1975
From Fan History Wiki
1975 and the Star Trek fan fiction is growing by leaps and bounds!
Other fan fiction communities are beginning to become more involved with publishing fanzines containing fan fiction based on their favorite television shows, movies and books. These communities, taking note of what was happening in the Star Trek community, also begin to host their own conventions. The two groups that could mark their official beginnings through publishing and holding of conventions this year include the Dark Shadows community and the Man from U.N.C.L.E. community. The World of Dark Shadows was the the first Dark Shadows fanzine. In 1975, ShadowCon was held. It was the first national Dark Shadows convention and was organized by fans of the show. The Man from U.N.C.L.E. community, which had been circulating stories informally for years, had one of these stories published in a zine for the first time. Pat Munson was responsible for this with the first stand alone Man from U.N.C.L.E. fanzine. It is called Blue Curtain Affair.
In canon universes, Space: 1999 was on its first run on television and Starsky and Hutch was in its first season on television. The communities which sprang up around these would not become active for several more years.
While the first Kirk/Spock story may have been published the previous year, more material was out there and not getting published. The general community did not seem overly receptive to romance and in particular, that pairing. Diane Marchant would address this pairing in an essay in Grup #4. There was a follow discussion to this essay in the Star Trek letterzine, Halkan Council. This did not lead to a glut of these stories being privately circulated being published in fanzines. Rather, many would continue their trips underground, in some cases not being published for another ten to fifteen years.
While the slash situation went on in the Australia, United States and United Kingdom, the Australian Star Trek community took more steps towards organizing themselves. They were greatly benefited by Aussiecon, the 1975 WorldCon which was held in Melbourne. The outcome of this is the creation of several Australian Star Trek clubs and fanzines.
The Star Trek fan fiction community grew by leaps and bounds this year thanks in a large part to the publication of Star Trek Lives!. This book, written by Jacqueline Lichtenberg, Sondra Marshak, and Joan Winston and published by Corgi, informed many people who were not part of the fan fiction community of the community’s existence and information on how to become part of it. The fen took advantage of this.
See also:
- Canon released in 1975
- Conventions held in 1975
- Fanzines published in 1975
- Mailing lists founded in 1975
- Technology innovations in 1975
