Tag: Tolkien Society

Tolkien Experience Podcast wins 2021 Tolkien Society Award for Best Online Content

On By Luke SheltonIn Tolkien1 Comment

Hello friends!

I wanted to take a moment and tell any of you who have not already heard that the Tolkien Experience Podcast has won the 2021 Tolkien Society Award for Best Online Content!

Sara Brown, Sarah Westvik and I are truly honored to receive this award and we are so thankful to the Tolkien Society and its members for their support of our podcast.

I wanted to thank my co-hosts Sara and Sarah for their hard work to make the show as excellent as it is, I could not do it without them! I also want to thank our supporters on Patreon who really stepped up earlier this year when we needed help to keep the show going! Without them, the show would have already ended, so they have literally made it possible for us to keep producing the podcast!

I also wanted to say that we were up against some pretty awesome competition, and that the Alliance of Arda, the Tolkien Art Index, TolkienBooks.us and the Music of Middle Earth podcast are all excellent, and you should check them out!

I also want to thank you, our readers for all of the support you have given me throughout the years, even before the podcast started.

I started the Tolkien Experience Project because I wanted to make a space for everyone to share their personal history with Tolkien’s work and its adaptations. I never dreamed it would become such a wonderful catalogue of fan experiences, or that people would genuinely want to hear a podcast about it! It was my early readers who told me that they wanted a podcast, and I am glad that I had the means to respond to that desire!

If you are reading this, thank you! Even if you don’t listen to the podcast and only read the text project, at this point the two enable each other to exist. We could not have built the one without the other, and we are so grateful for the support and encouragement we have received from each of you!

Finally, I wanted to say: Tolkien Experience is open for EVERYONE! I still hear people say things like “I don’t think my experience is interesting” or “My experience isn’t important”. And I want to take this opportunity to say that those thoughts are not true!

Your experience is wonderful, no matter what shape it takes! If you have read this far into the post, I am guessing that Tolkien has played at least some small part in your life. If so, then your experience of the work has probably helped to make you who you are, and that is a valuable, perhaps even miraculous, thing! If you haven’t shared your experience in the Project, I would love to hear it! I enjoy nothing more than email from people who want to talk Tolkien! So feel free to use my contact page at any time to send me a note!

You can go here to see all of the winners and nominees for this year’s awards!

Tolkien Experience Podcast Shortlisted for Tolkien Society Awards 2021!

On By Luke SheltonIn Tolkien2 Comments

The Tolkien Society has released their shortlist for their 2021 awards, and my co-hosts and I are delighted and honored that the Tolkien Experience Podcast has made the shortlist for the Best Online Content category!

From the beginning, our goal with the podcast was to create a platform to celebrate the breadth and depth of Tolkien fandom. We wanted to foster a place where people can share their experiences with Tolkien, both praise and criticism.

We are so thankful to all of our guests who have shared their experiences with Tolkien and helped us more fully appreciate his impact on them and on our world.

If you want to see the complete shortlists, they are available here: Tolkien Society Awards 2021

I am humbled just to be nominated, and every nominee, in every category, has truly made the Tolkien community a better place this year, a year when, perhaps, we needed it more than ever.

Thank you,

-Luke

Luke Shelton Named Editor of Mallorn

On By Luke SheltonIn Tolkien3 Comments

I am delighted to tell you that I have been named the new editor-in-chief of Mallorn: The Journal of the Tolkien Society.

mallornI am thankful to the Tolkien Society for their belief in me, and I hope to be a portion as professional and insightful as my predecessor, Rosalinda (Ro) Haddon.

Together, my editorial team and I hope to make Mallorn into a publication that scholars want to be a part of and an essential part of any Tolkien scholar or fan’s yearly reading list!

We have a lot of brilliant things planned, and I can’t wait for you to see them!

You can find out more about Mallorn from the Tolkien Society’s Publications page or Mallorn‘s Facebook page.

If you want to find out more about the society itself and even become a member (which I have always recommend, but now even more in order to get access to Mallorn) then visit their website.

If you want more information or updates from me, you can follow my Tolkien-related account on Facebook, or find my personal or Tolkien accounts on Twitter.

TEP #5 – Shaun Gunner

On By Luke SheltonIn Tolkien, Tolkien Experience PodcastLeave a comment

Our next guest on the Tolkien Experience Podcast has been the chair of the Tolkien Society since 2013.

QoIoJQr6_400x400

According to the society’s website, Shaun “regularly speaks about adaptations of Tolkien’s works whilst passionately believing the Society needs to reach out to new audiences.” We are so happy he could make time to talk with us for this episode!

Please consider supporting the Podcast on Patreon!

Subscribe to the podcast via:

Comments or questions:

  • Visit us at Facebook or Twitter
  • Comment on this blog post
  • Send us an e-mail from the contact page
  • Email TolkienExperience (at) gmail (dot) com

The Tolkien Society has many publications to its credit. You can find a complete listing on the publications page of the TS website.

Tolkien Reading Day 2019!

