Hello 2026!

So, it’s been about 1 1/2 years since I wrote anything on here, which wasn’t really meant to happen! I kept wanting to but then getting stuck on my degree or moving house or being disabled, little stuff like that. I’m now doing another degree, but hoping to get some more writing up here! For now, here’s some exciting stuff I’ve done/am doing.

Tolkien Society Seminar (October 2025)

I have waited many years for a TS seminar that I felt I could contribute to, and this year’s was practically tailor-made for me! I presented on the different ways that the bodies of different races in Middle-earth affect the ground they’re in and how digging about in those descriptions leads us to some uncomfortable stuff about race, genocide, and ecological corruption. The videos aren’t up yet, unfortunately, but there’ll be a draft ready for the Proceedings volume at the end of the month and I might see if I can get some of it up here! I had a great time presenting, and the rest of the papers that day were also amazing. I can’t wait to be able to share them!

Visual Ecologies at Leeds (July)

A year or so ago, I did a presentation at Oxonmoot on what happens when you get Aotearoa (New Zealand) to “play” Middle-earth and what that does to the storytelling, world-building, and ecological fidelity. Aotearoa is, botanically, very different to the UK and Middle-earth, and I’ve argued that we end up with a kind of tertiary world, rather than just a representation of the secondary one. I’ve been invited to give a beefed-up version of that paper at the Leeds International Mediaeval Congress in July, which should be fun if I can get around the imposter syndrome of really not being a mediaevalist! I’m diving into adaptation studies in a big way for this one, having done less of that for the shorter Oxonmoot version, especially ecocritical adaptation studies. For now, I published the text of the original paper in the Journal of Tolkien Research.

Special Issue of the Journal of Tolkien Research — Aspec Tolkien (out some time this year)

My dear friend Clare Moore and I are co-editing a special issue of JTR focused on asexual and aromantic readings of Tolkien! It’s been a long process so far, life keeps life-ing on both of us, but we’re getting there. Queer readings of Tolkien have been getting more and more common (hurrah!) but there are currently maybe 4 bits of research on ace Tolkien? The first to get out into the world was my 2024 MythSoc Online Midwinter Seminar paper on Aldarion, though there was at least one in the works before that that’s just been published in Queer Approaches to Tolkien, edited by Robin Reid, Chris Vaccaro, and Steve Yandell.

Anyway, we’re really excited to more-than-double the amount of aspec Tolkien research out there! More queer shit is always a good thing, and when it’s under-represented queer shit, so much the better. It’ll be open access once it’s published and I suspect I might be chucking the odd link around!

I think that’s it for the moment?! I’m supposed to be doing a (totally unrelated) masters this year too, but I’m hoping to get some bits of writing done too. Stuff like the ethnobotany of hithlain, some aspec-related stuff, and maybe some books I’ve read? I don’t really know, I just want to make sure I’m doing something — I appreciate all of you who’ve subscribed very much, and hopefully won’t keep you waiting nearly as long for the next post!