Spnnewsletter

The Supernatural Newsletter (spnnewsletter) is a community on Livejournal that provides a daily overview of the fandom's activities. The sections of the newsletter are:

• News - links to media items about Supernatural
• Challeneges - including fanfiction and Fan Art challenges
• Fanfiction is divided into sections: Sam/Dean, other Slash, Gen, Het, and "Other" which are generally Crossover stories and RPF
• Fanart is divided into icons, pictures, fanart, fan vids and multimedia
• Meta
• Miscellaneous includes community announcements and information of Fan Projects

It is not a selective or recommended reading list; rather, by tracking communities and individual journals on its "Watchers List" and linking new and relevant posts, it functions as a catalog of most fannish LiveJournal-based activity within the fandom.

It serves a vital function in creating and maintaining the Supernatural fandom community, giving fans a chance to be exposed to what's going on beyond those journals they have personally friended.

The Newsletter has generally avoided controversy. Occasionally individual fans will feel their fic is not being linked to. Often this is because the stories do not comply with the newsletter requirements to list the pairing and rating. Fans can leave a comment on the newsletter to request a story or work is linked.

While Shipping wars are minor in Supernatural fandom compared to others, the Supernatural Newsletter has been involved. Dean/Castiel fic is included in "other slash", however some fans of the OTP feel it deserved its own category. In October 2009, the Dean/Castiel newsletter was created. In January 2010, the community SamDean OTP started its own weekly newsletter for fanworks featuring only Wincest. Both these journals featured around 200 watchers, compared with over 5,700 fans following the Supernatural Newsletter

• All of the fic listed in the newsletter is tagged here at del.icio.us by black_samvara. For more on this project see Supernatural Fic Link Archive

The History of the Supernatural Newsletter

• On October 28 2005 marecagee created the first Supernatural newsletter on LiveJournal: sn_newsletter.

• The first post, on October 28, covered the days October 24-27 and included 5 links for gen fics and 14 links to Sam/Dean fic. Hookman (1.07) had just aired, and Skin (1.06) had a huge impact on the blossoming slash-fandom. marecagee last posted on December 16 2005, before going MIA for the holidays. She returned in early January after having had computer troubles and promised to have the new newsletter up and running soon, however, there were never any new posts made for the purpose of cataloging Supernatural fanworks.

• On February 16 2006 a similar community called spnnewsletter was created. The first edition went live February 17, providing the fandom with a now-daily newsletter run by geeky_dani, winterlive, vylit, bunnymcfoo, marishna, and magickly, supported by monkiedude and estrella30.

• The spnnewsletter was awarded a Lawrence Award in 2006 for Best Website.

• In September 2007, before the commencement of Season Three, there were 3,594 journals watching the newsletter. The newsletter compilers were bunnymcfoo, marishna, researchgrrrl, clex_monkie89, innie_darling, truffle_shuffle, and green_queen, with honorary editors vylit, winterlive, and annalazarus. The community moderators were estrella30 and monkiedude.

• In September 2007, a database of all the fanfic listed in the newsletter -- over 17,000 stories as of November 2007 -- began to be compiled at the Supernatural Fic Link Archive on del.icio.us.

• March 2008 there were 3,993 journals watching the newsletter. The newsletter compilers were waterofthemoon, marishna, frayen, clex_monkie89, innie_darling, affectingly, benitle, keepaofthecheez, and green_queen, with honorary editors vylit, winterlive, schneestern, and bunnymcfoo. The community moderators were estrella30, monkiedude and marishna.

• The 1,000th issue of the newsletter was posted on December 4th, 2008. At that time it was watched by 4,652 journals and had linked to over 25,000 pieces of fic. The current compilers were: waterofthemoon, frayen, clex_monkie89, thehighwaywoman, benitle, keepaofthecheez, and ktnb81, with honorary editors vylit, schneestern, innie_darling, and bunnymcfoo. The mods are estrella30, monkiedude, and marishna. The occassion was celebrated with many journals across LJ posting messages of congratulations on the day.