AO3 Hugo: Play is the wellspring of creativity.

I'm thrilled that the dear-to-my-heart online archive of fan-created works, Archive of Our Own (AO3) has been nominated for a Hugo, the mothership of sci-fi & fantasty literary awards! 

I'm quite romantic about AO3.
Whether or not you care about fan-fiction, AO3 is a sign of hope for humanity: it is an example of the best the Internet can unleash--a platform for people to express themselves freely:

And the fan writers and creators are mostly female and are (or were) often quite young––people whose work would not have normally been published in the past.
In the past, small groups of fans shared their work in groups and mailings, which could be hard for others to find––but this network is huge (1 million+ users!), and open to any and all.
 
Fans started AO3 to get away from commercial sites that dictated what stories, art, and other fan-created works could be posted.

Not that fans don't fight among themselves about what is acceptable––do they ever! But the site itself does not censor postings--though it does allow for posting warnings [e.g., warning: character death, noncon sex, etc.] and, I think, even requires them on certain works.


From Slate:
"Why Archive of Our Own’s Surprise Hugo Nomination Is Such a Big Deal:
The fan fiction site—built, run, and written primarily by and for women—deserves your respect.

"Fan works, and the community that surrounds them, often don’t get the respect they deserve. So AO3’s nomination for the prestigious award—both for the platform itself and for the platform as a proxy for the very concept of fan fiction—is a big deal.
Many, both inside and outside the sci-fi and fantasy community, deride fan fiction as mostly clumsy amateur works of sexual fantasy—critiques that, as those who have looked at them closely have pointed out, have a glaringly gendered component."

I can attest, some of the work is excellent, professional level work that flourishes in a gift economy.

But , yeah, much of fan fiction is "clumsy amateur works of sexual fantasy". So what? That's a place to start, or,  what the hell––it's sufficient unto itself: it's fun! 
It's for PLAY!
Play is the wellspring of creativity.

AO3 is up for a "Best Related Work" award. Results are in August.