Tolkien Fanfiction

Fandom
Name:	Tolkien Fanfiction
Abbreviation(s):	Tolkienfic
Creator:	J.R.R. Tolkien
Date(s):	1960-present
Medium:	Fanfiction
Country of Origin:
External Links:
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The Tolkien fanfiction fandom is part of the broader Tolkien fandom and is one of the largest and longest-running fic fandoms. Tolkien fanfiction is a transmedia fandom based primarily on the books but with a significant movieverse contingent at points in its history. Despite clear media influences, largely from Peter Jackson's popular Lord of the Rings (2001-2003) and Hobbit (2012-2014) movie trilogies, the Tolkien fanfiction community shares many characteristics with literary fandoms rather than media fandoms. Tolkien fanfiction covers all of his works, including The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, as well as posthumous works such as The Silmarillion.

History

J.R.R. Tolkien and Fanfiction

In a 1966 letter to Joy Hill of his publisher Allen & Unwin, Tolkien himself described receiving fanfiction, including a sequel to The Lord of the Rings that the writer hoped to have published:

I send you the enclosed impertinent contribution to my troubles. I do not know what the legal position is, I suppose that since one cannot claim property in inventing proper names, that there is no legal obstacle to this young ass publishing his sequel, if he could find any publisher, either respectable or disreputable, who would accept such tripe.

I have merely informed him that I have forwarded his letter and samples to you. I think that a suitable letter from Allen & Unwin might be more effective than one from me. I once had a similar proposal, couched in the most obsequious terms, from a young woman, and when I replied in the negative, I received a most vituperative letter.

However, many since have also pointed to another letter, this one to publisher Milton Waldman, in which Tolkien writes of his dream that:

I had a mind to make a body of more or less connected legend, ranging from the large and cosmogonic, to the level of romantic fairy-story - the larger founded on the lesser in contact with the earth, the lesser drawing splendour from the vast backcloths - which I could dedicate simply to: to England; to my country. ... I would draw some of the great tales in fullness, and leave many only placed in the scheme, and sketched. The cycles should be linked to a majestic whole, and yet leave scope for other minds and hands, wielding paint and music and drama.

Here, Tolkien's initial dream that "other minds and hands" would add more to Middle-earth seems a great deal more hopeful and inclusive. Megan Abrahamson draws on this letter to point out that Tolkien was not completely against others deriving from his work. Abrahamson also explores how Tolkien's habit of borrowing elements from existing sources gives his own stories many elements in common with fanfiction too.

Pre-Internet Fanfiction

Title page for "Departure in Peace."

The first documented works of Tolkien fanfiction were printed in 1960 in the fanzine I Palantir and included a story by George Heap titled Departure in Peace and a pseudocanonical fiction work by Arthur R. Weir titled A Study of the Hithlain of the Wood-elves of Lorien. As the Timeline of Tolkien Fandom shows, there was steady production of Tolkien fanzines through the 1990s.

Note: Marquette University's FellowsHub provides examples of early zines/fic that might be useful in expanding this section.

Internet Fanfiction through 2003

Online Tolkien fanfiction grew rapidly in popularity during the early 2000s, in part due to the convergence of increased home Internet access and the release of Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings films. Francesca Coppa has described the trajectory of online media fandom as evolving from Usenet groups to mailing lists (namely Yahoo! Groups) to journal and blogging platforms (namely LiveJournal), and Tolkien fanfiction communities followed that progression as well. However, there are some key differences: while Coppa describes mailing lists as "rapidly dying" as fandom moved to LiveJournal, this was not the case for Tolkien fanfiction communities, which often remained on older platforms as long as they remained useful. The demise of Tolkien fanfiction mailing lists would not happen in earnest until Yahoo! Groups' adoption of the Neo format in 2013. Likewise, Tolkien fanfiction authors and communities would remain on LiveJournal until the 2017 Terms of Service change, after many other fandoms had left for Dreamwidth, Tumblr, and other platforms.

