Laurence Donaghy

The world of fanfic is much maligned, its authors either pilloried for dedicating untold amounts of their time to stories no one ever reads and hardly anyone cares about, or harangued for when those same stories get adapted into light S&M fare and go on to sell tens of millions of copies.

Yet there is a huge and passionate fanfic community out there and Laurence Donaghy knows quite a bit about it. Before his Folk'd trilogy was published by Blackstaff Press, he was a regular contributor, writing unheralded sequels to Superman Returns and unofficial Star Wars novels.

In "Building Better Toyboxes" Laurence will talk about his take on fanfic, explore why it has a place in the wider writing world as a springboard for those too intimidated to construct their own worlds, and talk about his own journey from fanfic dabbler to published author.