From: "Ted White" <twhite8 at cox.net>
To: "WSFA members" <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net>
Subject: [WSFA] Re: Old WSFA Journals
Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2004 21:19:26 -0500
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net>

----- Original Message -----
From: "Keith F. Lynch" <kfl at KeithLynch.net>
To: "WSFA members" <WSFAlist at KeithLynch.net>
Sent: Tuesday, February 24, 2004 8:44 PM
Subject: [WSFA] Old WSFA Journals

[...]
>
> "Ted White" <twhite8 at cox.net> wrote:
>
> > "No idea how"?  He typed stencils.  Lots of them.  Don had a
> > nose-to-the-grindstone approach to fanac: grim and humorless and
> > hardworking.  His WSFA JOURNALs reflected that.  Some were deadly
> > dull.  But Doll Gilliland's rather sloppy, friendly fanzine review
> > column made up for a lot.
>
> What I meant was, did he write most of the material himself?  If not,
> who did?  Other WSFA members?  How was he so much more successful at
> getting them to write for the Journal than any later secretary was?

I don't believe Don wrote very much of the material himself.   He did
something few modern editors of the WSFA JOURNAL have done:  He treated it
as a fanzine, sent it out all over fandom, traded with other fanzines, and
had a healthy readership of several hundred *outside* WSFA.  When you do
this, people send you contributions, and write you Letters of Comment.   So
his JOURNALs had hefty letter columns and a number of outside
contributions.   In his era, fanzines often ran 70 to over 100 pages (with
a typewriter, single-spaced, that's maybe 500 words a page, maybe less --
definitely less wordage per page than any modern computer-set zine).   His
JOURNALs were in a sense an advertisement for WSFA to fandom in general.
As such, they were not all that impressive -- all that grey typewriter
type, largely unrelieved by art or any sense of layout or design -- but
Doll's column was popular in fandom, and a number of my friends were happy
to trade their fanzines for Don's.

> Speaking of fanzine reviews, I miss yours.  Why did you stop?

Two, somewhat related, reasons.   1.  I ran out of stuff to review (it was
my policy not to review the same fanzine twice, although I made a few
exceptions), and 2. although all of my editors (the column was "syndicated"
to four clubzines around the country + Canada, and to the efanzines
website) were happy with it, I did not feel it was reaching its audience.
I checked with the editors whose zines I reviewed.  *Not one* of them ever
received a request for a copy of their fanzine on account of my reviews.
That means that I failed in my fundamental goal (to involve at least *some*
clubfans in fanzines).

In addition, I was limited to approximately 600 words, and I felt it
incumbent upon me to write "nice" reviews, since they best served my goal.
Sometimes this required me to curb myself severely.   (I prefer to write
more seasoned criticism.)  But so it goes.   I wanted to write a final,
wrapup column, but ran out of steam.   I doubt most readers of the WSFA
JOURNAL have even noticed the reviews' absense.   I do not get the feeling
that most WSFAns either know about or *care* to know about fanzines.   That
saddens me, but I accept it.

--Ted White