rthstewart | Guardian Profile Challenge -- a million words with Ruth Stewart

My shameless self aggrandizement in the Guardian Profile Challenge is below the cut.

A few words (try over a million) with Ruth Stewart

The prolific Ruth Stewart has been writing fan fiction for nearly 25 years, and has never once complained that she was not paid for it. Though she has crossed over to published fic, both licensed and original, under other pseudonyms and writes extensively in her work as regulatory counsel, Ruth vastly prefers fan fic.

We caught up with Ruth between her dog walking, a root canal, and revisions to her latest work on cannabis policy and counterfeit medicines . “I love the freedom fan fic affords,” she told us. “The communities of readers and writers that develop around fan fic are extraordinary. Many of my best friends today are ones I made writing fan fic. For me, no other writing is so satisfying.”

What makes someone toil for 25 years in obscurity where it’s not even under your own name and isn’t even your own, original work? “Well, I’m not so obscure,” Ruth says with a laugh. “I made a significant mark in both Star Wars fan fic in the 90s and then a decade later in Narnia."

Ruth is, indeed, correct. Her seminal Luke Skywalker/Mara Jade fic, Stuff is a classic of that era. Twenty years later, we hope she might explain why it mysteriously disappeared one night from the Star Wars fanfix archive – how we remember the frantic efforts to find Chapter 7 in old floppy disks and massive file transfers over dial up connections! After pressing her, she finally says with an enigmatic smile, “In retrospect it was a silly over-reaction but at the time I was concerned with entanglements."

She also takes issue with characterization that her fan fic, or any other, is lessened because it isn't "original." "Transformative work is as old as storytelling itself and new stories keep olds ones alive and relevant." she says. "And though I am playing in Lewis' sandbox, I am bringing some of my own toys, too, like my OCs, some of the the worldbuilding and grounding my stories firmly in World War 2."

So what has motivated her to write over 1.5 million words of fan fic?

“Hubris, in part,” she says, so promptly, it’s obviously something she’s thought about. “In the 90s, we were desperate for decent Luke/Mara content. After reading some terrible licensed work and disappointing fic, I thought, ‘I can do better than this.’”

So why in 2009 did she start writing in the Narnia fandom?

“It was much the same. The Narnia fandom blew up after the films came out but most of the fic I was reading didn't capture my own vision from the books. I was also very disturbed by the misogyny, homophobia, and racism exhibited by some of the writers. I wanted to offer a tolerant and inclusive vision from the books I loved, while also fixing some their shortcomings.”

Continuing the analogy, has she packed up her toys and left Narnia with The Stone Gryphon unfinished?

She sighs and for the first time, we see Ruth's enthusiasm flag. “I want to finish it, so much. This is the ten-year anniversary of my first posting of TSG, when Mary Russell barges into Digory’s office, Peter draws on Asim, and they talk about continental drift and female genital mutilation during Hong Kong tea. It’s been very busy the last couple of years as I’ve had to do a lot of professional writing that pays the mortgage, unfortunately.”

But then we see the determination of a writer who has gifted us with some extraordinary work since we first discovered her in the days of the Who Luke Should Marry boars on AOL, long before there was AO3 and fanfic.net (and she’s only gotten better). “I’ve got it underway. I’d love to see a completion of TSG this year,” she says firmly.

We’ll wait, Ruth.