Birthday Bash

On March 14, 2005, the SWG arrived in the small hours of the morning. It was still in very embryonic form, actualized only as a Yahoo! Group with no members and a series of very cringey posts on Dawn's LiveJournal (she had no idea how LiveJournal worked, having joined just that day to post these cringey posts in her insomnia-fueled effort to launch the SWG).

Twenty years later, this challenge debuted in recognition of two full decades of existence of the SWG. Each day, we will post an event that is an important hashmark on the timeline of the SWG's history along with three prompts that (at least in the challenge mods' mind) are associated with that event: a single word, a snippet of poetry (with a link to the full poem), and a public domain image. As always, you can use any aspect of the prompt to inspire your fanwork, including fragments of prompts or parts of the poem not included on the challenge page. The history snippets are fair game as prompts. You do not have to create or share your response on the day a prompt is posted. You can go back to past prompts, and you can stitch prompts from different days together into fanworks in cool and bizarre ways.

This challenge opened in March 2025 .

Prompts

Choose your prompt from the collection below.

View Prompts

Click images to view them full-sized.

March 14

The SWG started because Dawn had insomnia on March 14. While staring into the dark and becoming increasingly unmoored from reality, she thought that there should be a writers' workshop for Silmarillion authors. The next day (well, later that day ...), she started the SWG.

Word: awake

Poem:

Wake, butterfly— 
it's late, we've miles 
to go together.

Wake, butterfly by Bashō, translated by Lucien Stryk

March 15

In late July of 2005, ford_of_bruinen and Dawn spread the news to their friends about the SWG. There was almost no overlap, but this seemed a symbolic first step toward a group that cared less about what genre or pairing you wrote and more about a shared love for Tolkien's world and fanworks about it.

Word: gather

Poem:

a time to cast away stones and a time to gather stones together 
Ecclesiastes 3:5

March 16

In September 2005, the SWG ran its very first challenge, Strong Women, which was suggested by Jenni (Digdigil), who would become our second moderator. Although there were no lofty aspirations in this choice, in retrospect, it seems apt given our later expressed aim of encouraging fanworks about groups underrepresented in the legendarium and Western culture at large.

Word: spark

Poem:

Like the sweet apple which reddens upon the topmost bough, 
Atop on the topmost twig, — which the pluckers forgot, somehow, — 
Forget it not, nay; but got it not, for none could get it till now. 
One Girl by Sappho

March 17

In September 2005, the SWG newsletter began. It began with a monthly distribution, took a brief hiatus in 2021, and is now released weekly.

Word: tidings

Poem:

I used to think 
I had no message, but the message is me—bloodshot and hungry, 
spilled coffee down the front of my shirt. People of the future, 
gather round. I have traveled through ink to greet you. 
Greetings by Charles Rafferty

March 18

The SWG was originally intended as a writers' workshop. On January 5, 2006, discussion began on the Yahoo! group about building an archive. Almost overnight, the group's trajectory and ultimately its purpose changed.

Word: transmutation

Poem:

The snow of yesterday 
That fell like cherry blossoms 
Is water once again 
"The Snow of Yesterday" by Koshigaya Gozan

March 19

Beta-testing of the archive began in May 2007, and the archive opened to the public on June 6. There was a lot of figuring out as we went along. Dawn's dad and husband were among the SWG members who were beta-testers, with the latter posting a poem completely unrelated to Tolkien that hides on the archive to this day. We've grown past the point of having to ask unwitting relatives to test stuff for us, but the tradition of learning on the job continues to this day.

Word: honing

Poem:

B. It is April as I write. The wind 
Is blowing after days of constant rain. 
All this, of course, will come to summer soon. 
But suppose the disorder of truths should ever come 
To an order, most Plantagenet, most fixed. . . . 
A great disorder is an order. 
Connoisseur of Chaos by Wallace Stevens

March 20

Rhapsody joined our moderator team in September 2007. At a time in history where tolerance was often held up as an ideal, Rhapsody pushed us to expect better of ourselves through acceptance. As the mom of a son with autism, she was a tireless advocate for accessibility and acceptance of people with disabilities and differences, real-world work that reflected in her efforts to make fandom also a more welcoming, accepting place.

Word: embrace

Poem:

And therefore I look upon everything 
as a brotherhood and a sisterhood, 
and I look upon time as no more than an idea, 
and I consider eternity as another possibility,

and I think of each life as a flower, as common 
as a field daisy, and as singular,

and each name a comfortable music in the mouth, 
tending, as all music does, toward silence,

and each body a lion of courage, and something 
precious to the earth.

When Death Comes by Mary Oliver

March 21

Back to Middle-earth likely would have gone into the good night but we HAD to make it an event in 2008 that escalated from there across many years until it involved multiple fandom groups and dozens of participants. (B2MeM is still ongoing, though we are no longer affiliated with it.) It became an annual tangle and stressor and ordeal and ultimately joy, resulting in thousands of Tolkien fanworks and bringing many Tolkien fans together.

