Fern Marder

Fan
Name:	Fern Marder
Alias(es):
Type:	fan writer, fanzine publisher, filker and fan artist
Fandoms:	Star Wars, Star Trek: TOS, Robin of Sherwood, Buckaroo Banzai, Blade Runner
Communities:
Other:
URL:
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Fern Marder was a writer, zine publisher, filker and occasional fan artist and costumer (ie. a sehlat). She often worked with Carol Walske.

Walske and Marder were editors of The Cavalier, Dagger of the Mind, and Another Time, Another Place, and Arakenyo (which Carol Walske wrote). Together they co-wrote Alkarin Warlord, Nu Ormenel Collected, Stormbrother and Threshold. Fern also wrote the filk songs that appeared in Songs of Fire, Songs of Life.

Marder contributed fiction, poetry, articles, and occasional artwork to numerous other zines including The Other Side of Paradise, Cityspeak: The Special Edition, Guardian, and Probe. She contributed a significant amount of poetry to Kessel Run: an entire libretto of "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat", redone for Star Wars (Han Solo and the Amazing Technicolor Lightsaber). Some of her work appeared in zines published by Mazeltough Press and some published by Mpingo Press.

Their fanzine press did not have a separate name and is referred to here on Fanlore as the Fern Marder and Carol Walske Press.

In 2014, Fern set up a memorial fanzine collection for her and Carol Walske at Texas A&M University. It can be found here.

In Her Own Words (1981)

In 1981, she was nominated for a FanQ award and submitted the following bio to The Annual Fan Q Awards Nominations Booklet:

"Fern Marder has been in fandom since the first Star Trek convention in 1972. She has actively worked on various Trek zines--writing fiction, serious articles, poetry, music, and reviews, editing same, and doing some artwork--since 1974. While concentrating mainly on Star Trek and general sf, Fern has also written some Star Wars-oriented poetry; within ST fandoms, she has done poetry and/or technical writing in the Kraith, Klysadel, and Nu Ormenel series. Among the 'zines in which her work has appeared are GUARDIAN, INTERPHASE, MASIFORM D, THE OTHER SIDE OF PARADISE, PROBE, and TIME WARP. She and Carol Walske publish NU ORMENEL COLLECTED as well as DAGGER OF THE MIND, and edited Captain Uhura and Soft Among the Stars. Coeditor of Favorite Fanzine Nomination, nominated for Favorite Poem.

In Her Own Words (2005)

Fern Marder discusses her writing, and her partnership with Carol Walske in the interview, Writers in Fandom: The Fanzine Scene