Anne Batterby

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Fan
Name: Anne Batterby
Alias(es):
Type: fan writer, fanzine publisher, fan poet, fan artist
Fandoms: Star Trek, Quantum Leap, Miami Vice, Stingray, Kung Fu: The Legend Continues
Communities:
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Anne Batterby had been writing and illustrating fan fiction since the early 1980s.

She won several FanQ awards, the most recent one in 2012 for a Doctor Who poem, That's Our Doctor that appeared in Our Favorite Things #27. In 1984, she started Élan Press‎ together with her sister Elaine Batterby which remained active until 2014.

Anne passed away in April 2016[1].

A Eulogy From Her Sister

In April 2016, her sister Elaine posted the following memories to the Zinelist mailing list. It is quoted here with permission:

"Anne was nearly six years older than me. When I was 10, that seemed an insurmountable gulf. However, when we met again as adults, after I'd lived in Buffalo and Los Angeles for a while, it didn't seem like a big deal at all. As a matter of fact, we each suddenly realized that that was a pretty nifty person over there, and became fast friends as well as sisters.

We discovered Star Trek conventions and fandom in the very late seventies, and then fan fiction - and zines! She had been writing poetry off and on, and I had been writing stories as long as I could remember, but never had any idea what to do with them - until we discovered there were like-minded people out there, and we were in heaven!

In August of 1983, we were visiting a friend, and somehow conversation turned into a gripe session about zineds we'd run into up 'til then. I know we had some doozies for stories, but the two I remember most vividly were: the editor who told me I lacked sufficient psychological motivation for the villains in a story set in a universe that was frequently tongue-in-cheek; she also told me my characterizations of the two central characters in this universe were off in a couple of places - but she neglected to say exactly where! The other involved co-editors who didn't seem to like much of anything about the ST story I'd submitted - not the title, the OC, or the OC's world, appearance, language, history, or culture - but if I would rewrite the story according to their three page outline, they would accept it. (Ah, no.)

Our friend sat listening to us for a while, and then said, "Why don't you do a zine of your own? That way you can be the kind of editors you would like to have!" Our initial reaction was NO WAY and THAT'S CRAZY. However, by the end of the afternoon, we had a press name, a zine name, an ad for submissions, a set of guidelines, and a list of places to send our ad. (Those were the days of The G.A.Z., Datazine, and Universal Translator.)

By May 1984 we debuted Our Favorite Things #1. It wasn't going to set the world on fire, but for a first zine by a couple of total newbies - well, we were damned proud. We got a few bad reviews (like the one with DNQ all over it in orange crayon) but mostly people seemed to love it; we sold out our initial printing in six months, and a second printing in about the same amount of time. We were hooked. (I think it was the seventh issue where Murphy caught up with us!)

Anne was my co-editor and deeply involved in all but the last two issues or so, and even then, she had approval of submissions and the order in the zine, etc. I never included anything she didn't enjoy as much as I did. We decided to stop after the 30th issue - 30 years of zines. Along the way we also did two issues of a Miami Vice poetry zine, and a stand-alone novella by Sheila Paulson.

We also starting going to MediaWest*Con in 1984 and went together to every single one until 2012, I think it was. We had a blast and made many, many friends through that convention and our zines.

Anne was also my first 'editor' for years and years. If I had something unfinished that I wanted to decide whether or not I should continue, or something I felt was complete (at least in first draft) and I needed to figure out if it should go somewhere, I showed it to Anne. She very seldom told me no. Please don't think that meant she accepted whatever I wrote uncritically, because that would be far from the truth. No, she had a way of asking just the right question or pointing out some little thing that would make me think about what I had that would almost inevitably make it better - without making me feel like my writing stank or I'd been wasting my time.

I tried to do the same for her, but she was more chary of sharing her work before she was really satisfied - and she was a perfectionist. Still, some of her poems, a couple of her stories, and several of her drawings found their way into our zine, and a few of other people's.

We also had a wonderful time for a while collaborating on Quantum Leap stories and Quantum Leap crossovers; sometimes I'd start a story and send it to her, then she'd add a bit and send it back, sometimes vice versa - and that was via e-mail when we were both working for the same company. Somewhere along the way in the story, we'd get together and brainstorm where it was actually going, but mostly we had a lot of laughs surprising each other with plot twists and clever dialog. I think the last one we completed together was Admiral Sparky and the Leaping Librarian, crossing QL with Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Sometimes after the fact we couldn't remember who had come up with which of the best lines, but - for the record - she is the one who came up with Calcium Vick and Cattle Vicious when Buffy was trying to remember Calavicci... (I was very glad I wasn't drinking something when I read those lines!)

That's just a part of what I'm going to miss about my sister, Anne - but it's the part most relevant to Zinelist and fanosaurs and fans of zines. She was almost always quieter than me, but she had a wonderful sense of humor and great creativity, and she loved hearing about the people she could no longer connect with the way she used to."

Fanart Gallery

  1. ^ Anne E. Battery - Obituary
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