Silmarillion Writers' Guild

Cultus Dispatches: Fanworks, AI and Resistance

2026-03-29T17:19:34Z

Fanworks fandom in 2026 is not a culture defined by boundaries. Generally, fans accept that all manner of fanworks (even if not to their personal liking) have a right to exist. AI-generated fanworks, however, have pushed the limits of even fanworks fans' considerable levels of tolerance.

When Dawn and Grundy were recently tasked with presenting about how the SWG developed its AI policy, they ended up taking a deep dive into the impacts of generative AI within the broader Tolkien fanworks fandom, finding that communities that are generally resistant to boundaries have set up firm limits on how AI can be used in their spaces. Social justice, ethics, and community governance all play roles in how fan communities have responded to generative AI—and how larger fandom institutions have not.

You can read the article "Fandom Draws the Line: Fanworks, AI, and Resistance" here.

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March Challenge: Famous Last Words

2026-03-14T21:01:04Z

Posted by: grundyscribbling

Most people remember best what they heard last, and authors and songwriters have long capitalized on this trick of brain wiring by signing off their stories, plays, poems, and songs with a truly memorable last line. This month, we pay homage to some of history's best and most noteworthy last words by offering a selection of them as prompts for creating a fanwork.

Prompts for this month's challenge are assigned by a moderator. You can request a prompt by emailing us, sending us an ask on Tumblr, commenting on our Dreamwidth, or requesting a prompt on the #monthly-challenges channel on our Discord. If you have a preference for a last line from a book, song, play, poem, or person, let us know! If you get stuck and can't do anything with the prompt we lob at you, feel free to ask us to try again.

If you create a challenge fanwork featuring a woman in a leading role, let us know, as we have a special stamp for Women's History Month.

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

In order to receive a stamp for your fanwork, your response must be posted to the archive on or before 15 April 2026. For complete challenge guidelines, see the Challenges page on our website.

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New Challenge: Famous Last Words

2026-03-11T00:19:05Z

Posted by: dawn_felagund

Prompts for this month's challenge are assigned by a moderator. You can request a prompt by commenting here, emailing us, sending us an ask on Tumblr, or requesting a prompt on the #monthly-challenges channel on our Discord. If you have a preference for a last line from a book, song, play, poem, or person, let us know! If you get stuck and can't do anything with the prompt we lob at you, feel free to ask us to try again.

If you create a challenge fanwork featuring a woman in a leading role, let us know, as we have a special stamp for Women's History Month.

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

In order to receive a stamp for your fanwork, your response must be posted to the archive on or before 15 April 2026. For complete challenge guidelines, see the Challenges page on our website.

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February Challenge: Title Track

2026-02-14T21:08:30Z

Posted by: grundyscribbling

Enamored as he was with language, the chapters and titles of Tolkien's broad range of works are often small works of art in and of themselves. Some carry the ponderous weight of legend, others evoke complex metaphors and associations, and some dance like poems upon the tongue.

This month's challenge offers prompts based on titles within Tolkien's many and varied works. We've selected 125 titles from books, chapters, essays, poems, and fragments of text to inspire your fanwork. Note that fanworks do not have to be about the work the title belongs to (although they certainly can be). As always, we encourage creative interpretations of our challenges, and you can use the prompts however you want.

In order to receive a stamp for your fanwork, your response must be posted to the archive on or before 15 March 2026. For complete challenge guidelines, see the Challenges page on our website.

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Annual Amnesty Challenge: New Year's Resolution

2026-01-01T16:25:58Z

Posted by: dawn_felagund

A new year often brings resolutions to achieve big changes. Our Resolutions challenge is much more moderate: reach for a creative achievement, no matter how small. Maybe it is a single drabble, a sketch, or a new chapter—the point is to begin a new year with an act of creativity and imagination!

Our annual amnesty allows you to pick from any of the previous year’s challenges. You do not need to use a new prompt to be eligible for this challenge. Participants can choose to complete any of the previous year's challenges. Did you miss a challenge you wanted to complete? Do it now. Did you start a fanwork for a challenge but never completed it? Here is your chance to finish. If you didn't leave any unrealized or unfinished projects behind you (congratulations!), choose from any of our 2025 challenges and start something new.

