Cascade Library Interview with KandaceK

Interviews by Fans
Title:	Cascade Library Interview with KandaceK
Interviewer:	Cascade Library
Interviewee:	KandaceK
Date(s):	March 27, 2002
Medium:	online
Fandom(s):	The Sentinel
External Links:	interview is here, Archived version
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In 2002, KandaceK was interviewed for Cascade Library.

Some Excerpts

[I became a Sentinel fan] through the fan fiction. I was told about TS through another fandom, but could never remember when it was on. I did catch parts of a couple of episodes but never got hooked. One day I was searching Yahoo!'s fiction index and came across The Sentinel. That sparked my memory so I decided to check it out. At that time there were only five listings, I think. The first link I tried was broken, the next one was Susan L. Williams'. The rest, as they say, is history.

I got the idea for my first Sentinel story after corresponding with Susan. I'd LoC'd her on The Devil You Know and she'd written me back asking if I knew what happened with the end of the season. (This was about a week after S2p1 had aired.) After learning that the show was likely canceled, etc., etc., I formed the idea for an S2 continuation. I pestered Susan with all kinds of questions and began watching the season 3 reruns, and began writing When the Wolf Cries, my first Sentinel story. I think that was 1998 wasn't it? I fully intended Wolf to be my first story posted to the internet. The brain had other ideas. In the midst of writing fast and furiously on Wolf, I saw Finkleman's Folly. The scene in the truck where Jim answers his cell phone and only hears a heartbeat inspired me to write a missing scene. I could picture Blair asking Jim about it later, so I wrote my missing scene snippet Whose Heartbeat? in a couple of hours, fired it off to Susan to edit, and then sent it to GuidePosts. I can't begin to tell you what a *thrill* it was to see *my* story up there on the net for all to see. It was an adrenaline high, I'll tell you. And the LoCs I received for that little snippet just kept me there for days.

[I am most proud of] Silver Cloud, Dark Lining. I put a lot of time and research into it, and I was very pleased with the way it came out.

I actually *like* TSbyBS. I know many people were angry with Jim for treating Blair the way he did, but to my way of thinking, Jim reacted as we should have expected. Here's a man who's had nothing but betrayal and abandonment happen to him, it made perfect sense for him to throw up his walls. Both men made mistakes, as they had throughout the series. Jim shouldn't have assumed Blair had betrayed him, but by the same token, Blair should have come clean with Jim in the beginning. He should have told Jim what Naomi had done. Oh well, hindsight is always 20/20. As for Blair becoming a cop? Sure, I think he's been working his way in that direction for a long time. He's come a long way from the freaked out grad student in the first couple of years, to actually eager to help Jim and Major Crime. I never saw the enthusiasm for teaching others saw. I saw someone who would rather be learning and doing than stuck in a classroom teaching. Tutoring on the other hand is a whole other ball game. I could easily see Blair mentoring or tutoring. As sucky as the episode was, Murder 101 should have clued us in to how involved, how *into* police work Blair was, and he was severely disillusioned with the hallowed halls of Rainier after that case.

[Regarding my publishing of zines]: It all started with a chance comment. Back in '99 I mentioned to Susan that maybe we should start our own zine and publish [The Devil You Know]]. The idea didn't go much farther than that. A few months later, D.L. made the comment to me that we should create our own zine since she does desktop publishing for a living. I laughed and told her Susan and I had had similar thoughts. D.L. didn't let it rest at that, she started doing a bit of research. Originally we were going to do an e-zine, I'm not sure how it "de-volved into a paper zine. I told Susan that D.L. and I were tossing around the idea of a zine, she said she'd love to be on board. Before I knew it, Skeeter Press was born and I was scrambling to learn about this publishing business. I think we have a very good team. We have D.L. with her desktop publishing skills, Susan with her editing skills, and me with, well, management and distribution skills I guess. :) What's involved in getting a zine to press -- well, obviously you need a story or stories. The story needs to be edited, and we're not talking about a simple beta read-through. Susan works with our submitting authors until a final version is agreed upon, she then gives me the final version. I go through it, do the initial formatting if necessary, catch anything Susan might have missed, then I pass it on to D.L. who will do the layout work for the zine. In the beginning we used WP/Word for layout (what a headache), now we use a DTP program called Serif. It's made our lives much easier. While D.L. is doing this, I'm attempting to gather artwork, either my own or from someone else. D.L. places the artwork or markers in the story. When she has the final file ready, she passes it to me, I print it out, get all the forwards and endnotes, etc. together. I take this document and the color cover to the copy house I use and get copies made. My copy house will colate the copies with the acetate and backcovers I supply (so I don't have to). When the copies are done, I pick them up and take them to the binder. From then it's a matter of filling orders. <g>

Fanfic has been around since the printed word, I think. The advent of the net and an easy forum for online fiction has seen an resurgence in the printed zine, I think. Publishing and distribution are easier today than they were ten or fifteen years ago. I really think it'll continue to grow, or at least stay steady.

[About the first fan fic I wrote]: Ever? That would have to be Star Trek the original series. I think I was nine. I don't know what it might have been called. I still have it somewhere. [About the first fan fic I read]:I can't remember if it was a Highlander piece or something based in Jacqueline Lichtenberg's Sime~Gen universe. I think it was Highlander, but I don't know what it might have been.