Around the Fire Challenge

[dawn_felagund]

"Tell me a story. Be my storyteller."

―Arzum Uzun

For this quarter's challenge, we wanted to try something a little different: an informal story-request challenge. Here is how the challenge is worded in our very-shortly-forthcoming July newsletter:

Be it midst of winter or summer, this is the time to gather around the fire together. Whether for warmth, companionship or simply to pass time, there is no better place to share stories together. This quarter, we are sharing stories at the fireside, and we invite you to request a story and/or write a request for someone else. If you'd like to request a story, you can do so here at our LiveJournal community (OpenID and signed anonymous comments are welcome). If you want to write a request, you do not need to sign up but simply leave a link to your story in the comment to that request once your story is finished. You are welcome to post your story to our archive or here at our LiveJournal community. If you chose to post it somewhere else, please put up a valid link for the person who requested your story.

If you want to make a request, simply comment here with the story you'd like to see told. If you want to fill a request, you do not need to do anything until you've written your story, at which point you should reply to the request you filled with a link so that the person who made the request can read it.

• You may make more than one request.


• More than one person may fill a request, and you are welcome to fill as many requests as you want.


• A friendly reminder that this is not a formal ficswap: We cannot guarantee that every request will be filled, and we cannot guarantee that every fill will be exactly to your liking.


• Please be gracious and take a moment to acknowledge authors who write something to fill your request.


• If you post your story to the SWG archive, please select Around the Fire from the Challenges drop-down when you add your story so that we can keep all challenge entries in one place.

July 2016 Newsletter

[nelyo-russandol.livejournal.com]

The July edition of the SWG newsletter has been posted on our website!

In this month's news, we invite you to participate in a SWG user survey to help us focus on the right improvements for our SWG community, and to play Femslash bingo?! We also welcome several new members to our group.

This month’s character biography is Thorondor, by heartofoshun. The greatest of the Great Eagles, Thorondor provides aid to the people of Middle-earth and acts as a link between them and the Valar, a pattern that would continue throughout the legendarium. This essay also explores links between the Great Eagles and similar mythical creatures found in some of the world's major myth cycles.

If you're looking for something to read, there is a large selection of works completed or updated during June, from fiction to poems. This month the Around the World and Web section is bursting with featured articles, publications about all aspects of the Tolkien legendarium and fandom, and you will also find a couple of calls for papers from groups outside the SWG.

Finally, if you're looking for inspiration, this month we start a new challenge, “Around the Fire” which we hope will prompt you to share your stories, or to request that another fireside companion tells one! We also revisit the challenge "Wish upon a Star" and propose a T. S. Eliot quote about journeys.

Many thanks to our contributors this month: Oshun, Rhapsody, Angelica, Elleth, and Dawn. We all hope you enjoy our newsletter!