Media References to Fanfic, the week ending 12/29/12

Natania Barron shared gripes about The Hobbit with the readers of Wired’s GeekMom, but added I liked it in the same guilt-inducing way that I might really like good fan fiction.

Daily Dot’s Aja Romano wrote about Yuletide 2012.

For “2012: Year of the Pony” for WTVY’s website, Sean Sporman wrote Many fans within the community create their own art: fan fiction, drawings, plushies, and even original music and animation.

The Guardian’s Rosanna Greenstreet interviewed Fifty Shades’s E. J. James, who, when asked who she’d invite to her dream dinner party, answered My fanfiction friends from around the world.

Also regarding Fifty Shades, The Canadian Press’s Victoria Ahearn wrote the series that began as online fan fiction got a boost from “mommy bloggers” who spread the word, says [Kobo Merchandising Director Nathan] Maharaj. E! Online’s Becky Lang wrote amidst the fall of print, the nation came together around the product of a critically ignored genre—fan fiction—and proved that a self-published book can make an unknown author rich as a Romney. And, from Edward Nawotka in The Dallas Morning News (and picked up by Associated Press): Through James' books and how she wrote them, the general public was educated in the worlds of romance/erotica, start-up publishing and "fan fiction."

VH1’s Halle Kiefer noted if the fact MTV’s Teen Wolf fan fiction contest received over 10,000 entries in 10 days is any indication, 2012 might be the last year anyone ever furrowed their brow and asked, “Shipping? I usually go with FedEx."

A Petaluma 360 roundup of local authors included a profile of Shelby J. Hotz, whose first major endeavor was a 17-chapter fan fiction book, a sequel to one of her favorite movies.

In a piece about words that he’d like to see disappear, Birmingham News’s Madison Underwood wrote These words need to be treated like a weird childhood hobby (clogging, for instance) or, perhaps, like that LiveJournal you wrote as an angst-filled teenager when you were really into Harry Potter fan fiction.

In Ars Technica, Cyrus Farivar wrote From a cultural standpoint, people want to put music on more devices than they do e-books, and some will want to remix that music. Aside from zombie crossover fanfic, few outside the ivory tower are interested in remixing the written word.

Finally, from The New York Times’s Comedy Listings: Competitive Erotic Fan Fiction (Sunday) The Los Angeles-based show built around fanboy literary endeavors comes to New York. The actor and writer Dave Hill leads the lineup of comics who will improvise and perform fan-fiction pieces. Yup, ‘fanboy.’