Saturday, November 1st @ 8:00 p.m.
Readers – Ben Ferber and Kasey Lee Huizinga
Director – Blaze Ferrer
Fanfiction is, essentially, when someone takes the story, characters, and universes created by another author—or authors—and writes their own story using some or all of those elements. Usually it’s unauthorized and unpublished. Often it’s unwelcome in the eyes of the original author. (Said Orson Scott Card, “Writers should not waste their time or talent trying to tell stories in someone else’s universe.”) Sometimes it’s pornographic and/or features author-inserts and wish-fulfillment.
Is fanfiction legal? Sometimes, yes.
Is fanfiction ever good? Rarely, yes.
Can fanfiction be literature?
Under the direction of Blaze Ferrer, Ben Ferber and Kasey Lee Huizinga will read some of the most famous—and infamous—fanfics. They openly ask: “Is this a literary experience? Or an a-literary experience?” Please tell us. We don’t know. We think maybe not?
Featuring work from the worlds of Harry Potter, Sherlock Holmes, H.P. Lovecraft, 1100s Central Asian history, and Supernatural by authors including Neil Gaiman, Tara “XXXbloodyrists666XXX” Gilesbie, John Takis, Douglas Adams, and, perhaps, a story secretly written by S.E. Hinton under a pseudonym.