• NYU's student newspaper decided to feature fanfiction with a particularly local angle -- fanfiction set on its campus. "Remember when you were waiting for your acceptance letter? Whether NYU was your dream school or just your safety, you’d catch yourself longing for the city, dreaming of the day when you’d leave your home for the magic of New York...You weren’t the only one dreaming. In fact, some would-be students have dedicated hundreds of pages to their NYU-centric fantasies. So focused are these writers’ efforts that NYU Fanfiction has swelled into its own thriving—if slightly inaccurate—genre."
• Australia's The Monthly article on erotic fan fiction nights is somewhat inaccurate as well. Author Linda Jaivin says, "My three co-readers had chosen to write about real people, a subgenre of fanfic that got its start along with the first boy bands." She also speculates that her concern regarding derivative works might be age related. "I raised the question of copyright and fanfic with Eddie Sharp, host of the erotic fan-fiction nights. He dismissed my concerns: “I can’t think of anyone my age” – he’s 30 – “who would be upset.” He characterised the “attitude shift” towards copyright as “a generational thing”.
• People have apparently been reading about fanfiction at 50,000 feet. Following a feature in American Airlines, Choose Your Own Adventure, KLM's inflight magazine, Holland Herald also featured a story on it and both had an OTW connection. In the former, board member emeritus Francesca Coppa attempted to clarify the ethos of fanfiction writing, something which was expressed much better in the latter piece. "For [writing workshop founder Lisa Friedman], fan fiction is a ‘marginalised’ genre in its infancy, comparable to the graphic novel before it found widespread acceptance via the publication of Art Spiegelman’s 1991 Holocaust memoir Maus. “In any case,” she observes, “it’s kind of amazing how much skill it takes to work within someone else’s parameters, to attune oneself so acutely in matters of style and character.” Joanne Harris agrees with the latter point, and draws a comparison to the traditions of fine art: “All young artists used to copy the Old Masters before they were allowed to develop their own style, and fan fiction is the modern equivalent,” she says."

What unexpected places have you found fanfiction in? Write about it in Fanlore! Contributions are welcome from all fans.

We want your suggestions! If you know of an essay, video, article, podcast, or link you think we should know about, comment on the most recent OTW Fannews post. Links are welcome in all languages! Submitting a link doesn't guarantee that it will be included in a roundup post, and inclusion of a link doesn't mean that it is endorsed by the OTW.

• On the Media aired an episode on the Past, Present and Future of Ownership, which included a number of good stories, including discussion of the art piece 'DRM Chair' "that collapses after just eight uses." Host Brooke Gladstone concluded with an observation on the origins of the word 'property.' "Eight hundred years ago or so, property’s meaning was pretty much related to the essential nature of something, as in it’s the property of water to conform to the shape of the vessel it’s in. The fact is property didn’t come to mean possession until the 17th century...Now our world runs on property...Once we dwelled in a brick-and-mortar world. Now, as poet Kenneth Goldsmith observed, we swim in a digital ocean. The only certainty is that in such a fluid situation, 20 years hence, property will not mean what it means today." (Transcripts available)
• Among the people interviewed in the episode was OTW Legal Committee member, Rebecca Tushnet about the legal aspects of fanfiction. "There are such things as commercial fair uses. When 'The Daily Show' runs clips from the news and comments on them, that's fair use. And it's possible to have fictional fair uses, as well. However, the bar is higher and it really would be a case-by-case determination. For example there is a preacher who wrote a version of Harry Potter in which Harry Potter came to Jesus and renounced magic because it was evil. Whether or not that's good, it clearly does have a critical message that comments on the original and is something that would never be part of the original. And that makes it have a good case for fair use, even if he then solicits donations or even sells it for a buck." (Transcript available)
• Another piece about fanfiction was posted on the site by Laura Mayer, discussing how it can emerge from episode recaps of reality shows. "Hype has been swirling around fan fiction for the past few months – the idea of hoards of super-fans, sitting in their homes, solitarily fleshing out the world and the characters from their beloved fiction. But it’s not just pure fiction that gets this treatment. Since there’s so much reality television on the dial, reality TV has been getting the fan fiction treatment, too." However, her examples all come from media sources, entirely ignoring the very long history of RPF. "This isn’t a new thing. Back in the days of 2010, Richard Lawson became the father of reality television fan fiction. While at Gawker he wrote recap upon recap of the Real Housewives of New York. Each post covered the basic details of the episode, sure. But what made these recaps so readable was the fantastical, borderline science-fiction, turns they took."

If you have your own RPF fandom tales to tell, write about them in Fanlore! Contributions are welcome from all fans.

We want your suggestions! If you know of an essay, video, article, podcast, or link you think we should know about, comment on the most recent OTW Fannews post. Links are welcome in all languages! Submitting a link doesn't guarantee that it will be included in a roundup post, and inclusion of a link doesn't mean that it is endorsed by the OTW.

