January 2013 Newsletter Posted!

[dawn_felagund]

I just had to add a 2013 section to the newsletter archive. How crazy is that?! Time flies.

Our January 2013 newsletter is now available! It's a little bit late, but that's partly because we have lots of good stuff to offer this month.

http://www.silmarillionwritersguild.org/news/january2013.php

In News, we actually have an announcement that we'd like to draw our members' attention to. We mod-types are proposing an addition to our Terms of Service that would require a valid email address upon registering on our archive. We are accepting comments on this proposal through January 17. You can find the proposal and leave a comment here:

http://silwritersguild.livejournal.com/209196.html

Our News section also contains our annual New Years' letter, a welcome to our new members, and a reminder about podfic because we will be starting up the Featured Podfic very soon!

This past month was a big month for the Tolkien fandom, as the first Hobbit movie was released. In honor of that occasion, Scarlet has written us a wonderful biography about Thranduil, one of those characters who spans the ages. Her biography collects information from many sources to provide a full portrait of Thranduil, a fan favorite and oft-subjected to fanon, as well as analyzing the truth behind some of those fanon claims to reveal a character deserving of a place among the great Elvenkings.

We have a new challenge this month as well! "The Things We Never Said" asks you to choose one of those moments when a character could have achieved forgiveness or closure and rewrite it so that she or he does. If you've ever wanted to give your favorite character a happy ending, now's your chance! If writing adventures is more your speed, we also revisit our "Great Journeys" challenge this month.

In Around the World and Web, we have collected announcements and articles that might be of interest to our members. This month, we have a collection of challenges and classes on offer--and of course, today is Tolkien's birthday! We've put together several interesting articles and other links worth checking out, including a list of Hobbit movie reviews by our members. If you're interested in joining a discussion about the movies, this is a great place to start!

We had lots of stories added and updated this month on our archive, so if you're looking for something to read, our monthly story list is a great place to start. We have a number of new authors this month, so why not welcome one of them with a review?

That's all for this month. Writing the New Years' letter always makes me a little sentimental, so I want to thank everyone for all they do to keep this group alive and well. Even though it was a little scary to add "2013" to the newsletter archive, it was also quite awesome to see going-on ten years of SWG happenings documented in our newsletter. We've been at this a while and still going strong! :) Thanks to all of you for making that possible.

Best wishes for a great 2013!

Comments

[heartofoshun.livejournal.com]

Nice newsletter, Dawn! You're a treasure, as are your mods! Thanks again.

Really nice to see the Thranduil bio. Awesome timing of it also.

[dawn_felagund]

You are so kind to say so, Oshun! Thank you! :)

I think the bio turned out awesome, and you're right that the timing could not have been better, both for matching our usual schedule with you taking December off and the release of the movie!

[heartofoshun.livejournal.com]

I love the bio. I wrote a comment on it for her already. I can see myself using this one a lot.

[scarlet1061.livejournal.com]

aaawwww, thank you, both, so much.
I am blushing to hear you :-)

And even more so, if you get to use it.