On By Luke SheltonIn Events, TolkienLeave a comment

The Tolkien Society has dubbed March 25th Tolkien Reading Day! This year, the Society has selected the topic ‘Tolkien and the Mysterious‘! In celebration of this topic, I thought I would make a what I am calling a Reading Day Roundup! I am pulling together bits and pieces of my First Impressions series and Tolkien Experience Project contributions that have to do with mystery! I hope you enjoy!

 

Tolkien Experience Contributions:

Only two contributes (to this point) have mentioned “mystery” in their responses: Tanya P. and Putri Prihatini. Interestingly, both of them mention mystery when they are describing their favorite parts of Tolkien!

Putri Prihatini says

I love the way Tolkien obscured many references when his characters mention history, characters, and stories from the past. He was supposedly the “know it all” in his world, but he restrained himself from revealing too much to the readers. This makes me feel the sense of mystery and wonder for the past, which results in some serious digging if I want to know more. When reading LOTR, for example, I only know as much as what the characters know, which makes me feel connected to them.

Tanya P. notes

Moria is one of my favorite locations in Middle-earth. Its perpetual darkness conceals secrets that I long to uncover. And I love the moment when Gandalf lifts this veil of mystery and gives his companions, and readers, a tiny glimpse of what they are missing.

It is interesting that one talks about preserving mystery while the other talks about unveiling or revealing mystery. Read more from Tanya P. and Putri Prihatini in their full Tolkien Experience Project contributions!

 

First Impressions series:

In my First Impressions series, I am reconstructing my first reading of The Lord of the Rings. I have mentioned mystery on three occasions over the course of the series so far. The first is when the hobbits meet Strider in Bree:

It is the artistry of Tolkien, however, to prolong the mystery and only unravel Aragorn’s true significance bit by bit.

I really enjoyed not knowing who this character really was and getting to know him slowly! I also mentioned mystery when I talked about The Watcher in the Water! I disliked the movie adaptation because Tolkien was very careful not to reveal too much about this  creature:

Despite how the movie interprets this event, Tolkien’s characterization of the action leaves more mystery surrounding the nature of the Watcher.

Finally, I mentioned mystery in my entry on the Mirror of Galadriel! I was speaking of elf magic and how the way that the elves perceive ‘magic’ convinced me of its reality in Middle-earth:

[Their] rational approach to magic was so verisimilitudinous with the way that people who understand a concept dispel the mystery of those who do not that I was completely sold on the existence of ‘magic’ in Tolkien’s world.

Wow, these very disparate observations all touch on mystery in interesting ways!

What are you reading to celebrate Tolkien and the mysterious on this Tolkien Reading Day?

Luke-shelton.com Shortlisted for Tolkien Society Awards 2019!

On By Luke SheltonIn TolkienLeave a comment

The Tolkien Society has released their shortlist for their 2019 awards, and I am truly humbled that this website has made the shortlist for the Best Website category!

I have tried to make the website a space for honest and open discussion, a place where people can share their experiences with Tolkien. It is only because people have responded to that idea with warmth, generosity, and insight that the Tolkien Experience Project and the larger website are still here at all!

So I wanted to sincerely thank all of the, now almost sixty, contributors to the project and also thank the readers who follow the project and the First Impressions series!

If you want to see the complete shortlists, they are available here: Tolkien Society Awards 2019

I am honored just to be nominated, and every nominee, in every category, has indeed made the Tolkien community a better place this year!

Thank you,

-Luke

The Tolkien Birthday Toast–A Reflection on Reflection

On By Luke SheltonIn Events, Tolkien3 Comments

For a few years now, I have followed the tradition of the Tolkien Birthday Toast that I was first introduced to through the Tolkien Society.

You can visit the Tolkien Society’s page explaining the toast for more information or for the basic procedures.

Today I wanted to take a moment to laud the simple traditions that fandom inspires. It is easy to look at something like the Tolkien Birthday Toast from the outside and assume it is nothing more than an exercise performed by a group of over-enthusiastic nerds.

I think there is something a bit more, though.

alcoholic-beverage-ale-beer-1464825

At this point, the toast is a shared, communal tradition that lends itself to something that our everyday lives increasingly push out: reflection.

I call it a communal experience because, whether one celebrates it alone or in the company of others, there is an understanding that this act is something shared. Different fans and groups of fans across the world will do this same act, and participating in something that large gives a sense of unity and belonging.

It is more than that, though. This sense of community is nice, but what is the community about? Why does it matter?

Having the toast focus on the author rather than a specific text or event makes this activity a very special kind of reflection. It is a moment to pause and appreciate the achievements of an author and the life he lived. Tolkien was not a writer by trade, he was an academic. While many people were drawn to him because of his creative endeavors, those are only part of Tolkien’s influence. The toast allows people with varying degrees and experiences with Tolkien and his work to participate, and this is important!

This is the point that intersects the most with my interests as a researcher into the reception of Tolkien’s writings: The Toast invariably calls participants to reflect on the ways that Tolkien’s writings have produced meaning in their lives.

Often, participants will share stories of how they first read Tolkien or how Tolkien changed the way they saw the world. These stories are the kind of reflection that are increasingly pushed aside in a fast-paced culture.

A tradition that practices taking a moment and recalling these stories of connection and inspiration is well worth participating in! So tonight, at 9pm, consider raising a glass to The Professor!