that tired fanfiction debate
So this blog is supposed to be about publishing and fandom, and so far I haven't done so well on the fandom side of things. Today I was lamenting the loss of Metafandom, a relic of the days pre-Tumblr when conversations could be broadly participated in more easily. The archives are still something to behold, including a wonderful tag on--authors, take note--prowriting.
Skimming through the links, I was reminded of the "pro-authors vs fan-authors" conflict that comes to a head every year or two, and the particularly poignant articles that some authors (of both kinds) had written about the latest (at the time in 2010) such kerfuffle. This wasn't just "those fanfic writers" getting their heads in a tizzy; plenty of established authors like Catherine Valente wrote in defense of fanfiction.
It's a shame that this argument comes around and around but the general public--and even "pro-authorship" at large--never seem to get the memo. Fanfiction is not a lesser form of writing, fanfiction is not morally reprehensible, and fanfiction is certainly not a crime. If you have fans who love your work enough to want to write their own stories about it, then that's not something wrong--that means you're doing it right. And I wish the publishing world could see that.