Club Jade
| Website | |
|---|---|
| Name: | Club Jade |
| Owner/Maintainer: | |
| Dates: | 12 October 1999-2004 (website), 2004-December 23, 2019 (blog, website) |
| Type: | fan club |
| Fandom: | Star Wars, Star Wars Legends |
| URL: | old website via Wayback Club Jade |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
Club Jade is an online Star Wars community. From its webpage: "Club Jade is a group of (mostly) female fans who love Star Wars."
It was originally a fan club open to all fans, but is now a closed community; applicants must be nominated by four current members.
The original site was active October 1999 to 2004. It had a page for fanart, fanfic, poetry, filk and other creative works, a links section, information about Mara Jade and FAQs.
In 2004, the site became a blog. On December 23, 2019, the site owner, Dunc, announced they would no longer be updating it.
Fiction Archive
The site has a fiction archive, but it is no longer updated.
From Club Jade's FAQ
What is Club Jade?Club Jade is a mailing list and community started in 1995 for discussion of Star Wars novels. Although originally discussion of Timothy Zahn’s novels and the character of Mara Jade were the group’s main focus, CJ has expanded to include all of Star Wars and recently, to become a more general list related to the sci-fi/fantasy genre as a whole. Over the years, CJ members have formed close friendships both online and in real life.
So, no, Club Jade is not just a blog. We started the blog in 2004 as a way of both coming out of our shell and informing ourselves and the fandom. It just kind of snowballed from there.
How do I join Club Jade?We have a closed membership, and we have for many years. CJ was not originally a closed group, but various abuses led the leadership to close off list membership to all but those who are sponsored by existing members. Plus over the years we have developed something of a strange slant, and not everyone feels comfortable or fits in.
To join, someone needs to be nominated by at least 4 current members. This is much less of a barrier than it has been in the past, though! Try commenting here or chatting with us on Twitter, or even at cons. Fly casual!
Mara Jade: The Inspiration
From Sacrifice: A statement, of sorts (2007):
Not long after that great event [the publication of the tie-in book "Heir to the Empire"], a group of people found each other through RASS on USEnet and started emailing each other discussing the Zahn books, especially the character of Mara Jade. The group appreciated the character Zahn created: a woman who was independent, strong, and intelligent. The fact she was only the second female Force-user certainly didn’t hurt things. The group started out as a Mara Jade fan club of sorts, but quickly found that many of the reasons they were drawn to the character were evident in the new friends they were meeting. Members brought more like-minded souls and the group grew to include women and men from all walks of life- teachers, doctors, lawyers, mothers, sisters, scientists, nurses, daughters, writers, computer geeks, artists, and librarians, to name only a few.
So we came together around a fictional character who was not even in the movies. (The EU may put her in Jabba’s palace but let’s get technical.) We shared a love of the Star Wars universe and the magic that fans feel when they slip into that galaxy far far away. As the years grew, our focus began to spread to other fandoms – though typically they all were represented somewhere within by the same type of strong, independent and intelligent female characters (Scully, Buffy, Elizabeth Swan, Eowyn, among others).
With the recent developments in the EU, people have been asking what we, who started as a Mara Jade fan club, thought about it. Being a bunch of strong, independent, and intelligent folks, I doubt we’ll ever come to a full consensus. Some of us feel betrayed and wonder if we can ever feel comfortable playing in the Star Wars galaxy again. Others are taking it in stride and can appreciate a story well told. And some of us are scratching our heads, wondering what all the fuss is about. At the end of the day, it just doesn’t matter. Mara was a fictional character and we can all count ourselves alive and well in the real world.
The important part in all of this is that because this character existed, we found each other. Mara Jade, though the power of the internet, made a big world a whole lot smaller for a lot of us and we’re extremely grateful for it. We’ll keep moving on with Club Jade, though a little disappointed there won’t be Mara there to keep things in line. The site isn’t going anywhere, the cons will still be attended, and people will still post to list things that will make you think twice or laugh so hard you’ll swear to never read your email at work again. And we’ll continue to hope that our favorite authors will come up with someone just as wonderful to inspire everyone to fight for what they believe. (And maybe they’ll fill in some of Mara’s missing timeline?)
Until then, to borrow a favorite quote of a friend: “I came for the Star Wars, I stayed for the friendships.”
Sample Blog Posts
- Sacrifice: A statement, of sorts (2007)
- The greatest people you will ever meet, and the worst: A call for civility in Star Wars fandom, Archived version (2011)
- Fan fiction is more than smut (2012)
- On Star Wars fandom, feminism, diversity and anger (2014)
- Droids, gender, and BB-8: Why does it matter?, Archived version (2015)
Screenshots: Previous Site
home page
creative
Mara
links
FAQ