In the early 2000s, construction began on dozens of multi-author Tolkien fanfiction archives, beginning with Least Expected in 2001. Many authors had personal websites where they archived their fanfiction, such as Tyellas's Ansereg; The LOTR Fanfiction Webring also provides examples of a webring that collected early author sites. 2002 and 2003 were boom years for Tolkien fanfiction archives, with multiple multi-author archives coming online. Large archives of this sort included Henneth-Annûn Story Archive, Stories of Arda, and Library of Moria, which were more generalized Tolkien fanfiction archives that welcomed stories about many characters, subjects, and texts. At the same time, though, there were also many smaller archives that specialized in a specific character, pairing, or genre.

This era also saw one of the major junctures in the history of Tolkien fanfiction. As fanfiction based on Peter Jackson's trilogy grew more and more popular, tension grew between bookverse and movieverse fans, and many of the larger archives instituted various gatekeeping policies meant to preserve' a certain vision of Tolkien's work. A general attitude that privileged readers' and writers' knowledge of book canon above other forms of fannish expression also pervaded many parts of the Tolkien fandom, particularly when it came to fanfiction.

In a 2019 blog post Dawn Felagund, who entered the fandom toward the close of this era, observes of gatekeeping in early online Tolkien fanfiction:

My sense–and, full disclosure, I began participating in Tolkienfic fandom in 2004, so my impressions are complicated by that experience–is that first-wave bookverse fans were overwhelmed by the sudden popularity of their fandom and often dismayed by perceived shifts toward a movieverse fandom through the entry and participation by fans who cared less about discussing the finer points of the books and more about speculating about Orlando Bloom’s underwear. Some of the gatekeeping, I believe, was enacted in an attempt to preserve the first-wave culture, which was but a relocation onto the Internet of a fandom that was, at this point already more than four decades old. Some of the gatekeeping was truly to exclude fans who were “doing fandom wrong.” ... My sense, as a newcomer at this point in the fandom’s history, was of tension surrounding the writing of fanfic due to the perception that one must get all of the details right or meet a certain standard of quality in order to be fully admitted to the community.

While conflict among various Tolkien fanfiction archives was not overt, members sometimes perceived these spaces, and themselves, as being at odds with each other. During this time, Tolkien fans fractured along the lines of preferred genre (e.g., gen vs. slash, a common debate among other fandoms at the time), but also divided based on the group of characters they wrote, such as Elves, Men, or Hobbits. Fans sometimes accused archives and awards as being against or showing favoritism toward a particular group of characters.

Tolkien fanfiction awards were also popular during this time, again reflecting an interest in some influential corners of the fandom to recognize high-quality and canonically-accurate fanfiction. The Mithril Awards were founded in 2002 and the Middle-earth Fanfiction Awards (MEFAs) in early 2004.

Tolkien fanfiction story counts on Fanfiction.net increase when there is a film release of that book. Otherwise, the fandom shows gradual, steady growth.

Fanworks during this time were overwhelmingly based on The Lord of the Rings, although the Silmfics mailing list formed in 2002 for sharing and discussing fanfiction based on The Silmarillion. Fanfiction based solely on The Hobbit was rare. The graph to the right shows the number of stories for each text listed in the Books section of Fanfiction.net for 2001-2019. The relative popularity of The Lord of the Rings fanfiction during this time is evident, as is the films' influence on this popularity. By the time the films left theaters in early 2004, Lord of the Rings fanfiction was the second most popular in the Books section on Fanfiction.net.

During this period, Tolkien fanfiction writers and readers tended to place a lot of importance on canonical accuracy with simultaneous pressure to get the details right and fear of/actual censure for stories that made canon mistakes. At the same time, access to the full array of canon texts was far more limited, and fan-created resources were both less available and less accurate. Some new fans found it difficult or intimidating to begin writing Tolkien fanfiction because of the perceived need for accuracy and the lack of forgiveness for even simple mistakes.

Internet Fanfiction 2004-2011

After the Lord of the Rings film trilogy concluded, fanfiction based on it began to slow down. The fandom still remained active, though, with LotR as well as Silmarillion fanfiction still being written and shared across multiple archives and other sites. Fanfiction about The Hobbit remained rare.

