Here’s a roundup of stories about fan fiction that might be of interest to fans:
- In Isn’t It All Fanfic? Carljoe Javier (author of And the Geek Shall Inherit the Earth) thinks about fan fiction’s place in the study of literature and concludes, “It is not for Fan Fiction to find a way to be elevated to the status of Literature with the capital L. Rather, it’s for us, who write, read, and engage in literature, to realize that all writing is in its essence fan fiction.” His presentation was part of a panel discussion on “The Fan Fiction Genre,” the recording of which is available online.
- Book editor Jessica Dall also looks at this intersection in I Can’t Believe It’s Not Fanfic where she discusses fanfic that has had its serial numbers filed off. “Often times the authors realize that their stories come from these sources as fanfics of sorts (or at least admit to having been heavily inspired by X work) but still it seems many, many I Can’t Believe It’s Not Fanfics still find their way out into the publishing world – as true fanfics (hopefully) never would – and stumble across acquisitions desks all over.”
- However, some of that fan fiction still gets the author published. Digital publishers Say Books decided to publish the original fiction of a Castle fanfic writer that the editor stumbled upon through Twitter. “Fanfic sits at the margins of mainstream creative endeavour, and interrogates established views of what it means to be a writer; the meaning of intellectual property, creativity, originality, ‘ownership’, boundaries, and the nature of ‘public’. Of course, as a publishing person and daughter of an artist, I have an uneasy relationship with how fanfic steps on these well-established fences, but am fascinated too.”
- HowItShouldHaveEnded.com’s Tina Alexander was interviewed about the site’s animated video fanfic. “We launched the website in July of 2005 and making the cartoons was just a hobby for us and a way for Daniel Baxter (the artist/animator) to dabble in some programs and produce something. The response we got encouraged us to make more. To date we’ve created 60 ‘How It Should Have Ended’ cartoons.” They are now partnered with Starz and plan lots more production in 2012. “We have every intention of doing ‘Hunger Games’ (which is highly requested) even though it makes us really nervous! We also foresee a heavy superhero summer with all the ‘Avengers’ and ‘Batman’ action hitting theaters.”
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