Susan Matthews

Fan
Name:	Susan Matthews
Alias(es):	SRM, Susan R. Matthews, Susan Scribens, Alicia Maria Susanna Fox
Type:	fan writer
Fandoms:	Star Wars, Blake's 7, Miami Vice, The Professionals, Robin of Sherwood, Dracula (1978), Battlestar Galactica (1978), Star Trek, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., Captain Harlock
Communities:
Other:
URL:	Susan R. Matthews at SFF.NET https://www.susanrmatthews.com/
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Susan Matthews wrote for a number of gen zines in the Star Wars and Blake's 7 fandoms.

Some Fanac

• member of First Terran Enclave
• recipient of the 1981 The SF/Media Fan Fund
• winner of a 1982 FanQ and a Star aWard in 1995
• creator of the satiric SulkCon '81
• quoted in the essay Where the Boys Are
• discussed in the essay From Star Wars to Jedi: The Fanzine Way
• contributed to Care to Debate That? Anti-Feminism in Treklit
• interviewed in 2017, see Media Fandom Oral History Project Interview with Susan R. Matthews (2017)
• in 2020, contributed an essay about fanzine history to Geek Elders Speak, a small press publication anthology about female creativity in mid-20th century fandom.

Short 1978 Bio

I'm 24, and a graduate of the University of Washington (in Seattle) with a Bachelor of Sciences in physiological psychology; just now leaving active duty after a two-year tour as a staff officer in a combat support hospital. Plan to use my G.I. Bill benefits at Princeton Seminary for a Master of Theology degree. Saw Star Wars for the first time 21 April 1978, and have had an itchy brain ever since. Having known more than one Corellian type in my past, I have a special place in my heart for that Han Solo. My dad was in the Army, so I travelled extensively while younger; by the time he retired — I was 13 — I'd been all over the United States, five years in Germany, two years in India. And I believe I've been to Mos Eisley Spaceport more than once

(Amsterdam?). Would be very pleased to correspond with any and all; but — critics please note — Corellians shoot first and ask questions maybe (if there's anything left to question), and I'm pretty good with my .45.

Short 1982 Bio

In 1982, she was nominated for a FanQ award and submitted the following bio to The Annual Fan Q Awards Nominations Booklet:

"I've been passively involved in media fandom since 1967, when we came back from [overseas] to Televisionland - and Star Trek, The Man from UNCLE, the Time Tunnel, and Dark Shadows were on. In the winter of 76-77 I picked up Vulcan Reflections at a Waldenbooks...Virginia, and wrote to the address inside; Devra Langsam sold me Spockanalia and Masiform D, and suggested that I write to Lori then still just Chapek). The Miscellania section in Warped Space opened the world I'd read about in The World of Star Trek. I bought zines enthusiastically for about a year. In the spring of 1978 I saw Star Wars, and Shari K. took me to Disclave; I began contributing to Star Wars zines. My first publication credit is actually to R&R VI/VII, however (under an assumed name). I have been contributing regularly to Star Wars zines and general media zines since July of 1978, when Warped Space printed my first Star Wars poem. In addition to Star Wars fanlit, I have written and had published material dealing with The Man from UNCLE, Dracula, and Battlestar Galactica, and am presently also involved in producing material in the Blake's 7 universe."

Notable Fanworks

Blake's 7

• Bolero
• Brother of Shadows... and Son of the Light
• The Great Lord Shiva's Dance (crossover with Drake's Venture)
• Love and Necessary Discipline
• The Mind of a Man is a Double-Edged Sword
• October Story
• Sarabande
• Shadowplay

Star Wars

• The Baron of Bespin
• In Durance Vile: A Reprehensible Tale
• Ghost in Far Sector
• A Jedi Craves Not These Things
• Kinmeet
• The Ragnarok Stories (pulled from publication in order to rework the stories into a professional science fiction novel; the work was published as the Jurisdiction series)
• The Things We Do For Love

Other

• The Extraordinary Discretion Affair (Man from U.N.C.L.E.)
• The Great Goddess Addresses the Subject of Hurt/Comfort (circuit story)

