dawn_felagund: (silmarils)
[personal profile] dawn_felagund
This past weekend, I attended a fantasy studies and Tolkien studies conference, Mythmoot II. I come back bearing information that might be of interest to some of our members here!

First of all, the Mythgard Institute will be hosting a free (yes, FREE!) course about Unfinished Tales. The course will be taught by the Tolkien Professor Corey Olsen. (Who, if you've never heard one of his lectures before, is a sharp Tolkien scholar and engaging teacher.) Since UT as the next book in the series was just announced, the website hasn't been updated with further details on when the series will start, but here is where information on the UT lecture series will be posted.

As a general fyi, Mythgard Academy (part of the Mythgard Institute) offers these courses regularly, and they are always free. They just finished with Return of the King. I will try to do better about posting when new Tolkien-related courses are about to start. :)

Next, I was given a call for papers for an upcoming book, The Inklings and King Arthur, that I wanted to pass along in case this happened to intersect with anyone's research interests here. The full specifications and a list of possible topics (many of which sound very interesting--were that I was better versed in Arthurian studies! :) can be found on the The Inklings and King Arthur call for papers here. Even if you think you might be interested, the editor Sørina Higgins (who is very approachable and really cool) has said that she welcomes emails with possible topics and is happy to provide feedback on whether they would work for the book. Proposals are due by February 1, 2014.
dawn_felagund: (swg logo)
[personal profile] dawn_felagund
I post to the group at the beginning of each month, when I post our newsletter, but this month, I have an extra bit of exciting news to report from the SWG moderation team. My comods and I are pleased to announce that we now accept podfics on the SWG archive!

Some of you might now be asking, "What in the world is a podfic??" Podfics are audio recordings of stories, similar to audiobooks, that you can listen to on your computer or your MP3 player. We all occasionally find ourselves in situations where reading is less than ideal or even impossible, and now you can bring your favorite stories along with you! We hope that, by offering podfics on the archive, we will help our authors to reach a broader audience.

Making a podfic is easy. All you need to get started is a microphone for your computer and audio-editing software. Free versions of the latter exist; I use Audacity, and besides being free, it took me less than an hour to go from a complete audio ignoramus to recording my first story. Once you record your story, you can host it on a third-party service--we suggest several on our podfic page--or we'll be happy to store your file for you on our server. Complete instructions and resources for podfic are available on the SWG website.

We will also be sharing a podfic each month in our newsletter. Even if you're not ready to start recording podfics yet, we encourage you to recommend the stories you'd like to hear recorded as part of the Podfic of the Month.

We also need volunteers who would be willing to help us record the featured podfic each month. You can have your name added to the list of people we contact about potential assignments here.

All you need to know to get started should be found on the podfic page linked above, but as always, we welcome questions at moderator AT silmarillionwritersguild DOT org.

Also, our November newsletter is now also available!

Aside from news within and beyond our borders, we also have a list of October's new additions to the archive, if you're looking for something to read. We're continuing last month's "Circle of Life" challenge and revisiting the "It's Magic!" challenge, if your muses need a little coaxing. And we have a list of links to articles that our members might find interesting, in the Around the World and Web section.

As always, the highlight of the newsletter is the character biography. Oshun has written this month about Elured and Elurin, the twin sons of Dior who were abandoned to die in the forest by Celegorm's servants. It's Oshun's particular talent to take characters who are barely discussed in the text and connect them in meaningful ways to literature, folklore, mythology, and history beyond Tolkien's world, adding depth to characters who otherwise risk becoming mere names listed in the index. This month's biography is no exception, and Oshun explores connections between the story of Elured and Elurin and real-world folktales and history, as well as discussing how their story enhances the complexity of characters who receive more page-time. Oshun has done a fabulous job once again--and in the middle of a hurricane at that!--and I highly recommend her article.

Many, many thanks go out to those who contribute every month to our newsletter: Oshun, Rhapsody, Russandol, and Angelica. I also want to give a shout-out to my co-mods, who have made the podfic feature on our archive possible. These are big, many-faceted tasks--we've been working on this one sporadically for months--that would be impossible without their contributions, expertise, and endless patience (mostly with me and quite often with eFiction as well ;). Thank you Rhapsody, Angelica, Tarion, and Russandol, who I honestly believe make up the best team of comods a website owner could wish for!
dawn_felagund: (swg logo)
[personal profile] dawn_felagund
I post to the group at the beginning of each month, when I post our newsletter, but this month, I have an extra bit of exciting news to report from the SWG moderation team. My comods and I are pleased to announce that we now accept podfics on the SWG archive!

