The organisers of the annual Middle-earth Weekend at Sarehole Mill, Hall Green, in Birmingham, would like to invite you to take part in our photographic competition. Submit to us your photos of a tree or trees, taken throughout the year, that are sympathetic to Tolkien’s own love of trees and his stories. The aim is to create a calendar for 2012 that can be bought online. We invite you to submit photographs, taken at any time of year, of favourite, unusual, natural, beautiful and characterful trees, leaves or branches. Participation is free of charge. Entries must be original, natural and unmodified apart from minor cropping or resizing. They do not need to have been photographed recently but we would like details of where and the date when the photograph was taken.

The 12 chosen photographs will have the distinction and recognition of being included in this unusual and distinctive calendar with prizes awarded to the best two.

The Competition runs from now until the end of April when the winners will be chosen and their photographs prepared for display during The Middle-earth Weekend on Saturday and Sunday 21st and 22nd May and subsequently incorporated into the design of the calendar. Details of the competition and its rules can be found on our website: www.middleearthweekend.org.uk.

Wellinghall, the Greater Toronto Area’s Smial will be holding our annual Tolkien Reading Day event on Saturday, March 26, 2011 at 1:00pm. We will be having the event at the Elephant & Castles King Street location, near the corner of King and Simcoe Streets. We have already begun saying, “Good Morning,” so we should be ready to start reading some of our favourite passages by the 26th! Continue reading “Wellinghall’s Tolkien Reading Day in Toronto”

After lying dormant like Mount Doom for 40 years, the Third Conference On Middle-earth (C.O.M.E.) returns on March 25-26, 2011.

The weekend devoted to J.R.R. Tolkien and his works such as “The Hobbit” and “The Lord of the Rings” includes papers, panels, a party, banquet, and a film screening. C.O.M.E. takes place at the Westford Regency Inn & Conference Center in Westford, Massachusetts (USA), about 40 minutes northwest of Boston.

“It’s too long since I chaired the First and Second Conferences on Middle-earth,” said Peregrin Took II (aka Jan Howard Finder), who helped organize the first two gatherings. The first conference took place in Urbana-Champaign, Illinois at the University of Illinois in 1969; the second, in 1971, was held in Cleveland, Ohio. Continue reading “After 40 years in hibernation, Tolkien Conference Returns”

The School of Education at UWIC has the pleasure to present Tom Shippey Professor Emeritus of English,
St. Louis University who will be delivering an Open Lecture entitled: Writing into the Gap: Tolkien’s The Legend of Sigurd & Gudrún

Tom Shippey has published extensively on medieval literature, and has recently been working on ‘medievalism’ and romantic nationalism, focusing on the work of Jacob Grimm. He established Tolkien scholarship by his acclaimed monograph The Road to Middle-earth, now supplemented by J.R.R. Tolkien: Author of the Century. As the foremost Tolkien scholar, he contributed in the documentaries associated with Peter Jackson’s adaptation of The Lord of the Rings.

Wednesday 23 March 2011,
7 pm Lecture Theatre 4
Cyncoed Campus Cardiff
Admission is free but numbers are limited, to book your place please email: cseenterprise@uwic.ac.uk

Congrats to the creator of ‘Conserning Hobbits’ for scoring 66.2% of the votes and winning the LOTRO Video Contest! We will contact both entries shortly to deliver the Turbine points!

Voting is slated to end tonight at midnight (ET) for the LOTRO Video Game contest! Get your votes in now! Vote