I've had two distinct fandoms. Are you sure you want my history in both? Really?
The first one was a literary fandom that grew up around a six-volume series by Dorothy Dunnett that features a beautiful, neurotic, tortured (sometime literally) hero, Francis Crawford of Lymond. When I found Dunnett in 1969, only the first three volumes were written, and they struck me like lightening in the brain. I knew nobody who would be interested in reading them, so I wrote to Dorothy. Silly woman, she wrote me back. I wrote again. She answered. I wrote again. She cried 'Uncle' and put me in touch with two other readers.
Jen and I wrote back and forth, forth and back as the series was completed and a new series started. I visited her in the north of Engand, and she visited me in Philadelphia. Then in 1983 two fans in Chicago started a fanzine, a fore-runner of a list_serve that circulated via the U.S. Mail. "Marzipan and Kisses" came out quarterly, but we managed to carry on conversations nevertheless. I also started corresponding privately with a couple of contributors.
In 1981, my husband and I spent three weeks in Britain. At Walt's insistence, I wrote Dorothy and asked if we could take her out to lunch, dinner, or for a drink while we were in Edinburgh. Instead she invited us to her house for drinks and then to a fund raiser for the Scottish Film Institute. She and Walter got on like a house on fire, sipping their whiskeys, while I, who do not drink much, slid slowly under the coffee table. She was a charmer!
We all wanted to get together and talk Dunnett. (What we wanted was a con, but I didn't know that. I was only vaguely aware that I was in a fandom...even though I was a player.) In 1990 Dorothy gave in and she personally ran a three-day con in Edinburgh. Life-changing event for me! I made so many friends, many of whom I am still in touch with.
There were four more cons before Dorothy died in 2001. It was after the second con in Boston in 1992 that one of the fans started a list_serve out of Columbia University. (That was in the early days of e-mail and well before the World Wide Web or even services like Compu-Serve. All of the members were affiliated with a university; I knew nobody with private e-mail We were very aware of being pioneers.)
My husband Walter and I ran the last con in Philadelphia in 2000. We had to draw the line at about 200 attendees.
Despite Dorothy's death, the Dunnett readers still get together. We have had cons in Ireland, Paris, Malta (I attended), and Istambul (I went to this one, too), and we are getting together in Venice in September 2016, God willing.
That fandom changed my life in so many ways. I never expected lightening to strike again, much less over a TV show.
You don't really want me to tell you my QAF origin story, do you? now that you know I have diarrhea of the fingers? FanSee
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2014-10-05 09:46 pm (UTC)The first one was a literary fandom that grew up around a six-volume series by Dorothy Dunnett that features a beautiful, neurotic, tortured (sometime literally) hero, Francis Crawford of Lymond. When I found Dunnett in 1969, only the first three volumes were written, and they struck me like lightening in the brain. I knew nobody who would be interested in reading them, so I wrote to Dorothy. Silly woman, she wrote me back. I wrote again. She answered. I wrote again. She cried 'Uncle' and put me in touch with two other readers.
Jen and I wrote back and forth, forth and back as the series was completed and a new series started. I visited her in the north of Engand, and she visited me in Philadelphia. Then in 1983 two fans in Chicago started a fanzine, a fore-runner of a list_serve that circulated via the U.S. Mail. "Marzipan and Kisses" came out quarterly, but we managed to carry on conversations nevertheless. I also started corresponding privately with a couple of contributors.
In 1981, my husband and I spent three weeks in Britain. At Walt's insistence, I wrote Dorothy and asked if we could take her out to lunch, dinner, or for a drink while we were in Edinburgh. Instead she invited us to her house for drinks and then to a fund raiser for the Scottish Film Institute. She and Walter got on like a house on fire, sipping their whiskeys, while I, who do not drink much, slid slowly under the coffee table. She was a charmer!
We all wanted to get together and talk Dunnett. (What we wanted was a con, but I didn't know that. I was only vaguely aware that I was in a fandom...even though I was a player.) In 1990 Dorothy gave in and she personally ran a three-day con in Edinburgh. Life-changing event for me! I made so many friends, many of whom I am still in touch with.
There were four more cons before Dorothy died in 2001. It was after the second con in Boston in 1992 that one of the fans started a list_serve out of Columbia University. (That was in the early days of e-mail and well before the World Wide Web or even services like Compu-Serve. All of the members were affiliated with a university; I knew nobody with private e-mail We were very aware of being pioneers.)
My husband Walter and I ran the last con in Philadelphia in 2000. We had to draw the line at about 200 attendees.
Despite Dorothy's death, the Dunnett readers still get together. We have had cons in Ireland, Paris, Malta (I attended), and Istambul (I went to this one, too), and we are getting together in Venice in September 2016, God willing.
That fandom changed my life in so many ways. I never expected lightening to strike again, much less over a TV show.
You don't really want me to tell you my QAF origin story, do you? now that you know I have diarrhea of the fingers? FanSee