Cultus Dispatches: An Interview with Elleth
We've all been there. One of our fannish pet peeves is enjoying a moment and the urge is there like an itch that won't stop until it's scratched: to complain, to lash out, to rain on the parade with monsoon force.
Elleth experienced one of those moments. I interviewed her this month about her role in promoting women-centric and femslash fanworks, and she recalls "a promotion week that was hosted on Tumblr for a group of male characters who were and still are fandom favourites and didn't strictly need promoting." But instead of ruining others' fun, Elleth collaborated with Frilly to create Legendarium Ladies' April, an event to promote fanworks about Tolkien's female characters.
Using the philosophy (learned from another SWG member, Independence1776) of "Promote what you love instead of bashing what you hate," Elleth ran many women-centric events and projects over the years. In the past few months on Cultus Dispatches, we've focused on what it is and was like to create fanworks about women in the Tolkien fandom. We've described a fandom that was openly hostile to fanworks about women and where creators feared sharing their women-centric work. But we've also detailed a change, and while the fandom is still far from perfect, creators no longer avoid creating women-centric works (even *gasp* femslash!!) because they dread the reaction. Elleth, her collaborators, and the events they used to encourage and celebrate women-centric and femslash fanworks were part of bringing about that change.
Elleth was kind enough to sit down with me to tell me about her various events, how she became interested in writing about women (spoiler alert: she wasn't always), and how she's seen the fandom change over the years. As we discuss fan history that is discouraging—even sometimes shameful—where women-focused fanworks are concerned, Elleth's work offers a bright point, and a hopeful one. You can read the interview with Elleth here.
Posted on 24 December 2022 (updated 23 February 2023) by SWG Moderators