Zines She Appears In

As Susan Matthews

5th Season | Against the Sith | Alderaani Imperative | Antithesis | Bright Center of the Universe | Brother of Shadows... and Son of the Light | Crimes Against Humanity | Docking Bay | Dracula | Empire Star | Equal Space | Errantry | Falcon's Flight | Galactic Falcon | Galactic Flight | Guardian | Hip Deep in Heroes | Imperial Entanglements | JediStarDarkFalconKnight | Kessel Run | Mascarada | The Mind of a Man is a Double-Edged Sword | The Mos Eisley Tribune | My Master's Patronage | Organia | The Other Side | The Other Side of Paradise | Outlands Chronicles | Powerplay | R & R | Relative Encounters | The Rest of the Garbage| Shadowplay (Blake's 7 zine) | Skywalker | Solo | Southern Seven | Spica | Straight Blake's | The Tatooine Tribune | Time Warp | A Tremor in the Force | Twin Suns | Warped Space | Whatever Works | Xenozine

As Alicia Maria Susanna Fox

The Rest of the Garbage | Straight Blake's | Xenozine

Stance on Fanworks Based on Her Work

As a professional writer of science fiction, Matthews has published the following statement on fanfiction of her works:

It's (almost always) a compliment when someone wants to write a fan-story based on something I've written. And you can write fan fiction based on the Koscuisko novels and other things I've written, under the following circumstances:

You have to license your work as derivative, non-commercial fiction under the Creative Commons umbrella.

You can't make any money off fanlit you've written in the Jurisdiction story-line/universe.

You have to post an attribution identifying the source material, together with a statement that that I own the source material (grin). An example of the required attribution? “The source material for this story, including the universe in which it is set and the characters whomever, whomever, and whomever, is copyright by Susan R. Matthews. This story is licensed under the Creative Commons as derivative, non-commercial fiction.”

In doing so, you waive any rights to your fanlit, which means that you can't sue me if I write something that you think looks altogether too much like your fan-story in the future and accidentally make a million dollars (I should be so lucky). I'm not going to be out there looking for ideas to steal; I have enough of my own, honest. This protects me against accidental cross-pollination, and serves as your acknowledgement that Great Minds Think Alike — we may come up with the same idea independently of one another, because that's the way it is.

I'm not going to read your fanlit (or if I do, I'm not going to admit having done so). I won't comment on your fanlit in any case. Don't post about your fanlit to my blog; don't contact me about your fanlit. It's not because I don't love you or appreciate your investment in my novels/characters; it's because I'm just not going to get into that. I'm saving all my energy for my own original content. You can share your fan-story with other people in appropriate forums, just not in this one (grin).

And bless you for loving my work enough to want to write more about it, even though I will never know.

The Ragnarok Stories

Matthews' Ragnarok was a series of Star Wars (and at least one Star Trek appearance in The Other Side of Paradise #5) fanzine stories that featured the original character Andrej Koscuisko.

Andrej Koscuisko as portrayed by Signe Landon in The Other Side of Paradise #5

The stories originally appeared in:

• Galactic Flight #3 (1980) -- "The Devil and Deep Space," co-authored with Christine Jeffords
• Galactic Flight #4 (1980) -- "Second Round"
• The Other Side of Paradise #5 (1981) -- "Koski's Last Hand"
• My Master's Patronage (December 1981) (fanfic in honor of the original character Andrej Koscuisko)

In 1981, Matthews announced in a number of zines that she was pulling her from publication in order to rework the Ragnarok stories into a science fiction format in an attempt to sell the collection as a professional SF novel. She detailed this decision in A Personal Statement from Susan Matthews.

The Ragnarok series was later re-titled "The Jurisdiction" and was sold in the late '90s. The first book, An Exchange of Hostages, was published in 1997, with the seventh book being published in 2017.

An Unauthorized Complilation

In Issue 17 of the zine Universal Translator, Matthews wrote a letter stating that she had heard that a fan using the name Inclination Press out of Tsaile, Arizona was reproducing and selling Ragnarok stories with Martynn's artwork without authorization:

The unauthorized -- and bitterly resented -- reprint of Ragnarok material is not to be confused with the 'Matthews Collected' that Jeffords and bes Shahar had offered. That idea didn't work out, and there were no printings.

The editor of Facets stated in the editorial from the sixth issue:

ATTENTION: Anyone knowing who put out the one-shot zine SUSAN MATTHEWS, A RETROSPECTIVE, please contact us, or Susan immediately. This is an unauthorized publication and could possibly hurt her chances of getting her Kosciusko-cycle published professionally.

A fan who lived in that town reported in Jundland Wastes #13 that she did some detective work, going to the post office in Tsaile, Arizona and questioned the staff there. Her report:

This is a very small post office and one would take note of anything that isn't addressed to a person's name or the Navajo Community College," and they'd seen nothing sent to or from "Inclination Press... If the unauthorized reprints are originating from Arizona, they apparently aren't coming from Tsalie.