The time of conventions is upon us. There are conventions of every sort and nature coming up, all over the United States and the world. So I thought I would draw your attention to a couple of them.

ImagineCon takes place in Virginia Beach, Virginia April 20-23, 2000. Calisuri and myself will be in the honourable company of the likes of Gary Gygax and a slew of others. You can find out more information at their site Imaginecon.com.

DragonCon will be in Atlanta, Georgia from June 29 - July 2, 2000. Attendees include Brad Dourif, Calisuri, Jincey, and Michael Martinez. There will be some excellent panels relating to the Lord of the Rings movies. You can find out the complete scoop at their site DragonCon.com.

MythCon XXXI will be at Kilauea Military Camp, Island of Hawaii, Hawaii from August 18 - 21, 2000. Alot of the people who made me feel so welcome last year at MythCon XXX will be there, regrettably I will not be able to attend. If you can make it to this event I am sure you will have a wonderful time. You can find out about the convention and other thinks related to the Inklings at the MythSoc.org site. MythCon XXXI specific information can be found here.

Last but not least, Worldcon the 58th annual World Science Fiction convention is in Chicago, Illinios August 31st - September 4, 2000. I don't have a ton of information at this time, but you can find out what I know at the ChiCon.org site.

Stay tuned to our events page for more convention information.

Ringer Staff member Gamgee has chimed in with a hilarious Top Ten list. [ more ]

Greetings, Quickbeam here.

Spring and "Green" go hand-in-hand, even here at TheOneRing.net™. It is my pleasure to announce the following new items that are stirring at the Green Books:

• Turgon has a terrific new article in his "Bookshelf," giving us an eagle's eye view of Tolkien publications for 2000. This is your *first* advance word of new paperback editions of Tolkien's works on both sides of the Atlantic! Click here to read more.

• Our "Testimonials" is now called "Tributes." More fitting, I think... Read how the Professor inspired the lives of other fantasy authors and historians such as Urusla K. LeGuin, Sean Stewart (Clouds End and Nobody's Son) and world-class loremaster Douglas A. Anderson (The Annotated Hobbit). Even the evil wizard Saruman has a brief comment about meeting JRRT face-to-face!

• Several new updates are found in the Questions and Answers section. Click here for more.

• Our very special staff illustrator, Mia, recently travelled to Oxford with the "Tolkien Eccentric Unusual Nut Cases" and has shared her Pilgrimage with us. This terrific photo-essay has 36 images and her wonderful first-person account! Visit Tolkien's past and stop by 20 Northmoor Road where Tolkien wrote The Hobbit.

There's plenty more as we at Green Books explore the WORDS and WORLD of Tolkien. Thanks to all for being part of our ever-growing readership!

Much too hasty,

Quickbeam

Not much has been said about our involvement with charity since it was first announced back in January. You can read a little more about the Books in Homes program which we are participating in on our Charities Page. Hopefully soon we will be announcing our next charity sponsorship, with a much larger well known organization.

The Elijah Wood (Frodo) film 'The Bumblebee Flies Anyway' is on TMN tonight. On a little side note, I recently saw this film, it was a great piece of drama. [More]

Spring has sprung! to celebrate, take a looksee at our weekly items listed from Ebay! [More]

Wanna see where they plan to keep Ian McKellen captive? [More]

!!!Spoilers!!!

The Bernard Hill (Theoden) film 'Ghost and the Darkness' is on CITY TV at 8:30 PM EST.

The Christopher Lee (Saruman) TV series 'Ghormenghast' is having a 'Behind the Scenes' special on SPACE: the Imagination Station tonight at 6 PM EST.

Super Ringer Spy Galadriel takes us on a tour of most of the sets that are now filming some great LOTR action! Fighting at Helms, Elves in Rivendell and Saruman amassing his Orcs! [More]

!!!Heavy Spoilers!!!

Brad Dourif was born in West Virginia, USA. He was born today, March 18th 1950. That makes him the BIG 50 today! Happy Birthday Brad!

From: Tom V

FYI to all Tolkein fans. Kevin Henry, a talented musician from Michigan, has just released a new musical rendition of The Hobbit. It's a great way to introduce people of all ages to the story. It's a mix of folk, blues with a hint of a Southern rock feel. The lyrics remain perfectly true to the story line. Check out the website (complete with MP3 excerpts) at www.warmweathermusic.com

This appeared in today's Dominion. Much of the article rehashed quotes from McKellen's own notes at his 'Grey Books' website, but here are some things he told the people over at the Dom.:

'This is the craziest film ever made. It's the most ambitious film ever made anywhere in the world, technically. On any one day there are four camera crews with Jackson, dashing around the sets. He's absolutely calm. If you want to know what a hobbit is like, meet Peter Jackson.'

NZers should also be proud because the bulk of the people working on the film are 'born and bred here....If the film works, it will be because it is a NZ film and not because it was shot here.'

Asked if he feels an affinity with Gandalf, he says: 'Well, I like travelling, he likes travelling, he likes walking and getting about. He likes people and he certainly likes hobbits. I think he also likes the settled life, the cosy life...so I'm for that. He's ordinary and, at times, rather frail. He loses his temper and he smokes, which he probably shouldn't. I go for that side of the man.'

Thanks for Tiggy for that update!

A Happy St. Pat's Day to all the good Irish Ringers out there! Have a good one on your our friends at TheOneRing.net!

(don't lose your shirt Chief!)

The Elijah Wood (Frodo) film 'Deep Impact' is on TMN today. [More]

The Liv Tyler (Arwen) film 'Cookie's Fortune' at 8PM on Cinemax [More]

Brian Sergent will be on IFC in the Peter Jackson film 'Braindead' tonight at 10 PM EST. A must see!

Check out the new layout of Fan.TheOneRing.net! We have added a daily news updater so you can be on top of all the latest additions from Tolkien fans, just like you! [ more ]

There was an interview with Liv Tyler in Wellington's "The Dominion" last weekend. The reporter was impressed with her magical influence on his tape recorder, which had decided to stop working until she pulled it apart. The interview goes on to talk about her life and approach to acting; Liv comes across as a humble, open-minded person who's very engaged with her surroundings.
She could talk little about LOTR as such, but did have this to say about the experience of working on it:
"I'm particularly impressed with the acting. A lot of times when you think of a genre of film that's going to be quite large and have a lot of special effects, the acting can suffer because of that. But everyone's doing such a brilliant job. Peter Jackson is an amazing director - you almost feel like he's acting in the scenes with you. He's very present in there."
She's enjoying Wellington, both the freedom with which she can move around there - if people recognise her, they don't seem to make a big deal of it- and the city itself. "Oh, I'm really sensitive to my surroundings and I'm really blown away by how beautiful it is every day."