You can find the complete amnesty challenge guidelines and a list of 2025's challenges here.

You will receive a stamp on your 2025 collection for any challenges that you complete now, as well as a stamp for the New Year's Resolution challenge on your 2026 collection. When you post to the SWG archive, please make sure you select the 2025 challenge you're completing and the New Year's Resolution challenge.

This month's banner and stamps use images from the 18th-century “Chinese Arabesques” by Jean-Baptiste Pillement and Anne Allen, which plays with the theme of striving to reach the fantastical.

In order to receive a stamp for your fanwork, your response must be posted to the archive on or before 15 February 2026. For complete challenge guidelines, see the Challenges page on our website.

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"The Fëanorian Zine" Available for Download

2025-12-24T20:18:49Z

Posted by: dawn_felagund

We are pleased to have been able to partner with The Fëanorian Zine to preserve the zine here, on the SWG archive, where it is available to read and download for free. A passion project dedicated to the house of Fëanor, it features fiction and art from thirty different creators, edited by JoeTamy and StarsOfArda into a stunning, full-color zine with over 150 pages of fanworks.

Congratulations to the editors and creators of The Fëanorian Zine for their beautiful publication! We know it will bring many hours of enjoyment over the December holidays!

Click here to download your copy of The Fëanorian Zine.

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Call for Artists for the 2026 Challenge Stamps

2025-12-21T16:26:26Z

Posted by: daughterofshadows

It's that time of year again! The SWG challenge mods have been busy concocting challenges for 2026 that we hope will inspire and intrigue our fanworks creators. As part of our challenges, participants receive small "postage stamps" in a collection on their profile, and for the past three years, we have invited artists to help us create those stamps. No matter your level of expertise with traditional or digital art, we welcome all volunteers who'd like to share their work with challenge participants!

If you'd be interested in creating a set of stamps for one (or more) of our 2025 challenges, here is how it will work:

Comment here (or otherwise contact the mods) and beginning on Monday, December 22, we will grant access to a bare-bones list of the 2025 challenges, the number of stamps needed, and the due date. If you want to remain absolutely unspoiled as to upcoming challenges, than this is probably not for you! We will send additional details on the challenge and specific stamps needed once you choose the challenge you want to work on.
Create your set of stamps. You have a lot of creative free rein here. Stamps must
- include the month number of the challenge. Most of the time, we also include the challenge name (or part of it) too, but this is not required.
- thematically match the challenge that month.
- be appropriate for all audiences: no violence, blood/gore, nudity, or sexual content.
- use our templates or a similar postage stamp template that is not drastically different from ours. (Please check with us first.)
- use only art and images that you have permission to use, which means that you must own the copyright or have permission from the copyright holder to use the image for this project, or the image is in the public domain.
Email your completed stamps to the mods before the due date! We will send you a reminder about a month before your stamps are due.

Please note that while we can (and will) credit you as an artist on the challenge page and any announcements about the challenge, we cannot include credit on the stamps themselves or with every appearance of the stamps on our site.

You will also have the option of designing the challenge banner for that month if you wish to do so. (It is not required.) Banners are used on the challenge page, as well as in announcements on our site and social media about the challenge. Requirements for stamps apply to banners as well, with the addition that the banner should include the challenge name, dates, and text "SWG Challenge" or "Silmarillion Writers' Guild Challenge" somewhere on the banner. We prefer that the art used on stamps not be used on the banner as well. Banners should be at least 500px wide.

In participating in this project, you are granting the SWG the right to use your stamps and banner, including any art or photography that they contain, on our website and social media, in accordance with the terms described here. This includes minor modifications, such as resizing graphics to work with the layout of our site.

If you are interested in learning more or gaining access to the sign-up page, please comment here or contact us. Sign-ups are first-come, first-served, and we will close sign-ups on December 31 or once all have been filled, whichever comes first.