Word: deluge

Poem:

The... land shattered like a... pot. 
All day long the South Wind blew ..., 
blowing fast, submerging the mountain in water, 
overwhelming the people like an attack. 
No one could see his fellow, 
they could not recognize each other in the torrent. 
The Epic of Gilgamesh, Tablet XI, author unknown, translated by Maureen Gallery Kovacs

March 22

Akallabêth in August was held for the first time in 2008 with a retelling of the Second Age in fanworks in 2009 because we perceived that Second Age fanworks were being overwhelmed by a great wave of First Age works. Akallabêth in August continues today with a special stamp each year for the August challenge.

Word: undercurrents

Poem:

Darkness settles on roofs and walls,  
But the sea, the sea in the darkness calls; 
The little waves, with their soft, white hands, 
Efface the footprints in the sands, 
      And the tide rises, the tide falls. 
The Tide Rises, the Tide Falls by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

March 23

Back to Middle-earth Month 2010 involved an interactive game, the first of several times that we would run a challenge with a collaborative gaming component.

Word: plot

Poem:

Every turn, every sacrificial 
move—all the decoys, the castling, 
 

the deflections—these will be both 
riotous and unruly, the exact opposite 
of what she thought she ever wanted 
in the endgame of her days. 
Chess by Aimee Nezhukumatathil

March 24

Back to Middle-earth Month 2010 was also the first done in collaboration with another archive, Many Paths to Tread. The art group Arda Inspired would join as a cohost in subsequent years as well. This collaboration actualized a goal we'd had since our existence: that fan groups and archives should not compete but should support each other.

Word: bridge

Poem:

I’m not crossing 
To cross back. I’m set 
On something vast. It reaches 
Long as the sea. I’m more than a conqueror, bigger 
Than bravery. I don’t march. I’m the one who leaps. 
Crossing by Jericho Brown

March 25

The late 2000s brought a decrescendo in the Tolkien fandom. The Lord of the Rings films felt long past, archives and groups were fading, fanworks were fewer and fewer. This era reminds us that most of our history (and all history) is not accomplishment, not newness, but simply sustaining a place in the world for those who want it.

Word: everyday/every day

Poem:

Not the marvelous act, but the evident conclusion of being. 
Not strangeness, but a leap forward of the same quality. 
Accomplishment. The even loyalty. But fresh. 
Not the Prodigal Son, nor Faustus. But Penelope. 
The thing steady and clear. Then the crescendo. 
The real form. The culmination. And the exceeding. 
Not the surprise. The amazed understanding. The marriage, 
Not the month's rapture. Not the exception. The beauty 
That is of many days. Steady and clear. 
It is the normal excellence, of long accomplishment. 
The Abnormal Is Not Courage by Jack Gilbert

March 26

The growing senescence of Tolkien fandom brought the realization that the people and works we assumed would always be there might in fact disappear. The SWG began its first fandom preservation effort, The Library of Tirion, which sought to archive Silmarillion fanworks that were important to SWG members and were posted before the SWG archive opened.

Word: heritage

Poem:

As soon as he had said, such change grew in my breast 
That neither night nor day I could take any rest. 
Wherefore I did repent that I had said before: 
Go, go, go, seek some other where, importune me no more. 
When I Was Fair and Young by Queen Elizabeth

March 27

In April 2011, the SWG opened its Dreamwidth community, the first new social media platform it would adopt, due to increased denial of service attacks on LiveJournal. This first small migratory foray would typify the 2010s, which were marked by multiple fandom platform upheavals, closures, and migrations.

Word: displaced

Poem:

Yesterday I lost a country. 
I was in a hurry, 
and didn't notice when it fell from me 
like a broken branch from a forgetful tree. 
I Was in a Hurry by Dunya Mikhail, translated by Elizabeth Winslow

March 28

In 2011, the site moderators began working to develop an art gallery, an achievement they wouldn't reach while using eFiction software but would become one of the first new features added after migrating the software to Drupal. Although unsuccessful, this aspiration would mark the moderators' growing commitment to opening the group to more fanworks than just writing.

Word: endeavor

Poem:

Or were I in the wildest waste, 
Sae black and bare, sae black and bare, 
The desert were a Paradise, 
If thou wert there, if thou wert there. 
O, Wert Thou in the Cauld Blast by Robert Burns

March 29

Although they could not figure out the art gallery, in November 2012, the site mods were able add a feature for sharing podfic and other audio on the archive. This expanded to include a monthly podfic featured in the newsletter to promote the format.

