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About The daily Astorian. (Astoria, Or.) 1961-current | View Entire Issue (April 18, 2018)
5A THE DAILY ASTORIAN • WEDNESDAY, APRIL 18, 2018 Lundin: ‘I wish … I had seen more gay people on TV.’ Continued from Page 1A chairs, in this classroom, and I was obsessed with television, as maybe some of you are. And now I’m one of the peo- ple who gets to make it.’ “And so I just want to let them know that’s a possibility for them if they’re interested in going that route.” Foot in the door Lundin studied political sci- ence at Reed College in Port- land, then worked at political organizations like MoveOn. Org and the Bus Project. When she decided to get into filmmaking, she took production assistant jobs on film shoots and did commer- cial work. She enrolled in the film school at the University of Texas at Austin, where she learned to shoot, edit, direct and write — and, sticking with writing, she moved to Los Angeles. She worked a series of grunt jobs, often waking up at 5:30 a.m. to write her scripts for a couple of hours before going to her day job. At night, she’d spend an hour or so with her girlfriend (now her wife) before going to sleep so she could get up early again. This cycle lasted about three years until she got staffed on “Riverdale.” In that period, she wrote “Ship It” as a screen- play, which she sent out for consideration. Producers liked it, she said, but didn’t know what to do with it — a reaction she understands. “It was a very gay screen- play,” she said. Plus, viewers who know nothing about fan- dom or internet culture may not relate to it. “But I knew there was an audience for it.” Then Lundin found her cur- rent agent, who understood the project immediately and sent it out. “Ship It” became the writ- ing sample that fell into the hands of the “Riverdale” folks. “I think they were looking for people who could write young voices and could speak to what young people care about today,” she said. Meanwhile, the publishing company Freeform Books had also read the screenplay and invited Lundin to turn it into a young adult novel. Having digested countless young adult novels, she agreed. And so it was that during her first year working on “Riv- erdale,” she was also writing her first novel. “I was getting paid, too,” she said, “which is cool: Get paid to actually write it instead of waking up at 5:30 of my own accord and just working on something that I have no idea if it’s going to be good or not, or go anywhere or not … It felt good.” ‘Shipping it’ The idea of “shipping it” — when fans want a pair, espe- cially of TV or film charac- ters, to fall into a romantic Britta Lundin Britta Lundin on the set of ‘Riverdale,’ where she’s part of a group of writers who develop the scripts for the series. relationship — is of no small importance in the fandom community. If you “shipped it” with Han Solo and Princess Leia, you were lucky enough to see that love “go canon” in the original “Star Wars” trilogy, Lundin explained. But what if you always saw sparks between Han and Chewbacca? You’d have to seek out fan fiction to watch that dream scenario play out — to locate an underground internet community that sees what you see. Things get tricky, and polit- ical, when the characters you “ship” would be a gay match. The rarity of that kind of rela- tionship blossoming on main- stream TV, which would be expected of any straight on-screen relationship, makes it significant. “It can get very lonely, especially if you’re a gay teen- ager, and all of your favorite gay ‘ships’ never go canon,” Lundin said. “And what it can feel like is, everyone who makes these movies, and everyone who makes these TV shows, doesn’t care about peo- ple like me. They don’t care about the same things that I care about. They only care about the straight couples.” Teenagers look to the media for cues on how to live, she said, and “when you only see one way to live in the media, you start to think that maybe the way that you want to live isn’t OK.” Lundin is comfortable with her sexuality now, she said, but “I wish that when I was a teenager I had seen more gay people on TV. I think it would have helped me understand myself better earlier.” Living in both worlds In “Ship It,” a character named Claire who writes fan fiction is obsessed with an actor, Forest, who has a large fan base but whose charac- ter is being “shipped” with his male co-star. Forest resents this, especially since he wants to be an action star, and the insinuation that his character is gay, he believes, could risk his career. These squabbles happen pretty frequently, Lundin said. “The creators of the show and the fans of the show butt heads over who has control of these characters, who gets to say who’s gay and who’s not.” Interesting questions arise. “Ultimately, once you make a show and you put it out into the world, who owns those characters anymore? Are they the public’s, or do they remain the property of the creator, not legally but emotionally?” In writing the book, she could get inside both charac- ters’ heads — and highlight the forces bringing the char- acters into conflict — because she’s lived in both worlds. Asked whether anyone — teachers, librarians or others responsible for young minds — pushed back on the novel because of its subject matter, Lundin said, “Not yet.” If “Ship It” were a film, it would be rated PG-13, she said. “I hope that people who love gay fan fiction read this and say, ‘I feel seen. I feel like someone finally wrote a book about me,’” she said. “And I hope that people who know nothing about gay fan fic- tion read it and be like, ‘This was more interesting than I thought it was going to be.’” ‘Creative, ambitious’ Jenni Newton, a language arts teacher at Astoria High School, taught Lundin’s drama and leadership classes. New- ton remembers her student as “creative, ambitious, brilliant, very philosophical,” she said. “She’s always stood up for the marginalized, not afraid to be heard,” Newton said. Newton recalled the year the high school was in a pilot program that required drug testing for all student athletes. And Lundin, Newton recalls, “made very clear she was in no danger of failing the drug test, but she stood against it so strongly she quit athletics and joined theater. And that’s Britta.” Lundin’s advice for teenag- ers who want to become writ- ers, but who may consider giving up, unsure whether they have the talent: “You’re nowhere near that time yet. You’re still young. And give it a shot. Go to college. Study things in school. Keep writing. Keep practicing.” Permits: Bank could sustain fishing Continued from Page 1A This dilemma has been building for years — espe- cially in the coastal crab fleet — as a swelling tide of skip- pers approach retirement age. Lacking viable ways to mon- etize their permits and move them along to “new entrants,” this jam-up could gradually rob the economy of one of its last sources of lucrative