Silmarillion Writers' Guild

Amid an early legendarium of commanding voices that take control and plunge armies into battle, Eönwë stands out for his simultaneous strong leadership and his seeming lack of authority to make decisions in that role. Eönwë leads the army of the Ainur, showing exceptional equanimity toward characters who, in the moment, he possibly felt didn't deserve it. Yet he doesn't often get to make decisions, seeming to follow orders from on high instead.

This month, NelyafinweFeanorion documents the textual history and what the canon tells us about this fascinating character who appears in some of the legendarium's thorniest conflicts, never seeming to lose his cool. Like many of Tolkien's characters, he started with an unfocused identity and was shaped not only by J.R.R. Tolkien's decisions about him but Christopher Tolkien's as well, winding up an emblem of a just leader.

You can read NelyafinweFeanorion's biography of Eönwë here.

The Lord of the Rings and Hobbit film trilogies have in many ways defined the Tolkien fanfiction fandom, not only shaping how fans engage with the books but driving fan engagement so that the Tolkien fanfiction fandom remains one of the largest fandoms in history. When the Rings of Power show debuted, many wondered if it would have a similar impact, sustaining interest in Tolkien, encouraging fans to pick up the books, and keeping the fandom thriving.

This month's article in Cultus Dispatches, the SWG's monthly fan studies column, uses data from the Tolkien Fanfiction Survey to get a first glimpse at the impact The Rings of Power has had on the fandom so far. The data show that that impact has been minimal, with few fans joining the fandom or engaging in fanfiction because of the show, even to "write against" it. However, data about the films show that new authors didn't enter the fandom until after the films left theaters, so the biggest impacts of the show may be yet to come.

At the same time, the nearly one in ten authors in the survey who started writing because of the show can't be overlooked. How are writers and readers engaging with the show through fanfiction? How are they similar and different from existing fanfiction authors? Why has the show had minimal impact so far compared to the films, and can we expect this trend to continue?

This month's column tackles these questions and more! You can read "The Rings of Power Is a Ripple (So Far)" here.

Who writes Tolkien-based fanfiction? Who reads it? As the Tolkien Fanfiction Survey enters its third iteration with up to ten years of demographic data, this month's Cultus Dispatches column tackles evidence from the survey to answer that question.

Ten years ago, the Tolkien fandom saw the final film of the Hobbit trilogy, which brought a boom in activity. With those films a decade behind us and in the midst of the Rings of Power television show, how has the fandom changed? Demographic data shows key changes in gender, educational attainment, and age, as well as sustained trends in race/ethnicity and religion and new insights about neurodiversity.

You can read the article "Six Demographic Takeaways from the 2025 Tolkien Fanfiction Survey" here.

The Silmarillion is a story about heroes, often larger than life (sometimes literally, given how many characters claim to be the tallest) and the performers of deeds worth the historical record. Yet hovering around the edges of the lives of heroes are ordinary people. They are the companions, the spies, the messengers, the servants, and the soldiers, their actions given the barest glance and their names unknown. Yet as the compendium of their deeds—collected in this month's prompts—show, their impact on the tale is not insubstantial.

This month's challenge brings these unnamed, unknown characters to the foreground. Create a fanwork about an ordinary character in legendarium using one of our collected quotes about the unnamed and undistinguished people of Middle-earth. While you are welcome to write the scene from which the quote derives, this is not the only approach to the prompts, and we welcome all interpretations of the prompts (and some have been left intentionally vague!) You can use all or part of a quote. The only requirement of the challenge is that a background character plays a key role in your work.

You can find the prompts for the Everyman challenge here.

Thank you to Erdariel for this month's stamps!

In order to receive a stamp for your fanwork, your response must be posted to the archive on or before 15 May 2026. For complete challenge guidelines, see the Challenges page on our website.

Fanworks fandom in 2026 is not a culture defined by boundaries. Generally, fans accept that all manner of fanworks (even if not to their personal liking) have a right to exist. AI-generated fanworks, however, have pushed the limits of even fanworks fans' considerable levels of tolerance.

When Dawn and Grundy were recently tasked with presenting about how the SWG developed its AI policy, they ended up taking a deep dive into the impacts of generative AI within the broader Tolkien fanworks fandom, finding that communities that are generally resistant to boundaries have set up firm limits on how AI can be used in their spaces. Social justice, ethics, and community governance all play roles in how fan communities have responded to generative AI—and how larger fandom institutions have not.

You can read the article "Fandom Draws the Line: Fanworks, AI, and Resistance" here.