Ross Raymond Nunamaker

Today is Tolkien Reading Day, March 25, the day the One Ring was destroyed. After work I’ll celebrate with the Tolkien Society online (learn more here). 

Later I’ll visit my local library for our writer’s group and close the evening with the GLVWG Writer’s Cafe online.

I think the Professor would approve.

When I wrote, On Writing and Being a Writer, I failed in a significant way.

I didn’t acknowledge my writing as it relates to J.R.R. Tolkien, which is a significant component of what I read, write, research, and present. I’m going to chalk it up to the fact that I took up trying my hand at fiction as a break from Tolkien, and apparently I did a right good job, as I failed to mention it at all.

So I’ll take inspiration from the Professor and retrofit it.

I highly value my love of learning and it is a core strength. I embody this through my desire to engage daily in what I have come to call scholarship, which is derived from my love of Tolkien.

It began when I saw one of the cartoon movies, came across the Hobbit computer game for the Commodore 64, and then got hold of the books. I was in 6th grade, maybe twelve years old. It never stopped.

At least that is one version, I guess my contribution to Luke Shelton’s The Tolkien Experience Project (read it here) would be the official version as it was published, but like the Professor or Douglas Adams, these things change over time and perspective.

I was bought into the Children of Hurin from the first time I encountered it in the Silmarillion. It has become a passion of mine to understand it and to do that I’ve explored the versions and outlines and how they are similar and different.

My fellow members of the 2nd Breakfast Smial of Pennsylvania, encouraged me to submit a paper to present at Oxonmoot. It was a great experience. It gave me the confidence to write more and develop a concept for a book.

I wrote a version, decided the approach was wrong and during a hospital stay had an epiphany, I’d write my reader’s guide and present it as a biography of Turin titled, “Neithan: the Wronged.”

I finished it, used too many direct quotes and felt it shouldn’t be chronological, because it would read too much like the story.

After years I am in a good place. I have a biography in three parts. I have a small publisher interested when I complete it. I have an editor in mind, who isn’t yet aware she’ll be my editor, but I’m confident I’ll get her to say yes.

The time spent in Tolkien circles online and through the Tolkien Society have been invaluable to me. I’ve met amazing people from diverse backgrounds who have a common interest in the life and works of the Professor.

I’ve published in Amon Hen, the Tolkien Society publication and presented each year since 2020 at Oxonmoot.

I’ve even played roles in the 2nd Breakfast video entertainments, Ents, played at the conference. I’ve been Gimli, Turin and Merry. This was very outside my comfort range, but my friends in the group, seasoned pros compared to me, made it enjoyable.

Given the tedious nature of comparing and contrasting the versions, I took a break from the project, but continue to meet with 2nd Breakfast and I’m working on my 2026 presentation proposal.

The life and works of the Professor have become an essential part of who I am by virtue of how he represents scholarship and enables me to actively engage in it.

Not everyone will identify love of learning as a desired trait to pursue as a part of living a life well-lived, and those that do may not choose scholarship as the means to embrace it. The key is figuring out what you desire and how to engage it in order to embrace and live it.