Your Biggest Fangirl Podcast Your Biggest Fangirl Podcast

It’s the end of 2019, so it’s time for us to look back on a year -- and a decade! -- of fangirling! In Your Biggest Fangirl’s last episode of 2019, we share highlights from the podcast and our finest moments of fangirling from the year, while reflecting on the growth of the show and ourselves as fangirls. We discuss how fandom and the role of fans have evolved over time, as the divide between creators and consumers continues to shrink-- recognizing the power (and challenges and responsibilities that come along with it) fans face in regards to influencing the media they consume. We also look ahead to 2020 and the things we hope to see!

The Your Biggest Fangirl Podcast will be going on an extended winter break and will return in 2020. Subscribe to get the new episode when it comes out!

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We join the Clone Club this week on the podcast! Our guest this week is Heli Kennedy, a writer currently on the writing team for Orphan Black: The Next Chapter on the literary entertainment platform Serialbox. This isn’t Heli’s first jaunt with the Orphan Black series, as she previously penned the spin-off comics at IDW, Helsinki and Deviations. Her talents span all these forms of media; in addition to audio dramas and comic books, she is also a senior writer at video game company UbiSoft and a filmmaker. Heli shares how she integrates being a fan of Orphan Black into writing for the franchise, the differences in her approach and process when writing for its comic books versus collaborating on The Next Chapter, as well as the unique opportunities the audio drama format presents for delving deeper into all of our favorite characters! Heli also imparts her insights on turning your passion into your profession and her favorite member of the Clone Club to write for!

Where to Find Orphan Black: The Next Chapter
Listen or read the series on SerialBox: https://www.serialbox.com/serials/orphan-black
Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram: @serialboxpub

Where to Find Heli:
Instagram and Twitter: @helikennedy

Monica Duarte makes her grand return to the podcast, and brings fellow fangirl Emily Schuck with her! Monica and Emily are the masterminds behind “Portrait of a Fangirl,” a new web series hosted on Temple of Geek, to which both Monica and Emily are contributors. You’ll remember Monica from Episode 18 -- she is a photographer, who can proudly claim her photos have been published in Doctor Who magazine and SFX magazine, and also co-hosts of the Temple of Geek Podcast. In addition to Emily’s contributions to the Temple of Geek podcast, their convention highlights and more, Emily is also a writer and editor of the Foothill Journal, which publishes graduate student poetry at Claremont Graduate University.

At the core of Portrait of a Fangirl is the necessity of telling the stories of women who have found inspiration, growth, and power through fandom. They interview several inspiring women about how their diverse and fascinating fandoms have enriched their lives. Victoria herself is one of the women interviewed in the series and we reflect on how the women profiled defined ‘fangirl’ and how we’ve been empowered through fangirling. We also take a look at the challenges of maintaining a balance between the fangirl and professional aspects of your life and combating the shame that can accompany the identity.

Where to find Portrait of a Fangirl:
Instagram: @portraitofafangirl
Temple of Geek YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/templeofgeek
https://templeofgeek.com/

Where to find Emily:
Instagram: @lovemelovemyumbrella
Twitter: @emilyschuck

Where to find Monica:
Instagram, Twitter: @thisdorkynerd

We head back to the wizarding world in the second half of our LeakyCon convention special! We celebrate reaching the big 5-0 episode count and share how the podcast has allowed us to grow as fans and people. We also explore the takeaways Victoria encountered at the con about the Harry Potter fandom, its commitment to social justice, and the impact on our own lives and worldview as members of the generation who got to grow up with Harry.

We have another group of five fantastic fangirls to hear from as well! They are:

Hayley Burson, an avid Harry Potter fan and costume maker. With her husband Michael, they specialize in creating screen replications from the Harry Potter and Fantastic Beasts films. She’s also a co-host on Hold My Butterbeer, a podcast about all things wizarding world canon.

Where to Find Hayley:

Instagram & TikTok: @hobbitparty
Hold My Butterbeer Podcast: https://www.holdmybutterbeer.com/podcast
Facebook: @michayleycosplay
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCoDsgsIsSeZKHoRVc_Rtv0Q

Porshea Patterson-Hurst, Bayana Davis, and Connie Gibbs from Black Girls Create.
Through substantive but accessible content, Black Girls Create is an intersectional hub for black creators and critical fandom. They collaborate to champion the increased media representation of Black women specifically, and people of color in general. Bayana Davis, serves as Editor in Chief of Black Girls Create & co-host of the #WizardTeam podcast, Connie Gibbs is Black Girls Create Managing Editor and co-host of the TARBIS podcast, and Porshea Patterson-Hurst, contributor at Black Girls Create, volunteers with the Harry Potter Alliance and co-hosts the Game of Thrones podcast Castle Black.

