Category: Guest Post

OTW Guest Post: Jordan Henry & Arielle Waldman

Claudia Rebaza Leave a comment

From time to time, the OTW will be hosting guest posts on our OTW News accounts. These guests will be providing an outside perspective on the OTW or aspects of fandom where our projects may have a presence. The posts express each author’s personal views and do not necessarily reflect the views of the OTW or constitute OTW policy. We welcome suggestions from fans for future guest posts, which can be left as a comment here or by contacting us directly.

Arielle Waldman and Jordan Henry are a writing team based in Los Angeles, California. Originally from the Midwest, Arielle has been working in the entertainment industry in LA since 2011 in areas including production, talent management, and television development. When not writing, Arielle likes to hunt for the best tacos in LA, create gourmet popcorn, and spend time with her niece and nephew — Australian shepherds Bella and Jake. Jordan grew up in southern West Virginia, but has been living and working in LA since 2013, primarily in television production and development. In her free time, Jordan can often be found baking, watching ice hockey, and trying to convince the world that Hufflepuff is the best Hogwarts house. Today, Jordan and Arielle talk about working on the webseries Kyloki.

How did you first get into fandom and fanworks?

When the two of us became friends, one of the first things we bonded over was our shared love of various fandoms. So once we started writing together, it really made sense to dive into something fandom-based for our first big project.

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OTW Guest Post

OTW Guest Post: Agnese Pietrobon

Claudia Rebaza 2 Comments

From time to time, the OTW will be hosting guest posts on our OTW News accounts. These guests will be providing an outside perspective on the OTW or aspects of fandom where our projects may have a presence. The posts express each author’s personal views and do not necessarily reflect the views of the OTW or constitute OTW policy. We welcome suggestions from fans for future guest posts, which can be left as a comment here or by contacting us directly.

Agnese Pietrobon is an independent scholar in fandom studies with a master’s degree in social psychology and psychology of communication. She is currently president of the cultural association fanheart3, dedicated to fans and fan culture. Today, Agnese talks about her work for fanheart3, Italy’s first fanfiction convention, and her fannish history.

How did you first get into fandom and fanworks?

I discovered fandom before I knew what the word fandom meant! When we were kids, me and my friends used to reenact scenes from movies and shows. We loved to try and give them different endings: Star Wars, movies with Bud Spencer and Terence Hill… Then, in high school, my best friend and I used to share a journal where we wrote self-insert stories where our fictional selves met Backstreet Boys (embarrassingly normal for adolescents) and Kevin Spacey (embarrassingly not normal at 15 years old).

It wasn’t until years later that I realized those were fanfictions (and NC-17 rated, too). In my defense, the Internet was still something very, very new at the time, and living in a small town in Italy did not give me access to fanzines or similar media. So being a fan for me mostly meant these things, and collecting pics from magazines, or watching and re-watching VHS while analyzing every expression my favorite characters wore, while sharing all of this with the people I had around.

It was only when I started reading the Harry Potter books, though, that I finally gave a name to the things I was doing: I joined a blog dedicated to this fandom where I could chat to no end with other people about our favorite ships and about my absolute conviction that Snape was Harry’s father. Only 4 books had been published at the time, so we spent a lot of time discussing theories and ideas.

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OTW Guest Post

OTW Guest Post: Blackestglass

James Kruk

From time to time, the OTW will be hosting guest posts on our OTW News accounts. These guests will be providing an outside perspective on the OTW or aspects of fandom where our projects may have a presence. The posts express each author’s personal views and do not necessarily reflect the views of the OTW or constitute OTW policy. We welcome suggestions from fans for future guest posts, which can be left as a comment here or by contacting us directly.

blackestglass is a podficcer, sometimes writer, and life-long fangirl. You can find her works at AO3 and chat with her on Tumblr and Twitter at blackestglass. Today, blackestglass talks about letting her inner performer shine, getting started with podfic, and the gift of the podfic community.

How did you first get into fandom and fanworks?

Sailor Moon was my very first fandom and at first it was a fandom of two–myself and my best friend. After an episode aired on Cartoon Network, we’d immediately be on the phone (landline because cellphones weren’t a thing yet) with each other to discuss what happened and how we felt about it. When my parents finally got a computer and Internet at home, I eventually discovered the sailormoon.com forums and various Sailor Moon fansites, where I was introduced to the idea of fanart and fanfic. It blew my tiny little preteen mind. I’ve never looked back since.

I was a lurker for years and yeeeeears. I thought I was an okay writer but not good enough to be writing fanfic, and I DEFINITELY couldn’t draw. And then for a period of time I was a fairly prolific reccer which was my main contribution to fandom. It wasn’t until I discovered podfic that I actually started getting involved creatively with fandom.

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