silwritersguild | Recent Entries

A photograph of a black and white typewriter with text reading Instadrabbling, April 5, 18:00/6pm UTC

One of our discord members is hosting an Instadrabbling session April 5, 18:00/6pm UTC (What time is that for me?)

What is instadrabbling? Instadrabbling is a long-standing community activity in the Tolkien fanfiction fandom. A group of friends gets together on chat, someone throws out a prompt or four, and everyone writes a drabble (or whatever comes to mind). We share our creations in the server and admire each other's work. Instadrabbling is low-pressure and casual, and all are encouraged to participate to whatever degree they are comfortable. Instadrabbling responses shared on our server can be about any aspect of Tolkien's legendarium, not just Silmworks.

When we instadrabble, we meet on the #instadrabbling channel on our Discord server. Discord invites can be requested at any time from the moderators. All are welcome to join the Discord, whether you want to instadrabble with us or not!

daughterofshadows

The Silmarillion Writers' Guild Presents Mereth Aderthad 2025 - July 19, 2025, Burlington, VT and online - A celebration of creativity and scholarship inspired by the works of J.R.R. Tolkien. Interview with polutropos by Dawn. Kidnap Fam and the Living Legendarium.

Kidnap fam, the Tolkien fandom term for the Silmarillion plot point where Maedhros and Maglor raise Elrond and Elros after the third kinslaying, fascinates many Tolkien fanworks creators. In the next in our series of interviews of Mereth Aderthad 2025 presenters, polutropos spoke with Dawn about her presentation "'Kidnap Fam' and the Living Legendarium," which explores why this plot point attracts so much interest in the fandom.

You can read Dawn's interview with polutropos here.

daughterofshadows

Mereth Aderthad Interview with Maglor by Shadow. Gil-galad was an Elven King: Kingship and Personhood in the Last High King of the Noldor

Who was Gil-galad? One need not have even read The Silmarillion to begin reciting the answer to that, in the style of Samwise Gamgee. But who really was Gil-galad? Who was the person beyond the king we are presented in the texts?

In our latest in a series of interviews of Mereth Aderthad 2025 presenters, Shadow spoke with Maglor about his upcoming presentation on "Gil-galad was an Elven King: Kingship and Personhood in the Last High King of the Noldor." Maglor spoke about what draws him to Tolkien, his theories on Gil-galad as a character, and what makes fanworks so essential to unlocking the secrets of the last High King of the Noldor.

You can read Shadow's interview with Maglor here.

daughterofshadows

Mereth Aderthad 2025, July 19. Burlington, VT & online. Registration now open!

Mereth Aderthad 2025 is open to both in-person and virtual attendees, and registration for both is free. Registration will remain open through the day of the event, so there is no deadline to register!

Some key points:

You will be asked for a name and an email address at registration. Pseudonyms are fine!
We will use your email to contact you about event updates only.
Please do not register if you cannot attend, and cancel your registration if circumstances change and you are no longer able to attend. In-person seating is limited, and we pay costs per person and cannot afford to pay for empty seats. Contact a moderator if you need help canceling a registration. We are leaving registration open through the day of the event, so if you decide you can join us last-minute, please do!
There is an OPTIONAL donation to help us cover costs of the event. It really is optional! We want you there more than we want an extra few bucks! If you want more information on how donations will be used, see our Donation Policy.

Ready to register? You can register for Mereth Aderthad 2025 here!

grundyscribbling

A woman carrying a birthday cake with lit candles and icing letters saying "SWG challenge" against a gloriously vintage background. Text above her head reads Birthday Bash

On March 14, 2005, the SWG arrived in the small hours of the morning. It was still in very embryonic form, actualized only as a Yahoo! Group with no members and a series of very cringey posts on Dawn's LiveJournal (she had no idea how LiveJournal worked, having joined just that day to post these cringey posts in her insomnia-fueled effort to launch the SWG).