nat- ural-resource jobs, according to organizers of the new non- profit South Pacific County Fisheries Trust. “How does a young per- son get into this business,” mused Dale Beasley of Ilwaco, one of the trust’s consultants, along with Ed Backus of Collaborative Fisheries Associates. The trust’s board of direc- tors consists of fisherman Jim Long, Ilwaco/Chinook Port Manager Guy Glenn Jr., Phil Allen of the Long Beach Community Foundation, and Richard Carroll of Jessie’s Ilwaco Fish Co. The com- munity foundation and ports collectively act as commu- nity partners for the permit bank. Beasley explained the goal is to keep good-paying jobs in local communities. “We’re not trying to increase the fishing pressure, but to support the three processors/ buyers here,” he said. “This is a balancing act … what we want is to keep the jobs that we have here.” Catch Together Although it also eventu- ally plans to aid transfers of permits for species like black cod and salmon — or even charter operations — the trust is initially planning to parlay a deal in which Mas- sachusetts-based nonprofit Catch Together will buy a 500-pot, 42-foot vessel per- mit and lease it for use in south county. There are 220 crab per- mits on the Washington coast, with 170 to 190 being actively used. Different per- mits are for either 300 or 500 pots, with three ranges of ves- sel size. This will complicate the job of matching potential Chinook Observer Crabbing operations are essentially independent small businesses. sellers with someone who is interested in the specific type of permit being offered. “It’s going to be a matter of how bad somebody wants a permit,” and what com- promises they’re willing to make, Beasley said. The initial years of mak- ing lease and then purchase payments will be challeng- ing, but the program pro- vides an avenue to a lucrative career that would otherwise be almost impossible to get into. Catch Together — which is backed by the Walton Fam- ily Foundation — provides the opportunity for environ- mentally engaged investors to help maritime commu- nities while making a good return by lending money that’s unavailable from other sources. While a bank might typically require a 35 percent down, Catch Together and the local trust won’t require a down payment. The inter- est will, however, be a steep 10 percent on a lease-to-own basis, in which the trust will get 2.5 percent of the total permit purchase price per year for the first five years to support its operations. After a fisherman suc- cessfully uses a leased per- mit for five years, the trust plans to buy the permit from the investor and take over the transaction in the form of a sale to the operator. The trust will seek grant funding and use annual loan interest of $8,000 to $16,000 per permit to pay off the permit’s initial purchaser, while banking any excess funds to expand the trust’s programs and services. Specific requirements The trust’s board mem- bers will be screening appli- cants for permit leases, with a variety of requirements including Pacific County residency, fishing experi- ence, and ownership or for- mal arrangements for a boat and gear, along with com- mitments from any neces- sary crew. The trust will play no role in acquiring vessels and gear, partly to limit its liability. Participants will have to agree to adhere to a “Fish- erman’s Code of Conduct,” which includes provisions such as fishing in ways that won’t degrade the resource, and treating crew members fairly. The trust hopes to con- clude one or two deals this year, but will be taking it slow. If successful, it may become a model for similar programs around Washing- ton state. “It’s a hundred-year pro- gram to keep the community viable, to keep a healthy fish- ing industry,” Allen said. “We want to keep our fish- ermen here, fishing locally. The program’s going to evolve and the fleet’s going to tell us what they need to stay here. We want this area to thrive and not just barely survive,” Beasley said. I have the power to explore Rec: Aquatic expansion planned Continued from Page 1A most residents of the Seaside School District, excluding Cannon Beach and Gearhart. The goal of the expan- sion is to provide indoor rec- reation space for the commu- nity, Archibald said. With the relocation of Broadway Mid- dle School to a new campus in the Southeast Hills, the recre- ation district could lose even more space. “There is no real indoor recreation space for public use, and when the school is built, there will be even less for gen- eral user groups and individ- uals,” Archibald said. “We’re really excited to move this for- ward with this plan.” Board member Michael Hinton asked fellow board members to “do our home- work” to analyze district leases with the city, and to make sure rights of way are clearly delin- eated and deeded. “I’m in favor of fine-tuning the plan and get- ting our ducks in a row.” The district was formed in 1969 and the Sunset pool opened in 1978. Since that time, programming has expanded to a fitness cen- ter, community center, senior lunch program, preschool and playing fields. The district employs seven full-time staff, with an annual budget of $2.8 million. Last spring, district board members discussed the pos- sibility of expansion, either funded through a bond or sys- tem development charges — the fees paid by builders to the city for essential infrastructure. Over the past three years, the district has invested about $60,000 in consultants for building expansion. Board members met at a workshop early this month, endorsing a base plan rather than an enhanced proposal that would have called for the purchase of all or a portion of Broadway Middle School. The enhanced plan would have added between $7 mil- lion and $9 million to the pro- posal, not including costs for the purchase of school district buildings. The base plan, prepared by consultants Ballard King with Opsis Architecture, will add a second level to the aquatic facility on Broadway. If approved by voters, the facility will see a new entrance, gym, preschool rooms, an admin- istrative office, lobby expan- sion, party room and storage. According to architects, the expanded facility could be completed by 2021. Board member Jeremy Mills said while he had some misgivings about the tim- ing of the bond, the project’s benefits outweighed his con- cerns. “I think this project is so very needed. I’m definitely on board.” Board members Mills, Hinton, Veronica Russell and Edward Hassan joined board president Alan Evans in voting for the bond proposal. “We’ll deal with curveballs as they come,” Archibald said. “It’s nearly impossible for us to make every right choice along the way, but as long as I have your support moving forward, I’m hopeful that next month I can provide the time- line and some of the actions that need to take place.” He hopes to have bond lan- guage finalized by the board’s July meeting, he said. 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