Development of new archives also continued, though slower than in earlier years. During this era, there was a noticeable shift in attitudes around the purpose of archives and possibly even fanfiction overall. For example, none of the archives established after the conclusion of the first film trilogy included gatekeeping, and gatekeeping on earlier archives--such as the Henneth-Annûn Story Archive, once accused of elitism in part because of its policies--came to an end. Instead, inclusivity and open-mindedness regarding how to interpret the canon became more prevalent. The multi-fandom Archive of Our Own also opened during this time.

At the same time, Tolkien fanfiction archives also began closing, especially small or highly specialized ones that could not be sustained by the much slower post-film activity levels. The first signs of even larger archives' vulnerability to waning activity and interest appeared with the sale and subsequent demise of Lotrfanfiction.com. However, Yahoo! Groups and LiveJournal continued to host active Tolkien fanfiction groups.

Internet Fanfiction 2012-Present

Two major events influenced Tolkien fanfiction in 2012. First, Peter Jackson's new The Hobbit film trilogy entered theaters at the end of the year. This provoked a new wave of interest in Tolkien fanfiction, including a bump in the number of stories being written about The Hobbit, a text that had formerly garnered little interest among authors.

The Tolkien Fan Fiction Survey (2015) shows that more people joined the fanfiction community during film years.

Tolkien fic fandom also began to use Tumblr in earnest in 2012. Since Tolkien fic fandom had continued using mailing lists and blog/journal platforms (mostly LiveJournal), even when other fandoms moved on to other platforms, the move to Tumblr was a difficult shift for some fans. Further fragmentation of the broader Tolkien fanfiction community occurred when Yahoo! Group's 2013 transition to the Neo format left many Groups unusable, and LiveJournal's 2017 terms of service change provided the final nudge needed for many Tolkien fans to leave the site. In the wake of these changes, some fans went to Dreamwidth and some to Tumblr, with some using both. This hesitation and slow migration reflects common, ongoing concerns about how fandom communication and visibility were changing.

Tolkien fanfiction archives also continued closing, including the large Henneth-Annûn Story Archive in 2015. No new archives were built, and very few of the original dozens available remain online, much less active. These closures led to Tolkien fanfiction authors growing more reliant on Ao3, though it was a multi-fandom archive. According to the 2015 Tolkien Fan Fiction Survey, 69% of Tolkien fanfiction authors used AO3, more than any other archive.

The influx of new fans and the adoption of new platforms produced what Dawn Felagund described as a "bifurcation of the fandom’s culture," with newer fans, often brought in by the Hobbit films, participating on Tumblr and AO3 with little awareness of existing fandom infrastructure, history, and culture and veteran fans utilizing new as well as existing fandom spaces. More experienced fans sometimes experienced tension with newer fans, whom they felt did not know or appreciate the culture and history of the fandom they had joined. Newer fans tended to bring approaches more associated with transformational media fandom, such as shipping and an increased awareness of social justice issues in the canon and fanfiction.

The conclusion of the Hobbit film trilogy produced a much abrupter end to the surge of Hobbit fanfiction than seen at the conclusion of the Lord of the Rings films. Tolkien fanfiction resumed its former steady increase, though now across all three major sources. The controversial Tumblr NSFW Content Purge of 2018 also reduced that site's influence as a hub of Tolkien fandom activity.

Fandom Demographics

The Tolkien Fan Fiction Survey collected demographic information about readers and authors of Tolkien fanfiction in late 2014-2015. About 89% of participants identified as female; about 6 percent identified as nonbinary and 4 percent as male. These data are consistent with gender data reported on the AO3 Census, as well as other reports of gender demographics in fic fandoms.

Survey data shows that Tolkien fanfiction participants were slightly older than fic fandom participants overall. The mean age was 28 years and the median age 24 years. For the AO3 Census, the mean age was 25 and the median age given as 22-24. There was also more representation of older demographics in the Tolkien fanfiction community, with about 10% of survey participants over the age of 50 (compared to 1.4% for the AO3 Census).

Other demographic observations from the Tolkien Fan Fiction Survey:

• Older demographics are more likely to be authors: "Fewer than half of teenage participants are authors compared to 85 percent of authors in the 60 to 64 age range" (p. 17).