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Celebrations Live Reading

2025-12-15T23:50:34Z

Posted by: daughterofshadows

We are in a season of celebration! Many of our members celebrate holidays during the month of December. For some of us, it is the season when darkness begins to again give way to light. For our group, we spent the last year celebrating our 20th birthday, and at the end of the month, many of us will welcome a new year and the sense of renewal that brings.

We will be hosting a live reading on our Discord server around the theme of celebrations. The reading will be held on Sunday, December 28, at noon Eastern Time. (Find this time in my timezone.)

Anyone is invited to read. If you want to be on the event program, you can sign up here. Fanworks on the program will be linked so that attendees can follow along, read your full fanwork if you are presenting just an excerpt, and leave comments. There will also be an open mic block at the end of the program that is open to anyone who wants to read.

You can read a selection from Tolkien or a fanwork that you wrote that connects to the theme of celebrations. Celebrations is meant very broadly. Selections do not have to focus on seasonal celebrations. Excerpts of longer fanworks are welcome but should be able to stand on their own reasonably well.
You must be the author of the fanwork you sign up. If you want someone else to read your fanwork, that is fine, but it is up to you to find a reader. (And please don't sign up until you do!) During open mic, however, you should read only fanworks you authored.
Please limit your reading to five minutes or less, thereabouts, and sign up one piece. Additional selections can be read during open mic if time permits.
You will need to join our Discord to participate. Not a member of our Discord? If you are an SWG member, log in and scroll to the bottom of the page for an invite link in the footer. Non-SWG members can contact the mods for an invite link. An open invite will also be posted on SWG social media shortly before the event begins.

We also welcome people to attend who just want to listen.

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Great Beleriand Bake-Off PLUS! Instadrabbling

2025-12-15T22:30:27Z

Posted by: dawn_felagund

Do you want to create a challenge response for the Great Beleriand Bake-Off challenge but haven't gotten around to it yet? Are you off for the holidays and looking to hang out with some fellow fan-creators? Do you just love instadrabbling or need something to do on a Sunday? Himring and Dawn will be hosting the Great Beleriand Bake-Off PLUS! instadrabbling session this coming Sunday, December 21, at noon Eastern Time (find this in my timezone). They will be featuring prompts from the current challenge and more, aimed at non-bakers (though twisting the prompts back to a baking-related prompt is welcome too!)

We hope you can join us, whether you want to write, sketch, or just hang out and enjoy fanworks and conversation!

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!

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Tolkien Fanfiction Survey, 3rd Edition!

2025-12-14T23:12:04Z

Posted by: dawn_felagund

This is the last call for participants in the 2025 Tolkien Fanfiction Survey! We will close the survey on January 1. Signal boosts on other Tolkien communities, if appropriate, are much appreciated.

Do you read or write fanfiction based on the works of J.R.R. Tolkien or a Tolkien media adaptation like the film trilogies or Rings of Power series? If so, we'd love to hear from you!

The Tolkien Fanfiction Survey first ran in 2015 and has run every five years since. It is run by Dawn "Felagund" Walls-Thumma, an independent scholar, and Maria K. Alberto, an assistant professor at Richland Community College. Both of us are also readers and writers of fanfiction ourselves. We are excited to introduce the third edition, which will give us insight into how the fandom has changed across the last decade!

If you choose to participate, we will collect basic demographic information and ask you about your beliefs and habits regarding reading and/or writing Tolkien-based fanfiction. Most questions are multiple choice, but there is also a space on each page where you can elaborate on any of your answers if you want to share more information with us. You can skip any question you don't want to answer and quit the survey at any time.

The survey will take about 20-30 minutes to complete.

Who can participate?

Participants must be 18 years or older.

We want to hear from both readers and writers of Tolkien-based fanfiction.
All levels of experience and involvement with Tolkien are welcome.
Readers and writers of fic based on Jackson's film trilogies, The Rings of Power, and other Tolkien-derived media are welcome as well.
If you read and/or wrote Tolkien-based fanfiction in the past but don't any longer, we still want to hear from you!

