As many of you know, I came into the manga blogosphere by way of fandom. And when I say “fandom” I mean Fandom, with a capital F(anfiction). I’ve talked about this here a bit, most recently in Manga Bookshelf’s fanfiction roundtable with Sean and Michelle, where I mentioned that my fandom experience happened pretty much entirely on Livejournal, which is where I learned to blog as well.
There are some things I don’t miss about Livejournal fandom, and some things I really do (though that fandom has largely moved away from LJ these days, and on to new blogging communities). I miss the passionate creativity, the female-dominated discourse, and the inevitable fandom meta inextricably linked to the discussions of the stories we were so passionate about.
Over the past couple of years, I’ve been struggling with ways to bring some of my old fandom into the new, including bringing on quite a number of my favorite writers from those days to write at Manga Bookshelf. Now I’ve taken an even bigger step in that direction by inviting my good friend Aja Romano to act as a sort of fandom correspondent, in her new column Fanbatte! (A Beginner’s Guide to Cross-Cultural Fangirling).
She begins her column with an introduction to her and to fanfic, with the smart, joyful vibe I valued the most during my years in fandom.
So please, welcome Aja, take a look at her, inaugural post, and look for more as the week goes on!