• More than two-thirds of participants wrote their first Tolkien fanfiction when under the age of 25 (p. 22).

• 24% of authors were monofandom. In comparison, only 13% of authors who took the AO3 Census were monofandom (p. 23).

• 26% of the other fandoms identified by survey participants were either book or mixed book/media fandoms (p. 26).

Canon Texts

Tolkien's canon is complex, and what fans and fanfiction writers consider to be canon is a complicated matter. Only The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings were published in Tolkien's lifetime. The Silmarillion, published in 1977, was compiled by his son and literary heir, Christopher Tolkien, as a consistent and coherent narrative. Over a dozen other books set in Middle-earth have followed since, making many of Tolkien's drafts, unfinished works, and unpublished texts available to fans; a curated collection of Tolkien's letters has also been published. Much of Tolkien's academic work has also been published and is well-known by fans.

The following issues, among others, have been the subject of discussion and debate within the Tolkien fanfiction community:

• The Silmarillion was edited for consistency rather than to represent Tolkien's "final word" on a character or story.

• The texts that comprise The Silmarillion were incomplete and in many cases contradictory. Christopher Tolkien and fantasy author Guy Kay therefore wrote some sections of the book.

• The texts provided in posthumous works like the History of Middle-earth series are in some cases undateable, leaving doubt as to what Tolkien's "final word" would have been. In other cases, he proposed extensive changes (e.g., the cosmology of Arda, the narrator of The Silmarillion) that were not enacted in the story itself. Fans differ in how they handle this uncertainty and which version they prefer.

• Christopher Tolkien made several acknowledged mistakes in compiling The Silmarillion. Fans differ, sometimes stridently, on whether to accept the published Silmarillion version or the "correct" verion that later became available as part of the twelve-volume History of Middle-earth series. Two notable examples that have been extensively discussed in fandom are the paternity of Gil-galad and the fate of Amrod and Amras at Losgar.

• Christopher Tolkien made some edits, such as the removal of sections about several female characters, that fans find controversial or offensive.

• J.R.R. Tolkien wrote his books as pseudohistories, and there is evidence that this included the deliberate construction of a biased point of view. Fans differ as to the weight that they assign this potential narrative bias when interpreting the texts, with one study showing that some fans take it into account and differences of approaches on this issue serve as a cultural marker for Tolkien fanfiction archives.

In addition, the texts made available posthumously are a curated, edited selection of a much wider collection. Some of these unpublished texts, especially linguistic texts, have been made available in the journals Vinyar Tengwar and Parma Eldalamberon. These journals are difficult to find, and few fanfiction authors have access to them. Other texts are available in collections of Tolkien's drafts and notes at Marquette University and the Bodleian Library. Again, these are difficult for fans to access. When unpublished material comes to light, fanfiction authors must decide if they accept it as part of the canon.

Overall, fanfiction authors may take several approaches to defining Tolkien's canon. Differences in approach can create confusion and conflict when readers encounter canon that differs markedly from what they are familiar with or prefer. The following approaches to canon are three that are relatively common among Tolkien fanfiction authors:

• The Silmarillion, being a complete and coherent narrative, is the canon. Other posthumous texts are used only when they do not contradict The Silmarillion (if at all).

• Canon is what the author determines to be Tolkien's final word on a character or storyline.

• Authors pick and choose from among the various and contradictory sources and use the details they like or that best fit their stories.

Bookverse and Movieverse

Complicating the discussion of Tolkien's canon is the presence of two blockbuster film trilogies. Like other fandoms that originate as book fandoms, the Tolkien fanfiction community and its authors have to navigate how the films fit alongside Tolkien's literary creation.

As some of the data above shows, both trilogies generated interest in Tolkien fanfiction and an uptick in stories for the text on which the film was based. These data also show that while this surge was short-lived, fans brought in by the films very frequently remained in the fandom and wrote bookverse stories. The Tolkien Fan Fiction Survey corroborates this observation. Distributed at the close of the Hobbit film trilogy, when film-generated interest in Tolkien and The Hobbit specifically remained high, the survey found authors who used only the films as canon were very rare, with only three individual participants--less than half a percent--using only the films as sources.

