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First, some backstory:

I'm definitely teaching Intro to Lit in the Fall. This is actually old news. Fortunately I have the summer to prepare. For me, that means an odd sort of stream-of-consciousness free association saturation in various media works.

On the fandom front (for relaxation from the reading), I've been drifting from tape to tape, show to show. I watched the last episode of Angel, which reminded me of the last episode of Forever Knight, so I watch that, which reminds me that the writers of FK wanted to do an official crossover with Highlander, so I watch an episode of that, which guest stars Callum Keith Rennie, so I pop in a tape of Due South. And so on.

On the literature front, I'm currently working my way through Paradise Lost by John Milton (a segment of which was quoted on an episode of FK, so I guess I'll put that tape on next), A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain, Adventures in American Literature, Blood Thirst: 100 Years of Vampire Fiction, Main Street by Sinclair Lewis, three Angel novelizations ("Soul Trade," "Monolith" and "The Burning"), The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler, and The Annotated H.P. Lovecraft ed. by S.T. Joshi. Which book(s) I'm reading depends on which room and what kind of mood I'm in at the moment.

So in my reading, I find the following:

"The amateur journalism movement of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries is now such a little-known phenomenon--and one that was so typical of its time--that it is now difficult to recapture its essence . . . these amatuer journalists were all devoted to the cause. They spanned every age group, every part of the country, and every socioeconomic class, from professor to farm laborer. Some wished to write, others wished to practice their expertise as printers; and they produced hundreds of little magazines, some very crude but some quite distinguished in appearance and contents. It may be the case that most of these writers were "amateurs" because they were unable to publish their work professionally; but a small number were in fact fairly well-established wirters who wrote merely for the sake of self-expression without thought of remuneration. Certainly Lovecraft . . . always scorned the idea of writing for pay, and found in the amateur world an ideal setting for expression his views and receiving feedback on them in a relatively nonthreatening and nonacademic environment." (Joshi 6-7)

Right. I've always known that this non-professional (fanfic) writing I do, and most of my friends participate in to some degree or another, is nothing new. The medium on which we do it certainly is, but the intent and the results aren't. However, reading a description--a very accurate description--of who we are and what we do in the preface of a book about an established (if not extremely well-known) author who died before the Internet existed was kinda jaw dropping. The description above is talking about amateur writing societies that were popular and commonplace over a hundred years ago--which weren't new even then--and from which a great number of "classic" authors got their start. It's validation. It's also fascinating from an historical perspective, especially since the author of the excerpt is discussing the amatuer writing societies as if they're something that no longer exists.

I wonder if anyone's done an academic comparison of them then and now.

On a different note, happy belated birthday to estirose. I should know by now when your birthday is. Bad me.