Note: I am posting this question here since I know it doesn't belong on the main Japanese Language forum, and was hoping someone from this community could offer some advice.
After many years studying Japanese, I've begun to get more serious about learning Japanese->English translation, especially for fiction short stories and novels which is what I have the most experience and interest in.
I have started doing some freelancing translation work, mostly at Gengo, and while that is great experience, for the most part the subject matter is not what I am looking for - it's more business and less fiction (with a few exceptions).
I have two short-term goals: to practice more novel/short story translations, and then to get constructive feedback from people who know the subject matter well (preferably those who know both languages well, plus the author in question). Eventually I would want to do fiction translation as a paid job, but that isn't my main goal at the moment.
The first of these goals is easy - I can just go crazy translating any book or story I want, and just keep the results to myself. And while this would help me to a certain extent, without the feedback I am looking for I am not sure how far this would take me.
So now I am finally come to the main question: how can I go about finding stories which I can translate and then how can I find people skilled enough to provide productive criticism on my translations?
One side issue is that posting online a translation of a work that is still under copyright would likely violate that copyright. One option to get around this issue would be to stay with works like classics on Aozora Bunko. However, while that could be one interesting avenue to pursue, many of those have already been translated, and much of the Japanese is quite different from the modern Japanese I am more interested in. (As a side note, anyone knows of any stories that you think would be good to translate from Aozora Bunko that haven't been translated yet and would be appreciated by the community, please let me know).
Another option is just to translate something which does have a copyright, and avoid posting the result anywhere online. I would just be sending the translation via email to the person(s) who offered to help look at the translation for critique. However I don't think this is ideal either. (As a side comment, from what I have researched certain critique-sharing sites online aren't too happy about posting works translated from those who are not the copyright holders, which I fully understand)
One final comment - I have posted a similar question to a translation-related forum some time ago, but not gotten any good feedback yet.