Word: listen

Poem:

The stars know everything, 
So we try to read their minds. 
As distant as they are, 
We choose to whisper in their presence. 
Autumn Sky by Charles Simic

March 30

Keiliss was one of the early members of the SWG, joining when we were still just a Yahoo! Group with aspirations of an archive. Throughout her years with us, she offered wise counsel and stories that would make your heart soar.

Word: memory

Poem:

Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho' 
We are not now that strength which in old days 
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are; 
One equal temper of heroic hearts, 
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will 
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield. 
Ulysses by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Photo Credit: Red Labelin

March 31

The SWG signed on as a group participating in the International Day of Femslash in July 2013 in hopes of promoting and expressing support for a genre ignored and even maligned in fandom.

Word: horizons

Poem:

And it's easy to make this understood by 
everyone, for she who surpassed all human 
kind in beauty, Helen, abandoning her 
                    husband—that best of

men—went sailing off to the shores of Troy and 
never spent a thought on her child or loving 
parents: when the goddess seduced her wits and 
                    left her to wander 
The Anactoria Poem by Sappho

April 1

As the 2010s brought more fandom platform shifts, the SWG opened a blog on Tumblr in late 2013. "Tumbled" might describe how many veteran Tolkien fans, accustomed to semipublic and private communities, felt when acclimating to Tumblr's very fast and very public format.

Word: tumbled

Poem:

For Tomorrow, he knew, all the Who girls and boys, 
Would wake bright and early. They'd rush for their toys! 
And then! Oh, the noise! Oh, the Noise! 
Noise! Noise! Noise! 
How the Grinch Stole Christmas by Dr. Seuss

April 2

In 2014, Lyra and Independence1776 led a year-long rereading and discussion of The Silmarillion. Located at just about the halfway point in our history, it now reminds us of the book that brought us all together, of the power of words.

Word: caldera

Poem:

But when a mind climbs down 
    from its high craggy lookout 
we know it is truly a stubborn thing, 
    & has to leaf through pages of dust 
& light, through pre-memory & folklore, 
    remembering fires roared down there 
till they pushed up through the seafloor 
    & plumes of ash covered the dead 
shaken awake worlds away, & silence 
    filled up with centuries of waiting. 
Islands by Yusef Komunyakaa

April 3

Amidst many changes in the fandom, in March 2014, the moderators considered whether to end the SWG's challenges, which were an original part of the group, older even than the archive, as participation in the challenges ground down to zero.

Word: deathbed

Poem:

How have you left the ancient love 
         That bards of old enjoy'd in you! 
The languid strings do scarcely move! 
         The sound is forc'd, the notes are few! 
To the Muses by William Blake

April 4

2016 began with the first signs that the archive's trusty eFiction software, which hadn't released a new update in several years, was beginning to fade. Every time the SWG's webhost upgraded its software, something else small would crumble within the site.

Word: corrosion

Poem:

These wall-stones are wondrous — 
calamities crumpled them, these city-sites crashed, the work of giants 
corrupted. The roofs have rushed to earth, towers in ruins. 
Ice at the joints has unroofed the barred-gates, sheared 
the scarred storm-walls have disappeared— 
the years have gnawed them from beneath. 
The Ruin, unknown author, translated from Anglo-Saxon by Dr. Ophelia Eryn Hostetter

April 5

In January 2017, the moderators decided to allow the long-running and failing challenges one final gasp at life. They returned to a monthly challenge and added variety to how they formatted the challenge prompts. It worked. The first of the new challenges, Taboo, garnered twenty-one fanworks, and monthly challenges remain a hallmark of the SWG today.

Word: jolt

Poem:

He sets his liquids burping, and coils blinking and buzzing, 
and waits for an electric storm to send through the equipment 
the spark vital for life. 
The storm breaks over the castle 
and the equipment really goes crazy 
like a kitchen full of modern appliances 
as the lightning juice starts oozing right into that pretty corpse. 
The Bride of Frankenstein by Edward Field (Note: The full poem contains sexual violence.)

April 6

The first in-person SWG event, Mereth Aderthad, was held in July 2017 in the Northeast Kingdom, Vermont.

Word: prototype

Poem:

A noiseless patient spider, 
I mark’d where on a little promontory it stood isolated, 
Mark’d how to explore the vacant vast surrounding, 
It launch’d forth filament, filament, filament, out of itself, 
Ever unreeling them, ever tirelessly speeding them. 
A Noiseless Patient Spider by Walt Whitman

April 7

In July 2018, the SWG's Discord server opened. With the Yahoo! group long silent and Dreamwidth never enthusiastically adopted, it marked the return of an active social space for SWG members.

Word: dialogue

Poem:

The flowers do fade, and wanton fields, 
To wayward winter reckoning yields, 
A honey tongue, a heart of gall, 
Is fancy’s spring, but sorrow’s fall. 
The Nymph's Reply to the Shepherd by Sir Walter Raleigh

April 8

With the Discord server came instadrabbling! A long-standing Tolkien fic fandom tradition, instadrabbling was immediately and enthusiastically adopted on the SWG Discord, where members still gather regularly to make and share tiny but substantial fanworks together.