Twenty years later, this challenge debuted in recognition of two full decades of existence of the SWG. Each day, we will post an event that is an important hashmark on the timeline of the SWG's history along with three prompts that (at least in the challenge mods' mind) are associated with that event: a single word, a snippet of poetry (with a link to the full poem), and a public domain image. As always, you can use any aspect of the prompt to inspire your fanwork, including fragments of prompts or parts of the poem not included on the challenge page. The history snippets are fair game as prompts. You do not have to create or share your response on the day a prompt is posted. You can go back to past prompts, and you can stitch prompts from different days together into fanworks in cool and bizarre ways.

You can find challenge prompts for Birthday Bash here.

In order to receive a stamp for your fanwork, your response must be posted to the archive on or before 25 April 2025. (Note that this extends the challenge past the usual deadline of the 15th so that those who wish to create for the later prompts in the challenge have the opportunity to do so!) For complete challenge guidelines, see the Challenges page on our website.

daughterofshadows

A banner styled like a auditorium with red chairs and a whiteboard. Text on the whiteboard: So you want to present at a Tolkien Conference? Text in a black box on the bottom: Session 2: Putting together the presentation. April 12, 2025, 1pm Eastern | silmarillionwritersguild.org

Mereth Aderthad 2025 is coming in July, and we are excited to have many fans who are presenting their meta, research, and scholarship at the event! But even though Tolkien fans engage in deep research and thinking about the legendarium all the time, making the step to presenting that work at conferences can feel intimidating. Even in a field as friendly to fan and independent scholarship as Tolkien studies is, the trappings of academia remain and, unless you have academic training, these can be a barrier to participation.

To help demystify conference proposals and presentations, over the next few months, we will be holding sessions aimed at helping fans make the sideways step to Tolkien scholarship by presenting their work at a Tolkien conference. Our next session is about how to put together the paper and presentation that you will share at the event, including various approaches to conference presentations, how to structure a presentation to maintain audience interest and not exceed time limits, and tools/strategies for using multimedia. (If you missed our first session, it can be found here: So You Want to Present at a Tolkien Conference? Writing the Proposal.)

Date: Saturday, 12 April 2025
Time: 1:00 PM Eastern Time (what is this in my timezone?)
Location: RSVP to have the link emailed to you

After the session, there will be time for questions, and we will stay online for a collaborative writing session for anyone who is interested.

All are welcome to attend and participate to whatever extent they feel comfortable! (In other words, you can keep your camera off and there are no breakout rooms.)

Can't make it on April 12? We will record the session so that anyone can view it.

If you need to change your Zoom display name before or while attending, learn how to do that here.

daughterofshadows

Mereth Aderthad 2025: Interview with Shadow by Himring. The Aromantic in Tolkien

Shadow's presentation "The Aromantic in Tolkien" will be featured at Mereth Aderthad 2025 in July and will discuss three characters in Tolkien who can be read as aromantic. Himring had a chance to talk with Shadow about aromanticism in Tolkien and their personal and fannish inspirations for the topic.

You can read Himring's interview with Shadow here.

And find out more about our upcoming hybrid Mereth Aderthad event here.

daughterofshadows

Mereth Aderthad Interview with Stella Getreuer-Kostrouch by Quente

Stella Getreuer-Kostrouch, who writes under the penname LadySternchen on our archive, will be presenting her paper "Cherished antagonist, despised protagonist – a defence of Elu Thingol" at Mereth Aderthad 2025 in July. Quente chatted with Stella about Thingol and what draws her to his character, despite him not being widely liked by the fandom overall. As Stella notes, many Silmarillion characters are complex. What leads some to be fan favorites and others actively villainized?

You can read Quente's interview with Stella here.

And find out more about our upcoming hybrid Mereth Aderthad event here.

grundyscribbling

Dark matter is a substance found throughout the universe that goes unseen and is known to exist only because of its interaction with objects around it. This month's challenge seeks to imitate the mystery that is dark matter: a prompt that isn't there yet shapes the fanwork around it.

