who I am

I've worn a lot of hats over my professional and non career; I've studied fan interaction, I've maintained fan archives, I've attempted novel self-publication (that one's still a work in progress). I've worked on numerous projects and for numerous people.

what I do

For the past ten years I've been a legal and technical editor by day, fan participant by night. I provide developmental and copy-editing to lawyers in my day job; we work in a collaborative manner. I haven't been very active as a beta reader lately, but am always open to it -- I miss co-writing and co-creating.

Prior to this job, I was a research consultant in health and social programming, performing qualitative data gathering and analysis. My project manager and I went into the field and interviewed people, performed literature reviews, and wrote extensive reports on our findings. At the same time, I performed primary research for my masters degree, interviewing a number of people on their experiences and engagement in fandom.

Off and on, I've been a beta reader and fanfiction writer for more than twenty years. I'm also the archivist for one of the few comic book fanfiction archives still open, and have been maintaining that site for fifteen twenty years.

During graduate school, I volunteered with the Eco Art and Media Festival (2008), and was part of the working group of several students and faculty for the Sustainability HNES Initiatives and the resulting design charette (2008). I also co-lead class seminars and presented my final research work as a guest in an undergraduate class on sexuality and gender.

what I've made

My full masters project, Identifying Fandom Queer Space: Construction and Deconstruction is no longer available online at York University. The full project was posted online for the community to review. An edited version of the research report, including writing samples from the full project, that was submitted to my committee can be read here. Edits were made in 2021 to remove links and references to web pages and online communities on the request of individuals. There were also two references to the term "biowoman" which were amended to say "cisgendered woman".

Queer bandom: A research journey in eight parts - portions of my masters project, remixed for a symposium piece in Transformative Works and Cultures [Volume 11 (2012), Symposium section].

My undergraduate mythography seminar paper was the first time I really attempted to dig into fandom as a researcher: "Celebrity Fan Narrative as Mythology: an Analysis of How Fanfiction Centering Around Pop Music Functions and Appears as Myth Within the Online Culture That Produces it.". Studies in Mythography major paper, April 2003.

Some examples of my personal nonfiction work:

• "The Tragic and the Divine" - a personal essay I wrote after having seen the last ever Tragically Hip show, about faith, grief, and growing up with the band from Kingston.
• Stardew Valley, a review - like many people, this game hit me hard.
• Mass Effect: Andromeda, a review - I liked the game! I didn't love the game. But I liked the game, and wrote about five thousand words about it.

Other works of note include the Cult of Timberlake story (yes, I'm one of the co-authors), which has been cited in undergraduate reading lists and a 'fanfiction syllabus' on vulture.com (the syllabus portion has since been removed). As a health researcher, I contributed to several evaluation reports, and helped rewrite the manual and training materials for a mental health course to be more apppropriate for a northern Canadian audience.

One day, I'll finish that novel We All Have in Us. And maybe that pop history book on Patroclus.

CV and experience

In progress.

contact me

You can email me at disa.j.wilson [at] gmail, if you'd like to talk fandom, health determinants, religion and spirituality in this digital era, or anything else. I'm also available for editing work or beta-editing (rates would vary from 'free' to 'paid', depending on time, work, type of project, whether you are intending to be paid, et cetera). If you'd like references or proof of cred, I can provide.