7
BOOKS
The Art of Fanfiction by Izzy Millen
I’ve been a fanfiction devotee since I was a teenager. After a friend introduced me to this magical, world-expanding universe, I’ve been obsessed. I’d consume as much as possible on the bus to and from college every day (easy to read loads if your bus ride is an hour) and when I got a bit braver, started uploading my own oneshots onto popular sites, interacting with other writers, and obsessing over their work. Fanfiction gets unfairly dunked on and always has been. I remember being told it wasn’t a “proper” form of literature, it didn’t allow itself for creativity, it was lazy because you’re “stealing” authors’ original characters and settings to make something of your own. Although I think these concerns do have an element of validity to them, it’s near impossible for any writer to develop without dabbling in fanfiction at some point. Afterall, isn’t Paradise Lost just a fanfiction of The Fall of Man from the Bible in poetical form? And The Faerie Queene a retelling of the end of Virgil’s Aeneid?
If I hadn’t had fanfiction, I definitely wouldn’t have been as skilled at writing as I am today. I know I am no bestselling writer, and I won’t make a career out of writing my silly little drabbles. But fanfiction, with its preconstructed elements and characters that already exist, create the perfect ground for writers to practise. It is not lazy, you are creating new scenarios, moving aspects of characters and coming up with original scenarios. You fill out missing scenes, letting your imagination guide you into forming something creative which requires just as much work as writing. Because isn’t creating anything valuable
It gave me the groundwork to write, but also helped me spot lazy tropes and learn not to use them. It helped me think about alternative endings and how to fill in the gaps. It helped me develop my imagination and my skills in a space of community. Fanfiction is its own artform – inherently valuable, requiring skill, and bringing people together.
Photo: Unsplash
“this magical, worldexpanding universe”
Sapphic Book Recommendations by Amy Crawford
As someone looking to read about queer women, it’s easy to assume there is a lack of sapphic books on the market. Even worse, you may be convinced the books that are out there are poorly written, depressing or a horrible, soul-crushing combination of the two. Don’t allow yourself to be swept up in this discourse and miss out on the incredible - often own voice - wlw literature out there because of misconceptions about sapphic literature as a whole. Here are three recommendations of brilliantly written books by queer women about queer women.
1. The Color Purple Fair warning- this book covers extremely disturbing content, particularly in terms of sexual violence and racism. Alice Walker’s award-winning epistolary novel immerses us in the life of Celie,
an African American teenager living in rural Georgia in the early 1900s who is surrounded by men who abuse her. We watch her world shift as she finds women who refuse to submit to this abuse and fight for their happiness. One of these women is Shug, whose love for Celie is central to the development of Celie’s own self-worth as she becomes a queer Black woman in a world which seeks only to erase her.
2. Disobedience Disobedience focusses jointly on Jewish doctrine and the lives of the two women navigating life in a close-knit Orthodox Jewish community after the death of their Rabbi. The two women have very differing relationships with the doctrine and how it impacts on expression or concealment of their sexualities. Ronit is disobedience personified,
itching to provoke, while Esti chooses a path of compromise and continued sacrifice. Both are valid and insightful approaches to life that Naomi Alderman navigates with sensitivity.
3. Fingersmith If you are looking for a mind-blowing book, Fingersmith by Sarah Waters certainly fits the bill. It’s Dickensian in style and is full of plot twists without coming across as contrived. This dark and twisting narrative about orphans and thieves, gentlewomen and deception, is underlined by the budding romance between Sue and Maud which, despite the richly imagined chaos around them, seems unshakeable.
