‘A crowd at your back’: fantasy fandom and small press

Abstract

This article presents a study of a model of textual production that situates genre fiction, specifically fantasy fiction, within its community and industry contexts. I argue that Australian fantasy ‘fandom’ operates in some ways like a research and development space for the literature it consumes, through allowing, enabling and enthusiastically supporting – both ethically and materially – a thriving small press culture. Fandom is known for its passionate investments in texts, and those investments are rarely passive. The fantasy genre community is already oriented towards prosumption, and small presses afford specific opportunities for writers to work in specific ways, enriching and developing their individual craft and the genre as a whole.