About to celebrate its 20th anniversary in 2026, Wattpad is one of the original fan fiction platforms. As an online gathering place, a third space, for fandoms and their communities, Wattpad provides an opportunity for people to connect through storytelling.
People build empathy through stories. When we read, we enter worlds unlike our own, living through characters and their experiences. In the best stories, we understand character motivations and feel their emotions. Sitting down with Alessandra Ferreri, Wattpad’s Head of Content, I wanted to explore the power and intersection of stories and community.
Fandom is unique in that it offers people a creative community where they can build relationships around shared values. We fall in love with characters because they give us a way to understand our world and the people around us.
Fan fiction takes this community and allows it to grow, evolve, and expand. When asked about how the fiction on Wattpad helps elevate voices typically excluded or oppressed, Ferreri explained that when talking to so many writers over the years, she’s found that much of the motivation writers have is about not seeing themselves represented.
Ambassadors, a team of really engaged Wattpadders, seek out new writers, then try to bring them into specific communities and spaces where they can find their people. Ferreri explained:
We have the individual writers who are writing what they’re inspired by. Then we also have community driven profiles that are about curating and making certain content very visible. We have that from a genre perspective, like horror or science fiction. But we also have community driven profiles like “We Need Diverse Books.” We have specific community driven profiles like LGBTQ and queer stories.
In recent years, Ferreri notes that the community engagement and regular commenting remains positive, unlike other areas of the internet. The platform has always been a place for fantasy, wish fulfilment, and escapism. However, as that becomes more of a necessity, the platform remains an online space where people feel supported, ‘finding those pockets of friendship and joy.”
Despite being a technology platform with an underlying algorithm, Wattpad’s Head of Content remains committed to human interaction and involvement. She explained that she tries to find really engaged Wattpadders who are curating content because they love it, then she and her team follow and click through these reading lists to discover new authors and stories.
As with every platform, Wattpad maintains policies and content guidelines with community teams that help and support the writers and readers. From Ferreri’s perspective, this community of readers and writers is a unique part of the internet:
We are so lucky to have a community that also enforces a safe space in and of themselves. It’s very vulnerable to tell stories online. Whether you’re writing fanfic or original fiction or whatever it is, you’re pouring your heart out, especially when writing fiction. Our user base understands that just intrinsically. So they’re already like, “you’re putting yourself out there, and we’re going to support you. We’re not going to tear you down because we are coming to this platform knowing that you are writing stories for the love of it.”
Wattpad is an alternative space, offering opportunities for different writers to tell their stories. Ferreri explained:
Most of it is community driven to the point where it’s like “we’re here for the joy of storytelling, and we’re here because we want to read stories. We want to find new authors. We want to engage with them on a real level.”
As we wrapped up the interview, I asked Allesandra to suggest five stories that she loves, and she definitely didn’t disappoint.
Girls Chase Girls tells the story of Xia Qi, a quiet high schooler junior, who finds love with Phaedra Barlowe, a femme James Deane, in the most unexpected of ways.
Lead Me Astray is a paranormal story that follows the soul of Aurie Edison, non-binary Empath Mys, and werewolf Detective Zyr as they try to solve Aurie’s murder from the shadowy world over Overlay City hidden within New Orleans’ ley lines.
Love at First Tracks is a rivals to lovers story about 27-year-old Olympic alpine-skier hopeful Juniper James who finds magic hiding in the mountains as she trains with her rival Summer Li, an Olympic silver medalist trying to recover after an accident.
One Million Masks follows Hector Jean-Baptiste, rugby star, stellar Haitian son, and autism activist, who works to keep his alter ego Makeshift, an electrokinetic powerhouse, a secret until he falls in love with a barista who is secretly the deadliest villain in the world, Vortex.
Until We Break follows black dancer Naomi Morgan as she trains for the National Prix de Ballet Competition, sacrificing family, mental health, and physical injuries until she finds herself caught up with The Guise, an online gang of anarchists.
This post was last modified on October 30, 2025 11:20 am
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