Fan community for FX's The Americans

It's that time of year again--time for the annual Yuletide fanfic exchange.

So what is Yuletide? It's an annual fanfic exchange that concentrates on small fandoms. Put simply: participants offer to write some fandoms and request some fandoms they'd like to read. They are then matched up with other people, one of whom will write one of their requests, the other of whom they will write for themselves.

It's has great potential to produce fic for The Americans.

The gifts are anonymous, so your recipient won't know you're writing for them, or which of their requests you're fulfilling and you won't know who's writing for you or which request is getting filled for you. Over a thousand people participate each year! The stories open on December 25 and remain anonymous until the reveal on January 1.

Basically, it's a very straightforward gift exchange where people get to write and read for the fandoms close to their heart that they don't often get to read. There may be only one other person who wants fic in the fandom you request, but that person will love it all the more.

The first stage of Yuletide is nominations. That's when anyone thinking of participating nominates fandoms they think ought to qualify for the exchange--that is, fandoms that don't already have a lot of fic being written for them. I definitely plan to nominate The Americans this year, and probably request it as well.

I don't want to bog everyone down with details about the exchange in one post, but I'll be glad to answer any questions I can in comments if anyone wants to ask. (Obviously I'm not a mod or anything, but I've participated.) I thought it was a good idea to mention it here because there's so few stories for this fandom, and yet the quality of the stories I've read has been really great so far.

Some important information/links follow:

In order to participate in Yuletide all you need is an account at Archive of Our Own. If you don't have one, you can email the mods of Yuletide, tell them you'd like to participate, and they'll get you one. They can be reached at: yuletide@yuletidetreasure.org.

To participate you'll be writing a story of a minimum of 1,000 words in the fandom your recipient requests, featuring the character(s) they request. Many people also put up a Dear Yuletide Writer letter where they talk about what they like to give you inspiration. People generally really want to give the other person a story they'll love.

There is a generous window to default on your gift if you find you can't finish--don't worry, your recipient will still receive a gift.

The tentative schedule of Yuletide 2013 is as follows:

YULETIDE 2013 SCHEDULE
Nominations: September 16th to September 23rd
Cleanup and Public Eligibility Review: September 23rd to October 7th
Signups: October 7th to October 14th
Assignments: around October 21st
Assignments Due: December 22nd
Collection Opens: December 25th
Author Reveals: January 1st

Here's a link to the archive of all the Yuletide gift stories for 2012 by fandom.

The Yuletide FAQ

The Yuletide Admin Community

Yuletide's the perfect time to request stories from fandoms like this. It might inspire a great writer who never thought or writing for the show to offer it and give you a story. And as you can see from the archive, a gift for one person is really a gift for anybody who loves that fandom and wants fic for it.

I don't write a lot of fic but a few years ago I got tired of seeing so many people I knew dive into this huge fest and gave it a shot--it was really fun.:-) Plus I know there are some amazing writers already in this community and I'm greedy.