Word: slight

Poem:

I put in a butterfly, first. 
Shake its purple noondust air 
into the furthest corner where 
it will be safe.

Then, I put in the snake 
that he bit a mouthful out of, 
silenced with a stone.

What else was there room for, 
after that? 
Packing by Sampurna Chattarji

April 9

COVID-19 ravaged the world and sent many people into lockdown and isolation. The SWG held multiple live events on its Discord server during lockdown in hopes that connection with fellow fans will help SWG members weather the pandemic.

Word: mesh

Poem:

Later the darkness fell 
and the solid moon 
like a white pond rose. 
But I wasn't in any hurry.

Likely I visited all 
the shimmering, heart-stabbing 
questions without answer 
before I climbed down. 
Hummingbird by Mary Oliver

April 10

In August 2020, Dawn began rebuilding the SWG's website in new software, Drupal. The first delicate roots took hold, and Dawn and Russandol spent the next eight months building, testing, and migrating data into the new site.

Word: radicle

Poem:

And now it seems to me the beautiful uncut hair of graves. 
Song of Myself by Walt Whitman

April 11

In April 2021, the new site officially opened. Over the next two years, it would expand to accept all types of fanworks: artwork, audio, link collections, multimedia works, playlists, series, videos—and of course all types of writing.

Word: reignite

Poem:

let ruin end here

let him find honey 
where there was once a slaughter

let him enter the lion’s cage 
& find a field of lilacs

let this be the healing 
& if not   let it be

little prayer by Danez Smith

April 12

In March 2022, the moderators decided to remove LiveJournal as an official social media "satellite" for the SWG. With the Yahoo! group purged two years earlier, none of the original SWG platforms—Yahoo! Groups, LiveJournal, and eFiction—remained in use.

Word: cenotaph

Poem:

So I, 
often wretched and sorrowful, 
bereft of my homeland, 
far from noble kinsmen, 
have had to bind in fetters 
my inmost thoughts, 
Since long years ago 
I hid my lord 
in the darkness of the earth, 
and I, wretched, from there 
travelled most sorrowfully 
over the frozen waves, 
sought, sad at the lack of a hall, 
a giver of treasure, 
where I, far or near, 
might find 
one in the meadhall who 
knew my people, 
or wished to console 
the friendless one, me, 
entertain me with delights. 
The Wanderer, unknown author, translated from Anglo-Saxon by Sean Miller

April 13

Oshun was one of the founding members of the SWG, and even though she turned down becoming a moderator on multiple occasions, she was one of the group's most active members, known best for her gently comic romantic stories, many of them slash stories, and her character biographies. Oshun dedicated her life to political activism, and this shows in her fanworks, which imagine an equitable world where love reigns supreme. Likewise, she challenged prejudice in fandom without much fanfare, letting her exceptional fiction and research writing stand on their own.

Word: revolution

Poem:

when we are loved we are afraid 
love will vanish 
when we are alone we are afraid 
love will never return 
and when we speak we are afraid 
our words will not be heard 
nor welcomed 
but when we are silent 
we are still afraid

So it is better to speak 
remembering 
we were never meant to survive.

A Litany for Survival by Audre Lorde

April 14

When the SWG was formed, it was unthinkable that it would be anything more than a footnote in a fandom dominated by first The Lord of the Rings and then The Hobbit. However, Silmarillion fanworks and their creators stayed steadily active across the years and general Tolkien fanfic archives closed, leaving many SWG creators with no Tolkien-specific archive available to host their fanworks. In August 2022, the Beyond the Silmarillion section opened to meet that need.

Word: annex

Poem:

night drapes 
stars emit light 
around the north star-fire 
stars journey 
in their wake 
stories extend 
star poem, translated from the Diné by Manny Loley

April 15

The SWG announces a Year of History for 2023 … that is still ongoing. It turns out that documenting and archiving a group's history on top of running an active archive takes more than a year to accomplish.

Word: palimpsest

Poem:

The walk that led out through the apple trees 
has disappeared – unless, down on your knees, 
searching beneath the vines that twist and cross 
among the clumps of grass, the scattered leaves, 
you scrape, and find – simplest of mysteries, 
forgotten all this time, but not quite lost – 
the walk that led out through the apple trees 
among the clumps of grass, the scattered leaves. 
Palimpsest by Jared Carter

April 16

On July 19, SWG members from around the world will gather, some in-person in Vermont and others virtually, for the second Mereth Aderthad. They will share research and fanworks of all types about all Tolkien-related topics. They will remember the past and those no longer with us, and they will look to the future and where we go next. They will stir to life the alchemy that has sustained the SWG across its twenty-year history.

Word: alchemy

Poem:

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost