Aims
To honour excellence in fiction, poetry and critical essays relating to The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, The Silmarillion, Unfinished Tales and other works by JRR Tolkien freely available on the web in English.

Disclaimer
The Mithril Awards reflect the organisers' abiding love for the works of JRR Tolkien. The characters, settings, places and languages used in the works referenced are the property of the Tolkien Estate, Tolkien Enterprises, and possibly New Line Cinema, except for certain original characters who belong to the author of the said work. No author will receive any money or other remuneration as part of the awards.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Processes and rules for the 2004 awards have changed in the light of feedback from fans and problems encountered in 2003. Check out the Report on the Mithril Awards 2003 for discussion of these changes.

The Awards Process
Fiction, poetry and critical essays will be nominated by fans within the award categories. The works nominated will be reduced to a list of up to 20 semi-finalists per category by a team of screeners, based on the quality of writing. One or more Judges plus an Awards Committee member will select four to eight finalists in each category to go forward to judging. Winners and runners-up in each category will be selected from among the finalists by a panel of three or more Judges.

Semi-finalists will also be entered into one of the Voters' Choice categories. The public will select the winners in these categories by voting at the online form provided at this website.

One or more Judges’ Choice awards will also be given to semi-finalist works, at the discretion of the Awards Committee and Judges.

The Awards will have no financial value.

Rules & Eligibility: Nominations
1a. Material must have a clear basis in The Silmarillion, The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, Unfinished Tales or other works by JRR Tolkien.

1b. All entries must be freely available on the web at the time of nomination and judging. Temporary web-hosting for non-fiction only is offered on the awards site (e-mail mithrilawards@yahoo.com). The awards site will not host fiction; this should be archived at any of the numerous non-selective fanfiction sites.

1c. Material may relate to the books or to the movie versions of the Lord of the Rings.

1d. Fiction, poetry and research articles/critical essays are all eligible for the appropriate categories.

1e. Works are eligible regardless of rating, genre, category (gen, het-adult and slash) and subject matter (Elves, Men, Dwarves, Hobbits, Valar/Maiar, Orcs, Ents and other races). Some categories restrict nominations to works of a particular type.

1f. Works set in alternative universes (AUs) or involving original characters (OCs) are eligible in all categories, provided there is a clear connection with the works of JRR Tolkien, in the opinion of the Awards Committee.

1g. Actor fic/RPS (real person slash) is NOT eligible in any category, regardless of rating or genre. This is defined as any work in which any actual person appears, whether living or dead, with the sole exceptions of the author of the work, and of well-known historical figures who have been dead for at least 50 years.

1h. Material not originally written in English is eligible provided that a translation into English, which is authorised by the original author, is freely available on the web.

1i. All work must be completed to be eligible. Stories that are part of a series may be nominated ONLY if they make sense out of context of the series and are available at an individual URL. Individual chapters in a story are NOT eligible. Works in progress (WiPs) are NOT eligible. Serials must be completed to be eligible; serials which are still ongoing are NOT eligible.

2. Material with frequent grammatical or spelling errors, or which is poorly formatted, or which, in the opinion of the Awards Committee, is not appropriate to the category nominated, or lacks adequate connection to the original text or movie, will be eliminated from consideration.

3. All nominations will be subject to consent of the author for the work to be considered for the award. Works where a functional e-mail address for the author is not clearly listed within the story and is not provided by the nominating person will not be considered. Where the work has joint authorship, the first listed author will be assumed to speak for all the authors, unless it is clearly stated otherwise within the story headers.

4. The Awards Committee reserves the right, at its discretion, not to make an award in any category in which fewer than five works of adequate quality were nominated. Works nominated in such categories may, at the discretion of the Awards Committee, be transferred to other categories, but this cannot be guaranteed.

5. You may nominate your own material or material by others. If you are the author, you may submit an unpublished piece for consideration, as long as it is thereafter made available on the web. You may not submit unpublished work that is not your own.

6. Material must have been first published on the web in complete form between 1 April 2003 and 1 April 2004 to be eligible.

7. You may make a single nomination in each category. You need not nominate in all categories.

8. Nominations should preferably be made using the online nominations form at the website. In case of problems, e-mail nominations will also be taken at the address: mithrilawards@yahoo.com. Nominations received at other e-mail addresses will not be accepted. The Awards Committee regrets that nominations will not be taken by post.

IMPORTANT: Please see the e-mail nominations page for instructions on formatting. Incorrectly-formatted e-mail nominations, and those with missing information, will NOT be accepted.

9. If you are under the age of majority in your country of residence then you may not nominate adult-rated material.

10. A particular work may only be a semi-finalist in two categories. In the event of a work being nominated in more than two categories, then the author will be asked to determine which categories that work should be considered.

11. Authors may only have a single semi-finalist work in any one category. In the event of more than one work being nominated in a category, then the author will be asked to determine which work should be considered in that category.

12. Nominations must be received by 9 May 2004, 12:00 Midnight, Eastern Standard Time. Nominations received after this time will not be considered.

13. Actions designed, in the opinion of the Awards Committee, to unfairly bias the results either for or against a particular work or works will lead to the disqualification of that work, the author, or the person taking the action, as appropriate. Such actions will include, but are not limited to, nominations rigging, contacting one or more Judges in an attempt to prejudice their decisions, direct vote solicitation and multiple voting.


Special Rules for Screeners, Judges and Awards Committee Members
14. Works by members of the Awards Committee are not eligible for nomination in any category.

15. Only the Awards Committee will have information about which works were nominated in which categories. Screeners and Judges will not be given any information except the list of works that they are allocated to screen or judge. The Awards Committee will do their best to allocate Screeners and Judges so as to prevent any conflicts of interest.

16. Screeners, Judges and members of the Awards Committee may not nominate material in categories that they are screening or judging. They may nominate material in other categories.

17. Screeners and Judges may not have material they have authored considered in the categories in which they are screening or judging. They may have works considered in other categories.

18. Judges may not judge categories in which works authored by their relatives (including spouse or Significant Other) are finalists.

Rules & Eligibility: Voters’ Choice
1. Votes in the Voter’s Choice categories must be made via the online form [currently closed]. E-mail or postal votes will not be accepted.

2. You may only vote for one work in each category. Duplicate votes will be disqualified.

3. Votes must be received no later than [date to be confirmed]. Later votes will not be counted.

Updated 12 April 2004