Leslye Lilker

Fan
Name:	Leslye Lilker, then Leslye Lubkin, now Leah Hannah Charifson
Alias(es):
Type:	fanwriter, zine editor
Fandoms:	Star Trek: TOS
Communities:
Other:
URL:
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Leslye Lilker is a Star Trek: TOS fan writer and publisher.

Her well-known Sahaj series won the 1978 Fan Q for best author.

She edited and published IDIC.

In 2015 she resurrected the Sahaj series and began to rewrite old stories and add new ones in an attempt to complete the series.

Interviews

• Media Fandom Oral History Project Interview with Leslye Lilker (2017)
• News from the Crypt: Interview with Leah Charifson (2021)

Fannish Journey

From a 2021 interview:

The first fanfic I ever wrote was about the series Bonanza. That was in grade school and my best friend and I would fill composition books with stories about the Cartwrights. We even invented a twin for Little Joe because we both liked him the best.

[...]

Let’s skip ahead to September 8, 1966. I was 16 years old and far more interested in my boyfriend then I was in watching the new science fiction show on TV. But as we only had one TV and everybody else wanted to watch Trek, I did too. I found it entertaining and became a frequent viewer, when I wasn’t involved with peer activities.

September 15, 1967. I was a HS senior and I had a date. My mother insisted that I should sit down and watch this show until my date arrived. “You’ll like this alien,” she said. “He’s sexy,” she said.

Ten minutes into Amok Time and I was hooked. I made my date watch til the end with me before we left.

In 1975, now married and known as Leslye Lilker, I was devoutly watching Trek in syndication, I became troubled with the big three (Kirk, Spock, McCoy) ‘spreading their seed,’ as Sargon would say, on every planet they landed. Okay. Hyperbole. But you get it. One of them was going to reproduce. The most likely candidate was Kirk, of course, so he was no fun. Bones? He already had a daughter. But Spock? My sexy alien? My sexy, young, unemotional Vulcan? What if he had to accept being a father to a ten-year-old three quarter Vulcan, raised by humans, whose first words to him were, “Take your logic and shove it widthwise.”

And that was the start of the Sahaj Universe. Encouraged by my then co-editor, Linda Silverman, I wrote the story where Sahaj and Spock met for the first time. I wrote the story badly. Ungrammatically. Full of misspellings. Typos. Used ‘it’s’ for ‘its.’ Found out about a con in Pittsburgh. Learned that other people also wrote fanfic and sold it in zines, at cons. So Linda and I went to Pittsburgh with 25 copies of IDIC #1, cover by Doug Drexler, and, at $2 a copy, sold out in the first ten minutes. I had no idea that Sahaj would be so well received, and that my little, badly written story, “The Ambassador’s Son,” would morph into a saga which is still continuing.

While people responded to the story, they also rightfully criticized it for the plot holes and all the other flaws a baby writer puts into a story. I received many a letter of comment, filled with constructive criticism, and I tried to take each one to heart. But the readers wanted more about Sahaj and his developing relationship with Spock, with Kirk, and with McCoy. And, of course, with Sarek and Amanda.

We didn’t have social media then. Everything was done by snail mail. Advertising was by word of mouth and reviews in other zines. At one point, I had a world-wide distribution of over 3,000 copies of each issue. The Forging earned Fan Q awards at T’Con, 1978, for both writing (me, with lots of support from lots of people) and for Alice Jones’ exquisite artwork. It may sound like boasting, but be assured, I was terrified to find people liked my work. As an introvert, I found it challenging to speak on panels, play my guitar and sing, and hear praise for what I’d done. Practice helped, and I when I was the auctioneer at one of the art auctions in NY, I actually had fun!

I still find it hard to accept praise, though. I kind of feel that I’m just the conduit, and not the creator.