Dot Owens
This article is a stub. Please help us out by adding more content. |
| Fan | |
|---|---|
| Name: | Dot Owens |
| Alias(es): | |
| Type: | con organizer... |
| Fandoms: | Star Trek |
| Communities: | |
| Other: | |
| URL: | |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
Dot Owens was among many things, a con organizer and zine contributor.
She passed away February 1, 1984.
Club President
Zine Editor
Owens was editor for Empathy Press (1970s), along with Lea Mount, Carol Keogh, Barbara Kitson, and Catherine Owens.
This press published the fiction zines Emanon, Tricorder, and Contact, as well as the newsletters Empathy News as well as many other zines.
Con Organizer
Owens was also a steward at the very first British Star Trek con, in 1974.
About
From the 2021 essay, How Dorothy Owens Brought Star Trek to the UK by Rachel Perkins:
In almost all the ways, Dorothy "Dot" Owens broke the traditions for what society stereotyped as a “nerd." She was a mother to five daughters and a grandmother, who lived in a small house in Yorkshire, England, with her husband Joe, and her German Shepherd, Sheba. She wore her hair short and in curls, picked out pastel patterns to wear, and worked in retail — sometimes surviving paycheck to paycheck.
This otherwise typical woman just also happened to be the chairperson for a number of UK-based Star Trek fanzines as well as an organizer of several Star Trek conventions across England in the 1970s and ‘80s. Her events drew in international Star Trek stars such as George Takei and D.C. Fontana, as well as other familiar names in the Science Fiction circles, such as Hugo-award winner Anne McCaffrey, and The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy writer Douglas Adams.
Running the magazines soon became a bigger venture. In the family home, there was a collection of stamps from subscribers, and the storage upstairs was filled with boxes of paper awaiting printing. Their first typewriter was a portable Smith Corona, used to make the stencils for the magazine. While the entire house was a base of operations for the club, the kitchen was where printing took place as it housed the stencil duplicator (also known as the mimeograph machine). Initially a manually operated Roneo brand, it was later upgraded to a Gestetner, before going electric in the 1980s. The kitchen was chosen because printing would last long into the night and the following morning. That way the noise didn’t disturb others’ sleep.
When Catherine moved to London in 1975, she briefly stayed as president of the club, but then Dorothy took over the operation and organization.