About

A creative self-starter and conscientious researcher, with an unflinching belief in the power of the humanities to effect lasting change. My main interests in everything are media, conflict, and the places where the twain meet.I’ve worked as a writer, editor, researcher, and social media manager for non-profits in the literary, educational, and conflict prevention sectors, as well as at universities. I was also the 2023 publishing intern at Irish environmentalist literary magazine Channel. I currently work in third level education in marketing and recruitment.I was awarded a dual MA in International War Studies in 2023, and also hold a Bachelor’s degree in International Relations and an undergraduate diploma in English literature. I have a broad spectrum of acacdemic interests related to these areas (PTSD and trauma in particular, memory studies, oral history, and film/TV media) as well as completely unrelated areas (palaeontology, linguistics, and mathematics, to name a few things!). I write on these themes and speak at numerous venues. I also publish original fiction and am currently working on my first novel. Find out more here.Helping others is deeply important to me, and for much of my early adulthood I dedicated my time to volunteering including as a trustee of the Tolkien Society, as co-chair of Orgs in Solidarity's Forming the Future Working Group, as a first reader with quarterly speculative fiction magazine khōréō, and as a co-host of the Tolkien Experience Podcast. While I have now pivoted to personal projects, advocating for causes I care about remains important to me.A final thing to share is my extensive background in the performing arts. I trained as a singer under Khor Ai Ming and was active in Singapore from 2006 - 2018, performing in major productions including The Lord of the Rings Symphony as a soloist. I'm also a multi-instrumentalist, fully proficient in piano as well as experienced in the harp, oboe, guitar, violin, and cello. I completed a part-time course in acting from the Gaiety School of Acting, where I also completed a foundational short course in Acting for Camera.For a full list of my qualifications and experience, please see my LinkedIn.

AROUND THE WEB

Below are some of the other places you can find me around the internet.

TOLKIEN STUDIES & FANDOM

Note: only conference panels with publicly available recordings have been hyperlinked. Papers initially presented as talks that have since been published are listed in the ESSAYS | PAPERS section, with the panel linked seperately.

ARTICLES

  1. On Isildur and adaptation, Twitter thread (2023). Currently being adapted for publication in essay form.

  2. Sieges in the First and Second Ages, Silmarillion Writers' Guild (2022)

  3. Power and Choice in the Second Age, Silmarillion Writers' Guild (2019). First presented at the Tolkien 2019 conference, Birmingham (2019).

SPEAKING APPEARANCES

  1. Tolkien and New Media (with Athrabeth podcast), Oxonmoot (2023)

  2. Out of the Great Sea: Of Elendil and Legends Old and New, Leeds International Medieval Congress (2023)

  3. "I often dream of it": Trauma and memory in the Downfall of Númenor, The Tolkien Society Seminar: Númenor, the Mighty and the Frail (2023)

  4. Fan Responses to the Rings of Power trailer, Northeast Pop Culture Association (2022)

  5. Rings of Power Season 1 post-finale discussion, Twitter (2022)

  6. Music of the Rings of Power, Tolkien Experience Podcast (2022)

  7. Rings of Power Watch Party, TheOneRing.net in partnership with Prime Video (2022)

  8. The Dúnadan's Burden: Shades of imperialism in Tolkien's Second Age texts, Oxonmoot (2021). Currently being revised for publication.

  9. Diversity in Tolkien Fandom and Scholarship, Oxonmoot (2020)

SELECT FICTION

  1. time stops in midwinter, F(r)iction (2022)

  2. The Lingering Shadows, Sapphic Shivers amateur zine (2020)

  3. Jade Water, Secrets of the Sea amateur zine (2019)

SELECT NON-FICTION

  1. An Idea of Heroes, The Stork (2019)

  2. No armor against extinction, The Stork (2018)

BOOK REVIEWS

At Sarah Westvik's Bookshelf I share reviews and reflections on what I read. My usual stomping ground is fantasy, sci-fi, history, current affairs, and science. Within those, I read everything from novels to short story and essay collections to multi-volume tomes. If you would like to send an eARC in exchange for an honest review, please do drop me a line at my Contact page!

Contact

I can be contacted at: srwestvik@gmail.com. Alternatively, send me a message on LinkedIn.

IMPRESSUM

My name is Sarah Rachel Westvik and I run this website. It is a website sharing my professional and personal profile. Please contact me only by email.Email: srwestvik@gmail.com

PRIVACY POLICY

This website does not collect personal data, does not set tracking cookies, and does not track any statistics.