Author: Marion

2026 OTW Elections Candidates Announcement

Marion

Candidates Announcement

The Organization for Transformative Works is pleased to announce the following candidates for the 2026 Election (in alphabetical order by given name):

  • Jennifer H.
  • Rebecca C. M.
  • Theodore B.

As previously announced, Erica Frank and Kathryn Soderholm stepped down from their positions on the Board. Anh Pham and Qiao Chu are also stepping down from the Board as they have reached the end of their terms. There are seven Directors on the OTW’s Board and this year there are four open seats; three full-term seats lasting 3 years and one partial term seat lasting 1 year.

Because we have four seats to be filled and three candidates, the 2026 election will be uncontested – that is, the members of the OTW will not vote on which candidates fill the seats.

The Elections Committee is excited to introduce the candidates to all of the members of the OTW! Included in this post are links to short Bios and Platforms written by the candidates. This post also marks the beginning of our Q&A period, during which we invite the public to submit questions for the candidates. Additionally, we will be holding a live chat – date and time to be announced based on candidate availability.
In the meantime, there is a timeline of Elections events available here for your reference. Read on to learn more about our candidates and how you can submit questions for them!

Platforms and Bios

We asked each candidate to provide us with a Bio that sums up their professional and fannish experience, as well as to write a Platform about their goals for their term on the Board by answering the following questions:

  • Why did you decide to run for election to the Board?
  • What skills and/or experience would you bring to the Board?
  • Choose one or two goals for the OTW that are important to you and that you would be interested in working on during your term. Why do you value these goals? How would you work with others to achieve them?
  • What is your experience with the OTW’s projects and how would you collaborate with the relevant committees to support and strengthen them? Try to include a range of projects, though feel free to emphasize particular ones you have experience with.
  • How would you balance your Board work with other roles in the OTW, or how do you plan to hand over your current roles to focus on Board work?

You can read both the candidates’ answers to these questions and their bios by following the links below.

Question & Answer (Q&A)

To better accommodate the time constraints of the election and the workload for candidates, we are asking members of the public to limit their submissions to one question per message. Additional questions in the same message will be discarded. There is a limit of three questions per person.

Anyone may submit questions via the Elections form. Please submit all questions by 11:59pm UTC on June 28 (what time is that where I live?). All candidates will answer each question submitted, subject to the following restrictions:

  • Questions must be a maximum of 50 words long.
  • Any submitted questions repeating what is already addressed on Platforms will be ignored. This is to allow candidates to dedicate more time to answering new questions.
  • Similar questions will be grouped together to avoid candidates giving repetitive answers. Elections volunteers will decide which questions are similar enough to group.
  • If you have a follow-up to a Platform question, please specifically mention it is a follow-up so Elections volunteers know not to treat it as a repeat.
  • Submit only one question per message. Additional questions in the same message will be discarded.
  • There is a limit of three questions per person.

The posting date for answers will be chosen depending on the number of questions received. Posts will be spread out, arranged by topic, to make it easier for members to read all the answers.

The Organization for Transformative Works is the non-profit parent organization of multiple projects including Archive of Our Own, Fanlore, Open Doors, OTW Legal Advocacy, and Transformative Works and Cultures. We are a fan-run, donor-supported organization staffed by volunteers. Find out more about us on our website.

2026 OTW Election Timeline & Membership Deadline

Marion

The OTW Elections committee is pleased to announce that the timeline for the 2026 election for new members of the Board of Directors has been posted!

As previously announced, Erica Frank and Kathryn Soderholm stepped down from their positions on the Board. Anh Pham and Qiao Chu are also stepping down from the Board as they have reached the end of their terms. There are seven Directors on the OTW’s Board and this year OTW members will elect four new Directors – three Directors to serve a full-term (3 years) and one Director to serve a partial term (1 year).

This year’s election will be held August 14-17. This means that the deadline for volunteers to declare their candidacy is June 19.

