Dear all, I will give a talk on my recently published book *Identity, Community, and Sexuality in Slash Fan Fiction: Pocket Publics* (Routledge, 2024), sponsored by the SCMS Fan Studies interest group (FaAS Sig - https://lnkd.in/en2H8h9T; https://lnkd.in/e-_mimNm) on Tuesday, September 24th at 18:00 (BST) - Get in touch with the SIG for the zoom link: https://lnkd.in/eTW5uGBs; https://lnkd.in/e2m_SVUw The book's Introduction is available to download via open access at https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/mono/10.4324/9781003450030/identity-comm... Based on over ten years of online and in-person ethnography, *Pocket Publics* documents the digital transition of the slash fan fiction community around the turn of the millennium. The term slash fan fiction designates original stories written by and circulated within female-centered communities about same-sex characters borrowed from previously published sources, a feminist, queer media subculture whose infrastructure, creativity, and ways of life are often obscured in dominant histories of the internet’s development. Arguing that online slash communities created an alternate public space that provided opportunities for unanticipated encounters with a wide range of complex sexual, relational, and political practices, the book contends that slash thereby added to readers’ tools for experiencing and thinking about pleasure and ways of living by forming a “pocket public,” that is a digital space public enough to be found and protected enough to shield participants from harassment and censorship. Best, Anne Kustritz Assistant Professor of Media and Culture Studies Utrecht University