompt to inspire your fanwork, including the linked websites (which often contain interesting historical and cultural tidbits about the featured food), and we welcome offbeat interpretations of the prompts. Fanworks do not need to be about baking or baked goods or feature the foods from the prompt.

Finally, Sundays will be done a little differently with a comment challenge. You can comment on any fanwork on the SWG site, not just fanworks created for the Great Beleriand Bake-Off. Make sure to tell the mods for each challenge you complete, as there is a unique stamp for each comment challenge!

Since we had many newcomers to the SWG during 2025, we also want to note that January 1 through February 15 is our annual amnesty challenge when you can complete any challenges from 2025 to receive stamps that you missed. Yes, that means that although the Great Beleriand Bake-Off prompt calendar will end on January 15, fanworks for the challenge will continue to receive stamps through February 15.

This is not the most exciting title but if you opened it anyway, thank you for reading! Whenever possible, we seek the input of our members on policy changes. These conversations often bring perspectives and considerations that we would have otherwise overlooked. (You can read more about how we govern the SWG here.)

The SWG mods are requesting public comment on a proposed change, intended to help us eliminate bot registrations, on how we manage accounts that are never accessed. When a newcomer registers for the SWG, the account is locked until a moderator can review it. This is not a gatekeeping strategy, and all Tolkien fans are welcome and approved as quickly as we can. However, we cull obvious bot registrations at this time, which based on our most recent registration data, is about 15% of registrations. After moderator approval, the new member is notified and can log into and use their account fully.

Currently, about 20% of those newcomers never log into their account once approved. Some of this is life: Most of us have registered for a website with best intentions of using it and discovered that time or inclination withers away quickly thereafter. This is a normal part of running a site like ours and in no way a concern or problem. However, thanks to the ever-growing creep of AI, we are also aware that bot registrations are likely to become more sophisticated. Unfortunately, my recent attempts to contact a few never-accessed members about their accounts and getting no response confirms that we might have arrived at this era.

It is in the best interest of everyone to not have bot registrations on the site that can potentially use their access to features like fanworks, comments, and member contact forms to bother SWG members with spam or malicious content. Given this, the SWG moderators the following change to our Site Etiquette and Terms of Service:

• If six months pass and a new account is never logged into, we will contact that person using the email registered on the site to allow them to keep their account.
• If we receive a reply, we will keep the account open. There is no obligation for the member to log into the account or use it or maintain any minimum level of activity.
• If we don't hear a reply within two weeks, we will delete the account.
• Note that this applies only to new accounts that have never been logged into. Once a person logs into their account, they can keep it forever and use it as much or as little as they like.

We are interested in input on this policy change. You can share your thoughts by replying to this email or joining the discussion in the #town-hall channel on our Discord. Thank you to all who have shared input so far!

And finally, a reminder that our current challenge, The Only Thing to Fear, has one week remaining during which to post fanworks if you'd like to receive a stamp for your creation.