Silmarillion Writers' Guild

Back in June, I presented at the New York Tolkien Conference at Baruch College. I have finally finished putting my paper into final form that I'm willing to share publicly. The full title of the paper is "The Loremasters of Fëanor: Historical Bias in the Works of J.R.R. Tolkien and Transformative Works" and looks at 1) whether or not their is historical bias in The Silmarillion and 2) how fan fiction writers use that historical bias to create stories about Middle-earth. Here is the abstract:

Written from the point of view of in-universe narrators and loremasters, the works of J.R.R. Tolkien consciously imitate historicity, including the presence of historical bias. While historical bias in Tolkien's works has received very little scholarly attention, it is a driving force in the activity of another group of Tolkien experts: writers of Tolkien-based transformative works or fan fiction. This paper presents data showing a correlation between a character's receipt of bias and the amount of attention given him or her by fan fiction writers, concluding that characters who are perceived to have been treated unfairly in the texts often make appealing subjects for transformative works. This paper was presented at the New York Tolkien Conference held at Baruch College on 13 June 2015.

The complete paper can be read and downloaded on Academia.edu.

There is also a video of me reading the paper at the conference. I just realized that I posted it on my blog The Heretic Loremaster (which can be followed here on LJ under the heretic_lore feed) but never posted it here. Here it is, for anyone who would rather me read to them:



I will note that the print version of the paper does include some sections that I had to eliminate from the presentation in order to keep within my 30-minute limit (which you can see by the video I still did not manage to do). The print version also includes the charts and graphs that you cannot see in the video because our only choice was to set up the camera on a piano at the side of the room and capture the audio.

I am always interested in hearing thoughts on my research and papers, so comments are welcome, although as I barrel towards my hiatus for my Master's thesis, I am sometimes slow in replying. This particular presentation I am currently working into a longer paper with improved statistics and better evidence for my points.

ETA: I have begun printing the collections for the conference. That means that submissions are closed unless we spoke about you turning in something later. Please email me if we did. Thanks, everyone!

The SWG will be represented at the upcoming New York Tolkien Conference on June 13. Several members will be in attendance (Oshun and I will be presenting) and our group will have space in the meet-and-greet room. As part of the latter, I would like to put together a collection of fanworks from SWG members: stories, drabbles, poems, meta, essays, art, podfic ... if you've made it, I'm willing to take it! I am hoping to show off what we do and show the diversity of fanworks in our community.

ETA: You do not need to be an SWG member to send me something to include. Our fandom is bigger than one group, and I would very much like to represent the diversity of the Tolkien fanfic community.

If you'd like me to include something of yours, this is the place to let me know. I am not imposing a lot of limitations at this point, although if I get a ton of offers (a problem I am hoping I'll have! :), I may have to take only one or two selections per person.

Here is how I'm hoping to set up the collection: a printed copy of your work (for works that can be printed) with a QR code that attendees can scan with their phones/tablets to continue viewing later. Obviously, I'm hoping some people will become so engrossed with what they find that they abscond with the binder and find some place to sit and read! But I'm also hoping that they'll find enough to intrigue them that they run out of time to read it all and so will want to revisit it on their own time. If your work can't be printed (audio, video, etc), I will include a summary and any notes you wish to attach with a QR code where the work can be found online.

Here's what I need if you want to participate:

• At a minimum I need a link to your work(s) that you want included. If you have more than one, please list them in the order of preference for inclusion. I will use the summary found on the site unless you tell me to do otherwise. If you have a revision you'd rather I use, please email it to me.


• If you want me to include any summary material or notes beyond what I can find at the link, please include that as well.


• If the work is very long, I recommend including just the first chapter or an excerpt; I will include a QR code where the reader can continue reading online. Likewise, if you'd like to include just an excerpt of a short story, just let me know.


• All Tolkien-based works are fine, so if you have LotR or Hobbit stories that you're proud of and want to share, please do feel free to include them.


• Crossover and AU works are fine, but no non-Tolkien works, please. (This is a Tolkien conference.) All genres, subjects, and ratings are fine.


• Comment here with what you'd like me to include or email me at moderator@silmarillionwritersguild.org. Questions can be directed to both places as well.

This is the first year this conference has run, but from my conversations with the organizers and what I know of some of the other attendees/presenters, it is fandom-friendly. After all, they did accept my paper talking about Tolkien fan fiction and offered us a space without my asking in the meet-and-greet room! :)

I want to conclude by saying that I know many people are probably reading this and wanting to contribute but feeling shy or uneasy or as though their work is not good enough. I know my saying, "Please don't feel that way," doesn't have magical powers to make those doubts go away, but I will say that I am so immensely proud of what the members of this group have built over the last ten years and of the tremendous talents and knowledge that is contained within our virtual walls. I would be pleased to take any work from our members with me, so I hope I have a lot of offers. :)