Resilient Seeker Coaching | Ross Raymond Nunamaker

In the 1992 Vice Presidential Debate, Vice Admiral John Stockdale famously opened by saying, “Who am I? Why am I here?” He was the running mate of Ross Perot debating against Dan Quayle and Al Gore. It got a lot of laughs and was very applicable as no one at the time knew who he was or how he wound up in the position he was in.

Sam, Merry, and Pippin often thought the same as they journeyed from the comfortable confines of the Shire where they were each known to all, to far flung lands and kingdoms where not only were they unknown, but their entire species was either not remembered or remembered as only parts of old wives tales told to children.

I find myself feeling somewhat the same given the company I’ll be joining at the Tolkien Conference in New York City on July 31st at Baruch University. Registration is free and you can sign up here:  https://baruch.az1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_ac8Ynuwet0NT43k

The conference site is: https://nyctolkienconference.wordpress.com/

A great line-up is set for the event featuring Donato Giancarlo, Nicholas Birns, Kristine Larsen, Constance Wagner, Alex Retakh, Tom Hillman, and then there is me, the Samwise Gamgee amongst the Gandalfs, Galadriels, Elronds, Aragorns, Faramirs, Legolases, and Gimlis of the Tolkien Community.

Maybe a bit unfair to me, and I call out Samwise, because Merry and Pippin were at least of ‘noble’ lineage amongst Hobbits.

Sam and I on the other hand are loyal and learned in our way. Though not an academic, I have been a fan since I was in sixth grade and first read the Hobbit. I’ve been reading, discussing and writing about the stories and topics related to the books for forty years.

As gardening is to Sam, the Children of Hurin is to me. I have been fascinated by this story since I first read it in the Silmarillion when I was maybe in 9th grade or about 15 years old. I read another version in Book of Lost Tales and was hoping for something new only to learn it was a slightly different version of the one I’d read.

The story resonated with me in different ways at different points in my life and as a fan of the story, I thought it would be interesting to see if one ‘complete’ version could be compiled across all the writings available in HoME, plus the Silmarillion and stand alone edition.

I went down that path using Christopher Tolkien’s numbering system he applied in the Annals. It proved challenging to say the least, but my friends in the 2nd Breakfast Smial asked if I would present on what I was trying to do and why. When I was done they encouraged me to make a submission for Oxonmoot.

At that point in time, early 2021, I thought only academics would be considered to speak at Oxonmoot, or any other conference for that matter, but they insisted it was open to everyone and thought I had a good basis for a presentation.

So I did it, and have selected a topic related to the Children of Hurin to research and present every year since. This year marks my sixth consecutive year and my presentations have been:

1. 2021: Exploring Tolkien’s Tragedy: The Stories of the Children of Hurin
   1. My Approach to reading Tolkien as history, the story structure across versions, the authors and translators, and the endings
2. 2022: Neithan the Wronged: An Approach to Better Understanding Turin
   1. The World Framework, The Curse, The Decisions, The Afterlife
3. 2022: Lessons to Be Learned from Bad Decisions: Turin, Thorin, Theoden, and Denethor
   1. Co-Presentation with Michael Urick
4. 2023: The Women in the Children of Hurin
   1. Morwen and Rian; Melian and Nellas; Nienor; Finduilas and Aerin
5. 2024: The Evolution and Impact of Story: The Children of Hurin
   1. Presents the impact of the Kalevala to CoH, not other potential influences
6. 2025: On Dragons
   1. What we know from Tolkien’s writing about the dragons of Middle-earth

From about 2018 until 2021 I worked on pulling the stories together and as I did so I wrote essays on topics that arose or characters of significance or interest to the story.

I really wanted to create a companion book for the Children of Hurin like those for the Hobbit or Lord of the Rings, but less academic and in my thinking more accessible. By that I wanted something that could be read like a book itself. 

In 2024 I had an epiphany while recovering in the hospital, I’d write a biography of Turin Turambar, better yet, an unauthorized biography of Neithan the Wronged. It would serve as a reader’s guide to the story providing information on the characters and locations, but importantly providing context by including essays on critical topics such as mortality and immortality, fate and freewill, and good and evil.

Between October and December I aggregated previous writing, wrote new content, and organized everything into a biography of Turin. Taking some time off, I revisited, re-wrote, and at the end of May I began to contact agents and publishers.

So my publishing journey has only begun and one day, maybe, I’ll feel a little more like an Aragorn than a Samwise, but then again while I always most admired the character of Merry, Samwise is who I always most closely relate to and he does become the hero of the story, so who knows where this may all lead for me.