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From March to May in the year 2002, Mary Borsellino wrote a Lord of the Rings story entitled Pretty Good Year. For various reasons which mostly remain a mystery to the writer herself, this story inspired other people to pen other tales set within or partially inspired by this small sub-universe created within Middle Earth.

First there were a few stories, and then a few more, and then things got really weird and there was a whole bunch of other stories and it eventually got to the point where they deserved a home of their own, because the Pretty Good Year website didn't have a big enough hot water system to allow so many guests a proper turn in the bathroom and and the parlour was getting smelly.

So now there is this site, 'Storytellers'. The name is taken from a story written by Meli, one of the first and most prolific of the writers archived within this site. As well as being among the earliest examples of Pretty Good Year fanfiction, 'Storytellers' is a story about many of the things which are typical of the works appearing within this site. The characters central to 'Storytellers', while often somewhat peripheral to the West of the Moon stories by Mary Borsellino, take centre stage in countless fan-written stories. The story these characters tell their uncle in Meli's short tale makes reference to people and relationships that existed within the community of writers at the time, another commonly-found theme in the fanfiction archived here. In short, Meli's story summed up much of what was to come within the Pretty Good Year fandom, and seemed an extremely apt reference to draw the title for this site from. The original 'Storytellers' story can be found here.

Not always coherent, not always adhering to the canon of the original Pretty Good Year, rarely sane, often extremely clever, these stories represent a niche of the Lord of the Rings fandom in which happy endings are sometimes possible, marmalade roll has a dozen unconventional uses, and hobbit tweenagers cause more trouble than they're worth as often as they can.

Mary, who is typing this and therefore having to refer to herself in third person, is still to this day extremely baffled by the interest in what was never meant to be anything more than a small exploration of what might have happened between the paragraphs of a modern classic. She hopes that those who find this page will find enjoyment in these stories and adventures ostensibly derived from that first tale... stories which, in truth, stand on their own and illustrate how twice-removed fanfiction can be as original and unexpected as any other sort of writing.