Latest news with #publishing
Fast Company
13 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Fast Company
Namrata Tripathi has mastered the ‘power sari'
'Hybridity has always been central to who I am,' says Namrata Tripathi, the founder and publisher of Kokila, an imprint at Penguin Random House for children and young adults that highlights voices historically marginalized by publishing. Being Odia and Punjabi Sikh, Ms. Tripathi grew up in an Indian home that blended two distinct aesthetics, cultures, religions, and languages. Because her parents were both diplomats for India, her family also moved frequently. She was born in Moscow, but she then lived in Afghanistan, India, Canada, Pakistan, Germany, and Poland before moving to New York to attend university. 'I think of myself very much as a professional alien,' she says. 'And I think the power in that is in adapting to my environment, but never erasing myself.' When she first entered the American corporate world, she observed what clothing was deemed appropriate, but she always questioned what power and leadership look like. For her, the answer involves the sari, which she saw her mother wear to work every day when she was growing up. 'I thought: One day I'm going to do that. And then I thought: Well, what day am I waiting for? ' Around 10 years ago, she felt confident enough to start wearing 'power saris,' as her colleagues now refer to them, to the office for big meetings, and then more regularly. Previously, she'd only worn saris to formal work events, such as the National Book Awards and galas, 'because they are beautiful, and I was excited to wear them.' Sometimes, she'd wear saris her mother passed down to her, and she was often the only person in the room wearing non-Western clothing. One time, when she wore a churidar kurta, which consists of a tunic and trousers that bunch at the bottom, a well-intentioned colleague pulled her aside to tell her that her pants were too long. 'At first, I did it to connect with my mother and her mother, whose saris I also sometimes wear, but over time, I saw how it influenced other people, too,' she says. 'I had young people from various cultural backgrounds in the company comment on the pieces I'd worn, and I realized how impactful it had been to them, and how it reinforced the idea that the body is political. I'm interested in a different kind of leadership, and this is a way to show it. I like that it sends a message to people who aren't often in the room that I'm trying to bring them into it.' Describe your style in a sentence. Mera joota hai Japani, yeh patloon Englistani, sar pe lal topi Russi, phir bhi dil hai Hindustani. What's the one piece in your closet you'll never get rid of? An oversized white button-down because I've always loved menswear. How long does it take you to get dressed in the morning? Tying a sari takes me about two minutes. Managing my hair can be . . . a process. What do you wear to a big meeting? Always a sari. (A 'power sari' if you ask my team.) What's the best piece of fashion advice you've ever gotten? Don't ever try to hide yourself. The early-rate deadline for Fast Company's Most Innovative Companies Awards is Friday, September 5, at 11:59 p.m. PT. Apply today.
Yahoo
17 hours ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Atari enters into an agreement to invest in Thunderful Group AB
Atari enters into an agreement to invest in Thunderful Group AB PARIS, FRANCE (July 29, 2025 - 8.00 am CET) - Atari® (Euronext Growth Paris: ALATA) — one of the world's most iconic consumer brands and interactive entertainment producers — today announces it has entered into a subscription agreement with Thunderful Group AB ('Thunderful', or 'the Company') to participate in a directed share issue of SEK 50.0 million (approximately 4.5 million euros). Thunderful is listed on Nasdaq First North Premier Growth Market in Sweden (ticker: THUNDR), and specialized in game development, third‑party publishing, and co-development services for PC and console platforms. Thunderful encompasses a global games publishing business, five game studios with various creative and technological expertise, and a services business. The Company owns a portfolio of over 20 intellectual properties including SteamWorld, ISLANDERS, Lost in Random, and Vampire's Fall, notably. Wade Rosen, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Atari, SA commented: 'This Transaction marks another important milestone in Atari's development with the expansion of its publishing and development capabilities in the European region. Thunderful is recognized for publishing and developing critically acclaimed games, and with the announced transformation plan, as well as the quality and commitment of Thunderful's teams, we are confident that