Silmarillion Writers' Guild

We will be hosting a fanfiction book club focused on the Second Age on 29 and 30 April 2023 on the #fanfiction-book-club channel on the SWG Discord server. Stories should be set to at least 75 percent in the Second Age, and be no more than 5,000 words long. It is acceptable to submit a single chapter from a longer story. We'll discuss each story for about one hour.

If you have a Second Age story you'd like to discuss, you can sign up here.

If you've never participated in a fanfiction book club before, our book club FAQ has more information.

Need an invite to our Discord? Comment here!

ETA: This book club is now full and on a wait list. Use the form below if you want to be added to the wait list.

The Fall of the House of Usher ... The Birds ...The Little Prince ...The Call of Cthulhu ... what do they all have in common?

Answer: they all have word counts of 7.5k – 20k, and so meet the common definition of a novelette!

Often a forgotten middle child between the short story and novella, novelettes will be the focus of our next SWG book club on 25th-27th November hosted by Narya and polutropos. Submissions should be complete and in their entirety, and must meet the SWG criteria for a Silmarillion fanwork (these are pretty broad ... basically anything that isn't covered in detail in The Hobbit or the main body of The Lord of the Rings will qualify).

The sign up form is here (WAIT LIST).

Sign-ups will be limited to one piece per person, and each fic will be discussed for an hour. There are no restrictions on rating or genre; however, NSFW fanworks will be discussed in a separate channel, as usual. We will have a max. of 10 hours of discussion time split across the 3 days. Signups will close when this limit is reached or at midnight UTC on 28th October, whichever is sooner. This is to allow plenty of time for the mods to compile and share the schedule, and for everyone else to read and reflect on the submissions, given that these are longer fanworks than we usually discuss in book club.

There will be regular breaks built in, so that we all have time to breathe and refresh between sessions.

Please endeavour to attend the sessions of at least two other authors. We won't enforce this as we know people will have other commitments throughout the weekend, but book clubs only work well when you are willing to engage with other fanworks besides your own!

You can participate in the discussions without signing up as an author if you prefer—there's no need to submit the form, and no min. time commitment. Turn up to whichever sessions suit your schedule.

If you've never participated in one of our fanfiction book clubs before, our book club FAQ has more information.

Sexual relationships are a creative inspiration for many authors in the Tolkien fandom, and have often been a topic for much discussion and debate. This is our chance to celebrate the imagination of fanfiction authors and how the community envisions sexual relationships among the various peoples of Arda.

Do you have a work that focuses on explicit sexual acts? Porn without plot? Porn with a lot of plot? Sexual relationships between canonical pairs? Rare pairs? Slash? Gender swap? Trans? OCs? Non-traditional sexual preferences? Sexual exploration of gender and identity? Stories that support LaCE or subvert it? ... Any and all are welcome.

This book club will be held on Saturday, June 4 and Sunday, June 5 in the #fanfiction-book-club-nsfw channel on the SWG's Discord server. If you are not a member of our Discord server and would like to join, log into your site account and find an invite link in the footer of the site. If you're not a member of the site, contact our moderators for an invite code. Your hosts for this event are Polutropos and Melesta.

Book club guidelines:

1. Your story should be around 1k - 6k words.
2. One of the main elements of the story should be a sexual act (although it does not have to be the only element).
3. It should be a completed story rather than a work-in-progress (excerpts from longer works or collections may be elements of a work-in-progress but the section posted should be finished).
4. If you choose to use a chapter of a longer work, please be certain that the chapter functions as a stand-alone piece.
5. You should be the author (or co-author of the story with permission).
6. To keep the discussion inclusive, we ask that your story is respectful to all sexual orientations and preferences, and does not include non-con or extreme sadism.
7. Please ensure your fic is tagged with appropriate warnings so that book club participants can be informed about making a decision to read.

Interested in signing up one of your stories? Sign up for the explicit relationships book club here.

Discussion participants are also welcome!

If you've never participated in one of our book clubs before, our Book Club FAQ has more information on what to expect. Questions can be directed to the event organizers on Discord or to the SWG moderators.