Legacy Interview with Gayle F
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| Interviews by Fans | |
|---|---|
| Title: | Legacy Interview with Gayle F |
| Interviewer: | Legacy |
| Interviewee: | Gayle F |
| Date(s): | 2007 |
| Medium: | print, CD |
| Fandom(s): | Star Trek TOS, slash |
| External Links: | |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
In 2007, Gayle F was interviewed for the zine Legacy.
See List of Star Trek Fan Interviews.
Some Excerpts
I saw a copy of “Star Trek Lives” in the supermarket. The next thing I know, I’m a Trekkie, sending off to my first sources and getting hooked into the fan network. I was reading a lot of SciFi and Fantasy in this decade also. But getting into fandom was a leap sideways. I was in grad school, writing serious fiction, and I was looked at askance when I started unreeling Star Trek plots at my literary friends. Very déclassé, but what the hell, I had a lot of fun and wrote my best fiction ever in fandom. It was also painless writing, pure joy, until I started taking it seriously, whereupon it became difficult. Ah well.... As to K/S specifically. I was very interested in erotica at the time, so I was interested in writing adult Trek. I had fantasies of Spock with just about everyone. I especially liked Leila. But as soon as I put him with Kirk (even though I didn’t much like Kirk), the rest were goners. It was obviously the most important relationship.
Yes [I invented the double ridges]. I wanted to do something both alien and sexy. I feel very pleased. Perhaps I’m psychic?
[About early K/S]: I didn’t really discuss it with anyone beforehand. I’d loved male bonding shows ever since I was a little girl, starting with “Captain Video,” “The Range Rider,” etc. I think Spin and Marty was the first one I ever made explicit. So, the only thing in the way of my K/S was not much liking Kirk. But Spock loved Kirk, so I just went from there. Actually, fandom helped quite a bit in this—as I was reading the fanzines and found I liked the developed characterizations of Kirk, and also McCoy, very much. I read a lot of Connie Faddis, who wrote very sophisticated stories, very adult if not necessarily erotic. But when I mentioned I was interested in getting Kirk and Spock into bed (a bit tentatively), I soon got referred to the fanzines and editors who would be interested. I know that there was a story that was passed around for a long time, Kirk and Spock lost on an island [1]. But I didn’t hear about that till later. I had the first Cosmic Fuck story in mind, when I did find a little tiny K/S tale in “Grup” # 3. I probably read the damned thing 100 times. Nothing like obsession....
The Price and the Prize was my first [zine]. Syn Ferguson and I did it together, then she wanted to do Courts of Honor to the format she liked, and set off on her own. I did my own zines sporadically thereafter. I did find a publisher in Eugene, Oregon (where I lived in the ‘70s) who was okay with the erotica, but I also had a couple of unpleasant experiences of people freaking out on me, even if I told them beforehand I had illustrations of gay erotica. These were embarrassing, but the biggest problem was usually that they’d promised me a good deal price wise, and I’d have to go hunting again.
I was one of the ones who’d read [Mary Renault's Alexander the Great books], and Carol Frisbie, of course. Carol also introduced me to Dorothy Dunnett’s Lymond Chronicles, which were a big favorite, and “Haakon.” And “The Front Runner.” And “Interview with a Vampire.” There was a good deal of gay-themed SciFi and Fantasy in this era. I think I’d read the Athenian books quite a while before, and probably the 2 Theseus books (not slashy, those, but wonderful), but actually read the Alexander books about the same time as I got into K/S. Great riches.