Some of you might now be asking, "What in the world is a podfic??" Podfics are audio recordings of stories, similar to audiobooks, that you can listen to on your computer or your MP3 player. We all occasionally find ourselves in situations where reading is less than ideal or even impossible, and now you can bring your favorite stories along with you! We hope that, by offering podfics on the archive, we will help our authors to reach a broader audience.

Making a podfic is easy. All you need to get started is a microphone for your computer and audio-editing software. Free versions of the latter exist; I use Audacity, and besides being free, it took me less than an hour to go from a complete audio ignoramus to recording my first story. Once you record your story, you can host it on a third-party service--we suggest several on our podfic page--or we'll be happy to store your file for you on our server. Complete instructions and resources for podfic are available on the SWG website.

We will also be sharing a podfic each month in our newsletter. Even if you're not ready to start recording podfics yet, we encourage you to recommend the stories you'd like to hear recorded as part of the Podfic of the Month.

We also need volunteers who would be willing to help us record the featured podfic each month. You can have your name added to the list of people we contact about potential assignments here.

All you need to know to get started should be found on the podfic page linked above, but as always, we welcome questions at moderator AT silmarillionwritersguild DOT org.

Also, our November newsletter is now also available!

Aside from news within and beyond our borders, we also have a list of October's new additions to the archive, if you're looking for something to read. We're continuing last month's "Circle of Life" challenge and revisiting the "It's Magic!" challenge, if your muses need a little coaxing. And we have a list of links to articles that our members might find interesting, in the Around the World and Web section.

As always, the highlight of the newsletter is the character biography. Oshun has written this month about Elured and Elurin, the twin sons of Dior who were abandoned to die in the forest by Celegorm's servants. It's Oshun's particular talent to take characters who are barely discussed in the text and connect them in meaningful ways to literature, folklore, mythology, and history beyond Tolkien's world, adding depth to characters who otherwise risk becoming mere names listed in the index. This month's biography is no exception, and Oshun explores connections between the story of Elured and Elurin and real-world folktales and history, as well as discussing how their story enhances the complexity of characters who receive more page-time. Oshun has done a fabulous job once again--and in the middle of a hurricane at that!--and I highly recommend her article.

Many, many thanks go out to those who contribute every month to our newsletter: Oshun, Rhapsody, Russandol, and Angelica. I also want to give a shout-out to my co-mods, who have made the podfic feature on our archive possible. These are big, many-faceted tasks--we've been working on this one sporadically for months--that would be impossible without their contributions, expertise, and endless patience (mostly with me and quite often with eFiction as well ;). Thank you Rhapsody, Angelica, Tarion, and Russandol, who I honestly believe make up the best team of comods a website owner could wish for!
dawn_felagund: Skeleton embracing young girl (Default)
[personal profile] dawn_felagund
With the holidays behind us, it's time to start thinking about and planning for this year's Back to Middle-earth Month! SWG holds a Back to Middle-earth Month (B2MeM) event each year; this will be our fifth. This year, we are planning something a bit different and will need some help preparing for and running the event during March.

This year's event is going to be a "quest game." A what? you ask? In brief, players will need to move from location to location on a map to try to achieve a destination. Each location will include a challenge (a lot like last year's) that the player must complete to move past that location. We're cooking up other twists and surprises, but that's the basic gist of it--a challenge event with a bit of strategy thrown in to keep things interesting.

Why do I bring this up now? Because, as the subject line says, we need help! We have a bit more to get in order than in years past, so we're asking for volunteers to help us plan the event and keep it running once things are underway. How can you help? There are a few ways:

Become a game mod. Game mods will plan and administer the event, write the quest scenario, and invent all of those little twists and turns to keep things interesting. The only downside is that--by having this knowledge--game mods cannot play in the game. (However, anyone can write for the challenges, regardless of whether they are playing or not.)

You do not need to have any special experience or even be an SWG member to be a game mod. Like last year, this event will be for the Tolkien fandom, not just Silmarillion, so no matter where your interests lie, if you'd like to help out, please let us know!

Volunteer. Volunteers won't have secret knowledge and so can play too, if they'd like. Volunteers will mostly help us to keep track of the game and send emails to players. Again, you don't need any special experience or need to be an SWG member. We appreciate every bit of help we can get.

