Meet Britta Lundin.

Britta is a TV writer, novelist, and comic book writer. She currently writes on the show Riverdale on the CW. She is a longtime fanfiction reader and writer, and can track her life milestones by what she was shipping at the time. Originally from the Pacific Northwest, she now lives with her wife and their lime tree in Los Angeles.

Social media links
I am on Twitter, Tumblr, and Instagram! I also have a website, in case people still go to websites: brittalundin.com

The Interview.

How do you fangirl? The details on your all time ships, current favorite shows, and more! Whatever you’d like to share since this is a fangirl and no shame zone.
Oh gosh, so many. I used to be embarrassed of my fannish side—to the point where when I was first starting out writing SHIP IT, I would fall asleep at night saying to myself, “Are you sure you want to write this? Are you sure you want to air all your dirty laundry in public like this?” But in the course of writing the book, and writing the character Claire, who is wholly and completely unashamed of her fandom, even proud of it, I started to grow more proud of my own fannish side. So in that spirit, I’m happy to tell you that I have been shipping since middle school, when I was obsessed with Mulder and Scully. Later I discovered slash shipping, and it was kind of a revelation to know I wasn’t the only one who was certain that, say, House and Wilson were gay. Now, I have too many fandoms to even count (among them One Direction and Supernatural), but my primary way to relate to pop culture is still through fandom and shipping.
Do you believe fanfiction has helped shaped you writing from comics to tv to now a YA novel?
Absolutely. I was always an avid reader, but when I started reading fanfiction alongside traditional published books, I was finding different kinds of stories than I ever got in YA. At the time, my high school library only had one lesbian book available, Annie on My Mind, which is a beautiful story, but a tragic one. In fanfiction, I found so many queer stories, it felt like a treasure trove. There were happy endings and tear-jerkers, complex reimaginings and fluffy comforting stories. There was, in other words, a wealth of stories available, and my eyes were opened to all the different routes available to queer characters – and by extension, queer people like me.
What was the inspiration behind Ship It?
As someone who has been in fandom most of my life, who also works in television, I felt like I was able to see the world from both perspectives, and I wanted to tell a story from two POVs—one, a teenage girl who desperately wants to see her queer ship go canon on her favorite show, and the other a straight male actor who doesn’t understand fandom and is sort of baffled by the whole thing. I wanted to dive underneath the issues of queer representation in media, and get to the root of why it’s so important to people. And along the way, I wanted to tell a swoon-worthy queer girl romance, because that’s the book I would have wanted to read as a teenager.
What do you think is in store for the LGBTQ book community in 2018 and what do you hope to see?
There are so many more queer books coming out now than there were when I was a teenager, but we still have a long way to go. There are some wonderful books I’m excited for this year, including The Summer of Jordi Perez by Amy Spalding, and Dear Rachel Maddow by Adrienne Kisner, two books that are funny and full of heart and sort of effortlessly queer. But we have so much more to go. I would love to see more LGBTQ books of all stripes—more books by authors of color, more with disabled characters, more trans books, and more books about butch and gender non-conforming girls.
I see you received a BA in Political Science. How did you get from that you to this you?
I worked in political campaigns and activist organizations for several years in college and after. I loved politics, and I still do, but ultimately I decided I would be better suited to creative fields than political activist ones. I went to film school and eventually moved to Los Angeles to become a TV writer and author. I still use storytelling to help people understand those who aren’t like them, and to help people feel less alone. I know stories and media are on the forefront of shaping our culture and our social values, and I hope my books help make the world a safer place for queer teenagers.
Is there anything you’d like to share with the readers today?
Thanks for having me! I love your site!