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Character of the Month Substitutes
Jan. 5th, 2011 05:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dawn_felagundHi, all,
I was talking over email with someone today, and our conversation made me realize that it's been a while since I posted an announcement about how we work substitutes for the Character of the Month biography. Normally, Oshun writes the biography for us, but it's really an intense job to write the kinds of essays she creates for us on a monthly basis so, understandably, she occasionally asks for a month off.
When this happens, I contact members who have expressed an interest in being a substitute writer for the CotM biography. Who can be a substitute? Anyone! There are no qualifications, and you aren't agreeing to write anything, just expressing an interest in knowing when we need writers. Since I only ask for a substitute two or three times a year, it's not like potential subs get spammed with mail from me either.
The biographies themselves are fairly open-ended. You can choose the character you want to write about, as long as that character hasn't already been featured for a biography or claimed by another writer. (The exception to that are the Feanorians, except Feanor and Caranthir, whose only biographies are those I created for Seven in '07 some time ago. I'd like to add proper biographies for those characters, so they remain available.) The biography should give a basic summary of what the character does in the published book, aimed at an audience who isn't very familiar with The Silmarillion and wants a review of a particular character's traits and deeds for, say, a story where that character plays a minor role. After that, the approach of the bio is up to the author. Past biographies have looked at the character's evolution over the course of a lifetime of Tolkien's writings, how characters represent important themes in the book, how characters support or not various critical perspectives (i.e., feminist approaches to Tolkien's stories), and linguistic perspectives relating to that character. Those certainly aren't the only approaches. As always for essays found in our Reference Library, while personal theories are welcome, they should be backed up with evidence from the texts. Citing sources is required. My comods and I are available to help authors as needed as well, and all essays are copyedited when I put together the newsletter.
So, if you're interested in being added to the substitute list, please let me know: either contact me at moderator AT silmarillionwritersguild DOT org or leave a comment with your email address on this post. Comments are screened, and I will not un-screen any comments that contain email addresses.
Best regards,
Dawn
I was talking over email with someone today, and our conversation made me realize that it's been a while since I posted an announcement about how we work substitutes for the Character of the Month biography. Normally, Oshun writes the biography for us, but it's really an intense job to write the kinds of essays she creates for us on a monthly basis so, understandably, she occasionally asks for a month off.
When this happens, I contact members who have expressed an interest in being a substitute writer for the CotM biography. Who can be a substitute? Anyone! There are no qualifications, and you aren't agreeing to write anything, just expressing an interest in knowing when we need writers. Since I only ask for a substitute two or three times a year, it's not like potential subs get spammed with mail from me either.
The biographies themselves are fairly open-ended. You can choose the character you want to write about, as long as that character hasn't already been featured for a biography or claimed by another writer. (The exception to that are the Feanorians, except Feanor and Caranthir, whose only biographies are those I created for Seven in '07 some time ago. I'd like to add proper biographies for those characters, so they remain available.) The biography should give a basic summary of what the character does in the published book, aimed at an audience who isn't very familiar with The Silmarillion and wants a review of a particular character's traits and deeds for, say, a story where that character plays a minor role. After that, the approach of the bio is up to the author. Past biographies have looked at the character's evolution over the course of a lifetime of Tolkien's writings, how characters represent important themes in the book, how characters support or not various critical perspectives (i.e., feminist approaches to Tolkien's stories), and linguistic perspectives relating to that character. Those certainly aren't the only approaches. As always for essays found in our Reference Library, while personal theories are welcome, they should be backed up with evidence from the texts. Citing sources is required. My comods and I are available to help authors as needed as well, and all essays are copyedited when I put together the newsletter.
So, if you're interested in being added to the substitute list, please let me know: either contact me at moderator AT silmarillionwritersguild DOT org or leave a comment with your email address on this post. Comments are screened, and I will not un-screen any comments that contain email addresses.
Best regards,
Dawn
