Date: Wed, 20 Apr 2005 06:00:13 -0700 (PDT)
From: Drew Bittner <drewbitt at yahoo.com>
Subject: [WSFA] Re: Blish... Re: Enterprise - the end is nigh!
To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>

Ted,
I love sf and have since I was a kid.
A lot of my friends (including my fiancee) enjoy
reading sf, but when the subject of "fandom" comes up,
they flash on images of people in Star Trek costumes,
etc.-- basically, how the media portrays sf fandom.
They don't find it appealing.
WSFA is a great counter-example.
My fiancee is going to love meeting everyone at WSFA--
I know, because I've told her a lot about all of you
and she's eager to attend her first meeting (probably
first meeting in June).
I don't mean any offense. As I said above, my previous
post was worded too strongly. "Anti-social" is not
appropriate; given what I've said here, I hope to
indicate more that there is some apprehension among
non-fans, not so much that fans themselves are hostile
to newcomers.
As to the last point, "discouraging potential readers"
is something I've considered with regard to comic
books and roleplaying games-- which are not held in
high regard. It is not quite the same in sf, but there
are people who lump all of these together-- perhaps
again because they associate sf so strongly with
conventions that they think are weird. Again, I don't
mean any offense and apologize if I've hurt any
feelings with what I'd said.

Drew

--- Ted White <twhite8 at cox.net> wrote:
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Drew Bittner" <drewbitt at yahoo.com>
> To: "WSFA members" <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>
> Sent: Tuesday, April 19, 2005 3:26 PM
> Subject: [WSFA] Re: Blish... Re: Enterprise - the
> end is nigh!
>
> > I really didn't know anything about Blish when I
> read
> > his Trek adaptations back in '74 or '75. I've read
> > some of his work since but that's clearly far from
> > even the majority of his writing. Whether he wrote
> the
> > things I'd read before or after Trek was largely
> > unimportant to me.
> >
> > As for knowing the history of sf... well, I picked
> up
> > a lot through osmosis and more from being a critic
> for
> > a newspaper through the late '80s. Being around
> fans
> > who are more up on history and interviewing
> writers
> > makes learning a lot easier, though the
> > sometimes-anti-social nature of fandom in general
> can
> > discourage some potential readers.
>
> I'm intrigued by your last line.  What are you
> saying?   What do you mean
> by "the sometimes-anti-social nature of fandom in
> general," and,
> separately, how can anything about the nature of
> fandom "discourage some
> potential readers"?
>
> --Ted White
>

__________________________________________________