Joan Winston

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Fan
Name: Joan Winston
Alias(es): Wynn Jones [1]
Type: Con Organizer, Fan Writer
Fandoms: Star Trek
Communities:
Other:
URL: article in NY Magazine
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Joan wearing a Theiss’s costume from "In Truth is There No Beauty?" Photographed by the late Jeff Maynard at DisCon 2 in 1974.

Joan Winston was a Star Trek big-name fan, dating back to the earliest days of Star Trek fandom.

Winston passed away in 2008.

Star Trek Contributions

Joan Winston’s contributions to Star Trek fandom are legendary.

She was one of the organizers (aka "The Committee") of the original Star Trek conventions during the 1970s, the story of which is chronicled in her 1977 book, The Making of the Trek Conventions: Or, How to Throw a Party for 12,000 of Your Most Intimate Friends.

Winston was also a co-writer of the classic 1975 text Star Trek Lives! where she wrote about her visit to the Star Trek set during the filming of the episode "Turnabout Intruder."

Winston also wrote fan fiction and edited a fanzine, Number One, all about William Riker from Star Trek: The Next Generation.

Winston continued attending and speaking at conventions into the 2000s, with her last appearance at Shore Leave in 2006.

Winston was featured in the 2005 documentary Trekkies 2. In 2007, she was named the 4th most influential Star Trek fan of all time.

She wrote fanfiction, sent story ideas to Trek creator Gene Roddenberry and visited the set of the show, was a part of the efforts to keep Star Trek from being cancelled in 1967 and was an organizer of the first large-scale Star Trek convention in January 1972.

Through her jobs in the contracts departments of both CBS and ABC, she established a number of connections which later allowed her access to Star Trek producers, actors and staff, which she used to create publicity for the show and its fandom.

Star Trek Fan

Joan Winston (L) with Jacqueline Lichtenberg (R) from a "Kraith Affirmation" at TorCon (1976). Photo by Lynda (Martindale) Rzeszutek.

Joan was a fan of science fiction in general, not just Star Trek. She picketed NBC during one of the original campaigns to keep the series on the air, wrote Star Trek fanfic, and later in her life, she edited Number One, a William T. Riker-centric zine.

Her work for the series and fandom was chronicled in Star Trek Lives! (1975), which she wrote with Jacqueline Lichtenberg and Sondra Marshak, and The Making of the Trek Conventions: Or, How to Throw a Party for 12,000 of Your Most Intimate Friends (1977).

Convention Organizer

After Star Trek's cancellation in 1969, Winston and other fans attended Lunacon, but "there was a sense that 'Star Trek' fans were not real sci-fi fans," according to Devra Langsam, editor of Spockanalia and fellow organizer of the first Star Trek convention.

Elyse Pines, a friend of Langsam’s, proposed a gathering specifically for Star Trek fans. A mutual friend of theirs brought in Joan Winston, who used her show business contacts (mundanely, she held jobs on the business side of ABC and CBS) to secure copies of 15 Star Trek episodes, a blooper reel, and the presence of series creator Gene Roddenberry.

Joan and her associates, known to fellow aficionados simply as The Committee, presented four more conventions, then retired from throwing cons in 1976. By that time there were more than 40 annual Star Trek conventions.

Joan was also a frequent guest of honor at other fan cons.

Guest of Honor Bios in Program Books

From a 2005 Bio

From the 2005 Shore Leave program book:

Joanie's first book, Star Trek Lives!, was written with Jacqueline Lichtenberg and Sondra Marshak and was published by Bantam. She wrote her second book, The Making of Star Trek Conventions or, How to Throw a Party for 12,000 of Your Most Intimate Friends, by herself (a feat that still amazes her). She is currently working on an addendum to this book. Her third book, Startoons (Playboy), was an all-cartoon book that dealt with all SF, not just Star Trek.

Here is the latest news from Joanie: "The kid is now retired!! Oddly enough, I'm enjoying it. I'm writing up a storm. (By that time, the Dell should be up and running. But then I always handwrite my first draft.) By Golly, it feels and reads well, or so my agent says. Oh, it's not Trek. Nope. It's a mainstream, raunchy novel about a rock star and lady TV exec. Hey, you write about what you know. I was a lady TV exec! We already have some interest already...

I still live in a walk-up apartment on the 4th floor of an old (non-elevator) brownstone, with my 4000 books, 500 video tapes, audio tapes, posters, paintings, and plaques covering SF and Trek. Also, I am cleaning the same. Hey, I have a couch! Carpeting! Whaddya know. I'm bringing Shatner's tape of his book Get a Life [to Shore Leave]. It's witty, charming, and I'm mentioned a lot! Not only is he acting up a storm, he's a doll - my boy Bill.

