Joan Winston: Recollections and Tributes

Part of A Companion in Zeor
Recollections, for inclusion, can be e-mailed to Karen MacLEOD
Additional earlier tributes are linked through a table at the bottom of this page.

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Back in 1978 - I was 15 and had been a Trek fan for just a couple of years - I read both "Star Trek Lives!" and "The Making of the Trek Conventions". In STL, I loved Joan Winston's chapter about visiting the Star Trek set (as well as the chapter about fanfic) and I loved her entire "Making of..." book, which left me grinning and wishing I'd been there, eager to hunt up Gilbert and Sullivan, and deciding I might actually try Chinese food sometime. (The only Chinese food I'd had till then was home-made skillet chop suey, which is, in my experience, mostly gray and generally gross no matter who makes it. Going to a Chinese restaurant - even an American Chinese restaurant - was an eye-opener.) Joan's enthusiasm and love for the show and everyone involved in it was infectious.


Nearly 20 years later, at ShoreLeave in 1997, I met Joan. I had gone to SL with a bunch of women I'd met online who I always think of as the Star Trek women, and Jacqueline came to our party that evening. I'd introduced myself to her earlier in the dealers room - she remembered me from the APA - and while there, she told me which party she would be attending later. When I arrived at the other party, Joan was there, regaling the crowd with stories of her vist to the Star Trek set, those first conventions, and other fannish things (I remember she talked about Highlander). I don't remember how long I sat there - literally on the floor at her feet - just content to meet someone who had not only rubbed elbows with everyone involved in the original series, but had maintained a love for Star Trek, and was just as gracious and well-spoken and funny as her writing would lead you to believe. I never saw her again, but 11 years later, meeting Joan (and Jacqueline!) is still one of my fondest fannish memories - no, not even one of my fondest fannish memories, just one of my fondest memories, period. I'm sorry that she's gone.

Colleen (Bellairs) Maynard
http://www.fanfiction.net/~cbtreks
http://www.livejournal.com/users/cbtreks