TNFF Vol. 71, No. 1

The March 2012 issue of the N3F clubzine with new editor, David Speakman, is now out.

From the Table of Contents:

• Election results
• Convention calendar
• Reviews of Zines and Movies
• N3F coat of Arms help needed
• Neffy Ballot for best of 2011

Hosted at eFanzines.com, the public issue is located here:  http://efanzines.com/NFFF/TNFF-71-1.pdf

TNFF Vol. 70, Nos. 2-4

A new, combined three-issue zine put out by the N3F. It is the last issue edited by Heath Row.

From the table of contents:

• Remembering Joanna Russ, by Jon D. Swartz
• N3F History: ‘What is Science Fiction Fandom?’, by Jon Swartz
• Member Spotlight: Damon Knight, by Jon Swartz
• What About Area 51? by Jeffrey Redmond
• Vonda N. McIntyre: Math and Media Tie-Ins by Heath Row
• China Miéville: Hostage to Fortune by Holly Wilson
• Along with the zine’s signature reviews and an artist spotlight on Jose Sanchez.

A public version is available at eFanzines.com at the following link: http://efanzines.com/NFFF/e-Fan-26.pdf

• The Key to Canvention, Taral Wayne
• My Cat Squiddy Can Spell, Lizbeth Phillip
• Watching the Eagles Play, Steven H Silver
• From Space.com, images selected by John Purcell
• Tales From the Convention, Lloyd Penney
• Figby, Bill Fischer
• Classic Butchery, Neil Jamieson-Williams
• Art by Sheryl Birkhead, Brad Foster, Taral Wayne, Jose Sanchez

Askance is hosted at efanzines.com at the following link: http://efanzines.com/Prior/Askance26.pdf

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Look back at where we’ve been and see how far we’ve come.

At her heart, Susan M. Garret was a storyteller, “Officially, I’ve been writing fiction since I was eight years old,” she said in one of her biographies. “It all began with fan fiction–they didn’t make enough new episodes of my favorite Saturday morning cartoon and children’s shows and so I started writing my own.”

From there, her writing took off. She had been published hundreds of times in various fanzines, including works of non-fiction as well as original fiction and fan fiction. It’s in fan fiction circles where the name Susan M. Garret gained an iconic status; a guarantee that a first-rate yarn was in store for the reader, true to the original characters.

She developed quite a large fan base with her original works based on the worlds of The Secret Adventures of Jules Verne and Forever Knight. It was her reputation in the latter that led to her book deal with Berekely in the 1990s.

Aside from developing a fan base of her own, Susan was a die-hard fan herself, where her fan career began in earnest in 1976, when she was inducted as the first American female into the UK’s storied Doctor Who Appreciation Society. A life-long fan of the Doctor and his adventures in the TARDIS, she kept up with the series until the end.

A publisher of several fanzines through the years (see partial list below), she had a distinguished impact on fandom in general and was the co-creator of the satirical “Not The MediaWest*Con Program Book” with Ann Larimer, that was distributed at MediaWest for many years.

Between 1989 and 1992, she published The Handy Dandy Adzine Calendar and Address Guide for Fanzine Editors and Other Busy People, a bi-annual adzine for and about adzines that was distributed at fan conventions and via the mail.

She also was the creator of two publications regarding fan publishing: The Fantastically, Fundamentally Functional Guide to Fanzines for Readers & Contributors in 1989, and The Fantastically, Fundamentally Functional Guide to Fanzines for Editors & Publishers in 1990.

[media-credit name="SUSAN M. GARRETT (Source: SFF.net)" align="alignright" width="197"][/media-credit]

She had a particular impact in science fiction and fantasy TV fandom as it came of age in the 1990s.

She was a top BNF (big-name fan) among Doctor Who (1970s-80s), Forever Knight (1990s), and most recently The Secret Adventures of Jules Verne (SAJV). It was her work in SAJV fandom that is still being felt today. She, along with a small team of dedicated fans, set up a multi-media network to save the show that had been cancelled by the SCIFI Channel – consisting of inter-linked websites,  PR campaigns to advertisers and DVD/video distributors, and very detail-oriented and precise attack plans and events at fan conventions made the industry and other fans stand up and take attention.

Although it was too late to save SAJV, others took notes and those same tactics were later used in other campaigns, including the successful effort after FOX cancelled the series Firefly, in which many tactics originally developed by SAJVers under the tutelage of Susan M. Garrett led to Universal movie studio making the feature film, Serenity.

By that time, Susan started devoting more of her time practicing her writing. Born and raised on the east coast, but always fascinated by the lure of Hollywood (she was an extra in a 1999 episode of Homicide: Life on the Street when it filmed in Baltimore) Susan jumped at the chance to switch coasts when the opportunity arose in 2002 to move to the Los Angeles-area and be room mates with fellow SAJVer and empty nester with a room to spare, Vicci Varner. There she lived and wrote in the foothills overlooking Los Angeles for the past 8 years.

But, after a routine medical procedure in April 2010 revealed that Susan M. Garrett had advanced Stage 3 colon/stomach cancer, she spent her last months fighting the disease in her adopted home; as usual, she lived at the Varner house as part of the family until the end – with the help and care of her long-time friend and room mate, Vicci Varner, and her brother, Shawn. Recently, she was transferred to the intensive care unit of Cedars-Sinai Hospital in Beverly Hills, where she spent her 49th birthday. Her battle with cancer ended three days later with her drifting off in her sleep, on Saturday, August 14, 2010.

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LINKS

Although she has left us, Susan M. Garrett lives on in cyberspace. Below are a few links about her and her works:

• Susan M. Garrett’s Homepage – with many links to her stories
• Susan M. Garrett profile on FanHistory.com – profile
• Susan M. Garrett page on SFF.net – profile
• Susan M. Garrett page on Fanlore.org – profile
• Goodreads – her suggestions in literature
• LiveJournal Blog – last updated shortly before her health problems began

Dragon*Con 2011 (Photo credit: MissMalaprop)

Starting this Labor Day, PBS stations will start airing a slice of fandom with the one-hour documentary, Four Days at DragonCon. Filmed by Atlanta- based documentarians, Jack Walsh and Gordon Ray during the 2009 con, the film is set to debut 9 p.m. (ET) Aug. 28 on WPBA PBS 30 in Atlanta and then roll out nationwide to other PBS member stations in the following months.

Dubbed in the media as “Woodstock for nerds,”  ”the ultimate pop culture convention” and “the South’s sci-fi fantasy Mardi Gras,” this is no small regional sparsely-attended fan convention as Dragon*Con has grown to become the largest fan-run science fiction and fantasy convention in the world with tens of thousands of attendees taking up more Atlanta hotel space than the 1996 Summer Olympics (true, ComiCon is larger and gets more attention – but it is put on by a large corporation, not volunteer fans – and it shows.)

Below is a sneak preview of “Four Days at DragonCon”

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Here is the table of contents:
2 Bureaus & Activities w/ art credits
3 2008 Officers w/ table of content
4 President’s Message
5 2009 N3F ELECTION PLATFORMS!
7 Historical Vignettes
8 Reviews
11 FanDominion.com
12 The Best of FanDominion.com
22 A Fantasy CD Preview Review
24 Bureau & Activities Reports
24 N’APA
24 Round Robins
25 Web Mistress
25 Treasurer’s Report
26 Blind Services
26 Secretary Reports & Roster
29 Tightbeam – Letters of Comment
30 Constitution & Bylaws w/ changes
34 Things to Think About
34 Submission Guidelines
35 2008 Short Story Contest

You can download the public version (personal information removed) here: http://www.n3f.org/The%20e-Fan18public.pdf