Shona Jackson

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Fan
Name: Shona Jackson
Alias(es): Dawnsinger, Dawn Singer, T'Klai, K'Shona, K'Shona Jackson, Ambassador K'Shona Epetai Ishkra, T'Shona Isteb, T'Klai
Type: fanartist, editor
Fandoms: Star Trek, Darkover
Communities:
Other:
URL:
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Shona Jackson was a prolific fanartist (and occasional editor) whose work appeared in many zines under several pseuds.

Jackson passed away early 1990. [1]

Fans Remember Shona

[unknown date]:

... let me start with Shona Jackson, K'shona epetai-Ishkra, kenikito (Ambassador) of the Klingon Embassy, an organization she ran from her home in Tucson, Arizona. New to Klin-fandom in 1988, I was pulling in every lead I could lay hands on to explore its potential. My thanks go to the roster of the Klingon Strike Force and to Kris who had corresponded with Shona for years earlier for my introduction to her. Shona had launched her Klingon Embassy in 1986, but had been an active Klingon-identified fan for a good nine years before that. Seems she had gotten into fandom almost at the ground floor and had connected with the people who traded film clips from TOS in the later seventies, early eighties.

She had some of the coolest stills of Kor, Koloth and Kang. By the time I 'met' her by mail early in 1989, she was an old hand, a veteran of the best sort. She had not burned out. She maintained the contacts she had established with most of the active Klingons around the country and Down Under. She had made a reputation contributing Klin-themed art, poetry and stories to zines like Lana Bown's KATRA (New Zealand), Roberta Rogow's RIP (New Jersey), the Rondeaus' CLIPPER TRADE SHIP (California). She projected a powerful mother-warrior persona in her character as K'shona, Klingon Ambassador to earth, an exiled one fulfilling her duty to Empire by building an information network. K'shona was an acquisitive scholar of Klingon culture. She knew the large zine series, Nu Ormenel and Antithesis, kept up with new material as Ann Schwader and Devra Langsam produced it, and recognized John Ford's Final Reflection as a rich source of inspiration for her own klin.

She had, early on, developed her own Klingon script with which she signed all her fannish work. She loved the ST shows and movies and wrote with sharp, critical affection about the flops as well as the successes as they appeared. She was independent. She never merged her Embassy with any other Klingon organization, but gladly wrote to all who approached her.

In fandom, you meet many types. There are "hoarders" who share little, too busy with their own campaigns to really give much to newbies. And there are "sharers" who pass the magic to those who ask. I was desperately interested in fannish publishing of the Klingon sort. I also had discovered the joys of filk music. I also wanted to build uniforms, especially the Classic Klingon models. I wanted it-NOW! ALL OF IT!! NOW!!! According to Kris, K'shona was the one to "fly to".

She was partly Native American, dark, comely, with long black hair and black eyes. She was a feminist, a Wiccan, an intellectual in the sense that she was curious about everything, shared what she knew, learned from others. She loved horses, cats, Klingons (especially those compelling soldiers of TOS), music, crafts, gaming. She worked at some drudgy job she did not enjoy but endured in order to survive. It is clear that her life revolved around her fannish activities, and these she nurtured by a vast snail mail correspondence which she called the "Klingon COMMnet.". (She hated to type, and instead printed her letters by hand in an elegant, distinctive script. Only when she finally got a Mac computer did she start producing typed letters.)

She didn't pull her punches. She called an asshole an asshole. But she also had a way of detecting klin at a distance, by mail, even! I treasure a collection of her letters including things written to Kris and Gunahrk, that is Robert Jan of Australia, who kindly copied off his Shona materials (1986-88) so I could gather them in the Archive for future reference. There are also the letters she and I exchanged over the course of the year before she died of cancer early in 1990. (I think she was 39) Come to think of it, she was precisely my role model when Kris gave me the job of running Force Recon for KAG.

When K'shona died it became clear that her mother, who lived near, her brother and her roommate, did not understand her Trek life and work. Shona's files apparently went out with the garbage. But, ha! We still have much of what she contributed safe in the zines she wrote and drew for, in her expressive letters, and in the Klingon Embassy materials she distributed.

Shona's Klingon-ness was totally consistent with her outlook on life. She didn't take any shit from anybody. She honored the Earth and the Elements. She had an evil sense of humor. She was brave. Cat and Kerla, she was your kind of woman. She's been here. Let's remember her![2]

[1992]: Shona Jackson died at the age of 40 from cancer. Shona had been with the KSF in two different terms, having left us for a year. In all, she served with the Strike Force for about three years. Shona had been a fan of Star Trek and of course, Klingons, for so many years, only the Stars would know for sure. She contributed her artwork and her comments to many publications. If you look in the right places, you can still find her Klingon costume artwork in various publications, some official and some fan produced. Shona always spoke her mind and was an activist in many things. She wrote many and helped structure some of the KSF. Her input to the greater glory has been missed. [3]

[2013]: Back in the seventies, a fierce young woman joined a Star Trek club I ran via the mail. Her name was Shona Jackson. She was fierce. Fierce in her interests, her pursuit of them, her beliefs, her passion for life. In the eighties, Shona died, way too early.[4]

[2020]: I grew up in Arizona fandom and when I think of cosplayers in general, there is none I more fondly remember than K'Shona. I remember seeing her for years walking around conventions with her staff as a Klingon matron, tiny yet commanding respect. Years later around 1990 I was able to join her for tea at a friends's house and got to know her a little bit. I recall her talking about how her eyes were shot from years and years hunched over a soldering iron doing electronics assembly for the defense industry. She had a wit and yes, fierceness that surprised me. I had no idea she was so young until finding this page just now. (Or that she'd participated in so many zines!) [5]

Zines to Which Shona Contributed

from Grip #5

References

  1. ^ Great Klingons in History, by Sue Frank
  2. ^ Great Klingons in History, by Sue Frank
  3. ^ from Behind the Lines v.1 n.1
  4. ^ from BOOK OF LOVE - Shona Jackson Memory, posted October 16, 2011, accessed May 27, 2013
  5. ^ from catback, posted here on Fanlore, April 19, 2020
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