Click here to start the Tolkien Fanfiction Survey!

Art: "The Lonely Mountain" by MissMachineArt (CC license)

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November/December 2025 Challenge: Great Beleriand Bake Off

2025-11-15T02:50:06Z

Posted by: grundyscribbling

Ready? Set? Bake!

For the next two months, we invite you and your favorite characters out to the tent to demonstrate your prowess in baking … metaphorically, that is! (Though actual baked fanworks are of course welcome!) This challenge will feature a daily prompt calendar of baked goods from around the world, many of them suggested by our members.

Sundays are the exception—on Sundays, there will be a baking-themed comment challenge. Notify the mods if you complete a comment challenge—there are stamps for each individual comment challenge! Comment challenges apply to any fanwork on the SWG archive, not just Great Beleriand Bake Off challenge responses.

Just like baking, you can make this challenge as intense or easygoing as you like. You do not need to complete every prompt and can pick and choose as you'd like from the prompt calendar. Prompts do not need to be completed on the day they are posted. Post early! Post late! Perfect crumb and soggy bottoms are all welcome. If you'd like Paul Hollywood-level intensity, you can of course try for Star Baker and do all of the prompts.

Each day's prompt includes a sweet and a savory option. There is a description and sometimes a recipe (and sometimes several recipes) for each item. You are welcome to use any part of the prompt: the name of the baked good, the description, the recipe, stuff you learned from the links, anything. Fanworks do not need to be about baking or include the foods from the prompt. As always, you are welcome to get as creative with the prompts as you want, which includes twisting prompts, finding loopholes, and going in weird directions the challenge mods never imagined.

Finally, remember that the SWG is an international community with members from regions and cultures all around the world. If you prefer to swap in a recipe for a featured baked good that reflects how your region or culture makes that item, you are welcome to do so! However, please remember that there is no single "correct" or superior way to make any of these items. Let's approach this challenge with appreciation for the diversity of our community and the unifying human experience of sharing food to communicate love and fellowship!

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

In deference to the winter holidays that direct many people's lives at this time of the year, our final challenge of the year always spans two months instead of one. Furthermore, in January, we will run our annual amnesty challenge when you can post fanworks for any of 2025's challenges to collect stamps you missed. Even though the challenge calendar will only run through 15 January, you can receive a stamp for your fanwork if your response must be posted to the archive on or before 15 February 2026. At that point, you must step away from the fanwork and let Paullando and Pruefindel award your endeavor! For complete challenge guidelines, see the Challenges page on our website.

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Public Comment Wanted: Proposed Change to Registration Policy to Better Manage Bots

2025-11-08T21:24:54Z

Posted by: dawn_felagund

On a recent review of new account registrations, the moderators discovered about 20% of them have never logged into their account after it was approved. This is typically not a problem; it's not a drain on our data or resources, and most of us have registered for a website before, with best intentions of using it, and then just didn't get around to it. It is an expected part of running a website like ours.

However, there have been a few recent instances where mods have had to contact new members regarding their account, and despite multiple attempts, do not receive a response. This is often paired with suspicious activity that led the mods to initiate contact in the first place. (Double registrations within minutes of each other from the same IP are a common example.) These accounts appear legitimate in every other way: the field where we ask people to share something about their interest in Tolkien (there to weed out bots) includes something legit-sounding about Tolkien or fanfic or both, and the username or email are Tolkien-related or -adjacent.

We deal with bot registrations regularly and have for the life of this site. Typically, bots go for quantity rather than quality and are therefore easy to spot and simply delete. However, the rising capability of AI tools means we are likely to see bot registrations that are harder to detect.

As a moderator team, we are absolutely okay with people registering and then never using their accounts. But we are not okay with harboring bot registrations, especially AI-assisted bot registrations. The SWG opposes the use of AI that harms fans and creators, and once approved, these accounts do have access to site features like leaving comments, sending messages to other members, and posting their own works, which makes them a risk to our members who are real people and using the site appropriately.