Spread the word! As noted earlier, we try to keep our B2MeM events open to anyone in the fandom who wants to participate. After all, it is Back to Middle-earth Month, not Back to Beleriand Month! Hobbits, Gondorians, Nazgûl, Númenoreans, Valar, Easterlings, Noldor, Ents, and even Dark Lords ... all are welcome. So if you know of writers, artists, and groups outside of the Silmarillion fandom who might be interested, please let them know. We appreciate volunteers and players no matter whence they come!

If you're interested in helping out or have any questions, please email us at moderator@silmarillionwritersguild.org or leave a comment on this post.
dawn_felagund: (swg logo)
[personal profile] dawn_felagund

Recently, our webhost performed a software upgrade that is affecting the performance of the archive. We have had several bugs reported to us now.

  • When a review is posted to a story, instead of redirecting the reviewer to a thank-you page, it now results in a completely blank page. Please do not refresh your browser; the review has been saved in the database and added to the story. Refreshing the browser will result in duplicate reviews. As a temporary fix, we are recommending reviewers delete everything after home/ in the URL. (I.e., http://www.silmarillionwritersguild.org/archive/home/) This will return you to the main archive page.
  • When new stories are added, the same thing is happening: It is reverting to a blank page rather than the default thank-you page. Again, please do not refresh; your story has been saved, and returning to the main archive page should show it.
  • Updated stories have not been properly added to the Most Recent list. If this happens to you, please contact us; we can add it manually.

If you've been experiencing any additional problems with the archive or have any questions or concerns about these known bugs, we ask you to please contact us at moderator@silmarillionwritersguild.org or leave a comment on this post. We are working to get these fixed and apologize for any inconvenience in the meantime. Thanks to all who have assisted us so far in reporting oddities and helping us to pinpoint where the problems lie.

dawn_felagund: (swg logo)
[personal profile] dawn_felagund
Hi, all,

Back to Middle-earth Month (B2MeM) is not until March, but that time is fast-approaching! This year's project is a creative challenge and has been described briefly in our February newsletter for all who are curious:

http://www.silmarillionwritersguild.org/news/newsletter.php#news

As usual, we hope to recognize participants in the project by offering banners or icons to commemorate their involvement or serve as links to their projects. I know that this group has many talented artists and graphics artists, so I am putting out a cry to help to any who wish to help us out with this.

At the minimum, we would like to have banners/icons for participants and banners/icons for participants who write or draw something for every prompt.

In my wildest dreams, we also have a daily icon that fits each prompt. However, I recognize that this might not be possible on such short notice.

We're pretty flexible where graphics are concerned. Icons should be 100px by 100px or smaller so that they can be used on sites like LiveJournal. Banners of any size are acceptable, although smaller file sizes are always ideal. Our strictest requirement is that banners/icons cannot use artwork that does not 1) belong to the artist making the banner/icon, 2) is not explicitly available for public use, including cropping/resizing/modification or 3) is not used with specific permission from the original artist, including freedom to crop/resize/modify or do whatever you need to do to make the image work.

If you are interested in helping out or have any questions, please leave a comment on this post or email us at moderator@silmarillionwritersguild.org. Of course, there is no minimal contribution; even one banner or icon puts us one banner or icon closer to our goal and is very much appreciated. :)

In addition, if you wish to participate in this year's B2MeM project, please note that creating a daily icon does satisfy that day's prompt! (The icons, however, will need to be completed before the prompt is publicly posted.)

Thank you, and my best regards to all,

Dawn
dawn_felagund: (swg logo)
[personal profile] dawn_felagund
A few months ago, our Yahoo! discussion list had quite a lengthy and intense discussion about slash and het and the labeling and avoidance of each in fandom. This conversation sparked us to reconsider how we label slash and het on our archive.

Currently, slash and het stories are identified on the archive using warnings. There are five warnings that concern sexual content that an author may choose for his or her story on the archive, and the author may choose as many warnings as apply. These warnings are:

Sexual Content--Graphic
Sexual Content--Heterosexual/Het
Sexual Content--Homosexual/Slash
Sexual Content--Mild
Sexual Content--Moderate

This system works fine when a story actually contains sexual content. However, the question arose about how best to handle stories that involve a pairing and do not contain sexual content. For example, does a story that looks at the experience of being homosexual in Gondolin (but that does not contain any sexual content) need to be labeled as slash? Does a story that looks at the marriage of Nerdanel and Feanor need to be labeled as het? Neither story is described well by the labels available on the archive (and, in fact, the labels may be terribly misleading), yet authors often feel pressured to label a story as slash or het, knowing that readers who wish to avoid any mention of homosexual or heterosexual pairings may criticize them if they do not. There are also authors who dislike the labels "slash" and "het," even for stories that involve sexual content, because the labels have picked up negative connotations in some parts of fandom.