This month's prompts are anti-prompts, and your challenge is to create a fanwork where those prompts don't exist or that is shaped around their lack of existence. Prompts are selected using a randomized prompt generator. There are three categories to choose from: motifs and tropes, literary techniques, and words and letters. You can select your prompt from whichever of the three categories you wish (and if you're really feeling the dark energy, you can try prompts from two or all three categories in the same fanwork!)

We know this challenge is an unusual approach, so prompts range from very easy to just-about-impossible (don't use the letter E?!) You can reroll the prompt generator as many times as you want until you find a prompt that you can work with.

Dark Matter Prompt Generator

In order to receive a stamp for your fanwork, your response must be posted to the archive on or before 15 March 2025. For complete challenge guidelines, see the Challenges page on our website.

Thank you to Independence1776 for this month's banner and stamps!

daughterofshadows

Interview with Acha Rezak (Quente) by Shadow. "Mythmakers vs the made myths: Exploring a reader's level of religious alienation and connection in works about and by J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis

Acha Rezak, who writes under the penname Quente on our archive, will be presenting her paper "Mythmakers vs. the made myths: Exploring a reader’s levels of religious alienation and connection in works about and by J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis" at Mereth Aderthad 2025 in July. Shadow sat down with Acha to ask her about her paper, its inspiration, and the topic of religion in Tolkien.

You can read Shadow's interview with Acha here.

And find out more about our upcoming hybrid Mereth Aderthad event here.

daughterofshadows

Program

We are pleased to share the program for presentations of meta and scholarship! Fanworks that will be shared as part of these sessions will be added soon as well. All times are in Eastern U.S. time (UTC -4 at the time of event).

9:00-9:15 Welcome!

9:15-9:45
"Cherished antagonist, despised protagonist - a defence of Elu Thingol" by Stella Getreuer-Kostrouch

9:45-10:15
"The Aromantic in Tolkien" by Shadow

10:15-10:45
"The Design of Dragons and Doom of the Dwarves" by cloudyhymns

10:45-11:15
"Gil-galad was an Elven King: Kingship and Personhood in the last High King of the Noldor" by Maglor

11:15-11:45
"Exile, Ruin and Resistance: Beleriand as Postcolonial Palimpsest" by Dr. Zara Ashkenazi-Khan

11:45-12:15
"By Guile Committed: Comparing Tolkien’s Thieves to Beowulf" by Savannah Horrell

1:00-1:30
"Mythmakers vs. the made myths: Exploring a reader’s levels of religious alienation and connection in works about and by J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis" by Acha Rezak (Quente)

1:30-2:00
"Love, Grief, and Alliterative Verse in Tolkien’s Legendarium" by Paul D. Deane

2:00-2:30
"Tolkien, Lunatic Physicists, and Abnegation" by Cynthia (Cindy) Gates a.k.a. pandemonium_213

2:30-3:00
"Twilight, Child Of: Comparisons Between Tinúviel, Lómion, and Undómiel" by JazTheBard

3:00-3:30
"How To Make a Star From a Tree: The Science of Telperion and Laurelin" by Zhie

3:30-4:00
"'Kidnap Fam' and the Living Legendarium" by polutropos

daughterofshadows

Instadrabbling Saturday, February 15, 18:00/6 pm UTC

Maedhros & Maglor Week will run on Tumblr from February 16th-22nd. To get in the spirit of the event, 0ur_Oroboros and Idle Leaves will be hosting an instadrabbling session focused on the relationship between Maedhros and Maglor on Saturday, February 15, 18:00/6PM UTC (find this in my timezone).

What is instadrabbling? Instadrabbling is a long-standing community activity in the Tolkien fanfiction fandom. A group of friends gets together on chat, someone throws out a prompt or four, and everyone writes a drabble (or whatever comes to mind). We share our creations in the server and admire each other's work. Instadrabbling is low-pressure and casual, and all are encouraged to participate to whatever degree they are comfortable. This session will be focused on fanworks about the relationship between Maedhros and Maglor.

