Hey questers, welcome to the first ever Silmarillion Awards! This has been in the works for a while, so I’m quite excited to finally get to share it with you.
The Silmarillion Awards have been created by DJ Edwardson and Jenelle Schmidt as a way to honor J.R.R. Tolkien as the Father of Modern Fantasy, open up a discussion about some of our other favorite fantasy works, and to have a ton of fun this summer.
When we started thinking about creating a sort of “Fantasy Oscars,” we found it difficult to fathom any award that wouldn’t be won by a character or item from The Lord of the Rings . . . so to make things a bit more interesting, we decided to call them “The Silmarillion Awards” and have characters from LOTR and The Hobbit present the awards as examples of the ultimate standard for each award. Hopefully that will even the playing field a bit.
Joining the team are myself and seven other bloggers and authors who will each be hosting one of these awards, called Silmarils, on our blogs towards the end of July.
But before we get there, we need YOUR help! Starting today, June 20th, and proceeding through July 1st, the nomination period for each award will be open. Please visit the participating bloggers (found in the list below), read the descriptions of the awards, and make your nominations!
So the way this works is you’ll be nominating characters and whatnot in the comments of each blog post. If someone has already nominated the character you would’ve nominated, you may second (or third, fourth, fifth, etc.) that nomination. We will be picking the 5 characters with the most “seconds” for the final voting period that will take place between July 4th – 13th.
It’s not as complicated as it might sound at first. Basically, an individual can make as many nominations and “seconds” as they desire, but you can’t second your own nomination. That would be like you nominating the same character twice, which is *gasp* cheating.
Fine print
- Please do not nominate anything from one of your OWN books!
- You may nominate a character AND second, third, fourth a character . . . but please only vote once. (i.e. You cannot nominate a character and then also second that same character. Basically I’m just repeating everything.)
- Please share about the Silmarillion Awards on social media to spread the excitement far and wide across Middle Earth. Use the hashtag: #silmawards2016 wherever possible!
- Don’t nominate a Tolkien character for the awards, as the characters presenting the awards are already the standard for each award.
- Don’t stress if a character you nominate doesn’t win this year. We are hoping to make this an annual tradition, and these awards are LIFETIME AWARDS, meaning that they cannot be won by the same character more than once!
Official Schedule
Phase 1 – June 20-July 1: Award nominations open
Phase 2 – July 4: the final nominees will be announced and voting will open and last through July 14th
Phase 3 – July 16-28: Presentation of the awards, one per day, each award will be hosted on a different blog each day
Phase 4 – Celebration! July 29th was the official publication date of the Lord of the Rings back in 1954. We invite you all to celebrate with us the 62nd birthday of this masterpiece of Fantasy Fiction. Congratulate the winners, take and post a photo of yourselves with LOTR paraphernalia, write a blog post about your favorite LOTR moment, scene, character, quote, or memory . . . get creative and have fun!
List of Participating Blogs
As you can see, I will be hosting the Riddling and Poetry Silmaril here on Adventure Awaits. Below are the criteria for the sort of character or riddle/poem that ought to be nominated for such an award. Keep in mind that LOTR characters, as the ultimate standard of fantasy fiction, will be presenting these awards (so don’t nominate any Middle Earthians, please!).
The Riddling and Poetry Silmaril should go to either:
- A piece of poetry so beautiful and fantastic that it stirs the soul to action, awakens the imagination, or whispers to the heart . . .
- A riddle so riddlesome, so clever and epic, that it turns your brain inside out . . .
- A character who wields words with utmost skill, be they a bard, singer, or riddle-maker. This character should stick in your memory as someone whose riddles/poems bring depth, creativity, humor, or a sense of foreboding to the book.
That’s the sort of riddle/poem/character I want you to nominate, questers!
Near the end of July, this award will be presented to the winner YOU vote for by the one who comes from under the hill . . . the one known as Ring-winner and Luck-wearer and Barrel-rider; he who walks unseen; who came from the end of a bag, but no bag went over him. I shan’t name him now, but I’m sure you can easily guess who it is.
I know I just threw a lot of details at you, so feel free to ask questions! (There are no stupid ones, remember.)
Now go forth into the comments section and nominate away! The world is waiting to applaud the very best riddling and poetry fantasy has to offer!
