Have you ever wanted to show appreciation for your favorite fantasy characters?

Or celebrate the awesomeness of fantasy?

Now you have the chance with the first ever Silmarillion Awards.

This idea was cooked up 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 other favorite fantasy works, and to have a ton of fun this summer.

Created by DJ Edwardson

Being the fantasy giant it is, The Lord of the Rings has an unfair advantage. To make things a bit more interesting, The Silmarillion Awards will 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.

Ten authors will each be hosting the presentation of these awards, called Silmarils, on their blogs towards the end of July.

But for the awards to work, YOUR involvement is needed! Starting 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!

Nominate characters in the comments of each blog post. If someone has already nominated the character you would have nominated, you may either second that nomination, open a new nomination, or do both. The 5 characters with the most “seconds” will move on to the final voting period that will take place between July 4th – 13th, so you may also “third,” “fourth,” “fifth,” etc. any nominations you particularly like.

Here’s what you need to know:

1) Please do not nominate anything from one of your OWN books!

2) 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).

3) 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!

4) Don’t nominate a Tolkien character for the awards, as the characters presenting the awards are already the standard for each award.

5) 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, 1 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!

Behold, the list of blogs where you can get in on the fun.

• DJ Edwardson Hosting the Best Friend Silmaril
• Jenelle Schmidt Hosting the Most Heart Wrenching Death Scene Silmaril
• Deborah O’Carroll Hosting the Strangest Character Silmaril
• Abbey Hosting the Most Nefarious Villain Silmaril
• JL Mbewe Hosting the Best Redemption Story Silmaril
• Tracey Hosting the Riddling and Poetry Silmaril
• Jack Lewis Baillot Hosting the Best Fantasy Mount Silmaril
• Madeline J. Rose Hosting the Most Epic Hero Silmaril
• Zachary Totah Hosting the Wisest Counsellor Silmaril
• Rawls E. Fantasy Hosting the Best Fantasy Weapon Silmaril

Ready…set…GO!