Given this, the mods propose the following change to our Site Etiquette and Terms of Service:

If six months pass and a new account is never logged into, we will contact that person using the email registered on the site to allow them to keep their account.
If we receive a reply, we will keep the account open. There is no obligation for the member to log into the account or use it or maintain any minimum level of activity.
If we don't hear a reply within two weeks, we will delete the account.
Note that this applies only to new accounts that have never been logged into. Once a person logs into their account, they can keep it forever and use it as much or as little as they like.

The moderators are looking for thoughts, concerns, and alternate ideas for how to manage this situation. Please feel free to comment here, use our Discord #town-hall channel, or email us at moderator@silmarillionwritersguild.org. We will leave the public comment period open until at least November 17.

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Upcoming challenge

2025-10-31T01:04:24Z

Posted by: grundyscribbling

Folks, we’re looking for input on the next challenge. Hit us with your favorite baked goods! If you want to share a recipe or a photo, all well and good, but just a name or a link works too. It can be as simple as ‘this is the thing everyone in my neck of the woods looks for at the bakery/market/holidays/family gatherings’. Sweet or savo(u)ry is up to you. (Though the list of sweet is currently much longer than the savory list, and we’d like to even it out if possible!) Our one request is you tell us by November 10 so we have enough time to put the challenge together.

Comment screening is on for this post!

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October Challenge: The Only Thing To Fear

2025-10-15T02:07:50Z

Posted by: grundyscribbling

Fear developed for a good reason, to keep animals—including people—safe in dangerous and uncertain situations. For our characters in Arda, some of those fears make perfect sense in their world, but as we know from our world, fear can also manifest in maladaptive ways, causing us to react strongly when there is no danger present or even make unsafe choices to avoid the object of fear.

For this month's challenge, creators will make a fanwork about fear using one or more of the common fears from the prompt list below. While your fanwork should involve fear in some way, it does not need to be scary, and as always, we encourage creative interpretation of challenge prompts.

Thank you to grundyscribbling for this month's stamps and jane_ways for the banner!

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

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September Challenge: Jumble Sale

2025-09-14T21:17:20Z

Posted by: grundyscribbling

Twenty years of SWG challenges has seen all kinds of use of the prompts that (mostly) moderators cook up each month to tempt and torment our challenge creators. Some challenges are worn thin with love. Others lie, untouched and growing dusty, in the attic of the SWG Challenge page. This month, in honor of twenty years of challenges, we are upcycling our old challenges and dusting them off for a second chance at life.

Jumble Sale prompts are created by SWG members using past challenges and prompts. For this challenge, you can choose your prompt from the list below. Each prompt is indicated by a "For Sale" and may include multiple elements. As always, we welcome creative interpretations of prompts and use of any part of the prompt.

Make sure to tag all challenges included in the prompt if you would like the stamps for them. Challenges from before 2017 do not have stamps, but there is a special stamp for creators who venture into the deepest, dustiest recesses of the SWG attic by creating for a prompt that uses a challenge from prior to 2017!

If you'd like to create prompts of your own but missed the original call, you're not too late! Submit Jumble Sale prompts here. Allow us forty-eight hours to update the website before querying.

Thank you to Varda delle Stelle for this month's stamps!

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

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Instadrabbling Sessions for October, November, and December

2025-09-11T00:51:33Z

Posted by: dawn_felagund

Anna (IdleLeaves) will generously be continuing to host monthly instadrabbling sessions on our Discord server on the first Saturday of each month! We welcome all creators to join us for an few hours of creating, squeeing, and hanging out with fellow fans on the following dates:

October 4, 2025 at 6PM/18:00 UTC (find this in my timezone)
November 1, 2025 at 6PM/18:00 UTC (find this in my timezone)
December 6, 2025 at 6PM/18:00 UTC (find this in my timezone)

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Mereth Aderthad Presentations Available

2025-08-23T15:53:39Z

Posted by: dawn_felagund

The majority of the presentations from Mereth Aderthad are now available as videos with accompanying transcripts or full papers. If you missed a presentation or want to give one a second (or more!) look, we invite you to check them out! Everything Mereth Aderthad-related can be found on the interactive program, which is continuously updated as new material comes in.

