Katy asked Corinna Turner:

Do you mind fanfiction for your novels or is that something you'd prefer fans didn't do?

Corinna Turner Hi Cosette. Thanks for asking! To be honest, I've not encountered any I AM MARGARET fanfiction yet so it's hard to be certain how I would feel about it, but my instinctive reaction is that it's not something I'm mad about (it feels a bit too like someone kidnapping your baby and doing things to them, if that makes sense). But if you really want to, go ahead. So long as you don't have any of the characters doing anything awful, I won't get stroppy about it.

But one thing I almost always feel when I read fanfiction is that the person writing usually has the imagination and the skill to come up with something of their own. So if you're thinking of writing I AM MARGARET fanfiction, I'd encourage you to consider taking the series as a starting point - so you'd like to write about religious oppression, and perhaps you want a female heroine - and then make it your own, i.e. consider what nationality your 'Margo-type' heroine is. Does she need to be British or could she be from somewhere else? What is her hair colour? Does it need to be brown or could it be something else? What are her strengths and weaknesses? Perhaps she's great at Maths but terrible at English? You see where I'm coming from.

I don't mind if you write within what is essentially the I AM MARGARET-verse, but I'd encourage you to use as much imagination as possible. After all, there are thousands of other people in Margo's EuroBloc busy running risks every day, and they've all got stories too. It would be fun to read some of those!

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