Where to Find Black Girls Create:

Instagram & Tumblr: @blackgirlscreate
Twitter & Facebook: @weblackandnerds
Blackgirlscreate.org
WizardTeam & TARBIS Podcasts: http://blackgirlscreate.org/bwc

Where to Find Porshea:
Twitter: @porshea_obvi

Where to Find Connie:
Twitter & Instagram: @constar24
Constarwrites.com
Where to Find Bayana:
Twitter: @yana_hallows

Melissa Anelli has been reporting on the Harry Potter phenomenon since 2001, and since then has served as the webmistress of the premier Harry Potter fansite The Leaky Cauldron, authored the New York Times bestselling book Harry, A History and founded Mischief Management, a company that produces fan events, LeakyCon included, focusing on community, content, and creativity where she serves as CEO. You may know her from the long-running Harry Potter fan podcast Pottercast or from one of the Mischief Media podcasts, Make New Mistakes and Extraneous. It’s no surprise that we’ve been seriously inspired by Melissa and been fans of hers for years, so we were thrilled when she took time out of running the show at LeakyCon to chat with us.

Where to Find Melissa:
Facebook, Twitter & Instagram: @melissaanelli
http://www.melissaanelli.com/
Buy Melissa’s book Harry, a History on Amazon

Where to Find LeakyCon:
Facebook, Twitter & Instagram: @leakycon
Leakycon.com
http://www.mischiefmanagement.com/

This Harry Potter convention is jam-packed with brilliant fangirls, so much so that we had to split it into multiple episodes! (Not unlike Voldemort’s Horcruxes.) Victoria tells us all about her experience at the ultimate wizarding world convention – regaling us with tales of the thoughtful panels, making peace with not being the most knowledgeable fan in the room, snacking on Golden Snitchwiches and more.

Our first LeakyCon special includes:
Christine Chapman is the programs director of Uplift: Online Communities Against Sexual Violence. Uplift is a nonprofit dedicated to combating sexual abuse in online communities through education and advocacy. They work to ensure that these flourishing communities are safe for the millions of people who connect through them by offering toolkits for convention organizers, partnering with platforms, and creating campaigns like a Safer Community Pledge.
Where to learn more about Uplift:
Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr: @uplifttogether
https://uplifttogether.org/

Sequoia Thomas and Kim Harris are the hosts of Fanatical Fics and Where to Find Them, a Harry Potter podcast where they read the craziest, funniest, and most outlandish Fanfiction they can find! Delving through the likes of fanfiction.net and Archive of Our Own, they strive to recapture a time long past by bringing back stories written 10 or more years ago as well as recommending one of their favorite fics every episode.
Where to Find Fanatical Fics:
Twitter, Instagram, Facebook: @FanaticalFics
https://www.fanaticalfics.com/

Proma Khosla and Olivia Dolphin have both worked for LeakyCon in the past and parlayed their experience into their careers beyond the convention. Proma is an entertainment reporter who has written about Harry Potter professionally for The Michigan Daily, Teen Vogue, Glamour, and in her current job at Mashable. She’s also a dancer and worked on Team Starkid’s A Very Potter Sequel. Olivia Dolphin has worked as a copywriter and runs a literary magazine called Wizards in Space that grew out of the LeakyCon community.
Where to find Olivia:
Twitter, Instagram: @LiviDol
Wizards in Space: https://www.wizardsinspacemag.com/
Where to find Proma:
Twitter, Instagram: @promawhatup
Promakhosla.com
Where to find Lion Party Films:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LionPartyFilms/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAreXLillvpnoJsJLgJLSrg

As Supernatural begins its 15th and final season, we talk to Dr. Lynn Zuburnis, a clinical psychologist and professor at West Chester University and longtime Supernatural fangirl. Lynn discusses with us how she has found balance between her academic and psychological roles with those of her fangirl and personal ones. With her collaborator Dr. Katherine Larsen, they have published four books fusing academia and fandom, Fangasm: Supernatural Fangirls, Fan Phenomena: Supernatural, Fandom at the Crossroads and Fan Culture: Theory/Practice. Her latest book delves deeper into the Supernatural fandom with Family Don’t End with Blood: Cast and Fans on How Supernatural Has Changed Lives, an anthology of essays that’s a love letter to the show, written by its cast and fans. We celebrate and examine 15 years of the Supernatural fandom, from the significance of the fans to the show’s longevity and how it may evolve when it ends.

Where to find Lynn:
Twitter: @FangasmSPN
Facebook: @FangasmSPN
Instagram: @FangasmSPN
Fangasm, The Book: https://fangasmthebook.com/
Family Don’t End With Blood: http://amzn.to/2q8KKXh