Here are the videos that have been posted, alphabetical by title:

( Mereth Aderthad Presentations )

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Print Mereth Aderthad Fanzines Available to order

2025-08-19T06:18:21Z

Posted by: daughterofshadows

As part of our twentieth birthday celebration at Mereth Aderthad 2025, we put together a fanzine to honor the fannish traditions of our foremothers, who in the pre-internet days, gathered in living rooms to squee over their fandoms and assemble and mail zines by hand. Without the internet to zip our thoughts halfway around the globe in less than a blink, this is how early fan communities celebrated and debated the texts that they loved. (If you're curious about early Tolkien fanzines, check out Marquette University's online Tolkien fanzine archive.)

We have thirty print copies of the zine left that we are now making available to anyone who wants a copy! The cost of the zine is the cost of printing ($7.70 USD) plus shipping. No profit is made on the zine. (You can view the Mereth Aderthad 2025 financial information here for full details.) A free digital copy of the zine can be downloaded here.

We are using the third-party provider Shopify to handle financial transactions. If Shopify cannot ship to your country, contact us and we will try to find another way to get your zine to you.

The last day for zine sales will be September 30.

You can order your copy of the Mereth Aderthad 2025 fanzine here.

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New Challenge: Kids These Days

2025-08-15T00:43:17Z

Posted by: dawn_felagund

If there is a unifier among generations, it is complaining about the kids and teens in the generations coming up behind them. There was likely an ancient Mesopotamian complaining about the brainrot effects of that newfangled cuneiform and kids carving their names on the ziggurat walls. Likewise, there is no reason to believe our beloved Tolkien characters were immune to these timeless worries and whinges about the young people around them (or experienced the ever-helpful "advice" of their elders when they were themselves whippersnappers).

This month's challenge will offer a bingo card chock-full of perennial complaints about kids and teens. Choose one or several prompts to include in your fanwork. Numbers will not be called; you can select any prompt you want at any time. Your fanwork does not have to be about kids and teens; as always, we welcome creative interpretations of our prompts.

There are special stamps available for completing rows, columns, diagonals, or (if you are old enough to withstand the effort of going uphill both ways) a full card blackout where you manage every prompt. Note that, to complete rows and blackouts, you do not need to use all of the prompts in a single fanwork but can use them across multiple fanworks. Let the moderators know if you need one of the special stamps.

You can find the bingo card and text prompts for the Kids These Days challenge here.

Thank you to hîn_isil for this month's adorable stamps!

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

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Prompts Needed for September's Jumble Sale Challenge!

2025-08-14T22:16:17Z

Posted by: dawn_felagund

Have you ever noticed one of our challenges or prompts that would be absolutely perfect … for someone else to write? Or maybe the perfect storm of challenge and prompt combos that would be entirely delicious, intriguing, perplexing, or evil? For our September challenge, Jumble Sale, you will have your chance to offer up past challenges and prompts to other creators to work their magic!

How It Will Work

You can offer up to five items "for sale" at the jumble sale! Items should consist of a past SWG challenge or a prompt for a challenge. You can combine challenges and prompts, but all challenges and prompts should come from the SWG collection. You can find the full list of challenges here. Items will be listed as the prompts in the Jumble Sale challenge for other creators to make fanworks for.

How many challenges/prompts can you include in your item? As many as you want! Be tame, go wild, the choice is yours!

Next, you can set an optional "price" on your items. These are extra conditions that the creator must fulfill in claiming your item. Remember that the SWG is a positive-focused space; make sure your price is what you want to see, not what you want to avoid.

Some examples:

It's Magic challenge using the prompt "The stain will not come out…" from the First Lines challenge
Combine the Soap Opera prompt "secret family" with the Also Appearing prompt "mockumentary"
Notion Club Revival challenge; price: include the pairing Celegorm/Maeglin

Ready to put some items in our Jumble Sale? Use the form here to send us your items!

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Mereth Aderthad Zine Now Available!

