No one can make the world of academia quite as seductive as Ali Hazelwood. The best-selling author—who doubles as a professor with a PhD in neuroscience—is a brilliant new voice in romancelandia who burst onto the scene last year with The Love Hypothesis, one of 2021’s best audiobooks. This year, she’s treating us to four new stories—three novellas in her audio-first STEMinist series, and a stand-alone novel entitled Love on the Brain that’s due out this summer. Hazelwood’s heroines are smart, strong, funny women who work in STEM or academia…and the people they fall for are pretty okay too. Below, Hazelwood shares how the fanfiction community helped shape her creative journey.
You got your start in fanfiction. Can you talk to us about the power of that community?
It’s simply fantastic! Through fanfiction, I got to meet some of my closest friends. For me, what started as a bunch of online avatars with the same hyperfixations as me, quickly became an empowering community of like-minded people with whom I can have the most honest, hilarious conversations, and who have supported me during some really rough moments of my life. Not to mention the fact that the fic community is inherently encouraging and uplifting, and a beautiful environment in which to figure out who you want to be as a writer! I’m grateful every day that fic was and is part of my life.
There’s great freedom in writing fanfiction. Do you find yourself using it to test new ideas?
I actually haven’t written much fic since I started to write for publishing, but that’s only because I’m a suuuuuper slow writer and I need the time to make my deadlines. But occasionally I’ll get a plot bunny or I’ll get obsessed with a ship (most recently: Yennefer and Geralt from The Witcher Saga) and I find myself incorporating little tidbits and elements of what I love about that specific ship in my current work in progress!
You’ve talked about different fandoms saving your mental health—particularly Star Trek and Star Wars. Are there other fandoms that you love to get lost in?
I actually read fic across lots of fandom and lots of pairings—Pride and Prejudice, The Office, DC Universe, Teen Wolf, Sherlock, X-men, The Witcher, Stargate Atlantis… AO3 has given me so much. I’m tearing up just thinking about it…
“STEMinist” is our new favorite word, and we love how your heroines combat sexism in academia. Can you pick one of your current heroines (Olive, Mara, Sadie, or Hannah), and answer if they were to write fanfiction, what would they write about and why?
OMG-Totally Sadie! She would write soccer fanfiction, but like…not in a romantic way? She would just write long rambling descriptions that read like soccer commentary, a play by play of a game, and Erik (her boyfriend) would read it and feel in his heart that it’s the most beautiful piece of writing he’s ever laid eyes upon.
(Also Olive and Mara 100% read fanfiction and hang out on AO3 and have a million different ships—it’s canon!)
