April Newsletter - on time!!

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April's Challenges

The Duel of Songs

J.R.R. Tolkien was an avid poet, and poetry filled his stories, from his first tentative imaginings in The Book of Lost Tales to the songs we all know by heart from The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion. As April is National Poetry Month, it seems fitting to spend the month looking at Tolkien's poems and those by other authors based on his works.

This month, we encourage our authors to try their hand at poetry based on Tolkien's works. Not sure where to begin? The WORDshop has links to pages about dozens of poetic forms. Try a triolet, a tritina, or a tanka. Make us laugh over limericks and sigh over sonnets! Or maybe you tend to skip the poems in the books (don't worry, a lot of us do!) and want a refresher course? PoemHunter.com has much of Tolkien's poetry in one spot.

And, of course, don't forget to check out the poems by our SWG authors here.

Quote of the Month

He chanted a song of wizardry,

Of piercing, opening, of treachery,

Revealing, uncovering, betraying.

Then sudden Felagund there swaying

Sang in answer a song of staying,

Resisting, battling against power,

Of secrets kept, strength like a tower,

And trust unbroken, freedom, escape;

Of changing and of shifting shape

Of snares eluded, broken traps,

The prison opening, the chain that snaps.

Backwards and forwards swayed their song.

Reeling and foundering, as ever more strong

The chanting swelled, Felagund fought,

And all the magic and might he brought

Of Elvenesse into his words.

Softly in the gloom they heard the birds

Singing afar in Nargothrond,

The sighing of the Sea beyond,

Beyond the western world, on sand,

On sand of pearls in Elvenland.

Then the gloom gathered; darkness growing

In Valinor, the red blood flowing

Beside the Sea, where the Noldor slew

The Foamriders, and stealing drew

Their white ships with their white sails

From lamplit havens. The wind wails,

The wolf howls. The ravens flee.

The ice mutters in the mouths of the Sea.

The captives sad in Angband mourn.

Thunder rumbles, the fires burn--

And Finrod fell before the throne.

-The Silmarillion, "Of Beren and Lúthien"

Character of the Month: Daeron

As we focus on poets and poetry this April, our character this month is Daeron. Poet, loremaster, and traitor, Daeron captures our imaginations like few others. Daeron's biography is coming soon, so watch this space! In the meantime, we encourage you to check out our archived stories about Daeron!

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Want more challenges? Check out our complete challenge listing for more than two years' worth of challenges to inspire your writing!

Have an idea for a challenge? Some of our most popular challenges have been created by you, the members of SWG! If you have a plotbunny gnawing at your ankle, a favorite quote, or a favorite character that you think might inspire others as well, please send an email to moderator@silmarillionwritersguild.org and we'll try to include your challenge in our next newsletter!

April's News

Back to Middle-earth Month

The highlight of March on SWG was, without a doubt, Back to Middle-earth Month (B2MeM). This project was created in order to showcase the work of the many talented authors, poets, and artists in the Tolkien community, as well as to share why we choose, on a daily basis, to "go back to Middle-earth."

We challenged writers and artists in the Tolkien community to send us not only their work based on thirteen topics but also their personal narratives about why they fell in love with Tolkien's works and continue to create based on them. We received around one hundred pieces for inclusion in this project, ranging from new material written specifically for B2MeM to well-loved classics that readers have enjoyed for years now, and each author and artist gave us intriguing insight to how he or she came to Middle-earth, so to speak.

If you have not visited our Back to Middle-earth Month pages yet, then we invite you to do so, and we sincerely thank all of you--contributors, readers, and volunteers--who supported this project!

Remember, if you participated this year, to grab a banner or button!

Changes to the Archive

During March, as part of a discussion on the SWG's Yahoo! list, the subject of Alernate Universe (AU) stories came up. Traditionally, "Alternate Universe" has been included on the warning list on our archive. It was placed there when the archive was being built and was never questioned or moved to a more appropriate location.