When we instadrabble, we meet on the #instadrabbling channel on our Discord server. Discord invites can be requested at any time from the moderators. All are welcome to join the Discord, whether you want to instadrabble with us or not!

daughterofshadows

Mereth Aderthad 2025 is a hybrid event held in honor of the Silmarillion Writers' Guild's twentieth birthday that seeks to celebrate the creativity and insightfulness of the Tolkien fandom. The event will feature presentations of meta, research, and scholarship. Each presentation will be accompanied by fanworks on the same topic or theme.

We are currently seeking fanworks creators who are interested in creating fanworks to be shared at Mereth Aderthad 2025.

Schedule/Timeline

If you are interested in creating a fanwork for Mereth Aderthad 2025, you should first complete the interest form. We will be in contact after that with next steps.
January 12 - February 15: interest sign-ups for fanworks creators open
January 15: call for meta/research/scholarship closes
February 7: presentation list sent out to all creators who have submitted an interest form
February 15: sign-ups for fanworks creators open
April 15: progress check-in
Fanwork Due Dates: TBD

Here is a more detailed breakdown of how the process will work and which fanworks are eligible.

Fanworks Creator Sign-Up

If you are interested in creating a fanwork for Mereth Aderthad, use this form to share an email address where we can reach you. You will hear from us on February 7 with the presentation list and more information on sign-ups, then again on February 15 with a link to the sign-up form. Filling out the interest form does not require you to sign up.

daughterofshadows

This is your reminder that the call for presentations for Mereth Aderthad is closing on January 15. If you are still on the fence about submitting a proposal, now is the time to make a decision!

Do you have Tolkien Meta you want to share with us? This is your chance! You can find all the info in the post I'm replying to and you can submit proposals under this link: https://forms.gle/66NWeLYTs5yZncjbA

If you are worried about presenting live, we will also accept recordings of your presentation by you or somebody else, so don't let that stop you!

daughterofshadows

Character of the Month banner: Vidumavi of the Northmen by Secondborn

Vidumavi of the Northmen is one of those characters who exists entirely in the margins, her name not mentioned once in The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, or The Silmarillion. Yet she is a linchpin in the history of the realms of Mortals in the Third Age and her story captures key themes from across Tolkien's works.

In our newest Character of the Month biography, Secondborn discusses Vidumavi's character and her importance to the legendarium. A Third Age woman from the people who would become the Rohirrim, Vidumavi married the Gondorian prince Valacar, an act that was controversial enough in Gondor to act as the spark that would ignite the Kinstrife after her death due to concerns of her inferior bloodline tainting the line of kings. However, as Secondborn notes, Vidumavi carried herself with honor and courage in what appears to be a true marriage of love. As a character, she stands as a testament against the idea that some people have bloodlines purer or superior to others, an idea that Tolkien addresses throughout his work.

Vidumavi also illustrates important themes that Tolkien frequently explored, such as love, honor, the role of fellowship, and the effects of the fading of "faerie" during the later ages. Vidumavi becomes one of the many woman characters in the legendarium whose importance far exceeds her meager mentions in the text.

You can read Secondborn's biography of Vidumavi here.

dawn_felagund

So You Want to Present at a Tolkien Conference? Writing the Proposal

Our first session on "So You Want to Present at a Tolkien Conference?" on writing the proposal happened today and went great!

You can now find the video, slideshow, handout, and sample proposal on the SWG site.

An issue that came up in Q&A, specific to Mereth Aderthad, was various options for people who are unable to present, either in-person or online. I cannot emphasize enough that we want sharing your work at this event to be something you can do if you want to do it! We will open to pre-recorded presentations or presentations read by someone other than the author. If presenting a work of meta at Mereth Aderthad is something you'd like to try but there is some kind of barrier to doing so, please reach out to us before assuming it's not possible. We are very willing to work with presenters!

Watch this space for a date for the next session and, very soon, the call for fanworks for Mereth Aderthad ...

dawn_felagund

Instadrabbling, Saturday, January 18, 15:00/3PM UTC and Sunday, January 19, 18:00/6PM UTC

This year, in honor of our upcoming twentieth birthday, our annual amnesty challenge will be a Jubilee, meaning that you can receive challenge stamps for any challenge from 2017 onward! As part of the Jubilee, we will be hosting two instadrabbling sessions on Saturday, January 18, and Sunday, January 19. The format will be open but will definitely include challenge prompts to help with stamp-collecting efforts!

