Middle-earth Journeys

I love it, Merry!! can we really not count it as an entry? such a shame!

I love it too . I like the format and the whole idea that it inspires Bilbo to share his home with Frodo.

Everyone's had such great ideas for Bilbo's Yuleday . I think everyone should take a bow!

marbretherese, I believe Merry was referring to this rule of the contest when she indicated that her wonderful contribution (Congratulations to Merry and Nephew M -- I love the poem!) was not an "entry":

Middle-earth Journeys Moderators may enter but are not eligible for the Grand Prize.

Merry (as Varda) is a MeJ Moderator. That is why Riv and Iolanthe's terrific contributions also are not official "entries" for the contest. I think it is a shame as well, because I really enjoyed ALL of the poems and stories, and, especially since there were so few legitimate entries (I think there are only 4 -- yours, mine, Chrissiejane's, and my daughter Meliel's), I wish we could vote on ALL of them.

So . . . when does the voting begin?

Lindariel wrote:
So . . . when does the voting begin?

Yes indeed:

The voting will begin at @10:00am on January 1, 2009 and will end at 8:00am (U.S. Mountain Standard Time) on Tuesday, January 6, 2009.

Sorry I am late setting up the voting. Will do so tomorrow and extend to period a few days.

It is an incredibly busy time of the year, Riv, and you are a wonder to manage both V-W and MeJ. We are SO grateful for all your hard work to bring us such a wonderful place to share our mutual joys and obsessions with The Professor's great work. We can CERTAINLY wait for you to fit this contest into your busy schedule.

Thanks so much for everything you do, and bravo for coming up with such a terrific subject for this year's contest!

Congratulations Chrissiejane.

Congratulations Chrissiejane! Your poem about the dragon was just wonderful.

And congratulations to all of the elligible and non-elligible participants in the Yule Contest! Each entry was unique, creative, interesting, thought-provoking, and highly entertaining.

I really think we should have creative and/or scholarly "challenges" several times a year. We could do it just for fun, there wouldn't even need to be a prize or a poll -- just an interesting topic, a chosen format (poetry, story, essay, etc., plus a selected illustration), a maximum length (1,000 words seems good), and a time period for submission.

What do you think?

I like it! And I agree with RR that, even though participation here is small, it is still valuable.

Well done, Chrissiejane. I thought your dragon poem was fabulous . With so many good entries it hasn't been an easy choice.

I'm sure I'm not the only one that had huge fun writing something and reading all the entries.

I'm all for more creativity. There is our essay thread for more scholarly stuff and I think I set Gandalf as a topic once for art and poetry and it produced some very interesting poems! Maybe we could set occasional themes and see what everyone comes up with in any medium - whether an essay, a poem or a painting . Worth thinking about.....

Well done Chrissiejane!! this has been such fun to do and to read. I like the idea of themes . . . !!!

Thanks for your kind words everybody!! I am surprised and honoured to be chosen from such a strong field.
I love the idea of repeating this type of competition periodically, it was such fun to participate and also very educational to read everyone's entries. I think it captured the spirit of the professor's wish, that others would follow his lead and expand on his Middle Earth mythology.

Just to let everyone know that the gorgeous Ted Naismith Calendar has arrived and is every bit as breathtaking as one could hope. I gaze on it hanging on the wall above my laptop every time I sit down to type. Thanks again!

I saw it at Oxonmoot and it really is a great calendar - I bought the equivalent desk diary (same pictures...).