Given these concerns, we asked our members to suggest a better way for us to label slash and het on the archive. We want readers to be able to find the stories that they want, but we also want authors to feel comfortable using our system to share their work. We have gathered the suggestions that we received and have put together a poll to see which our members and visitors think would work best. We appreciate if everyone could take a moment to look at the different options and vote in the poll. Please note that there is also a space for any comments or considerations that you'd like our moderators to keep in mind when making the final decision.

http://www.silmarillionwritersguild.org/warning_poll.php

The poll will run 1-30 September unless it is generating a large response or discussion, in which case, we will extend the deadline.

We appreciate everyone's time, consideration, and input!
dawn_felagund: (swg logo)
[personal profile] dawn_felagund
Greetings, all!

By now, many of you have probably heard about LiveJournal's new system for labeling and flagging adult-oriented content. If you have not, the original post on [livejournal.com profile] lj_biz can be found here, the first follow-up here (largely to address and answer user concerns), and the most recent follow-up on [livejournal.com profile] lj_policy here (to further address and answer user concerns).

Given all of this, communities on LJ that allow adult content have been abuzz in trying to decide what to do with their communities. The SWG moderators have spent the last five days talking back and forth about how to handle adult content on [livejournal.com profile] silwritersguild in light of the new policies. First of all, I will assure you that very little will change. Adult content will still be allowed on the community. You will still be able to reach users with and without LJ accounts and with a minimum of fuss. To the greatest extent possible, you will control how to label your posts to this community.

  • [livejournal.com profile] silwritersguild will not be declaring any level of adult content for the community as a whole. A survey of the last year of posts revealed that 16% might be considered Adult Concepts; only 5% might be considered Explicit Adult Content by even the most stringent standards. By LJ's own 50% guideline, our community is therefore considered to include "No Adult Content." Furthermore, we've always been very clear about the contents of the community and individual posts so that readers don't encounter topics that they find bothersome and to aid parents in making decisions about their children's usage of the Internet.


  • Authors on [livejournal.com profile] silwritersguild do not need to choose a level of adult content for their posts, even if those posts do contain explicit adult content. If authors wish to do so, they may, but we are not requiring this, nor are we creating a community standard to determine what constitutes Adult Concepts or Explicit Adult Content. (Nor has LJ been particularly forthcoming in creating a standard for the site as a whole.) If you wish to label your posts as AC or EAC, use the same judgment that you would use when making this decision in your private journal.

    It is important to note, also, that there is no penalty to users that do not label journal/community posts according to the level of adult content they contain. Labeling adult content remains voluntary. Even if LJ Abuse applies a label at a later date, you will not be punished or penalized for this, nor will this community, so please feel free to make a choice according to your own beliefs and judgments on the matter.


  • That said, nothing has changed with regards to the ratings, warnings, and LJ-cuts that we have always required on this community. Even if you label a post as Adult Concepts or Explicit Adult Content, you must continue to provide ratings and warnings and place any lengthy or potentially offensive content behind an LJ-cut. If you need a reminder about our system, please review our community information page or contact a moderator.


  • One of the shortcomings of the current system (that LJ is supposed to be addressing) is that all content in a post labeled as Adult Concepts or Explicit Adult Content goes behind an LJ-cut for logged-out users, underage users, or users who have selected to collapse adult content on their settings page. This means that any warnings you might attach to your story outside the LJ-cut, per community guidelines, will not be visible to these users.

    As such, we are asking that authors who post material here that might be harmful to some users include warnings also in the title to the piece. By "harmful," we mean content that might be damaging to victims of or people personally affected by the content or themes of the story. On the SWG archive, these are the warnings that have three stars (***) in front of them: rape, torture, suicide, and incest.