Session 1: Saturday, January 18, 15:00/3PM UTC (find this in my timezone)
Session 2: Sunday, January 19, 18:00/6PM UTC (find this in my timezone)

What is instadrabbling? Instadrabbling is a long-standing community activity in the Tolkien fanfiction fandom. A group of friends gets together on chat, someone throws out a prompt or four, and everyone writes a drabble (or whatever comes to mind). All types of fanworks are welcome as long as they are Tolkien-related! (Keep in mind that we give challenge stamps only for Silmarillion fanworks, however.) We share our creations in the server and admire each other's work. Instadrabbling is low-pressure and casual, and all are encouraged to participate to whatever degree they are comfortable.

When we instadrabble, we meet on the #instadrabbling channel on our Discord server. Discord invites will be posted on the dates of instadrabbling to our tumblr or can be requested at any time from the moderators. All are welcome to join the Discord, whether you want to instadrabble with us or not!

grundyscribbling

SWG January 2025 Jubilee Challenge Banner - the word "Jubilee in large handwritten font over a blue background spangled with silver stars

We always like to start the new year fresh and with creativity. To that end, we begin the year with an amnesty, allowing you to create a fanwork for any of the previous year’s challenges. To celebrate the SWG’s 20th anniversary year, we’re expanding that in our second ever Jubilee. (Yes, we know Jubilees are traditionally every 25 or 50 years. We’re not that patient, so we’re making our own Jubilee tradition—do one when it feels right.)

Any challenge from January 2017 onward is fair game for the amnesty this January! If there’s a challenge you’ve been eyeing that was before your time, or one you’ve been kicking yourself for missing, this is your moment. If you started a challenge response but never finished it, here’s your chance. Done them all? We are in awe. Also, you can create for any of them—just make sure you post to the Jubilee challenge to get your stamp.

If you’re all worn out from all 2024 threw at you but ready to go on a fanworks binge, the Jubilee includes commenting stamps.

During the Jubilee, you can collect any existing challenge stamp. The only new stamps we’ll be giving out are the Jubilee-specific ones. We do have a few caveats and mod requests regarding particular challenges—all are available on the challenge page.

In order to receive a stamp for your fanwork, your response must be posted to the archive on or before 15 February 2025. For complete challenge guidelines, see the Challenges page on our website.

daughterofshadows

So you want to present at a Tolkien Conference? Session 1: Writing the Proposal

Mereth Aderthad 2025 is coming in July, and we are looking for presenter willing to share meta, research, and scholarship about Tolkien. We are specifically welcoming fans—including fans who have never presented anything like this before—to submit proposals for presentations because we believe strongly that fans have a lot to offer as we collectively read and work to better understand and interpret Tolkien's world.

But presenting at a conference feels like a big deal! And even in a field as friendly to fan and independent scholarship as Tolkien studies is, the trappings of academia remain and, unless you have academic training, can be a barrier to participation.

To help demystify conference proposals and presentations, over the next few months, we will be holding sessions aimed at helping fans make the sideways step to Tolkien scholarship by presenting their work at a Tolkien conference. Our first session will be about writing proposals. Join us in a virtual (Zoom) session to learn about how Tolkien conferences work and how to put together a proposal!

Date: Saturday, 4 January 2024
Time: 1:00 PM Eastern Time (what is this in my timezone?)
Location: link coming soon! (RSVP to have the link emailed to you)

After the session, there will be time for questions, and we will stay online for a proposal writing session for anyone who is interested.

Attending the session does not require you to submit a proposal to Mereth Aderthad or attend the event. All are welcome to attend and participate to whatever extent they feel comfortable! (In other words, you can keep your camera off and there are no breakout rooms.)