• At Slate, Tammy Oler lauds writer Hugh Howey's approach to dealing with fans in a piece discussing the success of his self-published sci-fi novel. "Most intriguingly, Howey has encouraged readers who want to develop their own Wool stories to self-publish and sell their works. In an interview, I asked Howey about why he’s not just encouraging fan fiction but actually endorsing it. 'There’s room for readers to become writers and play in this world,' he said. 'I view fan fiction as the opportunity to teach readers how much joy there is in creating worlds instead of just living in them.' Right now—much to Simon and Schuster’s chagrin, one has to imagine—the first two of what are sure to be many Wool-related fan fiction stories are available for sale on Amazon."
• BookRiot hosted a guest piece by writer Jill Guccini who pondered how to evaluate professional/fan collaborations. "So here’s the question: Is this unbelievably cool and innovative? Or is it simply, as the AV Club called it, 'a dizzying cycle of mutual promotion and self-promotion?' Can it be both? Fandom is a more sprawling, often intimate, force now than it ever has been before in every variety of the arts, including books. I used to know authors simply by, you know, what books they wrote; I now gauge a lot of them in my head unwittingly by their social media personalities. And sometimes they reblog the same things I reblog; sometimes they follow me back; and they become weirdly closer, somehow, to That Guy I Went to High School With, as opposed to The All Mysterious Author. Essentially: the fourth wall has already been broken. So does authors reaching out to fans enrich the literary world? Or does it cheapen it? Alternately, does a corporate-sponsored, preconceived interactive project still count as 'reaching out'?"
• Aja Romano over at the Daily Dot is also concerned about how fans are valued in these interactions, and writes about the way they are spoken of in SXSW panel blurbs. "[F]andom itself is growing to be synonymous with geek culture as a whole—both of which are seeping inexorably into the mainstream. That’s a huge reversal from where things stood even a few years ago, and not everyone is quite on board with this change. We can see this anxiety in the very language two of this week’s SXSW panels use to summarize the fan/creator relationship." Questioning the panelists on 'Frenemies: Fanning the Flames of Fandom' and 'Creators vs Audience: Next Chapter in Storyteling', she notes "the introductory angle that both panels take seem to pit fans and creators against one another, rather than as potential partners in a relationship built around shared love for a story."

Share your own stories about fan and creator collaborations on Fanlore! Contributions are welcome from all fans.

We want your suggestions! If you know of an essay, video, article, podcast, or link you think we should know about, comment on the most recent OTW Fannews post. Links are welcome in all languages! Submitting a link doesn't guarantee that it will be included in a roundup post, and inclusion of a link doesn't mean that it is endorsed by the OTW.

• An article from the Oakland Tribune provided a good exploration of fanfiction and the activities of people who write it. "The online communities -- fandoms -- are vast and develop their own guidelines, techniques and even vocabularies. People write about, talk about, have mini conventions about, make videos about and even edit each other's stories about everything from favorite novels, TV shows and comic books to Japanese anime and mangas, poems, video games or popular songs...'It's really big, it's really diverse, and if you've only seen one little slice of it, you haven't seen anything.'" The piece also featured discussion with OTW Legal Chair Betsy Rosenblatt, and mentions OTW projects the AO3 and Fanlore.
• Meanwhile Transformative Works and Cultures editor Karen Hellekson discussed how varied fanfiction can be in The Eye. "'Although I’m glad that Fifty Shades of Grey has caused interest in the fan fiction phenomenon, I also worry that the prurient, overtly sexual, often violent nature of the text reflects badly on fan fiction in general, because it’s not representative of fan fiction or the impetus to write it.' Fans are inspired to write fiction in order to continue experiencing a text, its characters, and settings. Often, they write for themselves and for fellow fans, with no pretensions of achieving fame comparable to their source texts’ authors. Fan fiction’s forays into the worlds of publishing and academia, however, show that it is a broader cultural phenomenon that appeals to more than the fans alone."
• In a review of Batman comics on PopMatters, Michael D. Stewart talks about how uncertain canons can make all stories seem like fanfiction. "Many of the writers currently writing our major superheroes are fans of the characters. They’re not the original creators of the character, so what’s the difference between fan fiction and what is being published today? Sophistication? Editorial endorsement and inclusion in canon? A paycheck?...[I]n terms of the culture talking to them and they responding in its language, “Death of the Family” and Snyder’s Joker is not “almost” fan fiction, it is fan fiction and that’s something he should be proud of. While I have been wary about the amount of horror that has been injected into Batman, and concerned the Joker hasn’t to this point been very funny, and that each and every issue hasn’t been an ideal portrayal, I will always be appreciative knowing a fan is writing this cornerstone of comics."
• Whether fan fiction writers are or aren't going pro, they still have to deal with some similar issues. Fandom Wanderers decided to offer some advice, a lot of which related to dealing with one's audience. "You can’t please everyone – in every story, you will have at least one reviewer who says “Can you make … happen?” If that happens to fit with your storyline and you want to, go ahead. If not, don’t. It’s your story, not theirs" but also "Be grateful to your reviewers – A lot of people lurk on fanfiction sites – I know, I’m guilty of it myself – and you can’t always tell if they’ve enjoyed the story...So when you get a review, thank that person...If it’s a particularly long and helpful review, take the time to message them and let them know that you’re grateful for their feedback."

What fanfiction habits and activities do you take part in? Write about it in Fanlore! Contributions are welcome from all fans.

We want your suggestions! If you know of an essay, video, article, podcast, or link you think we should know about, comment on the most recent OTW Fannews post. Links are welcome in all languages! Submitting a link doesn't guarantee that it will be included in a roundup post, and inclusion of a link doesn't mean that it is endorsed by the OTW.