Thunderful will be returning to a profitable growth path while helping to further develop Atari operations in Europe.' Transaction summaryUnder the terms of the subscription agreement, Atari will become the owner of approximately 82% of the outstanding shares and votes of Thunderful by way of a directed issuance of 333,333,334 new ordinary shares1 at a subscription price of SEK 0.15, corresponding to a total amount of SEK 50 million (approximately €4.5 million) (the 'Transaction'). The Transaction is subject to approval by Thunderful's shareholders at an extraordinary general meeting (the 'EGM') which will be held on or about August 28, 2025 (the 'EGM'). The Transaction has received unanimous support from Thunderful's Board of Directors, as well as from two of Thunderful's existing largest shareholders, Owe Bergsten and Brjann Sigurgeirsson, who together own 29.9% of the capital and voting rights in the Company. Owe Bergsten and Brjann Sigurgeirsson have irrevocably committed to vote in favor at the EGM of all the proposals and resolutions by the Board of Directors of the Company relating to the Transaction. To enable Atari to complete the Transaction without being required to make a mandatory bid offer for theremaining shares in the Company under Swedish takeover rules, the Swedish Securities Council ( has granted Atari an exemption. If approved, the Transaction will be financed either with Atari's own resources or with a potential new loan agreement with IRATA LLC, the holding Company of Wade Rosen, Chairman and CEO of Atari, SA. About Thunderful Group ABThunderful Group AB, listed on Nasdaq First North Premier Growth Market in Stockholm, Sweden (ticker: THUNDR) focuses on the publishing and development of high-quality digital games primarily for PC and console platforms. Headquartered in Gothenburg, Sweden, Thunderful spans a significant portion of the game industry value chain through its two main operating segments: Publishing and Co-Development & Services. For the fiscal year ending December 31st, 2024, the Company reported revenues of SEK292 M (approximately €25M). Thunderful encompasses a global games publishing business, five game studios with various creative and technological expertise, and a services business. The Company owns a portfolio of over 20 intellectual properties including SteamWorld, ISLANDERS, Lost in Random, and Vampire's Fall, notably. Thunderful has also announced today a restructuring plan aiming at reorganizing its publishing and development operations, in view of reducing its cost base and improving operating cash flow. About ATARI Atari is an interactive entertainment company and an iconic gaming industry brand that transcends generations and audiences. The company is globally recognized for its multi-platform, interactive entertainment and licensed products. Atari owns and/or manages a portfolio of more than 400 unique games and franchises, including world-renowned brands like Asteroids®, Centipede®, Missile Command®, Pong®, and RollerCoaster Tycoon®. Atari has offices in New York and Paris. Visit us online at Atari shares are listed in France on Euronext Growth Paris (ISIN Code FR0010478248, Ticker ALATA) and OTC Pink Current (Ticker PONGF). ©2025 Atari Interactive, Inc. Atari wordmark and logo are trademarks owned by Atari Interactive, Inc. Contacts Atari - Investor RelationsTel +33 1 83 64 61 57 - investisseur@ | Actus - Marie CalleuxTel +33 1 53 65 68 68 – atari@ Listing Sponsor - Euroland CorporateTel +33 1 44 70 20 84 - Julia Bridger - jbridger@ DISCLAIMERThis press release contains certain non-factual elements, including but not restricted to certain statements concerning its future results and other future events. These statements are based on the current vision and assumptions of Atari's leadership team. They include various known and unknown uncertainties and risks that could result in material differences in relation to the expected results, profitability and events. In addition, Atari, its shareholders and its respective affiliates, directors, executives, advisors and employees have not checked the accuracy of and make no representations or warranties concerning the statistical or forward-looking information contained in this press release that is taken from or derived from third-party sources or industry publications. If applicable, these statistical data and forward-looking information are used in this press release exclusively for information.1 Thunderful Group AB capital is composed as of June 30th, 2025 of 74,532,894 ordinary shares and voting rightsAttachment Atari - Agreement to invest in Thunderful GroupError in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Yahoo
18 hours ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Atari enters into an agreement to invest in Thunderful Group AB
