Judith Gran

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Fan
Name: Judith Gran
Alias(es): Judy Gran, dunyazad9, Dunya Saraf
Type: fanwriter, trekker
Fandoms: Star Trek: TOS
Communities:
Other:
URL: Judith Gran's Fan Fiction[1]
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Judith Gran is a long-time Star Trek: TOS fan and writer. Judith entered fandom in 1978, when they first started reading zines and went to their first fan-run convention, August Party. They have written many essays, articles, and fics.

In 1999, they won a STIFfie for Best Short Story: K/S: "The Captain's Log" (Amazing Grace, Special Edition).

They were one of the two editors of the feminist zine Organia.

Interviews

From COCO CHANNEL Interview with Judith Gran (1999):

Karmen Ghia: Me, I'm just a webizen so I know nothing of the printzine community, except for a brush or two with certain members. What is with those people? Are they really as uptight, narrow minded, hyper critical/sensitive and condescending as they seem [2] or am I really just too fucked up to see their good points? [3]

Judith Gran: I have a theory about cycles of expansion and contraction in fandom. It probably applies to all fandoms, but my empirical experience with it has been mostly in K/S, so when I say "fandom" here, I mean specifically K/S fandom. It's only a working hypothesis as yet, but to me it helps explain the uptight and narrow-minded behavior of certain printfen.

When fandom is expanding and new members are entering at a rapid pace, fandom's diversity also expands. People who are new to fandom are not mired in the existing conventions of fandom and instead, they tend to bring with them new and different perspectives and creative ideas. They also bring with them a wealth of experience outside fandom.

When fandom is contracting, it tends to become more and more inbred. The folks who stick around tend to be those with the deepest emotional and material investment in fandom itself. We all know of fans who don't have a lot going on in their lives apart from fandom; I believe that during a phase of contraction in fandom, the proportion of these fans tends naturally to increase.

Many of the most active members of the current K/S printzine community became active in K/S in the early 1990s, a period when K/S was in a state of contraction following the Great K/S Expansion of the 1980s. The average K/S zine circulation had fallen from up to 1,000 to slightly more than 100. So, the "typical" member of the current crop of printfen began writing at a time when K/S fandom consisted of a small number of women, mostly in the US, mostly straight and married, who all knew one another and read and reacted to one another's stories...*Current* K/S print fandom has become so respectable and bourgeoisified that it seems to have little edge left. K/S printfen are not the underground any more, they are the mainstream, the nice straight housewives. So the freewheeling diversity and gender-bending of the net culture is not necessarily the printfan's cup of tranya.

But I don't want to stereotype printfen or lump them all in the same basket. Actually, some of the "older generation" of printfen -- those who have been in fandom since the early 1980s or so -- are very open to the net. Some of the K/S zine editors who have been in fandom the *longest* have been the most accepting and embracing of net fiction. But that fits my hypothesis, I think.

I don't think we can view print fandom as a monolithic entity that stands against net fic and vice-versa. Nor can one presume that contemporary K/S printfic is the lineal descendant of early fan fic, no matter how much the current crop of printfen would like to appropriate for themselves the status of heirs to the "classics." If you will forgive the Protestant perceptive, that is a bit like the Pope of Martin Luther' s era claiming to be the heir of the martyrs of the Early Church.

Karmen Ghia: You've had experience in the printzine community and the webslash community. In what ways do their inherent strengths cause them to be inherently antagonistic? Or do I think that because I'm an asshole? (Okay, it's an awkward question, rephrase at will.)

Judith Gran: Good question! The most obvious and easiest answer is that they are two different communities, two different groups of people who each became a community in a different time and place. Like any community, each has its own dynamics, norms and values.

For me, though, the two communities differ in that they represent two different paradigms of interacting and writing. I see the net community as egalitarian and communitarian. Communication on the net is immediate, highly interactive, and non-hierarchical. As a result, net fiction tends to be idea-driven, collaborative and interactive (see, e.g., the "challenges" and the multi-part stories written by different authors as an idea grabs hold). It cuts into deeper levels of emotional and sexual truth.

If the net medium is egalitarian and communitarian, the printzine medium is hierarchical and individualistic. Writing is a more a solitary pursuit, with reinforcement tending to come from editors and the small number of readers who write reviews in the K/S Press. Editors have the power to decide what gets published and what doesn't. People take the time to write long stories, novellas and novels, and long LoCs (when they write them at all). Emphasis is less on ideas, more on how the writer handles the characters' emotions. I think there's probably also a generational difference between the two media that reflects and has contributed to overall social change. As we move into the 21st century, society as a whole is becoming more interactive, less hierarchical. The focus in industry is shifting away from top-down management to self-organized teamwork and collaboration. Diversity is actively valued because we have come to see it as a strength. So the net community is a 21st century organism, I think.

Disclaimers

A 1998 disclaimer:

We praise thee, O Paramount; we acknowledge thee to be the Copyright Owner. All the fans doth worship thee, the Studio everlasting.

We believe that thou shalt come to judge our infringement, We therefore pray thee, treat this as fair use.[4]

Notable Publications

Meta

1978

1980

1981

1982-1986 (perhaps longer)

1984

1985-86

1997

1998

1999

2000

Fanfic

References

  1. ^ "Judy Gran – Judith Gran's Fan Fiction". 2006-02-26. Archived from the original on 2022-03-31.
  2. ^ No.
  3. ^ Possibly.
  4. ^ "REP: The Captain's Log 1/2, TOS, K/S [NC-17]". 2003-09-25. Archived from the original on 2022-03-31.
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