Linda Short

Fan
Name:	Linda Short
Alias(es):	Linda M. Short
Type:	filker
Fandoms:	Blake's 7, Star Trek
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Linda Short was a singer-songwriter filker.

Produced at least three cassette tapes; Songs of the Seven, Ditties from the Edge of the World, and Some Dreams Are Worth Having for Blake's 7 fandom.

Some of Linda's filks were included with Excalibur Enterprises.

She passed away in 2006, and in her honor her fans and friends uploaded several of her works on the internet.

Memories

Linda Short was a wonderful British filk singer whom I met through “Blake’s Seven” fandom some time in the 1980s. Well, we never actually met, even when I went to England - she was ill at the time and lived, anyway, so far to the north it was just too far to travel. She was a pen pal. I do regret never having met her, especially since she passed away a few years ago, from a breast cancer she assured me had been caught in time. Over the years, she recorded three tapes. I bought the generally available ones, but one she made for me at Christmas one year when she thought it was the only way to be sure she gave me something I didn’t have. What a treasure it was, too! Several of the songs came from the Westerfilk collection, some were her own, including two with words by Rudyard Kipling, one with words by a very funny British fan writer called Val Douglas and - wince! - my tribbles song. Tonight I got out the tape and, with a lot of messing around, finally managed to get it on to iTunes through Garage band and burn it on to CD, so that I never again have to worry about my precious personal Linda Short filk tape degrading and snapping. Now that she is gone, it is all the more important to make sure her voice stays alive, at least.

I met Linda Short during one of the most wondrous years of my life during a study year abroad in Scotland. I had discovered Blake's Seven the year before I left, and I was dying to meet other fans so I went to a convention a month after I arrived at the university. There I met Linda and I think that's when I scratched up the money to buy her wonderful filk tapes. I know I eventually ended up with both of them and nearly wore them out listening to them over and over in my little pink tape player while traveling around the UK. I could sing most of the songs by heart. Just hearing one takes me back to that time of my life. She will be missed in the world of fandom, but I am so happy her music lives on.