I am freshly back from Norwescon, but the first joyful thing I have to share is not about the con, but that the Organization for Transformative Works is now open for membership! \o/ And you can read all about it (in English, Čeština, Deutsch, Español, Français, and Italiano) at the otw_news community -- where, by the way, we are eagerly looking for more translators. You can also see our very cool (if I do say so myself, cough) roadmap for the design of our archive software.

I got to meet a whole bunch of really smashing fellow fans, including Rob Carlos, who started sketching in my Q&A at 11am on Friday, and less than 24 hours later handed me this piece, which he's put in the wiki: Temeraire, Lily, Maximus. Oh, and then as an afterthought he whipped out this one the very next day: Napoleon & Lien.

I also happily scored a copy of Pat Rothfuss's first book, another one by the very dapper Bruce Taylor, and two spectacular art books by Ciruelo, the artist guest of honor -- I've loved his work for years so it was an especial treat to meet him, and also to hopefully not-too-embarrassingly fangirl all over Dan Simmons. *g* I also picked up a truly fabulous feather headdress in the dealer's room and a couple of pieces by Mai Nguyen, but sadly wasn't able to stay for the art auction to try and grab the larger one. But it is just as well! Cons are dangerous places for the wallet.

Of course for now the books have joined my sad unread pile, while lies behind the terrifying stack of the copyedited MS that I am supposed to be working on right now. My current excuse is the copyeditor switched to blue pencil from red, and all my copyediting pencils were carefully chosen blue exactly for contrast! argh. But I have dug out a few hot-pinkish ones from my old box of colored pencils and hand-sharpened them with a penknife since they are too crumbly for the pencil sharpener (uphill in the snow! both ways!) and must go back to the grind.

Last bit of glee: while I was at the con, Bill of Subterranean Press sent me the hot-off-the-presses limited edition! I don't know if I mentioned what they're doing with the covers -- after some back and forth with Dominic Harman (who did the gorgeous original UK covers), the decision was that for the first three, we'd do modified versions of the three UK covers, and then starting with book 4, Dominic will be creating new art in the UK-cover style, for a complete matching set. \o/

Tags: conventions, otw, temeraire

Lots of exciting OTW-related posts and discussions taking place -- just linking to a few! There's merryish's post about the merits of fanfic, sockkpuppett's about transformative work, and posts more specifically about OTW on otw_news itself, boingboing, Ethan Zuckerman's blog, Kristina Busse's blog, Tobias Buckell's blog, and a rousing thread on John Scalzi's Whatever -- and for anyone else who may be wondering, yes, please do feel free to link us and pass it along!

We're reading all of these and already planning to mine them to expand our FAQ, but I thought I'd share this bit I posted in the discussion on the Whatever -- many of the concerns I'm seeing raised are about the commercialization of fanfic, and we really do want to clarify that this isn't what the OTW is about.

( OTW and fan works )

And now, I must go watch Supernatural like a good fan, and then go write more of book 5, like a good pro. *g*

Tags: otw

Yes, so, this is one reason among others ("others" including struggling on towards the end of book 5 -- not quite there yet, but getting close) why I have been scarce and quiet of late:

The Organization for Transformative Works

Our shiny new website, written and revised and designed and built by the work of a great many incredibly talented fans, says it all better and in more detail than I can, but here's the basics: the Organization for Transformative Works (OTW) is a nonprofit organization established by fans to serve the interests of fans by providing access to and preserving the history of fanworks and fanculture in its myriad forms. I myself have been and am a fan long before I am a pro, and the community of fan creators in particular is really in many ways my home. I believe deeply that transformative work enriches both those who do it and those who inspire it, and I am so very excited about this project.

If you like what you see, and you're interested in following along on future updates, we have a whole slew of places you can watch: mailing list, del.icio.us account, Twitter channel, and the otw_news community, which is mirrored on LJ, on GreatestJournal, InsaneJournal, and JournalFen. The website announcement and our first newsletter are both up now in all those places, with details on our various projects and what's going on right now.

Hopefully some of you here may be interested in fanwork and fanfic yourselves, and find common ground with the org and want to get involved -- please do join us!

(also, yay, boingboinged! \o/)

Tags: otw