Atari enters into an agreement to invest in Thunderful Group AB PARIS, FRANCE (July 29, 2025 - 8.00 am CET) - Atari® (Euronext Growth Paris: ALATA) — one of the world's most iconic consumer brands and interactive entertainment producers — today announces it has entered into a subscription agreement with Thunderful Group AB ('Thunderful', or 'the Company') to participate in a directed share issue of SEK 50.0 million (approximately 4.5 million euros). Thunderful is listed on Nasdaq First North Premier Growth Market in Sweden (ticker: THUNDR), and specialized in game development, third‑party publishing, and co-development services for PC and console platforms. Thunderful encompasses a global games publishing business, five game studios with various creative and technological expertise, and a services business. The Company owns a portfolio of over 20 intellectual properties including SteamWorld, ISLANDERS, Lost in Random, and Vampire's Fall, notably. Wade Rosen, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Atari, SA commented: 'This Transaction marks another important milestone in Atari's development with the expansion of its publishing and development capabilities in the European region. Thunderful is recognized for publishing and developing critically acclaimed games, and with the announced transformation plan, as well as the quality and commitment of Thunderful's teams, we are confident that Thunderful will be returning to a profitable growth path while helping to further develop Atari operations in Europe.' Transaction summaryUnder the terms of the subscription agreement, Atari will become the owner of approximately 82% of the outstanding shares and votes of Thunderful by way of a directed issuance of 333,333,334 new ordinary shares1 at a subscription price of SEK 0.15, corresponding to a total amount of SEK 50 million (approximately €4.5 million) (the 'Transaction'). The Transaction is subject to approval by Thunderful's shareholders at an extraordinary general meeting (the 'EGM') which will be held on or about August 28, 2025 (the 'EGM'). The Transaction has received unanimous support from Thunderful's Board of Directors, as well as from two of Thunderful's existing largest shareholders, Owe Bergsten and Brjann Sigurgeirsson, who together own 29.9% of the capital and voting rights in the Company. Owe Bergsten and Brjann Sigurgeirsson have irrevocably committed to vote in favor at the EGM of all the proposals and resolutions by the Board of Directors of the Company relating to the Transaction. To enable Atari to complete the Transaction without being required to make a mandatory bid offer for theremaining shares in the Company under Swedish takeover rules, the Swedish Securities Council ( has granted Atari an exemption. If approved, the Transaction will be financed either with Atari's own resources or with a potential new loan agreement with IRATA LLC, the holding Company of Wade Rosen, Chairman and CEO of Atari, SA. About Thunderful Group ABThunderful Group AB, listed on Nasdaq First North Premier Growth Market in Stockholm, Sweden (ticker: THUNDR) focuses on the publishing and development of high-quality digital games primarily for PC and console platforms. Headquartered in Gothenburg, Sweden, Thunderful spans a significant portion of the game industry value chain through its two main operating segments: Publishing and Co-Development & Services. For the fiscal year ending December 31st, 2024, the Company reported revenues of SEK292 M (approximately €25M). Thunderful encompasses a global games publishing business, five game studios with various creative and technological expertise, and a services business. The Company owns a portfolio of over 20 intellectual properties including SteamWorld, ISLANDERS, Lost in Random, and Vampire's Fall, notably. Thunderful has also announced today a restructuring plan aiming at reorganizing its publishing and development operations, in view of reducing its cost base and improving operating cash flow. About ATARI Atari is an interactive entertainment company and an iconic gaming industry brand that transcends generations and audiences. The company is globally recognized for its multi-platform, interactive entertainment and licensed products. Atari owns and/or manages a portfolio of more than 400 unique games and franchises, including world-renowned brands like Asteroids®, Centipede®, Missile Command®, Pong®, and RollerCoaster Tycoon®. Atari has offices in New York and Paris. Visit us online at Atari shares are listed in France on Euronext Growth Paris (ISIN Code FR0010478248, Ticker ALATA) and OTC Pink Current (Ticker PONGF). ©2025 Atari Interactive, Inc. Atari wordmark and logo are trademarks owned by Atari Interactive, Inc. Contacts Atari - Investor RelationsTel +33 1 83 64 61 57 - investisseur@ | Actus - Marie CalleuxTel +33 1 53 65 68 68 – atari@ Listing Sponsor - Euroland CorporateTel +33 1 44 70 20 84 - Julia Bridger - jbridger@ DISCLAIMERThis press release contains certain non-factual elements, including but not restricted to certain statements concerning its future results and other future events. These statements are based on the current vision and assumptions of Atari's leadership team. They include various known and unknown uncertainties and risks that could result in material differences in relation to the expected results, profitability and events. In addition, Atari, its shareholders and its respective affiliates, directors, executives, advisors and employees have not checked the accuracy of and make no representations or warranties concerning the statistical or forward-looking information contained in this press release that is taken from or derived from third-party sources or industry publications. If applicable, these statistical data and forward-looking information are used in this press release exclusively for information.1 Thunderful Group AB capital is composed as of June 30th, 2025 of 74,532,894 ordinary shares and voting rightsAttachment Atari - Agreement to invest in Thunderful Group
The Guardian
a day ago
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Writing is all about discipline, love, luck and endurance – and I sure know about endurance
'If I wrote another book, who would read it?' I lamented. 'I would!' enthused my brother, perhaps echoing Kurt Vonnegut's remark, 'Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.' Over the years, commercial publishers had reliably dampened my enthusiasm by teaching me to ask two questions as soon as even the idea of another book crossed my mind. Who will sell my book? Who will read my book? But my brother's fireproof confidence in me fuelled me to pen a proposal that successfully wound its way through acquisitions until a contract landed in my inbox. Overnight, the dream of writing another book was replaced with the dread of producing said book – a guide to writing engaging opinion and advocacy columns mixed with a personal account of being a physician exposed to a great variety of experiences. Being a columnist had made me more observant, deepened my appreciation of medicine and honed my understanding of why every word we say (or write) matters. When I began to teach writing classes, I wanted to democratise what I knew. Then, George Orwell made me quail. In his famous essay, he accused writers of being motivated by 'sheer egoism', calling them 'more vain and self-centred than journalists, although less interested in money'. Ouch. At least the last bit was true, although not by choice. As I wrangled with the ego issue, the wonderful Annie Dillard rescued me with her prescient writing from back when I was a teenager. 'The impulse to keep to yourself what you have learned is not only shameful, it is destructive. Anything you do not give freely and abundantly becomes lost to you. You open your safe and find ashes.' She knew my reason to write. High principles aside, it was on to the next two unglamorous years, starting with a blank document and progressing page by page, draft by draft. How I found the time is how every writer I know finds the time – by squeezing it from elsewhere. I still haven't watched Breaking Bad and only finished Succession when news of the final episode was everywhere. Patient care came first. My notional 'writing day' was inevitably taken up by the exigencies of family life, leaving spare nights and weekends to write. Being a writer is heady but doing the writing is painful. This got me wondering about how the writers I admired were so expert and fluent. What innate talent did they possess that I lacked? Enter James Baldwin with his no-nonsense counsel. 'I know a lot of talented ruins. Beyond talent lie all the usual words: discipline, love, luck, but most of all, endurance.' Now, there was a word I recognised from 15 years of medical training: endurance. The next two years of conversations went like this: 'I thought you said you finished your book.' 'That was just the last draft.' Having exhausted the generosity of the people who read my (numerous) drafts and nurtured my spirits, and feeling no more 'done', I ventured to AI for inspiration and distraction. It produced some nice suggestions but when it rewrote my manuscript, I found it stiff, formal and, frankly, dishonest. The truth was that I loved the act of rearranging the same 26 letters in so many ways and was in no rush to wrap up the book. On days that I lost a patient or made a patient cry over bad news, I couldn't wait to escape to my perennially unfinished manuscript to calm my mind. Oliver Sacks knew exactly how I felt when he called the act of writing an indispensable form of talking to himself. My explicit permission to dawdle came from Joan Didion. 