Interview with Sonni Cooper
| Interviews by Fans | |
|---|---|
| Title: | Interview with Sonni Cooper |
| Interviewer: | Terry Wyatt |
| Interviewee: | Sonni Cooper |
| Date(s): | September 1986 |
| Medium: | |
| Fandom(s): | Star Trek: TOS |
| External Links: | |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
Interview with Sonni Cooper was printed in two issues of Atavachron in December 1986 and in February 1987.
The interview itself was conducted in September 1986.
Sonni Cooper was the president of William Shatner's fan club and the author of the Star Trek: TOS pro novel, Black Fire.
From the Interview
Q: How did you originally get involved with Star Trek?
A: In the very early sixties I ran a film festival in New Mexico, and Roger Coreman had done a film called "The Intruder", in which Bill Shatner was the star. Shatner won the best actor of the festival award, and I gave him the award. So Bill and I got to know each other a little bit. when "Star Trek" started, there it was something I really liked, science-fiction and Bill. So I called him up, and I said, "Hey guy, do you need any help?" and he said no.
But later on when the fans became too much he called me up and said HELP!! And that's how I started to do his P.R. and formed the "William Shatner Fan Fellowship". I was under contract to Bill to do that, and I did it for two years. I don't have anything to do with it now. I stopped doing it once I stopped being paid, when my contract ended. It ended, basically, because I wanted to write, and Bill's a full time job. A wonderful job, but a full time one.
Q: Is there still someone being paid to run it now?
A: No it's being run by fans. I got it off the ground because Bill was receiving thousands of letters, and it was being
neglected. He just didn't have anyone to do it. It took a trailer and five people to get the stuff to my office. And we answered every single one.
Q: In your novel Black Fire you've got some interesting plot twists in there. Where do you get your ideas from?
A: As I don't know. (laughter ) Ideas just seem to flow with me. I have no trouble plotting. My trouble comes with trying to make them less complicated. I just have more ideas than I can write. I did write another Star Trek novel, but they didn't print it because they said Spock was too Human in it. Of course it dealt with Spock's Human side. I don't know what they expected it to be. So it was put out as a fanzine, Infinite Diversity five or six. I was still under contract to Paramount and not allowed to read the fan stuff. So I wasn't able to read the book I put out, I had other editors do it. When you write these things you can't really read the fan stuff, because you don't want to steal ideas, even subconsciously.
Q: Have you read any of the new ST novels that are being produced now?
A: Yeah, I read parts of one Vonda was working on about Kirk's first mission as captain of the Enterprise. It good, but it's got this winged horse in it that just doesn't belong. I told her that too, and she laughed saying that she was going to get her horses in the Star Trek stories.