I've written fan fiction. I wrote it before I knew what fan fiction was. I wrote it for Donna Tartt's The Secret History, a long long time ago, because the characters in the book so enchanted me that I wanted to do more with them, to move them around like they were my characters to manipulate. So while I might make fun of fan or slash fiction sometimes, I really can't hate. And neither should you:

The Pulitzer Prize for Fiction this year went to March, a novel by Geraldine Brooks, published by Viking. It's a re-imagining of the life of the father of the four March girls in Louisa May Alcott's Little Women. Can you see a particle of difference between that and a work of declared fanfiction? I can't. I can only see two differences: first, Louisa May Alcott is out of copyright; and second, Louisa May Alcott, Geraldine Brooks, and Viking are dreadfully respectable.

More on fanfiction and why it counts here at Making Light.