'Had I been blessed with even limited access to my own mind there would have been no reason to write. I write entirely to find out what I'm thinking, what I'm looking at, what I see and what it means.' Maybe, Orwell was right after all. Nearing the end of his life and suffering from oesophageal cancer, Christopher Hitchens remarked that an awareness of mortality was useful for a writer because it helped one avoid the fear of public opinion, sales, critics, or for that matter, friends. What timely words to strengthen my resolve to publish the work I could no longer stand to read! At this point, dare I imagine my ideal reader? As if eavesdropping on my thoughts, Joyce Carol Oates warned against it. 'He/she may be reading someone else.' Touché. Then, just after I had hit 'send', Annie Dillard swung back into my life with a vengeance. 'Assume you write for an audience consisting solely of terminal patients … What could you say to a dying person that would not enrage by its triviality?' Gulp. I would be the first to say my terminally ill patients have better things to do than read my book. After all, what food for thought could I possibly offer to compete with the contemplation of mortality? My book is out today. In an unexpected gesture, one of my terminally ill patients pre-ordered it so he could tell me in clinic that he looks forward to reading it. But, he added, beaming from ear to ear, if he doesn't get to finish it, he will leave it to his granddaughter who wants to be a doctor and a writer. This kind of generosity really does feel like sufficient reward. Ranjana Srivastava is an Australian oncologist, award-winning author and Fulbright scholar. Her latest book is called Every Word Matters: Writing to Engage the Public
Washington Post
a day ago
- Entertainment
- Washington Post
Fan fiction is everywhere, if you know how to look
When Christina Hobbs and Lauren Billings began pitching literary agents 15 years ago, they kept their interest in fan fiction a secret. Known by their combined pen name, Christina Lauren, the best-selling romance duo met through their shared love of Twilight fan fiction. At the time, Billings says, coming from fandom 'was much more of a black mark on you' if you wanted to break into mainstream publishing. This was just before 'Fifty Shades of Grey' — a novel that began as a rewriting of 'Twilight' — became a global publishing phenomenon. Now, Hobbs and Billings work in a publishing industry with a vastly different attitude: one far more receptive to authors who got their start writing unauthorized works online for other fans, based on previously existing characters and worlds. Fan fiction's ascendance comes as entertainment and media companies are turning to established intellectual property to shore up the eroding economics of their industries. It also helps that many of the decision-makers grew up online, with active accounts on Wattpad, Tumblr and other fan-fiction-friendly platforms. Agents directly solicit writers of popular fan-made works, and new books proudly advertise their 'fic' roots. Fan fiction didn't invent tropes like 'only one bed' or 'friends to lovers,' but fic websites popularized tagging and searching through them, and these categories have become a mainstay of promoting genre fiction of all kinds. The interest of many readers, meanwhile, has caught up with what fic writers, often women and queer people, have been up to all along: Joyful same-sex romances and stories told with the immediacy of first-person present tense, for example, now fill bookstore shelves. If you know how to look, fan fiction is everywhere, often climbing the bestseller lists and sometimes collecting awards. Percival Everett's novel 'James,' which won the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award for fiction, is basically 'Huckleberry Finn' fan fiction. (The Pulitzers seem to be especially fond of this approach: Barbara Kingsolver's 'Demon Copperhead' reimagines 'David Copperfield,' and Geraldine Brooks's 'March' finds its story in the hollows and silences of 'Little Women.') Madeline Miller's 'The Song of Achilles' reworks 'The Iliad' with more explicit gay sex, a familiar approach for fan fic writers, who have long loved to pair up male characters with chemistry either implied or imagined. 