Fic: Why Fanfiction Is Taking Over the World

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BenBella Books, Inc., Nov 26, 2013 - Literary Criticism - 304 pages
What is fanfiction, and what is it not? Why does fanfiction matter? And what makes it so important to the future of literature?

Fic is a groundbreaking exploration of the history and culture of fan writing and what it means for the way we think about reading, writing, and authorship. It's a story about literature, community, and technology—about what stories are being told, who's telling them, how, and why.

With provocative discussions from both professional and fan writers, on subjects from Star Trek to The X-Files and Buffy the Vampire Slayer to Harry Potter, Twilight, and beyond, Fic sheds light on the widely misunderstood world(s) of fanfiction—not only how fanfiction is transforming the literary landscape, but how it already has.

Fic features a foreword by Lev Grossman (author of The Magicians) and interviews with Jonathan Lethem, Doug Wright, Eurydice (Vivean Dean), and Katie Forsythe/wordstrings.

Cyndy Aleo (algonquinrt; d0tpark3r)
V. Arrow (aimmyarrowshigh)
Tish Beaty (his_tweet)
Brad Bell
Amber Benson
Peter Berg (Homfrog)
Kristina Busse
Rachel Caine
Francesca Coppa
Randi Flanagan (BellaFlan)
Jolie Fontenot
Wendy C. Fries (Atlin Merrick)
Ron Hogan
Bethan Jones
Christina Lauren (Christina Hobbs/tby789 and Lauren Billings/LolaShoes)
Jacqueline Lichtenberg
Rukmini Pande and Samira Nadkarni
Chris Rankin
Tiffany Reisz
Andrew Shaffer
Andy Sawyer
Heidi Tandy (Heidi8)
Darren Wershler
Jules Wilkinson (missyjack)
Jen Zern (NautiBitz)
 

Contents

20092010
205
On Writingand Beinga Mary Sue
207
Becoming Bella Swan
212
The Fandom Gives Back
220
A Fandom Exchange
224
An Anatomy of a Flame War
232
Bittersweet
253
FIC AND PUBLISHING
259

Mad as a Box of Frogs
48
Love Is a Much More Vicious Motivator
54
The Slasher Who Is Not OneAn Interview with Katie Forsytheand wordstrings
63
A SELECTIVE HISTORYOF MEDIA FANDOM
71
Science Fiction Star Trek andthe Birth of Media Fandom
73
Fables of Irish Fandom
77
I Am Woman Read My Fic
84
Recollections of a Collating Party
91
1970s
100
Growing Up Fic
103
Literary Playtime
106
The XFiles Buffyand the Rise of the InternetFic Fandoms
111
The XPhiles
118
MulderScully versus the GWomanand the Fowl One
122
1995
130
The Bronze Age
131
Higher Education throughFanfiction
140
1999
149
Harry Potterand Twilight
151
An Excerpt from Percy WeasleysUniversity Thesis
157
How Harry Potter Fanfic Changedthe World or at Least the Internet
165
20012002
175
The Twilight Fandom
177
Twilights True Believers
188
A Million Words
193
An Interview with tby789Christina Hobbs
199
An Interview with EurydiceVivien Dean
263
Fifty Shades of Gold
268
The Briar Patch
274
Just Change the Names
289
Preying for More
293
FANWRITING TODAY
299
An Archive of Our Own
302
The Epic Love Story of Supernaturaland Fanfic
309
Pon Farr Mpreg Bonds and theRise of the Omegaverse
316
Real Persona Fiction
323
BradamForever
333
Hobbyhorsing
337
From a Land Where OtherPeople Live
344
2013
353
FANFICTION AND WRITERS WHODONT WRITE FANFICTION
355
Conceptual Writing as Fanfiction
363
An Interview with Doug Wright
372
An Interview with Jonathan Lethem
377
Blurring the Lines
384
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
389
ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORS
391
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
397
ENDNOTES
398
Index
409
Copyright

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About the author (2013)

Anne Jamison is associate professor of English at the University of Utah, where she teaches and writes about literature and culture from the 18th century to the present. She holds a PhD in Comparative Literature from Princeton and is the author of Poetics en passant (Palgrave, 2009), the forthcoming Kafka's Other Prague, and a variety of essays and articles—as well as a blog about teaching fanfiction, and a lot of tweets. Her work on fanfiction has been quoted in publications from The New York Review of Books to The Wall Street Journal to Entertainment Weekly's Popwatch. She lives happily in Salt Lake City in a house full of children, basset hounds, and an avant-garde poet. And yes, of course she's written fic.

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