After the release of her novel More Than A Best Friend, the bestselling author talks about finding her roots in fanfiction
BY EMMA R. ALBAN, IMAGE BY THE WB
From the earliest Zines where Startrek fans exchanged fics about Kirk and Spock, and Star Wars fans drew Luke and Han in the 1970s, to the rise of SuperWhoLock in the 2010s, to SwanQueen, to Finnpoe, to Ineffable Husbands, and beyond, fandom has always wildly outpaced queer representation in popular culture. The advent of the internet in the 1990s brought about an explosion in online fandom culture, turning fandom from something secretive into something powerful. And with the internet, queer fandom culture thrived.
Every fanfiction writer has their origin story: I was 13. I found the WB message boards, and I wrote flash Gilmore Girls fanfiction. And people liked it. More than that, people wanted to talk about it. I was immediately hooked and fell into a world of fandom that fosters creativity, and pushes the bounds of social, political, sexual, and gender norms as a collective.
Throughout my adolescence, college, and early adulthood, I existed daily in fandom spaces. I grew as a writer, and I was exposed to a worldview where queerness was celebrated. Every fandom I entered had queer corners, if not queer couples at its center. Queerness was often the default, rather than the exception.
So when the idea of a lesbian Bridgerton meets The Parent Trap novel popped into my head mid-2021, I didn’t for even a second question its commercial appeal. A queer marriage market romcom? Sign me up! I’d already been enjoying the boom of traditionally published Queer Romances, but I knew – even beyond their popularity – there was an immense audience for Queer Romance, because I’d come up in it.
My books More Than A Best Friend, and the upcoming Achillean Victorian Romance follow up You’re The Problem, It’s You, are for the traditional publishing audience, but they’re also so much for readers who have grown up on queer fanfiction. My audience consumes traditionally published titles, and then many of them return to their fandom homes (and some create new ones, FirstPrince being the fandom for Red, White & Royal Blue, for example). The audience has always been here. They’ve simply been waiting for traditional publishing to catch up.
Growing up in fandom taught brought me into a world of readers who see themselves in queer narratives, celebrate them, and champion them. I am ecstatic that traditional publishing (especially my wonderful publishers, Viking and Avon) continues to embrace queer storytelling, and I am proud to bring that celebration to my traditionally published titles. I hope that publishing and fandom can coexist and push each other forward forever.
More Than A Best Friend by Emma R. Alban is out now (Penguin, £9.99). Her next book You’re The Problem, It’s You is out August 2024 (Penguin, £9.99).Â
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