Joan Winston: Recollections and Tributes

Joan Winston was very important to me. I met her at my very first Con in 1976. She appreciated my art talent and a couple of years later, bought two of my cartoons for her professionally published mass market paperback book Startoons, edited by Joan Winston (Playboy Press, 1979). That was one of my first significant professional art sales. I still treasure my copy of that book to this very day. Conventions made it possible for me to sell my genre art professionally and they helped me get my performing career started by competing in costume contests. All the costumes I first made for Cons ended up being very useful for professional performances later on. Joan will always have a very special place in my heart. Her passion opened doorways that would never have existed otherwise.

Vibes and hugs,
Amy Harlib

No, seriously, folks, that's Joanie. I met her with Shirley Maiewski and Jacqueline Lichtenberg. Together, along with a host of others, they brought me, dragging and screaming, into the world of Star Trek fandom.

And, boy, am I ever grateful to them.

Especially to Joanie.

You look into those eyes that sparkle, and that smile of hers, and she could make the worst day of your life seem like the best. And heaven knows, we've all had a few of those.

Just ask anyone who has stood in line at the Commodore Hotel, or the dreaded Americana Hotel elevators.

If "Beam me up, Scotty," had been a reality then, we all could have benefited from it.

But it was Joanie's smile, along with Jacqueline's and Shirley's, that made those cons work for all of us. A true party.

For 12,000 of her closest friends, even to this day.

And we remain, ever grateful, to Joanie Winston.

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Joan Winston assuredly can be recognized as one of the founders of Star Trek fandom. The conventions would not have taken place without capable fans running them, and the conventions were what brought many people to Star Trek fandom. Indeed, they were a primary source of people being aware there was a Star Trek fandom. Star Trek Lives! also was a milestone in fan history, and her contribution to that volume made many fans aware that conventions were fan-friendly, fun places to come. So from one Joan to another, and from one long-time Star Trek fan to another, I wish Joan Winston the very best.

Joan Marie Verba
http://www.joanmarieverba.com
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Reading Star Trek Lives and, in particular, Joan's chapter, assured me for the very first time ever that I was not crazy in my obsession.

Attending my first (and ever after) ST convention (in my case the NY Statler Hilton con in Feb. 1978) told me that not only was I not crazy, there was a whole world out there of warm loving accepting people just like me.

I was trapped in a hopeless and terrible and ego destroying marriage because I never imagined I deserved better. ST fandom showed me that I was a person of worth and I never looked back. A year later I was divorced, writing and being published (ah, K/S fandom back in the day, what a wonderful universe it was). I went back to school and got first a BA and then a Master's. I now have a job I love and continue in fandom (Man From U.N.C.L.E. now) which always, no matter how the day, week or year may have gone, provides a home. Thank you, Joan.

Cynthia Drake
(currently writing as ChannelD)