Fanfiction is new to me.  I didn't read any until I was an adult who already had a PhD, and I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of writing and the atmosphere communal support I saw there.  People who write fanfiction have no fear, and so underneath all the fluff I found a culture of experimentation I haven't seen in traditionally published fiction.  I was inspired, and I felt like some trends in fanfiction were not being addressed by academic writing.  There was little about really dark fanfiction and even less about manga fics.

So I wrote an article.  And it got published.  You can read my article about Fullmetal Alchemist fanfiction published by Transformative Works and Cultures here.

Be warned, I'm talking about torture in manga and fanfiction, so it's pretty violent.

National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) is upon us again, dear writers.  It’s a fantastic event that has permanently welded together my love of fall (warm coffee, muffins, and all things squash) to my love of intense creative output.  NaNoWriMo challenges writers to write The challenge is to write 50,000 words in 30 days.  But even if you don’t have novel bursting forth from your… chest or whatnot—you can still participate in spirit.  Last year I wrote an academic article in November instead of something fictional, but it was still intense and I used NaNoWriMo’s encouragement to get me through.