Cascade Moot 2026 Registration
J.R.R. Tolkien took craft seriously. As a writer, he labored over prose style and narrative structure with philological precision. As a world-builder, he filled Middle-earth with makers: smiths forging Silmarils and blades, gardeners tending the Shire, weavers creating tapestries that held the history of nations. And as a person, he was himself a maker. He was a painter of illustrations, a creator of maps, a world-class inventor of languages, and a creator of elaborate jokes and poems he shared with his friends.
Cascade Moot invites you to come and share your crafts with the community in whatever form they take. We welcome traditional academic papers on:
The Writer's Craft: Tolkien's prose techniques, narrative architecture, and theories of subcreation.
The Ethical Craft: The moral weight of making in Middle-earth; what distinguishes Aulë from Saruman, for example?
The Worldbuilder's Craft: Language invention, mapmaking, and the construction of legendary histories.
The Literature's Craft: The symbolic and narrative roles of objects made by hand, from lembas to the Argonath to the Silmarils.
Additionally, we encourage proposals for creative or hands-on sessions that engage with the practices of making. Do you paint? Create with Legos? Make music? Does your crafting involve the written word with poetry or story? Do you use 3-D printers to create? Or something else entirely? If you have an idea for a workshop, demonstration, interactive presentation, or just want to show to a welcoming community your contribution that connects to craft in your own creative life, in Tolkien's legendarium, or in any other fictional universe you enjoy and want to share, we would be honored to have you share it with us.
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