Our guest this week is a viral sensation on TikTok and has recently made the move to YouTube: Willie Jenkins! Willie Jenkins is a super fan of Tolkien! He also has a magnetic personality and a desire to teach. These things have combined to make him a hit as he puts together short videos that summarize different characters or events from Tolkien's work on TikTok and YouTube, where he is known as Knewbettadobetta. Video of this interview is available exclusively to our patrons on Patreon!

29 - Willie Jenkins

Since 2018, the Tolkien Experience Project has been collecting stories from Tolkien scholars and fans around the world. Now, we have partnered with The Prancing Pony Podcast and Dr. Sara Brown to create the Tolkien Experience Podcast — an attempt to bring the fan and scholarly communities together around our shared passion: the works of J.R.R. Tolkien! Each episode, Luke and Sara ask a notable scholar or member of the fan community to share their responses to the original Tolkien Experience Project questions.

Arts

Literature

Performing Arts

Design

Food

Fashion & Beauty

Visual Arts

Education

Training

Language Courses

Higher Education

K-12

Educational Technology

Books

We have finally had the perfect opportunity to sit down with our good friend Tom Hillman! Longtime friend of the hosts and supporter of Tolkien Experience Tom Hillman is finally on the podcast! Tom was the first person to submit hs Tolkien Experience Project entry, and we thought that  the publication of his book later this year gave us the perfect excuse to have him on the show! Please watch for his book Pity, Power, and Tolkien's Ring: To Rule the Fate of Many later this year!

54 -- Tom Hllman

We start our newest season with an interview with a well-established artist: Donato Giancola! Donato has been an avid fan of Tolkien's work for a long time and creates artwork based on Tolkien's world when he gets the chance. Known for his work on Magic the Gathering, modern science fiction and fantasy covers, and a plethora of other venues! You can find prints of Donato's work on his website, or purchase his most recent art book Middle-earth: Journeys in Myth and Legend. We are so glad he had the time to talk with us!

53 - Donato Giancola

For this episode, we were excited to welcome the resident of Tolkiendil, the French Tolkien society: Laura Martin-Gomez! Laura received her PhD in 2020, and her research interests include fandom studies and Tolkien's texts. Her thesis examined fan groups in the US, UK, and France to parse out the similarities and differences in these groups from the 70s until just before internet fandom became more influential. We were very eager to have her on the podcast, and grateful we could work out a time during this busy season. We hope you enjoy listening to the episode as much as we enjoyed recording it!

52 - Laura Martin-Gomez

For this episode, we were honored to welcome a very influential figure in the Tolkien fandom: Brian Sibley! Brian is the recipient of the Tolkien Society's award for Outstanding Contribution in 2022. He is an honorary member of the society, and is perhaps best known to the Tolkien community because of the radio adaptation of The Lord of the Rings he created for the BBC. His newest project The Fall of Númenor is a book that pulls together Tolkien's writings about the island civilization and promises to be an insightful and essential text! We hope you enjoy the interview! Unedited video of this interview is available exclusively to our patrons on Patreon! Subscribing at $5/month gets you access to video interviews, behind-the-scenes information, early releases, an exclusive patron-only series, and other bonus content!

50 - Brian Sibley

This week, we put together another panel to discuss the new Rings of Power series being produced by Amazon a little more! Here we discuss adaptation, the changes that always have to be made, what we think is done well in some adaptations, and where we think some improvements could be made! Special thanks to Oriana Schwindt, Sara Brown, and Luke Shelton for sharing their time and expertise with us for this exciting event!

29 - Willie Jenkins

Download our free app to listen on your phone