I love the idea of people engaging with my work in a wide range of fannish ways! Here’s how I handle this (and want to handle it)
Short version
(further explanation below)
- Fanfic is a wonderful thing to have in the world. I consider it one of the best compliments as a writer.
- However, please don’t share anything text-based with me or wave its existence in front of my eyes.
- Fan arts, fan crafts, and all the other non-text ways of interacting with my books, characters, and the world of Albion are delightful. Please do feel free to share these with me, and I’d love to share what you’ve made with others.
- Get in touch via the contact form or the methods on that page with any questions.
What is fanfic?
There are a great many ways to engage with an author’s works that involve the reader’s own creativity.
One way is by writing stories – fanfic – set in a particular author’s world. Maybe these use the author’s characters. Those might be main characters. They might be minor characters (the ones who are on stage for a few sentences at some key moment). Or perhaps they involve original characters the fanfic author creates.
The stories can run a huge range, from original epic plots to missing scenes from a book via a different point of view. Sometimes they might be in a different format – entire novels coming out of a short story work or graphic novels drawing on a novel.
There are also all sorts of other kinds of fan art. These include making art (drawings, paintings, crafts) to cosplay (dressing up like a character) to making videos or playlists or writing songs. There are even things like making teas or perfumes or nailpolishes or recreating meals from a book.
Basically, if you can imagine an art form, someone’s probably done some type of fannish creation involving it.
Fanfic and Me
I am entirely in favour of fanfic existing – and I’ve been known to write some of my own. (More on that in a second.) I’d be an absolutely hypocrite if I said I didn’t want it for my own work.
I also consider fanfic to be one of the highest compliments someone can pay. People wanting to be part of what I’ve written in that way is a wonderful thought! Some fanfic comes out of a desire to ‘fix’ a problem in the canon work, but a lot of it simply comes out of a desire to spend more time with these people (and this world).
However, as an author, there are some complexities with my knowing anything about fanfic of my own work.
There have been some messy situations in the past, with authors whose intended stories crossed over with fanworks. I absolutely don’t want to end up in a situation that might be legally complicated. But I even more don’t want anyone to feel hurt or misused (whether that’s one of my readers or me).
What that means
I have a lot more stories I want to tell in Albion. While Albion is still an open and growing space, I want to make sure nothing’s going to get snarled in the process. (I am not a Penelope, I only play one in some novels…)
What that means for you:
Write fanfic if you wish!
Write as much as you want.
However, please avoid anything text-based crossing my line of sight. (I have a very hard time not reading words that come into view.)
That means stories, long-form text, lyrics, poetry, etc. It means links to any of those things. It also means anything like audio of fanfic text.
If it’s got text and anything even remotely story or narrative shaped, please help me out and don’t share it where I can see it. (Don’t share the link on the Discord, email, tag me into a discussion of it, etc.) I’ll take care of managing my own search results and other things like that.
If you’d like to connect with others:
Someone on our Discord has kindly set up a Discord server just for discussion of fanfic of my Albion books. You can get the link in the #announcements channel of the server, or feel free to ask.
(I’m also glad to share the link with you. But I am not on that server, cannot see any content, or have any other information about it beyond than the link. That is exactly how I want it.)
If you want to set up fannish spaces anywhere else, I’m glad to share the links (or how to get involved) the same way. Just let me know how people can get in touch with whoever the admin is or where to find you. (That means this post plus the Discord, plus any other locations added later.)
All other (non-text) fannish creative works
Anything that isn’t text (fiction or otherwise) is welcome on the Albion’s Delight Discord server. Please feel free to share art, music, crafts, and whatever else, so long as it isn’t telling a story about characters.
I’d also be delighted to share them with readers in my newsletter if you’re willing. Get in touch in whatever way works for you from my contact page and we can sort out the details.
Got questions about Albion and worldbuilding?
Talking through bits of worldbuilding and details of the books is always fine on the Discord, in Patreon, in emails, or whatever else. If something veers a bit too much into “If X talked to Y, and Z happened” territory (i.e. a chain of events), I may ask to shift topics.
I have a lot of notes about things in the books, both that have already been published and those that are in drafts that aren’t out yet or part of later plans. I’m always glad to help with details. Things like: “Is there a portal near here?” “You haven’t specified the land magic for X place, is there anything about that?” “Have there been Council members with this background?”
If I don’t have anything specified yet, I’ll tell you. If I do, I will (and how solid it is, in terms of info). When there’s a reference in a particular book, I can probably easily tell you the chapter. Just don’t share details of your plots about what you’re doing with that information, and we’re all good.
As a fanfic writer
I don’t write a lot, but the most reliable place has been via the Yuletide exchange for small fandoms that runs every year. In a fanfic exchange, people participating put in a list of things they’re willing to write, and a list of things they’d like to receive, based on the criteria for the exchange.
Yuletide focuses on smaller fandoms, those that don’t have more than a certain number of stories in the archive. It also often gets a number of nostalgia fandoms, things like ballad and song requests, and other amusements that you might not think of as a fandom.
In 2026, Albion has a number of characters in the tagset (the characters people can request for the exchange), nominated by multiple people.
(This made me squeal with delight when I saw it. But that’s as much looking at it as I’m going to do. I’ll be taking steps to avoid temptation of reading any of it when it comes out, or other mentions.)
However, I am planning to write for the exchange in 2026, and I read a lot of other stories there, so I may be lurking in other fandoms.
Questions?
Feel free to drop me a note, and I’m glad to clarify. And again, I am delighted to share any fannish creation other than text-based fanfic with others, or share other locations where people interested can talk about it, create it, and have fun with it.
Updated October 8th, 2026, based on a previous blog post from 2023.