It's Not Jane Austen

We've been live for a month, and what a whirlwind it's been! Thank you SO MUCH to everyone who's supported the project so far. We genuinely could not get off the ground without this early support.

Since we launched, we've published some incredible writing:

Our launch post, explaining what Fansplaining: The Publication is all about.

Fansplaining editor @lincodega on the elements of The Pitt that make it ripe for fanfiction (as well as what journalists can't stop getting wrong about the Pitt fandom).

@morgan-leigh on Three Bags Full (first titled Glenkill in its original German), the beloved mystery novel that was the source for The Sheep Detectives film.

Soila Kenya on non-native English speakers reading and writing fanfiction in English, the language that has the most global "linguistic capital" in fandom.

@annejamison on the Good Omens series finale as a metatextual commentary about fandom and fanfiction—and one that gave the characters back to the fans.

@elizabethminkel on depictions of tech on television, and how we read these characters in light of our shifting feelings about real-life tech.

We've got so much more in the works, including:

Thai GL fandom

Conlang enthusiasts

Fandom stats as fanworks

Covering Game of Thrones

Negative comments vs bots on AO3

Homestuck's fanworks

Gay pirates

And, of course, @hellotailor recapping The Vampire Lestat over the next two months! ✨

If you like what we’ve been doing, please become a subscriber!

Subscriptions start at $7 a month/$70 a year. We also have a significant discount for students, educators, un/underemployed folks, etc. Email [email protected] and we'll be happy to share the code.

Our latest piece is live! The brilliant Soila Kenya writes about the dominance of English in fandom and especially fanfiction spaces, and why for her and the fellow fans she interviewed from Kenya, Nigeria, and Burundi, this is partly about the global dominance of English-language pop culture, but especially about the legacies of colonialism:

The deep psychological imprints of this language disparity remain. And therefore, when I encountered fanfiction, it didn’t even occur to me that there were fanfics written in any language but English, let alone Swahili or any of the 42 indigenous languages in Kenya.

Click through to read the whole piece or listen to a full audio version! And if you enjoy it, please consider becoming a (free) member or especially a paying subscriber—we want to commission more pieces from Soila and other smart writers and we need your help to pay them!

Our latest piece is live! The great @annejamison (who you might know as the author of Fic: Why Fanfiction is Taking Over the World) writes about the recent Good Omens finale as a sort of metatextual gesture to fans—and especially fanfiction:

And so, May 13th found me awake at 1 A.M., watching the series finale through bleary and teary eyes. Despite widespread sorrow at the glittering yet gutting conclusion for our heroes, 6,000+–year-old angel and demon Aziraphale and Crowley, I thought it was the most heartfelt and validating love letter to fanfiction I’ve seen come out of a commercial enterprise. Unfortunately, this message got tangled up with the show’s other unique ambitions: to save itself from its author—not Pratchett, the other one—and restore the Good Omens legacy to its fans.

Our latest piece is live! The great @annejamison (who you might know as the author of Fic: Why Fanfiction is Taking Over the World) writes about the recent Good Omens finale as a sort of metatextual gesture to fans—and especially fanfiction:

And so, May 13th found me awake at 1 A.M., watching the series finale through bleary and teary eyes. Despite widespread sorrow at the glittering yet gutting conclusion for our heroes, 6,000+–year-old angel and demon Aziraphale and Crowley, I thought it was the most heartfelt and validating love letter to fanfiction I’ve seen come out of a commercial enterprise. Unfortunately, this message got tangled up with the show’s other unique ambitions: to save itself from its author—not Pratchett, the other one—and restore the Good Omens legacy to its fans.

Our latest piece is live! The brilliant Soila Kenya writes about the dominance of English in fandom and especially fanfiction spaces, and why for her and the fellow fans she interviewed from Kenya, Nigeria, and Burundi, this is partly about the global dominance of English-language pop culture, but especially about the legacies of colonialism:

The deep psychological imprints of this language disparity remain. And therefore, when I encountered fanfiction, it didn’t even occur to me that there were fanfics written in any language but English, let alone Swahili or any of the 42 indigenous languages in Kenya.

Click through to read the whole piece or listen to a full audio version! And if you enjoy it, please consider becoming a (free) member or especially a paying subscriber—we want to commission more pieces from Soila and other smart writers and we need your help to pay them!

Soila was one of my favorite WorldCon panelists last year and here she's written a really thoughtful but also extremely enjoyable treatise on what can sometimes be the "cringe" effect of reading—let alone writing!—fics in your native tongue.

Our latest piece is live! The great @annejamison (who you might know as the author of Fic: Why Fanfiction is Taking Over the World) writes about the recent Good Omens finale as a sort of metatextual gesture to fans—and especially fanfiction:

And so, May 13th found me awake at 1 A.M., watching the series finale through bleary and teary eyes. Despite widespread sorrow at the glittering yet gutting conclusion for our heroes, 6,000+–year-old angel and demon Aziraphale and Crowley, I thought it was the most heartfelt and validating love letter to fanfiction I’ve seen come out of a commercial enterprise. Unfortunately, this message got tangled up with the show’s other unique ambitions: to save itself from its author—not Pratchett, the other one—and restore the Good Omens legacy to its fans.

With canon now a sprawling fanfic multiverse, there’s plenty to choose from. I hope that fandom, asking with Aziraphale, “Why give us Crowley only to take him away?” will make use of the many pens and blank books the series holds out and keep writing. Maybe the dropped threads of Good Omens’ hastily downsized third season will serve their fanfic purpose and inspire some new stories—in whatever universe the authors most like.

In our latest, @annejamison writes about the Good Omens series finale, and how the show's metatextual conclusion comments on transformative fandom—and gives these characters back to the fans.

With canon now a sprawling fanfic multiverse, there’s plenty to choose from. I hope that fandom, asking with Aziraphale, “Why give us Crowley only to take him away?” will make use of the many pens and blank books the series holds out and keep writing. Maybe the dropped threads of Good Omens’ hastily downsized third season will serve their fanfic purpose and inspire some new stories—in whatever universe the authors most like.

In our latest, @annejamison writes about the Good Omens series finale, and how the show's metatextual conclusion comments on transformative fandom—and gives these characters back to the fans.

Our latest piece is live! The great @annejamison (who you might know as the author of Fic: Why Fanfiction is Taking Over the World) writes about the recent Good Omens finale as a sort of metatextual gesture to fans—and especially fanfiction:

And so, May 13th found me awake at 1 A.M., watching the series finale through bleary and teary eyes. Despite widespread sorrow at the glittering yet gutting conclusion for our heroes, 6,000+–year-old angel and demon Aziraphale and Crowley, I thought it was the most heartfelt and validating love letter to fanfiction I’ve seen come out of a commercial enterprise. Unfortunately, this message got tangled up with the show’s other unique ambitions: to save itself from its author—not Pratchett, the other one—and restore the Good Omens legacy to its fans.

Our latest piece is live! The great @annejamison (who you might know as the author of Fic: Why Fanfiction is Taking Over the World) writes about the recent Good Omens finale as a sort of metatextual gesture to fans—and especially fanfiction:

And so, May 13th found me awake at 1 A.M., watching the series finale through bleary and teary eyes. Despite widespread sorrow at the glittering yet gutting conclusion for our heroes, 6,000+–year-old angel and demon Aziraphale and Crowley, I thought it was the most heartfelt and validating love letter to fanfiction I’ve seen come out of a commercial enterprise. Unfortunately, this message got tangled up with the show’s other unique ambitions: to save itself from its author—not Pratchett, the other one—and restore the Good Omens legacy to its fans.

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