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Author: Tracey Dyck

Silmaril Awards 2020 Voting – Top 5 Heroines

Tracey Dyck 17 Comments

Whew, I don’t think I’ve ever seen more heroines in one place! You guys really went all out in your nominations last week. Thanks to you, I am currently housing exactly 148 epic women of all ages at my place. Yes, you read that right. ONE HUNDRED FORTY-EIGHT.

It’s inspiring. It’s intimidating. (I think I need to take up swordplay or dragonriding and go save the world once or twice if I want to fit in here.)

And it’s also… crowded.

Between the various assassins and warrioresses practicing all manner of swordplay and archery in the backyard, a baker or two overtaking my kitchen, the more bookishly inclined heroines raiding my shelves for reading material, and the storytellers keeping all of us awake far past midnight with their tales… it’s been a long and eventful week! And that’s not even covering the lightning storm a particular siren called in last night, or the various (and sometimes disastrous) spells some of our magical friends have been conjuring.

Needless to say, it was a tough race between all 148 heroines to see who would emerge as the top five. But after muttering to myself for the better part of an afternoon as I tallied up all the nominations, I present to you…

This year’s TOP FIVE EPIC HEROINES!

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Silmaril Awards 2020 – Epic Heroine Nominations

Tracey Dyck 351 Comments

Welcome, one and all, to the fifth annual Silmaril Awards! Leave your swords at the door and pull up a chair. ‘Tis my great honor to host the Epic Heroine category this year. This award should go to a female fantasy character who embodies courage—someone with a gentle heart but a backbone of steel. Someone who faces staggering odds or undergoes a difficult journey or lays everything on the line for the sake of another…

Someone worthy to receive this year’s Silmaril from none other than Éowyn, Shieldmaiden of Rohan!

Our past winners of this illustrious award include Cinder from The Lunar Chronicles, and Aravis and Lucy Pevensie from The Chronicles of Narnia.

I can’t wait to see who you nominate this year! But before I get to the rules and details, let me take this moment to mop my forehead in relief. Seeing as it’s up to us bloggers to house all the nominees in our personal homes, I daresay this’ll be a much easier situation for me than previous years. After all, a passel of strange characters drove me up the wall in 2019, and a whole bunch of dragons nearly burnt my house down to the ground in 2018. And that’s not to mention the buckets of unsolicited advice I received from wise mentors in 2017 or the incessant poetry of 2016.

Yes, this year I simply get to gather ’round the campfire with a horde of epic heroines and swap stories.

…Mind you, considering how many heroines have been nominated in years past, I’m going to quickly run out of room. And food. And there miiiiight be duels breaking out in the backyard between the more hotheaded ladies.

BUT WE’LL BE FINE.

Right?

Of course.

Now, on to business. If this is your first year participating in the Silmaril Awards, WELCOME! You’re in for several weeks of fantasy fun, bookish discussions, and crazy shenanigans. All the juicy details are at the official website HERE. But this is the gist of things:

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The 5th Annual Silmaril Awards Are Coming!

Tracey Dyck 8 Comments

Sound the trumpets! The fifth annual Silmaril Awards are COMING SOON! You may have already heard the distant clamor of cheers on Instagram or the blogosphere. If this is your first time learning about this awards thing and you’re thoroughly confused, never fear! It’s actually quite simple.

The Silmaril Awards is a fun online celebration of the best characters fantasy books have to offer! (It’s basically like the Oscars, but for fictional folks like Lucy Pevensie and Harry Potter and lesser-known-but-no-less-beloved individuals.)

So that means, starting August 31st and running until September 4th, YOU get to make the rounds of the ten blogs listed above… and nominate as many characters you like for each category! The full rules and details—and links to all the blogs—are HERE.

These awards are homage to Tolkien’s wonderful world of Middle Earth and the life he breathed into the fantasy genre. As such, characters from Lord of the Rings will be “hosting” each of these awards. (Which also means no LOTR characters are eligible to be nominated, just so ya know.)

But that’s not where it ends!

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