Can't make it on January 4? We will record the session so that anyone can view it.

dawn_felagund

It's that time of the year where we ask for help from any artists who want to make challenge stamps for the coming year! How it works: On Monday evening (Eastern Time), I'll share a sign-up document with anyone who is interested in helping with this. The document will contain a bare bones description of any challenges for which we need stamps. (So if you want to remain completely unspoiled as to upcoming challenges, this one is not for you!)

You'll sign up for the challenge you want, and if we have open challenges after everyone has signed up, we'll open additional sign-ups.

Specifics about what we are looking for can be found here. Please check this out if you think you might be interested in making stamps.

To be added to the sign-up document, DM me, email me/the mods, comment on the post above, comment here, send a Tumblr ask, post in the appropriate Discord channel, send an Eagle ... all the usual contacts work!

Important note that anyone is welcome to volunteer for this. You do not need to be an expert artist! We are grateful for all contributions.

And a thank you again to last year's stamp artists: cuarthol, Independence1776, Zdenka, and Grundy!

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Page Summary

daughterofshadows - Instadrabbling Session April 5, 18:00/6pm UTC
daughterofshadows - Mereth Aderthad Interview: Interview with polutropos by Dawn
daughterofshadows - Mereth Aderthad Interview: Interview with Maglor by Shadow
daughterofshadows - Mereth Aderthad 2025: Registration now open!
grundyscribbling - March 2025 Challenge: Birthday Bash
daughterofshadows - So you want to present at a Tolkien Conference? Session 2: Putting together the presentation
daughterofshadows - Mereth Aderthad Interview: Interview with Shadow by Himring
daughterofshadows - Mereth Aderthad Interview: Interview with Stella Getreuer-Kostrouch by Quente
grundyscribbling - February 2025 Challenge: Dark Matter
daughterofshadows - Mereth Aderthad Interview: Interview with Acha Rezak (Quente) by Shadow
daughterofshadows - Mereth Aderthad 2025: Program
daughterofshadows - Instadrabbling Session for Maedhros & Maglor Week
daughterofshadows - Mereth Aderthad 2025: Call for Fanworks
daughterofshadows - Mereth Aderthad 2025: Call for Meta Presentations closes soon!
daughterofshadows - Character of the Month: Vidumavi of the Northmen
dawn_felagund - "So You Want to Present at a Tolkien Conference? Writing the Proposal" Now Available!
dawn_felagund - Instadrabbling Sessions on January 18th and 19th!
grundyscribbling - January 2025 Challenge: Jubilee
daughterofshadows - So you want to present at a Tolkien Conference? Session 1: Writing the Proposal
dawn_felagund - Artists Needed to Create 2025 Challenge Stamps

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Silmarillion Writers' Guild

Recent Entries

Instadrabbling Session April 5, 18:00/6pm UTC

Mereth Aderthad Interview: Interview with polutropos by Dawn

Mereth Aderthad Interview: Interview with Maglor by Shadow

Mereth Aderthad 2025: Registration now open!

March 2025 Challenge: Birthday Bash

So you want to present at a Tolkien Conference? Session 2: Putting together the presentation

Mereth Aderthad Interview: Interview with Shadow by Himring

Mereth Aderthad Interview: Interview with Stella Getreuer-Kostrouch by Quente

February 2025 Challenge: Dark Matter

Mereth Aderthad Interview: Interview with Acha Rezak (Quente) by Shadow

Mereth Aderthad 2025: Program

Instadrabbling Session for Maedhros & Maglor Week

Mereth Aderthad 2025: Call for Fanworks

Schedule/Timeline

Fanworks Creator Sign-Up

Mereth Aderthad 2025: Call for Meta Presentations closes soon!

Character of the Month: Vidumavi of the Northmen

Admin Post: "So You Want to Present at a Tolkien Conference? Writing the Proposal" Now Available!

Admin Post: Instadrabbling Sessions on January 18th and 19th!

January 2025 Challenge: Jubilee

So you want to present at a Tolkien Conference? Session 1: Writing the Proposal

Admin Post: Artists Needed to Create 2025 Challenge Stamps

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June 2025

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