The Tolkien Experience Podcast

In this special episode of the Tolkien Experience Podcast, Luke and Sara wrap up the first season!

They reflect on some of their favorite interviews, share some of their own Tolkien Experiences, and give a special thank you to our faithful listeners!

We hope you enjoy it. Remember, there will be more TEP coming your way after the holidays!

For this episode, I had the opportunity to talk with a wonderful writer who has produced excellent scholarship as well as engaging popular posts about Tolkien: Megan Fontenot!

Megan is a Ph.D. student at the University of Georgia.

I first met Megan in 2018 when she gave her award-winning paper "'No Pagan ever loved his god': Tolkien, Thompson, and the Beautification of the Gods." at Mythcon. Since then, Megan has pursued her interest in Tolkien in several venues, including a series of articles for tor.com. You can find out more about Megan from her University of Georgia profile, or from her website!

For this episode, Sara was able to talk with an artist whose work is well known to many Tolkien fans: Anke Eissmann! You may have seen Anke's artwork as the cover of some of your favorite Walking Tree Publisher works! She also is a prolific contributor to Tolkien conferences and fan communities in Germany and the UK. To see more about Anke and to see examples of her work, visit her website!

For this episode, I interview a scholar whose work spans the gap between science fiction and fantasy, between history and literary analysis: Dr. Amy H. Sturgis!

Amy holds a Ph.D. in Intellectual History and specializes in the fields of Science Fiction/Fantasy and Indigenous American Studies. She is a monthly contributor on the StarShipSofa Podcast and is the Editor in Chief of Hocus Pocus Comics. Her Tolkien-related scholarship includes a long list: see the show notes page for a more complete list!

For this episode, I had the opportunity to talk with Elvella. She is a passionate fan who has some great insights! In this episode we talk about audio adaptations, fanfiction, and whiteness in fandom.

Elvella is a college senior with majors in religion and classical piano. As she starts her senior year, join us in wishing her the best! If you want more insights from Elvella, you can find her on Twitter or subscribe to her YouTube channel!

For this week's episode, we are so happy to have a scholar and fan who investigates the Tolkien fan community: Maria Alberto!

Maria is a fourth year PhD student at the University of Utah. Her research focuses on adaptation and fan studies. We want to encourage any our listeners who have read or written fanfiction to participate in The Tolkien Fanfiction Survey: tinyurl.com/tolkienfanficsurvey. Long-time listeners will recognize Maria's colleague in this project, Dawn Walls-Thumma, who was our guest in an earlier episode! We also want to mention that Maria has chapters in two forthcoming collections: Queer Tolkien and Cities and Strongholds of Middle-earth.

For this week's episode, we are joined by a long-time supporter of the Tolkien fan community: Myla Malinalda!

Myla Malinalda has worked as a part-time reporter for Middle-earth news, and a long time Tolkien fan and collector. She is also a graphic designer and she loves incorporating inspiration from her favorite literature into her work!

William (Bill) Fliss is an archivist in the Special Collections and University Archives of the Raynor Memorial Libraries of Marquette University in Milwaukee Wisconsin. Bill is in charge of Tolkien's manuscripts for The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, and a couple other short stories by Tolkien. He has started a collection called The J.R.R. Tolkien Fandom Oral History Collection, and he is still seeking fans to interview! Click the link to participate: https://www.marquette.edu/library/archives/Mss/JRRT/fandomoh.php

We are very excited to have the chance to speak with Mary Clay Watt for this week's episode!

Mary Clay is the creator and host of the Podcast That's What I'm Tolkien About, where she is reading her way through Tolkien's works. She has finally made it to Mount Doom as of our recording, so go listen as she finishes the quest!

For this week's episode, we are very excited to have Jeremy Edmonds, the creator of Tolkienguide.com!

The hosts of the podcast met Jeremy at Tolkien2019, and became fast friends with many shared interests, especially a love of Tolkien's work. His phenomenal website has been going for more than a decade and a half! There you will find scholars and collectors talking about minutiae and interesting factoids about Tolkien.