The year 2021 was poised to be a great one for established, fan-favorite authors. We were blessed with new work from a buzzy roster of titans, from Colson Whitehead to Lauren Groff to Kazuo Ishiguro.

Fan fiction — the creation of unsanctioned, unofficially published, new works usually based on popular novels or films — was intentionally never mainstream. There are the legal issues — copyright laws ...