'Rodham,' Curtis Sittenfeld's novel about an alternate history where Hillary Rodham never married Bill Clinton, is basically Real Person Fiction, popularly known as RPF. To say nothing of the many modernized versions of 'Pride and Prejudice': 'Pride and Protest' (Nikki Payne), 'Ayesha at Last' (Uzma Jalaluddin) and 'Pride and Prejudice and Zombies' (Seth Grahame-Smith), among others. Traditionalists may bristle at some of these comparisons, but it's hard to say what distinguishes any of these books from those that populate fan fic sites such as Archive of Our Own unless we start from the assumption that fan fic is Bad and mainstream publication is Good. (Plenty of fan fic is crummy, of course, but it's not like the gatekeepers in traditional publishing aren't whiffing it some of the time, too.) Once we begin down this path, though, where does it end? Think about classics like 'Paradise Lost' and 'East of Eden' — are they not Bible fan fiction? Isn't all Roman mythology simply Greek mythology fan fic? Isn't 'Romeo and Juliet' just Shakespeare's take on 'Pyramus and Thisbe'? There are some characters, worlds and stories that we just like coming back to, and it's hardly surprising that other writers — some blessed by the muses (and hefty book deals), others merely enthusiastic — want to take them for a literary spin. This may be where the usefulness of the category starts to break down. If everything is fan fiction, that 'means that there's not anything really distinctive about fan fiction as we mostly encounter it now,' says Anne Jamison, the author of 'Fic: Why Fanfiction Is Taking Over the World' and a professor of English at University of Utah. Elizabeth Minkel, a fan culture expert and co-host of the podcast 'Fansplaining,' used to want to claim the monoliths of classical literature as fan fiction. A big part of that impulse, she thinks now, was a hunger to legitimize fan fic by expanding people's notions of what it is. But she's telling a new story these days. It started when she got involved in the fandom of the BBC show 'Sherlock,' a contemporary depiction of Sherlock Holmes and John Watson. People would often describe the show itself as a work of fan fiction for the way it modernized the characters and setting from Arthur Conan Doyle. Minkel disagreed. 'They're making a lot of money to write the sanctioned big-budget thing on the BBC. And they have a different set of priorities. They have a different set of monetary rewards, different relationship with the source material, with the rights holders,' she says. By contrast, 'fan fiction is all about the gift economy.' Jamison has also come to a narrower understanding of fan fiction, one that has more to do with writing for its own sake, without an eye to profit or reward. It's about 'the personal satisfaction of [writing] and then the personal satisfaction of reading something by somebody else who loves or has strong feelings about the same thing that you do,' she says. 'In many ways, fan fiction is so much more free because you don't have to worry about the market or the demographic.' And it's that freedom that makes fan fiction so delightful. Even as publishers are glomming onto its potential, most of the people writing it are still doing so for themselves — and for one another. They're puzzling through their feelings about desire or power. They're in conversation with the source material, and they're crossing swords with other people in their fandoms about their interpretation of the canon. In exploring this character's heart, might they better understand their own? Or maybe they just really think that Captain Picard should hook up with Lt. Commander Worf. And they're making it so, at least for the thousands — sometimes hundreds of thousands — of words they conjure. For Minkel, the urge to write about preexisting characters was instinctual. As an elder millennial, she didn't have internet in her home as a 10-year-old, so she wasn't inspired by other fics when she wanted to scrawl stories based on the characters from Sweet Valley High in her notebook. That's an experience that she finds many people in her age cohort and older share. 'They just had an instinct when they really enjoyed a story or when it really frustrated them and they wanted to fix something or felt like something wasn't done well,' she says. These days, teens living online are saturated with fan works. They find what they're looking for on sites such as Archive of Our Own, which has basically centralized any fandom you could imagine and some you probably couldn't, all with robust tagging and search. Many of the stories are straightforward. What if these two characters had sex? (Fan fiction tends to be most associated with smut — and you can absolutely find many of your favorite characters getting it on in a cornucopia of ways — but it's not all salacious.) What if this person who died in the show actually lived? What if we got to linger with these people, or in these worlds, in the mundane moments between all the action? Unbound by the constraints of the market (or even of good taste) and often buoyed by anonymity, fan fiction ultimately represents the primordial soup of storytelling, pushing forward the bounds of the stories we can or would like to tell. Jamison sees fan fiction authors sipping from the same wellspring as bards and troubadours. 