The Foresmutters Project

The Foresmutters Project was the first test case for the Open Doors project. Foresmutters is a bibliography and collection of stories from the very earliest days of recorded slash, principally Kirk/Spock from the mid-1970s. It’s a tremendously valuable resource for the K/S fandom, which is still active today, and for historians of fanworks. We are hoping to grow this collection. If you or someone you know wrote K/S in the 1970s or 1980s, please contact us; we can find someone to help you transcribe or scan your fiction.

Visit the original mirror for the archive, or read (or edit!) the Foresmutters Project article on Fanlore.

Kista (1986) and Demeter (1987): two novels by Jane Land

Kista (1986; original zine 267 pages) was described by author Jane Land as “an attempt to rescue one of Star Trek‘s female characters from an artificially-imposed case of foolishness.” In it, Chapel still loves Spock, but their developing romance is allowed to be complex, with Chapel being more of a rounded person (as well a doctor!) than she was allowed to be onscreen.

Demeter (1987; original zine 305 pages) is a sequel to Kista. As Henry Jenkins and John Tulloch wrote in Science fiction audiences: watching Doctor Who and Star Trek, “Demeter places [Spock and Chapel’s] relationship within a larger social context, dealing more directly with how women are treated within the Federation.” The plot “concerns the threat a group of intergalactic drug-runners pose to Demeter, a feminist space colony, a world where women have lived without any contact with men for several generations.” Uhura also plays a large role in this novel, commanding the all-female mission to Demeter; Robin Reid argues that this novel is important “within the context of second wave feminism, specifically: the creation of the 1970s feminist utopias (which often featured a lesbian separatist culture, sometimes though not always on a separate planet!)” (Reid, “‘A Room of Our Own:’ Women Writing Women in Fan and Slash Fiction,” ICFA 2009).

Our thanks to Dr. Robin Reid for organizing the preservation of these works.

Read (or edit!) the Kista or Demeter articles on Fanlore.

Brian Knapp Collection

This is a large collection of classic zines from the 1970s and early 1980s. It includes such titles as The Green Dome (The Prisoner), Locus, Menagerie, Spockanalia, Future Wings, The Goddess Uhura, and the Kraith Collected Volumes 1-6. Other notable items include Sing A Song of Trekkin (A Fun-Filled Folio of 20 Trekker “Filk” Songs), and several years’ worth of annuals from the J.D.I.F.C. (James Doohan International Fan Club), as well as souvenir programs from I-Con, Arisia, MiniTrekCon, Creation Con ’79, and New York Star Trek ’76.

Finding Aid

Organization for Transformative Works Fanzine and Fan Fiction Collection

The general OTW collection includes a wide variety of analog fanworks. Materials in this collection have been donated by numerous fans, some of whom wish to remain anonymous.

  • UMF: The ‘Zine for the Creative Duranie was a zine dedicated to Duran Duran fanfiction. It ran for ten issues, from 1993 – 1998. We currently hold issues 3, 5, and 6.
  • Collection of mostly Kung Fu: The Legend Continues and Quantum Leap zines, as well as miscellaneous MacGyver, Rat Patrol, and zines about various TV westerns.
  • Collection of multifandom (e.g. Storm Signs, Wounded Heroes), Quantum Leap (incl. various issues of The Angel and the Dreamer, Quantum Instability, and others), Sentinel, and Due South zines.
  • Collection of zines in a number of fandoms, including: Alias Smith & Jones, Blake’s 7, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, Highlander, The Sentinel, and others.
  • Collection of zines in a number of fandoms including The Real Ghostbusters and The Man From U.N.C.L.E., as well as several multimedia anthologies.
  • Collection of Simon and Simon letterzines and fiction zines in various fandoms; these zines originally came from the collection of Alison Wilson, who was involved in many fandoms until her death in the late 1990s. An avid fan and fanfiction writer, she was cited in Textual Poachers by Henry Jenkins.
  • Collection of The X-Files, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, and Blake’s 7 zines donated by Joanna Lowenstein in memory of Beth Kiedrowicz, media fan and regular attendee of WisCon. These zines originally come from Beth’s collection.

Finding Aid

Mariellen (Ming) Wathne Fanzine Archive Collection

The Fanzine Archive Collection contains thousands of fanzines focused on Star Wars that were originally collected by Lucasfilm Ltd., producer of the Star Wars series. This collection was offered back to fans in the 1990s, and a California fan named Mariellen Wathne accepted it and began a lending library to distribute zines among fans. In addition to Star Wars fanzines, there are also many fanzines related to Star Trek, including some of the most important early pieces. (A fund in memory of Ming Wathne has been created at Iowa to support this collection. See this post for more details.)

Finding Aid