At the same time, many fans are influenced by the films while writing stories that they consider primarily bookverse. Sixty percent and 51% of authors used, respectively, the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit films as sources for fanfiction. Amy Sturgis observed that the films were used for comic references but also provided a visual canon for what characters and locations look like. In some cases, this visual canon has become so accepted that it spills over even into fanfiction about The Silmarillion and other texts about which there is not a film. For example, some fans have theorized that the ubiquity of depictions of Tolkien's characters as almost universally white--despite evidence to the contrary in the books--is rooted in Jackson's use of white actors for those groups.

Movieverse fans and fanfiction have also incited controversy. Bookverse fans have not always welcomed fans whose primary knowledge of Tolkien comes from the films rather than the books. As of this writing, for example, the submission guidelines of the Stories of Arda archive, one of the fandom's largest archives, maintains a section on movieverse fanfiction that excludes authors and stories based solely on the films:

Movie-verse stories are very popular right now, and they are acceptable for the site. Please note in the summary of your story if it is movie-verse. Please also be very careful if you decide to write a 'gap-filler' for the movie, and you have not read the books. Quite often such stories contradict what is written in the books and end up looking like errors of carelessness to readers. The script writers for the movies knew the books well, knew what they were changing and why - just like any good AU writer should.

The movie is an AU version of Tolkien's works. Please do not write an AU of the movie. The books are to be used as the basic source of canon. If you have not read Tolkien, this is not a good place for your stories.

Other media adaptations of Tolkien exist, including animated films and radio plays, but these have no appreciable influence on fanfiction.

The Tolkien Estate

In February 2022, The Tolkien Estate that owns the copyright of the works updated their page "FAQ".

While reinforcing already existing policies, the change received a lot of attention and led to a discussions online between fans appalled by such rules and fans already aware of them concerning the fear for the future of the fandom in the face of such information.

There were discussions on Tumblr:

[intea]

No fanfiction, no fanzines, no Tolkien music, no Tolkien quotes (without permission), no writing in Tolkien languages (if you intend to post it somewhere), no Tolkien-related events (even charitable and not-for-profit ones - no exceptions), no public readings (without permission), no recordings of reading of Tolkien works (and TE is going to take action against unauthorized audiobooks or readings on social media), no Tolkien photographs.

Tell me if it is true, or if someone is joking!

[dawnfelagund]

[...] has never allowed or encouraged fanworks–for-profit or otherwise. Fans are just becoming aware of a policy that has always been in place because of the attention on the redesigned website. This is true for most right’s holders.

Discussions on subreddits:

[JediMasterSeamus]

Yeah, that's not how fair use works. Fanfiction, just like parody, is very clearly protected. They're all bluster with no real legal ability to do anything. If they try, it will be a dramatic waste of money to achieve nothing, because the internet is bigger than one stupid estate. And by George, they are dumb.

[Ki_no_Shirayuki]

The terms in this FAQ can have serious consequences for Tolkien fandom on the internet, up to and including Tolkien subreddits getting shut down.

[Quantentheorie]

do they, though? because fanfic would normally fall under fair use as long as you don't monetise it, making unofficial communities that discuss something should be protected by general rights around free speech and they hardly own the rights to most of the artwork and pictures that exist.

This seems to me less legally valid than me declaring myself queen of england.

[VioletShade2310]

Please don’t. That sucks. It’s my favorite fandom for fanfic too. I love reading it when I’m depressed, makes me happy. This just makes me sad. Damn, what fanfic and fan art am I gonna read and look at now? What about memes? What about the subreddits and fandom blogs and posts? What about the films fan art and fanfics? distinction? Is this gonna ruin it?

[Ki_no_Shirayuki]

Due to vague wording, we don't know if the ban applies to for-profit fan works, or things like free fanfics on FF.net

[Cyberus01]

Generally they would have a hard time getting around fair use

And even on Twitter, especially among Brazilian fans:

[dntlz]

But hasn't that been the official position of the Tolkien State for a long time?