'It connects with a storytelling culture where there would be wandering storytellers and stuff like that,' she says. 'They would tell stories about the same characters that everybody knew because that's what people wanted to hear about.' While many of those characters come from other works, there's also Real Person Fiction: stories about actors, athletes, politicians and other people in the news. After the arrest of Luigi Mangione in the murder of a health insurance executive, writers produced hundreds of fics about him, in genres such as legal drama and vampire romance — using conceptually familiar frameworks to explore a fascination with an alluring outlaw, itself a well-trodden archetype of storytelling. And there's a delicious strain of fan fiction in which writers set formal or narrative challenges for themselves just to see if they can pull it off. Can you write an entire fic through social media posts? Could you take the characters of ABC's first-responder procedural '9-1-1' and plop them into the world and plot of the NBC sitcom 'Parks and Recreation'? Sure, why not. (The '9-1-1'/'Parks and Rec' mash-up works shockingly well.) Hobbs remembers reading a fic about the boy band One Direction, only 'each of them were an apple and they were, like, living in this fruit bowl. And it was so weirdly emotional,' she says, because the apples observed one another as they rotted and were cut. 'It was just like the craziest thing that at the end of this fic you were like, wow, that was really deep.' There's a kind of puckish absurdism at play in such works that's not so far removed from postmodern literary fiction, but it's underpinned by very real, relatable feelings. And a built-in audience, too. Drawn by their investment in familiar characters, readers who wouldn't necessarily seek out experimental literature will eagerly dive into a story in which, say, the Harry Potter protagonists argue about the principles of philosophical rationalism, or Bucky Barnes's and Steve Rogers's love story is revealed through court transcripts. While some fic is achingly earnest, it's a mistake to think all of it is: A lot of writers are in on the joke. Cecilia R. Aragon, a professor at the University of Washington, conducted a deep ethnographic survey of different fan fiction communities of teens and young adults: 'These young people, who everybody was saying, 'Oh they can't write, they don't like to write, teachers can't get them to write,'' she says. But that's not what Aragon found. They were writing what they wanted to write and had 'a large crowd of peers that were giving them little tiny bits of mentoring,' she says. 'We showed that, as people got more feedback, it was correlated with an improvement in writing ability.' For Hobbs, who 'stumbled into fan fiction … it was a place to not only learn how to write, but also I didn't know that I had anything to say until I had this kind of community and platform to say it.' Hobbs lives in Utah and sees herself as more liberal than many of the other people in her town. Fan fiction 'really did surround me, in a way that I didn't have in my real life, with like-minded people — people who saw the world I did, who saw it the same way I did, who loved the things that I love.' It's possible that the egalitarian openness of fan fiction — the way that it invites anyone to try anything — explains something about its ubiquity. The likes of Percival Everett and Madeline Miller may be writing in a different key than the online fan fic masses, if only because they're getting paid for their work, and so are the people who edit and publicize it. But when their stories sell, and sell to a lot of people, it's partly because readers can feel the joy they take in playing freely with the stories and characters that we love, too. There's a pleasure to witnessing other people's passion, whether it overlaps with our own or merely entices our curiosity. Fan fiction is brewed with passion. And sure, some of the results are profoundly mediocre, riddled with typos, confusing, even offensive. Feel free to close those tabs. But there is also incredible fan fiction. Stunningly written, deeply moving, keep-you-up-all-night gripping, creative in ways that shock and linger. And what makes the form feel especially lovely is that each of these stories is a gift. Someone, somewhere has toiled, and perhaps giggled, over their keyboard. The only glory in it for them is the hope that their words might intrigue, arouse or amuse you. They're stirring the old storytelling soup because it's nourishing but also, even more important, because it's delicious.
