How fan fiction went mainstream
Post Reports
The Washington Post
4.4 • 5.1K Ratings
🗓️ 18 September 2025
⏱️ 24 minutes
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Summary
In fan fiction, nothing is off limits. Writers create stories about popular media like “Twilight,” while others envision romantic relationships between world leaders. Until recently, this type of fiction wasn’t taken seriously by the publishing world. But now, major deals are being made — like a reportedly seven-figure movie rights deal paid for a book that began as Harry Potter fan fiction.
Host Colby Itkowitz speaks with lifestyle reporter and fan fiction reader Rachel Kurzius about what distinguishes fan fiction and why the genre has become so appealing.
Today’s episode was produced by Sabby Robinson. It was edited by Peter Bresnan, and mixed by Sam Bair.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | One of the people that I interviewed for my story was telling me that she read a fan fiction about the bandmates of one direction, but they're all fruit in a fruit bowl. |
| 0:11.0 | And she was like, what an absurd and outrageous idea for a story. And then she found herself incredibly shocked by how deeply moving it was, how they were able to convey all of |
| 0:22.8 | these emotions of loss and meaning into this kind of ridiculous premise. |
| 0:31.0 | Does the fruit get eaten? |
| 0:33.5 | I believe different things happen to each of the fruits. |
| 0:37.7 | They get sliced up, it rots. |
| 0:40.5 | Yes, exactly. |
| 0:41.8 | Like, what is life in a fruit bowl? |
| 0:43.3 | You know, it's kind of a mixed bag. |
| 0:44.7 | Yeah, yeah. |
| 0:46.6 | That's Rachel Curzius. |
| 0:48.2 | She writes for the lifestyle section at The Post. |
| 0:51.1 | Over the past year, she's become a big reader of fan fiction, which is fans making up |
| 0:56.0 | stories about existing characters or even real people. A lot of it is based on popular |
| 1:01.1 | books like Harry Potter or on TV shows like Parks and Rec. Other times, stories are a bit more |
| 1:07.5 | unique, like, say, One Direction as a fruit bowl. Nothing is really off |
| 1:12.4 | limits. For instance, like, since I was five years old, I've always wanted to know what |
| 1:17.4 | happened to Baby and Johnny from Dirty Dancing. Not having searched for that particular couple, |
| 1:22.4 | I feel incredibly confident that you would be able to find fanfic about them. And literally |
| 1:26.8 | anything, you can find fanfic about Sesame Street. |
| 1:31.2 | There are no gatekeepers in fan fiction. |
| 1:33.2 | So I would be lying to if I was like, everything is excellently written. |
... |
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