Tributes

When Joan Winston died in 2008, she received an obit from the New York Times: Joan Winston, ‘Trek’ Superfan, Dies at 77, Archived version

Later that year, Rob Walker, writing for the New York Times Magazine did a follow-up article called Enterprising, in which he argued that "the active approach to media consumption that Winston and her fellow superfans pioneered is more vital and widespread than ever." Newsweek created a slideshow of pictures from early Trek cons that include many pictures of Joan in her element.

Winston was also mentioned in Women who love ‘Star Trek’ are the reason that modern fandom exists, a 2016 article by Victoria McNally that was written, in part, to commemorate Star Trek's 50th Anniversary.

[Jacqueline Lichtenberg]: ON JOAN WINSTON'S COAT TAILS

Joanie Winston was not only the key contributor to Star Trek Lives! by Jacqueline Lichtenberg, Sondra Marshak and Joan Winston (Bantam paperback about Star Trek fans - a first in publishing, a book about fans of a TV show, not the show itself) but she became a best friend.

I first met her through Sondra Marshak. I had attended the first big Star Trek convention in New York City, but just sitting in the audience, having just commuted in from the northern suburb of NYC where I lived. At that convention, I heard two women behind me talking about Star Trek fanzines and in particular about this odd series of Trek stories in a single universe but by several people.

I turned around and said that I was the author who created that universe. While we waited for Gene Roddenberry to speak,Kraith Collected (to read it free, go to http://www.simegen.com/fandom/startrek/) was born because they were frustrated by the way all the stories were spread over so many zines, some impossible to find.

At that convention, I also first shook hands with Gene Roddenberry, told him about the Star Trek Lives! project and got his promise that he'd write us an introduction -- which years later, he did!

But the next year, Sondra Marshak insisted we all had to stay at the hotel for the whole convention. I blew into Star Trek fandom on Joan Winston's coat tails. Literally. One blustery day I breezed into the hotel front doors following Joanie, carrying stuff for the convention. We roomed with Joanie, and I helped sell signed photos of the stars and assorted collectibles from Joan's table in the dealer's room. We also had the first copies of the first volume of Kraith Collected on the table (those days things were printed on paper).

That was the first time in my whole life that a total stranger ASKED FOR MY AUTOGRAPH. I signed the cover of Kraith Collected 1 while selling things for Joanie.

Rooming with Joanie at cons or sleeping over at her Manhattan apartment was always an adventure. I would go to Manhattan, pay the ridiculous parking fees, and stay overnight with Joanie to watch her 3/4 inch JVC tapes of Star Trek! She got professional tape player equipment via connections where she worked -- long before such an item was for sale in retail stores.

At one con, I slept on a hotel mattress lumpy because the BLOOPER REELS were tucked under me for safe keeping (that was before people really knew what they were but had only heard rumors). At another, I carried some film cans that belonged to Gene Roddenberry as carry-on baggage on an airplane (I can just see trying that today! The TSA guards don't know what actual film looks like!) At yet another, I was appointed guardian of Gene Roddenberry's briefcase heavy with the (paper) manuscript for The Questor Tapes. (top secret at the time) At yet another occasion she brought a writing assignment to our hotel room -- we had to write the Voice Over text for a commercial one of the stars was shooting -- in ONE HOUR! (we did it) And at another occasion, she brought me to one of the star's rooms to give a Tarot reading because I was getting pretty good at that.

There were literally hundreds of these little incidents any time you got near the whirlwind known as Joanie.

We used to go clothes shopping together, raiding the NYC boutiques for bargains, and later developed an annual tradition of going to Shore Leave (a Baltimore Star Trek convention) together. She'd take the bus up to my house in the suburbs, then I'd drive to Baltimore (we'd listen to Theodore Bikel or show tunes like the music from Dirty Dancing and sing along!) Our duo routine became a traditional Friday afternoon opening event.

We'd talk on the phone for hours at a time about all the new TV shows and the SF books we were reading, and Joanie knew "everyone," and was known to "everyone" so I learned thousands of things I couldn't tell anyone. Even after I moved to Arizona, we talked and talked and TALKED.

I can't tell you how I miss her! I can't tell you how thankful I am to those who sent cards, photos, and visited her during the last year or so. Joanie was a giver. It was her turn to be given to. [2]

References

  1. ^ Official Announcements for ORION PRESS, Archived version
  2. ^ from Jacqueline Lichtenberg, includes the usual amount of self-promtion, Joan Winston: Recollections and Tributes by Anne Pinzow and Jacqueline Lichtenberg, Archived version
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