    Please add these warnings even if you are not labeling the post as Adult Concepts or Explicit Adult Content. Remember that other users can flag your content and LJ may choose to label certain content accordingly. (Again, there are no repercussions if/when this happens; more information about the use and abuse of this system is available in the posts I linked above.) Currently, posts made on [livejournal.com profile] silwritersguild reaches close to one thousand LJ users, from those who watch the community and those who watch newsgroups that mirror the community, as well as visitors. So we should expect that some content will end up flagged and changed by LJ and prepare accordingly.

    Hopefully, LJ will indeed come up with a solution to this problem soon, and it will cease to be an issue. In the meantime, we appreciate everyone's cooperation with this change.


As usual, we encourage those of you who have questions or need clarification on this matter or any other to contact us at moderator@silmarillionwritersguild.org or leave a comment to this post.

Now let's all get back to writing (and sharing) our Silmarillion stories! My best regards to all,

Dawn
SWG owner/moderator
dawn_felagund: (swg logo)
[personal profile] dawn_felagund

As many of you know, today is the thirty-year anniversary of The Silmarillion's publication. If you're part of this community, you've probably been inspired before by the history and mythology presented in this book, and we invite you to share your talents and win shiny banners!

Full details about the contest are available on our website here. For those of you who like the convenience of reading on LJ, a copy of the contest announcement and rules follows beneath the cut.

Here's to many more anniversaries!

Writing Contest Details )
dawn_felagund: (swg logo)
[personal profile] dawn_felagund
I have two announcements:

First of all, the final two entries for Seven in '07 have been posted!

Nerdanel
Celebrimbor

And the final project, in its entirety, can be found here. Many thanks again to everyone who helped out, contributed stories and artwork, and followed the project with such enthusiastic support!

Secondly, SWG is two years old! In honor of our second birthday, we're doing a round-robin story on the archive. If you'd like to participate, you'll only need to sign up for an account at silmarillionwritersguild.org.

The premise: It's Manwë's birthday, and in his honor, Varda has invited all of Arda to his party. All of Tolkien's characters are fair game for this story, so bring your favorite character(s) to the party!

More information on the round-robin story can be found here. Have fun!
dawn_felagund: (feanorians)
[personal profile] dawn_felagund
Seven in '07 has been completed for Fëanor & Sons, but July is far from over, and we cannot forget about Nerdanel and Celebrimbor!

We will be putting together a similar compilation for both of these characters, to be posted on the 30 and 31 of July, and need short fiction/excerpts, poetry, and artwork. The full announcement can be found here; the specifics are the same as last time. The due date is Tuesday, 24 July 2007.

Thanks again to all who participated in the first compilation; I hope that it was enjoyable for all you Fëanatics out there!
[identity profile] tarion-anarore.livejournal.com

For the month of July, the Silmarillion Writers' Guild has decided to honor the House of Fëanor, especially the inspiration these characters provide to the Tolkien fan community. For each day during the first week of July, we will unveil a new character. Alongside a brief biography and discussion of that character, we present the words and images fans have created to illustrate the character's history and impact on the world of Middle-earth.

Today's character is Fëanor. Called "the greatest of the Noldor," Fëanor is subject to a strong love-hate dichotomy among the fans of J.R.R. Tolkien's works. Yet no matter what one's opinion about him as an individual and grievous as were his deeds, without Fëanor, the events of the Third Age that freed the people of Middle-earth from thralldom would not have been possible. Fëanor stands as a shining example of a fall from light to darkness but also--as said in Ainulindalë--how even the darkest deeds eventually bring good returns.

It is in recognition of this, in recognition of the wisdom, creativity, and joy that studying the House of Fëanor has brought to hundreds of authors and artists, that we honor him this month.

That concludes our first week's events for Seven in '07! Many thanks to those who have followed along and, of course, to the many talented contributors who helped put the project together. With more than three weeks still left in July, we look forward to more Fëanorian-inspired fun and creativity, so stay tuned!

May the muses smile upon you,
SWG Moderators


Seven in '07 Homepage

[identity profile] tarion-anarore.livejournal.com

For the month of July, the Silmarillion Writers' Guild has decided to honor the House of Fëanor, especially the inspiration these characters provide to the Tolkien fan community. For each day during the first week of July, we will unveil a new character. Alongside a brief biography and discussion of that character, we present the words and images fans have created to illustrate the character's history and impact on the world of Middle-earth.