As part of the discussion of AU, the placement of "Alternate Universe" as a warning was questioned. Because AU stories are often the subject of strong reader prejudice--only worsened by listing AU under the negative connotation of a warning--it was suggested that these stories would be better served if AU was a genre rather than a warning. I agreed, no objections were raised by any of the other members participating in the discussion (though more than a few liked the proposed change), and so, mid-month, "Alternate Universe" was added as a genre, all AU stories in the archive were edited to add the new genre, and AU was deleted as an option for the warning list.

Not long after, as part of a moderator discussion, we decided to also add Mystery and Erotica to the genre list. Again, the genre list was created in the rush of trying to get the archive off of the ground, and we did miss things. Over the past year, we have tried our best to address these omissions as soon as we notice them. If you feel like something is missing (or misplaced!) on the archive, please feel free to make a suggestion for change to our moderators!

Authors who wish their stories to have one of the new genres listed--meaning that a search for that genre will return that story in the list of matches--may do so retroactively but visiting Account Info and choosing Manage Stories. Choose Edit for the story you wish to modify and add the new genre(s) you wish to apply from the list. Remember, holding down CTRL (or Command, for Mac users) allows you to select more than one from the list. Also remember that SWG does not limit the number of genres an author may list for his or her story, so please feel free to add as many as you believe fit.

Changes to the Yahoo! Group

Members on our Yahoo! discussion list have likely noticed that there has been an increase in the amount of spam that has been getting through. When SWG was created, we allowed anyone to join the group without moderator approval. It was our hope that SWG would never be a difficult or intimidating group to join. Unfortunately, this good intention has also made it really easy for spammers to join the group and get messages into the inboxes of ninety-some members.

As such, the SWG moderators have implemented some changes on the Yahoo! group. First, membership on the SWG Yahoo! group is now moderated: that is, a moderator must approve each new member who wishes to join. As part of the "application," new members will need to write a few words on why they want to join the group. Hopefully, this will weed out spammers by at least assuring that new members know that they are joining a group of Tolkien fans and writers!

Secondly, new members' first post(s) will also be moderated and must be approved before being made available to the rest of the group. Once a member makes an on-topic post to the group, a moderator will remove the moderated status from that member. In this way, even spammers who manage to convince us on their application will have their attempts to spam stopped at the door.

None of these changes are meant to be intimidating or exclusionary, and we will let anyone into the group that possesses a legitimate interest in Tolkien and writing. We regret having to make these changes but, after being hit with multiple spam messages in a single day, decided that something must be done to make SWG a pleasant place for discussion, which it will not be if it is overrun with spam. New members and members who have not yet posted are encouraged to make an introduction post so that a moderator can remove their moderated status as quickly as possible. Please remember that moderated status is not automatically removed after your first post, and while we will do our best to get all members approved for the proper status as quickly as possible, then short delays should be expected. If more than a day passes and you do not see your membership or first post approved, please feel free to contact our moderators.

Finally, we would like to remind our Yahoo! group members that the message archive will be made public within the next few months. The tentative date set for this is 1 June 2008. As soon as this is finalized, then we will post the date on our site. Members who have contributed to the archive in the past should expect to get notice of this change from our site within the next couple of weeks. Remember, we are willing to delete past messages when the author does not want them to be publicly available. Please see our FAQ for more information on this, as well as the security settings in place to protect our members on a public archive.

Around the World and Web

April Is National Poetry Month

April is National Poetry Month, and, since Tolkien was an enthusiastic poet, we encourage our members and visitors to take a moment to appreciate song and verse by checking out our new challenge, reading one of Tolkien's poems, and reading some of the poetry our members have posted on our archive!

The Majority Rules Ficathon

The Majority Rules Ficathon is underway "to celebrate the possibility that (at long, long last) either a woman or a person of color will be the next American president by producing fanworks about people of color and women in positions of political power." If you're interested in contributing a piece to this project, please see their LiveJournal community for more information.

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Around the World and Web is provided for our members to inform them of events in the larger Tolkien community. SWG is not affiliated with and does not endorse the groups that we feature in Around the World and Web, and we are not responsible for content on sites outside of our own. Please use discretion and caution when visiting unfamiliar sites on the Internet.

Would you like to see your group or event featured on Around the World and Web? See our Promotions Page for more details or email us at moderator@silmarillionwritersguild.org.

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