Mereth Aderthad 2025 (hybrid)
The Silmarillion Writers' Guild (SWG)
July 19, 2025, Burlington, Vermont & Online
You do not need to be a member of the SWG to participate! You can present your meta, research, or scholarship or your fan art, fiction, poetry, or another type of fanwork; you can attend and enjoy the presentations; you can volunteer!
The excerpt below focuses on meta/research/scholarship, but there is a great deal more information at the website (linked in the date/location statement above) that I encourage you to read carefully; I’ve chosen not to include the deadline information for an additional reason to click through and read on the SWG!
Call for Presenters for Meta, Research, and Scholarship
The SWG is foremost an organization for fanworks but has also, throughout our twenty-year history, recognized that within the broader Tolkien fanworks fandom, it is almost impossible to separate creative and scholarly works for many creators. Our community has offered space for discussing and better understanding the legendarium, and our archive hosts hundreds of research and scholarly works created by fans.
A component of Mereth Aderthad will therefore be the sharing of meta, research, and scholarly works about Tolkien's legendarium.
Presentations will be delivered live, either in-person or virtually.
Presentations should be 15 minutes in length.
While any topic related to Tolkien's works is acceptable, priority will be given to presentations with a significant Silmarillion component.
Proposals are due by January 15, 2025.
We explicitly welcome fans, not just academics and scholars, to submit a proposal to present meta, research, or scholarship about the legendarium. We believe that fans offer meaningful contributions to the scholarly and academic conversations around Tolkien's work and furthermore offer perspectives that career academics often miss. In order to encourage fan participation in this component of the event, we will offer support and resources to fans who are interested in presenting but aren't sure where to begin. To learn more about these opportunities, subscribe/join/follow one or more of the following social media: Newsletter; Discord; Tumblr, Dreamwidth.