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I'm copying much of this from my friend heartofoshun, as she has so eloquently phrased this true end of an era. Henneth-Annun is going to shut down at the end of this calendar year. From the site announcement: "HASA will be retired and taken offline at the end of the year. This is not being done lightly, and there is a lot of sorrow surrounding the decision."
I'm tearing up just writing this down. I learned so much from that site, and all of my vast amount of Tolkien fanfic is there. My ancient (ie: 10 year old) character biographies are there. I was mentored and won awards there. I mentored other authors once I'd been writing for a while there. My second fanfiction survey paper, Under the Waterfall, was written about HASA participants in particular and how they saw themselves. That paper was even referenced and printed in its entirety in a fellow fandom studies' book, The Democratic Genre: Fan Fiction in a Literary Context. It's just so sad. Perhaps this is the universe's way of prompting me to learn enough to do a major overhaul of my own, rustic website.
Anyway, heartofoshun eloquently wrote this: "But first and foremost it prompted a serious love for, engagement in, and commitment to the entirety of the fandom and all its genres. It promoted the sense that fanfic writing was real writing and deserved to be treated as such."
I'm posting this publicly to assist in getting the word out if, like me, you hadn't been active of late and may want to revisit what all you have there and go snag it if you hadn't.
I'm tearing up just writing this down. I learned so much from that site, and all of my vast amount of Tolkien fanfic is there. My ancient (ie: 10 year old) character biographies are there. I was mentored and won awards there. I mentored other authors once I'd been writing for a while there. My second fanfiction survey paper, Under the Waterfall, was written about HASA participants in particular and how they saw themselves. That paper was even referenced and printed in its entirety in a fellow fandom studies' book, The Democratic Genre: Fan Fiction in a Literary Context. It's just so sad. Perhaps this is the universe's way of prompting me to learn enough to do a major overhaul of my own, rustic website.
Anyway, heartofoshun eloquently wrote this: "But first and foremost it prompted a serious love for, engagement in, and commitment to the entirety of the fandom and all its genres. It promoted the sense that fanfic writing was real writing and deserved to be treated as such."
I'm posting this publicly to assist in getting the word out if, like me, you hadn't been active of late and may want to revisit what all you have there and go snag it if you hadn't.