Today's characters are Amrod and Amras. The twin sons of Fëanor have always possessed a unique allure for fan-writers and -artists that seems to defy their relatively small role in the published Silmarillion. But a closer study of their history and the development of their characters reveals some intriguing twists and ideas that show the heavy price paid by the House of Fëanor in pursuit of their quest.

We hope that you enjoy the works presented as part of Seven in '07. Other events centered on the House of Fëanor will follow throughout the month of July, so stay tuned! And of course, if you feel so inspired, please feel free to share your creativity on SWG!

May the muses smile upon you,
SWG Moderators


Seven in '07 Homepage

ext_79824: (fan fic authors made me do it)
[identity profile] rhapsody11.livejournal.com
Hey all,

I have two announcements to make on behalf of the MEFA admin, but I am going to combine them:

Subjects: Approaching MEFA Deadlines for Nominators and Nominated Authors & Hard-to-Reach Authors

Hey guys,
This is a friendly reminder: the last day to nominate a story for the 2007 awards is JULY 15. You will not be able to nominate a story after this.
If you are reading this and would like to nominate a story, you need to join the MEFAwards Yahoo group.
Do this at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MEFAwards/ or by emailing MEFAwards-subscribe(at)yahoogroups(dot)com. Please don't wait until the last minute to join if you choose to do so; you will be sent log-in information to our voting and nominating website within a day or two of joining this Yahoo group.
The last day for authors to approve their nomination is JULY 22. if you have had a story nominated you will need to finish the form and email your liaison by July 22 saying that you're okay with the nomination. If you aren't sure who your liaison is, you may email mefasupport(at)gmail(dot)com.
Just so everyone is clear, the MEFA day is based on Greenwich Mean Time. For the current "official" time go to http://www.mefawards.net/MEFA2007/ and look at the "Page Served at:" line in the bottom-left corner. As I'm writing this, it is currently 5:41 in my time zone (U.S. eastern) on July 4, and the MEFA's official time is "2007-07-04 21:41:40 GMT".

and:

The Middle-earth Fanfiction Awards could use your help finding some authors who have been nominated but that our volunteers are having a hard time reaching. A full list of the authors we're trying to reach can be found at:
http://community.livejournal.com/mefas/22883.html#cutid1
Do you know any of these people? If so, please have them email mefasupport(at)gmail.com. Authors still have until July 22 to get their stories ready to compete, so there's still time for these authors to participate if they'd like to.
Marta

--

This morning I nudged Aeode and Vladazhael, LydiaB has been contacted as well by Robinka. So I know those are covered. But if you know any of the other authors... Any little nudge helps.

Rhapsody.
[identity profile] tarion-anarore.livejournal.com

For the month of July, the Silmarillion Writers' Guild has decided to honor the House of Fëanor, especially the inspiration these characters provide to the Tolkien fan community. For each day during the first week of July, we will unveil a new character. Alongside a brief biography and discussion of that character, we present the words and images fans have created to illustrate the character's history and impact on the world of Middle-earth.

Today's character is Curufin. Said to be like his father in mood, appearance, and skills, it is no surprise that Curufin is portrayed as the most villainous of the brothers. But he wasn't always that way, and his history reveals a character for whom the epithet "the crafty" did not necessarily deserve the negative connotation that it would come to receive. From friend to traitor, father to kinslayer, Curufin exemplifies the tragic hold of the Silmarils on the lives of their pursuers.

We hope that you enjoy the works presented as part of Seven in '07. Other events centered on the House of Fëanor will follow throughout the month of July, so stay tuned! And of course, if you feel so inspired, please feel free to share your creativity on SWG!

May the muses smile upon you,
SWG Moderators


Seven in '07 Homepage

[identity profile] tarion-anarore.livejournal.com

For the month of July, the Silmarillion Writers' Guild has decided to honor the House of Fëanor, especially the inspiration these characters provide to the Tolkien fan community. For each day during the first week of July, we will unveil a new character. Alongside a brief biography and discussion of that character, we present the words and images fans have created to illustrate the character's history and impact on the world of Middle-earth.

Today's character is Caranthir. Called the "harshest of the brothers" and known for his temper, Caranthir is a character seemingly easy to overlook. But he is also to credit for forging a relationship with both Dwarves and Men, promoting allegiances that could have saved the people of Beleriand. Like his brothers, though, Caranthir's deeds were always shadowed by his oath, and even his best deeds were ruined in the end by treachery.