[KarlFelippe]

was not explicitly draconian at that level, there must have been some change between the directors (coincided with the death of priscilla tolkien including)

[DeniseFlaibam]

Black Mirror episode: Tolkien is now an NFT WHICH MULTIVERSE OF MADNESS AM I LIVING IN DOCTOR STRANGE

[OliveiraCony]

J.R.R.Tolkien made a translation manual so that everyone could read his books in a nice way, It was based on a shitload of stuff that already existed I DOUBT I'D LIKE THAT

[isaprospero]

It's even better not to read Tolkien's books. Don't think about Tolkien. Forget you ever heard the name Tolkien. This tweet is enough p

[This account does not exist]

[isaprospero]

imagine wanting to ban fanfic in the year of grace 2022

[PamiPamii]

In short, no one else can be a fan of Tolkien. They say death really comes when you're forgotten, and this seems to me an attempt to kill Tolkien definitively.

On 11 March 2022, the Silmarillion Writers' Guild published an article, A Sudden Outcry: The Tolkien Estate and Fanworks, that debunked the misinformation that the Estate's updated FAQ was new and attempted to allay creators' fears for their fanworks.

Resources

• Timeline of Tolkien Fandom
• FellowsHub: A Tolkien Fanzine Project
• Tolkien Fandom History
• Data on Tolkien Fanfiction Culture and Practices (1st Edition)
• List of Tolkien Fanfic Archives
• Tolkien Fandom Review

Scholarship on Tolkien Fanfiction

• Abrahamson, Megan. "J.R.R. Tolkien, Fanfiction, and ‘The Freedom of the Reader.'" Mythlore, vol. 32, no. 1, 2013, pp. 55-74.
• Alberto, Maria K. and Dawn M. Walls-Thumma. "Roads Go Ever On and On: Fan Fiction and Archival Infrastructures as Markers of the Affirmational-Transformational Continuum in Tolkien Fandom." Fandom: The Next Generation. Ed. Bridget Kies and Megan Connor. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 2022. 147-160.
• Allington, Daniel. "'How Come Most People Don’t See It?': Slashing The Lord of the Rings." Social Semiotics, vol. 17, no. 1, 2007, pp. 43-62.
• Booker, Susan. "Tales Around the Internet Campfire: Fan Fiction in Tolkien's Universe." Tolkien on Film: Essays on Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings. Ed. Janet Brennan Croft. Mythopoeic Press, 2004. 259-282.
• Brobeck, Kristi Lee. "Under the Waterfall: A Fanfiction Community’s Analysis of their Self-Representation and Peer Review." Refractory: A Journal of Entertainment Media, vol. 5, 2004.
• "Cultus Dispatches." Silmarillion Writers' Guild (monthly Tolkien fan studies column).
• Larsen, Kristine. "Deconstructing Durin’s Day: Science, Scientific Fan Fiction, and the Fan-Scholar." Journal of Tolkien Research, vol. 8, no. 1, 2019.
• McCormack, Una. "Finding Ourselves in the (Un)Mapped Lands: Women's Reparative Readings of The Lord of the Rings" in Perilous and Fair: Women in the Works and Life of J.R.R. Tolkien. Ed. Janet Brennan Croft and Leslie A. Donovan. Altadena, CA: Mythopoeic Press, 2015.
• Reid, Robin Anne. "Breaking of the Fellowship: Competing Discourses of Archives and Canons" in The Lord of the Rings Internet Fandom." How We Became Middle-Earth: A Collection of Essays on The Lord of the Rings. Ed. Adam Lam and Nataliya Oryshchuk. Zollikofen, Switzerland: Walking Tree, 2007. 347-370.
• Reid, Robin Anne. "Thrusts in the Dark: Slashers Queer Practices." Extrapolation, vol. 50, no. 3, 2009. 463-483.
• Smol, Anna. "'Oh ... oh ... Frodo!': Readings of Male Intimacy in The Lord of the Rings." Modern Fiction Studies, vol. 50, no. 4, 2004, 949-979.
• Sturgis, Amy H. "'Make Mine Movieverse': How the Tolkien Fan Fiction Community Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Peter Jackson." Tolkien on Film: Essays on Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings. Ed. Janet Brennan Croft. Mythopoeic Press, 2004. 283-305.
• Sturgis, Amy. "Reimagining Rose: Portrayals of Tolkien's Rosie Cotton in Twenty-First Century Fan Fiction." Mythlore, vol. 24, no. 3-4, 2006.
• Viars, Karen and Cait Coker. "Constructing Lothiriel: Rewriting and Rescuing the Women of Middle-Earth from the Margins." Mythlore, vol. 33, no. 2, 2015.
• Walls-Thumma, Dawn M. "Affirmational and Transformational Values and Practices in the Tolkien Fanfiction Community." Journal of Tolkien Research, vol. 8, no. 1, 2020.
• Walls-Thumma, Dawn M. “Attainable Vistas: Historical Bias in Tolkien's Legendarium as a Motive for Transformative Fanworks." Journal of Tolkien Research, vol. 3, no. 3, 2016.
• Walls-Thumma, Dawn M. "Cartography of a Character: On (Re)Writing Nerdanel." Not the Fellowship. Dragons Welcome! Ed. Francesca T. Barbini. Edinburgh: Luna Press Publishing, 2022. 32-50.
• Walls-Thumma, Dawn M. "Diving into the Lacuna: Fan Studies, Methodologies, and Mending the Gaps." Transformative Works and Cultures, vol. 33, 2020.
• Walls-Thumma, Dawn M. "Stars Less Strange: An Analysis of Fanfiction and Representation within the Tolkien Fan Community" in Tolkien and Diversity: Proceedings of the Tolkien Society Summer Seminar. Ed. Will Sherwood. Edinburgh: Luna Press Publishing, 2023. 86-106. (Text and video of the original seminar presentation.)

