FanFic goes mainstream in the WSJ
Today's Wall Street Journal, Pursuits section, p.1, lead article is "Rewriting the Rules of Fiction" a biggie article about fan fiction and the crowd at LJ and My Space. Its hook is 'discovering' the best authors amid the clumsy wannabes, but I cannot find the article online for a link. The WSJ site just offers an outtake sort of article focusing on video. Sorry, but the WSJ is so smirky and entrepreneurial about the subject; they are so out there! They picked these authors as the best:
1. Harry Potter: 'shoebox'
2. Pride & Prejudice: 'Aidan' for exerpt (this author got a 150G advance and is publishing hard copy),
3. The L Word 'ErvinV' (winner of a Showtime fanfic challenge! They never bothered for QAF.) This 35 year old guy (mgr. of a comic book store outside Philadelphia called Fat Jakes Comicrypt) was the only male of seven challenge winners, so of course the WSJ profiles him.
4. House 'mer_duff'
5. LOTR 'Cassandra Claire'
6. Lost 'eponine119'
7. 24 'rane'
8. Grey's Anatomy 'gravedancer'
9. Batman 'Lucy Gilliam'
"Shippers" is defined as coming from 'relationship'... (odd, I'd always assumed 'worshipper'). The stigma of "slash" is why fanfiction has kept the mainstream wary of fanfiction, at least until recently. And so on. It's an odd article; I'd be interested in other readers' impressions.