As usual, the election membership deadline is June 30. If you’re interested in voting, please make sure your membership is active as of that date. If you are unsure whether your donation was made before the deadline, please contact our Development and Membership committee by using the contact form on our website and selecting “Is my membership current/Am I eligible to vote?”. Read More

2025 OTW Election Timeline & Membership Deadline

Marion

The OTW Elections committee is pleased to announce that the timeline for the 2025 election for new members of the Board of Directors has been posted!

As previously announced, Zixin Zhang stepped down from her position on the Board. Jennifer Haynes is also stepping down from the Board as she has reached the end of her term. There are 7 Directors on the OTW’s Board and this year OTW members will elect 2 new Directors to serve 3 year terms on the Board.

This year’s election will be held August 15-18. This means that the deadline for volunteers to declare their candidacy is June 20.

As usual, the election membership deadline is June 30. If you’re interested in voting, please make sure your membership is active as of that date. If you are unsure whether your donation was made before the deadline, please contact our Development and Membership Committee by using the contact form on our website and selecting “Is my membership current/Am I eligible to vote?”. Read More

2023 Election Update

Marion

As noted in the resignation announcement of Board members Natalia Gruber, Antonius Melisse and Alex Tischer, this year’s OTW Board election will be uncontested.

This year, we have five open seats on the OTW Board, and five candidates. Each candidate is technically unopposed and will automatically be elected to the Board following the election process.

The election will still happen, on August 11 – 14. Based on election results, the three highest ranked candidates will be elected to full-term seats, and will serve 3 years on the OTW Board of Directors. The remaining candidates will be elected to the partial term seats and serve 2 years on the OTW Board of Directors.

The final set of Q&A’s and Candidate Chats will proceed as normal.

We encourage all OTW members to vote in this year’s election, and determine the allocation of full and partial Board Director terms.

2023 Candidate Chats and Q&A Roundup

Marion

The Election season is in full swing! Chats with candidates are coming up soon. You can find links to the candidates’ answers to your questions at the bottom of this post.

Chats

There will be four public chats, each lasting ninety minutes. All four chats will have three candidates in attendance. Chats will take place in our public chatroom.
They are scheduled for:

Edited July 26: Per an announcement, Audrey R. withdrew from the ballot.

These chats will provide attendees the opportunity to ask the candidates questions not already covered in their platforms, bios, and Q&A, as well as to ask individual questions of specific candidates. New questions will only be accepted during the first hour of the scheduled chat time to make sure candidates have time to appropriately address them all.

We hope you can join us for one or all of these chats!

Please note that though the link to the public chatroom is already active, chatting capabilities will not be enabled until approximately half an hour before the chats begin.

Read on to learn more about using Discord.

  • On the login page, you’ll need to provide a screen name.
  • Once you enter the server, you’ll find a list of users on the right and a list of chat rooms on the left. Settings are available via the gear icon on the lower left, near your screen name; there you can choose whether you prefer a dark or light chat room appearance, among other options.
  • There will be four rooms available to chat attendees who are not candidates or Elections Committee volunteers: general, candidate_chats, open_chat and questions.
    • General is where you’ll find a list of rules for the chats. Please read through these carefully before entering the other two rooms.
    • Candidate_chats is where the candidates will answer questions and debate among themselves. Only the candidates and moderator will be able to chat in this room.
    • Open_chat is where all attendees can participate and talk to each other. We ask that you try to stay on topics related to the election. A moderator will be in the room, so if you have a question for the candidates, you can signal the moderator with o/, the candidate’s name, and the question. Use o// if it’s a follow-up question to the current discussion.
    • Questions is where the moderator will compile a list of all questions. Only moderators will be able to chat in this room.

Q&A

When we posted the Board candidates’ bios and platforms, we asked the public to submit additional questions for them. Once again, our sincere thanks to everyone who did so! We have been posting groups of questions as the candidates finish their responses, and one has already been posted. For the categories that have not yet been posted, the dates they will be posted are listed in parentheses.

To navigate answers by individual candidate, please use the links below:

Edited July 26: Per an announcement, Audrey R. withdrew from the ballot.

The following is a list of the topics covered by the questions. Clicking on a topic will take you to the tag containing all the candidates’ corresponding answers.

To read all the posts regarding Q&A, simply select the 2023 Q&A tag.