Flourish Klink, Chief Participation Officer, 22 years old.

Flourish Klink is Chief Participation Officer of The Alchemists, which means she manages how our clients and our own stories will incorporate audience participation, on both the ‘producing’ side and the ‘audience’ side - helping facilitate smooth engagement all around.

She started engaging with fan culture at the tender age of 12, and by 14 had helped found FAWA Inc., a nonprofit encouraging English language learning through the medium of Harry Potter fanfiction. FAWA’s site, FictionAlley.org, was nominated for a Webby award in 2004 for “Best Community” and a Prix Ars Electronica award in 2005; it had over 100,000 members by the time Flourish graduated from high school! She was also one of the young fans featured in Henry Jenkins’ book Convergence Culture.

As an undergraduate, Flourish studied religious communities in Second Life at Reed College, and followed up her studies by entering Henry Jenkins’ Comparative Media Studies master’s program at MIT. Her master’s thesis is focused on Twilight fans, anti-fans, and the role humor plays in fan culture.