We hope that you enjoy the works presented as part of Seven in '07. Other events centered on the House of Fëanor will follow throughout the month of July, so stay tuned! And of course, if you feel so inspired, please feel free to share your creativity on SWG!

May the muses smile upon you,
SWG Moderators


Seven in '07 Homepage

[identity profile] tarion-anarore.livejournal.com

For the month of July, the Silmarillion Writers' Guild has decided to honor the House of Fëanor, especially the inspiration these characters provide to the Tolkien fan community. For each day during the first week of July, we will unveil a new character. Alongside a brief biography and discussion of that character, we present the words and images fans have created to illustrate the character's history and impact on the world of Middle-earth.

Today's character is Celegorm. Celegorm is often a convenient villain in The Silmarillion but a closer look at his character shows him to be more complex than such black-and-white portrayals suggest. Once a loyal follower of Oromë, a lover of the natural world, and a passionate speaker after his father, Celegorm exemplifies that tragic fall of a character destined for great things and brought low by the pursuit of vengeance.

We hope that you enjoy the works presented as part of Seven in '07. Other events centered on the House of Fëanor will follow throughout the month of July, so stay tuned! And of course, if you feel so inspired, please feel free to share your creativity on SWG!

May the muses smile upon you,
SWG Moderators


Seven in '07 Homepage

[identity profile] tarion-anarore.livejournal.com

For the month of July, the Silmarillion Writers' Guild has decided to honor the House of Fëanor, especially the inspiration these characters provide to the Tolkien fan community. For each day during the first week of July, we will unveil a new character. Alongside a brief biography and discussion of that character, we present the words and images fans have created to illustrate the character's history and impact on the world of Middle-earth.

Today's character is Maglor. Often portrayed by fans as the gentlest of the brothers--and certainly the most repentant--Maglor was known for his singing voice and skill with music. Nonetheless, in taking his father's oath, his hands and mind were turned from constructing things of beauty into making war. A brave warrior and a soulful poet, the conflicting natures of the second son of Fëanor captivate fans like no other.

We hope that you enjoy the works presented as part of Seven in '07. Other events centered on the House of Fëanor will follow throughout the month of July, so stay tuned! And of course, if you feel so inspired, please feel free to share your creativity on SWG!

May the muses smile upon you,
SWG Moderators


Seven in '07 Homepage

[identity profile] tarion-anarore.livejournal.com

For the month of July, the Silmarillion Writers' Guild has decided to honor the House of Fëanor, especially the inspiration these characters provide to the Tolkien fan community. A few weeks ago, we asked authors and artists to share with us their favorite creative works about the Fëanorians, and they answered our challenge. We received over one hundred submissions from more than two dozen writers and artists, everything from poetry to tapestries, drabbles to digital paintings. We have since been compiling these to provide a fan-illustrated history of each character from the House of Fëanor.

For each day during the first week of July, we will unveil a new character. Alongside a brief biography and discussion of that character, we present the words and images fans have created to illustrate the character's history and impact on the world of Middle-earth.

Today's character is Maedhros. The eldest son of Fëanor, few Silmarillion characters command the hearts of fans the way that Maedhros does. One of the chief architects of unity and peace among the Noldor, he was nonetheless haunted by an oath that constantly turned his greatest deeds to grievous ends: great beauty marred by evil, allegiance thwarted by treachery, and a hero turned kinslayer in the pursuit of the impossible.

We hope that you enjoy the works presented as part of Seven in '07. Other events centered on the House of Fëanor will follow throughout the month of July, so stay tuned! And of course, if you feel so inspired, please feel free to share your creativity on SWG!

May the muses smile upon you,
SWG Moderators


Seven in '07 Homepage

dawn_felagund: (feanorians)
[personal profile] dawn_felagund
Next month will bring the seventh day of the seventh month of the year '07 ... is it any surprise that this has gotten some of us thinking of Fëanor and his seven sons?

Few are the characters in The Silmarillion that have inspired such a vast and diverse wealth of creative material as the Fëanorians. Next month, we'd like to honor that on SWG, and one of the ways we hope to do so is by illustrating each character's personal history with our own creative work.

We are putting together a compilation of short fiction, poetry, artwork, and excerpts of longer works about each character in the House of Fëanor. SWG is home to many talented writers and artists, and we hope that you'll help us with this project!

Full details on the Seven in '07 project are available on our website. As usual, questions may be directed to our moderators at moderator@silmarillionwritersguild.org or leave a comment on this post.

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