Related Scholarship

• Barker, Mark, and Ernest Mathijs. Watching The Lord of the Rings: Tolkien’s World Audiences. Peter Lang, 2008.
• Chin, Bertha, and Jonathan Gray. "'One ring to rule them all': Pre-viewers and pre-texts of the Lord of the Rings films." Intensities: The Journal of Cult Media, vol. 2, 2001.
• Dym, Brianna, and Casey Fiesler. "Generations, Migrations, and the Future of Fandom's Private Spaces." In "The Future of Fandom," special 10th anniversary issue, Transformative Works and Cultures, no. 28, 2018.
• Hills, Matt. "Realising the Cult Blockbuster: The Lord of the Rings Fandom and Residual/Emergent Cult Status in 'the Mainstream." The Lord of the Rings: Popular Culture in Global Context. Ed. Ernest Mathjis. Wallflower Press, 2006. 160-171.
• Konzack, Lars. “The Subcreation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle-earth and How It Became Transmedial Culture." Revisiting Imaginary Worlds: A Subcreation Studies Anthology. Ed. Mark J. P. Wolf. Routledge, 2016. 69–82.
• Larsen, Kristine. "Nailing Jell-O to the Wall: Canonicity in Middle-earth." Journal of Tolkien Research, vol. 15, no. 1, 2002.
• Murray, Simone." 'Celebrating the Story the Way It Is': Cultural Studies, Corporate Media and the Contested Utility of Fandom." Continuum, vol. 18, no. 1, 2004. 7–25.
• Pérez-Gómez, Miguel Ángel. "Walking Between Two Lands, or How Double Canon Works in The Lord of the Rings Fan Films." Fan Phenomena: The Lord of the Rings. Ed. Lorna Piatti-Farnell. Intellect Books, 2015. 34-42.
• Pullen, Kirsten. "The Lord of the Rings Online Blockbuster Fandom: Pleasure and Commerce." The Lord of the Rings: Popular Culture in Global Context. Ed.Ernest Mathjis. Wallflower Press, 2006. 172-188.
• Shefrin, Elana. "Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, and participatory fandom: mapping new congruencies between the internet and media entertainment culture." Critical Studies in Media Communication, vol. 21, no. 3, 2004. 261-281.
• Shippey, Tom. "Another Road to Middle-earth: Jackson’s Movie Trilogy." Understanding The Lord of the Rings: The Best of Tolkien Criticism. Eds. Rose A. Zimbardo and Neil D. Isaacs. Houghton Mifflin Company, 2004. 233-254.