Katherine Arcement

Katherine Arcement will graduate from the College of William and Mary in May with a bachelor’s degree in English.

Diary: Fanfic

Katherine Arcement, 7 March 2013

My habit took hold in 2006, not long before the last Harry Potter and Twilight novels came out and the year I got a laptop for Christmas. It was a relief no longer to have to make furtive use of the shared home computer. I’d been convinced my parents were going to find out what I was reading. On one occasion, my brother had looked over my shoulder, shuddered, and announced to my mother and father that I was reading porn. ‘No, I’m not!’ I replied, but he was right in a way. The first fan fiction I read was soft-core erotica written by other teenage girls.

Read anywhere with the London Review of Books app, available now from the App Store for Apple devices, Google Play for Android devices and Amazon for your Kindle Fire.

Sign up to our newsletter

For highlights from the latest issue, our archive and the blog, as well as news, events and exclusive promotions.

Newsletter Preferences