2025-07-23T20:57:04Z

Posted by: daughterofshadows

In the early years of fandom, creators shared their stories, art, and other fanworks in handmade fanzines. Often printed on the cheap and assembled by volunteers at zine-making parties, these zines brought fans around the world in contact with each other and kept fan communities alive.

Honoring the tradition of our foremothers, when we planned Mereth Aderthad 2025, we wanted a fanzine to go with it. Works in the zine respond to the twelve presentations given at Mereth Aderthad.

We are very excited to make the Mereth Aderthad fanzine available to download for anyone who would like to check it out! The zine features thirteen stories, five poems, and nine works of art and was beautifully designed by Anérea. While some of the fanworks were heard at Mereth Aderthad, others are brand-new and available to enjoy for the first time.

You can download a copy of the Mereth Aderthad 2025 fanzine here!

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July Challenge: Swinging 40s

2025-07-15T19:02:21Z

Posted by: grundyscribbling

The 1940s was a decade of contrasts. It contained humankind's deadliest war and ushered in its biggest baby boom. European powers nursed their war wounds, the United States and Soviet Union rose as superpowers, and the first stirrings of decolonization inspired millions to seek independence and the right to self-governance. All of this occurred as swing music and the first jukeboxes played in the background, and technological advancements brought space travel, the atomic bomb, and Tupperware.

This month's challenge focuses on the decade that both contained the first teen crooners and saw literature and film turn to noir. Prompts come from the 1940s, and you are welcome to choose any from the list below. As usual, you can use any part of the prompt—dig deep into a novel or film or the lyrics of a song if you want, or use the title, book cover, or movie poster—anything goes! We welcome you to combine prompts and interpret them as creatively as your imagination requires.

Find the Swinging 40s prompt collection and fanworks here.

Thank you to Pages for this month's stamps!

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

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Mereth Aderthad Interview: Interview with Idril's Scribe by Shadow

2025-07-10T15:31:40Z

Posted by: daughterofshadows

Although Doriath is a prominent civilization in The Silmarillion, fanworks creators pay less attention to its culture and residents than they do to the Elves who migrated from Valinor. An writer who brings to life cultures of Middle-earth that have received less fan attention, Idrils Scribe is the featured author for Stella Getreuer-Kostrouch's Mereth Aderthad 2025 presentation, "Cherished antagonist, despised protagonist - a defence of Elu Thingol." Shadow spoke with Idril about her story for the event, about the disproportionate criticism Thingol tends to receive in the fandom, the endless layers of the legendarium, and the arc of fandom history that makes inclusive communities essential for creators to thrive.

You can read Shadow's interview with Idrils Scribe here.

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Mereth Aderthad Interview: Interview with Flora-lass by Anérea

2025-07-08T07:34:28Z

Posted by: daughterofshadows

Tolkien's poetry is one of the hallmarks of the legendarium, though like poetry in general, it tends ot produce mixed reactions from readers. A poet who brings to life the musicality of Middle-earth, Flora-lass will be presenting a poem inspired by Stella Getreuer-Kostrouch's presentation, "Cherished antagonist, despised protagonist - a defence of Elu Thingol" at Mereth Aderthad 2025. Anérea spoke with Flora-lass about her poetry, getting involved with fandom later in life, and the appeal of Thingol as a subject of fanworks.

You can read Anérea's interview with Flora-lass here.

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Character of the Month: Marhwini

2025-07-05T20:02:49Z

Posted by: daughterofshadows

Marhwini of the Éothéod is a character who exists between books. He is, in the words of his biographer Secondborn, "a representative of a people who didn’t even exist," appearing in neither The Silmarillion nor The Lord of the Rings. But as Secondborn articulates, this doesn't mean Marhwini is unimportant. Her biography of Marhwini not only compiles the details of the life of a character who is likely unfamiliar to many Tolkien fans but also explores why this character matters. Important to both the histories of Rohan and Gondor, Marhwini is a character who influences events in the legendarium from across the centuries and whose actions exemplify the essential theme of the value of friendship and allegiance.

You can read Secondborn's biography of Marhwini here.

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