Favorite Settings

I'm going to try and talk about writing more on here.  It's something I enjoy a lot, and I love talking about it.  It's just that I'm kind of hesitant to bring it up a lot of the time because I'm scared people will criticize my writing and tell me it's horrible.  Constructive criticism is always a good thing, but I'm scared that people will completely hate it.

Anyway, the first thing I want to talk about is setting and/or universes in writing.  More specifically, what type of settings I like to write stories in.

So far, all of the stories I've written have been set in present day, present day but with mythical creatures, the Harry Potter universe, and the Avatar (of the bending variety) universe.  I love writing in all of these, but in the future I hope to write more fantasy (in my own universe of course) and historical fiction.  I'd love to write a book in colonial America or on the frontier sometime in the 1800's.  I have plans for stories that take place in all of these settings.

So far, I think the story that I had the most fun with the setting was this short story I wrote in eighth grade.  Unfortunately, I lost the story a long time ago, but the idea's never left my head.  I have a lot of plans to go back and turn the idea into a whole novel.  I've already changed a lot in my head, but the basic idea has stayed pretty much the same.  It was my first time creating a universe of my own.  It was set in present day America, but the main character was a witch and there were many other mythical creatures.  I don't want to say much more because I do plan to go back to that someday.  I already have a lot of the rules and stuff in that world worked out.  It was just written as a short story for class, but I don't think any story I've ever written has had as much backstory as I have for this idea.  I love coming up with new ideas about that universe.

I think it's cool that you can write a story that takes place in any time period or universe you want it too.  I plan to write stories in many, many different settings.  It's always fun to try new things.

Are any of you guys writers?  What are your favorite settings for your stories?  If you're just a reader, what's your favorite settings for books?