Luba Kmetyk

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Fan
Name: Luba Kmetyk
Alias(es): Kyla Luba
Type: Fanwriter, Archivist
Fandoms: Star Trek, X-Men, Excalibur, DC/Vertigo, BtVS
Communities: Outside the Lines, Rec.arts.comics.marvel.xbooks, Alt.comic.fan-fiction
Other: Fonts of Wisdom
URL: Fanfiction.net
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By her own account[1], Luba was active as a "newcomer" in Star Trek fandom in the 1970s[2] and made a name for herself not only as a writer (sometimes under the name Kyla Luba), but also for her feedback and constructive criticism.

Later she became legendary in comics fandom as a writer and as an archivist and to be invited to have a fic hosted on her site, Fonts of Wisdom was considered a great honor. Her first piece of comics fanfiction[3] was the Hellblazer/Excalibur crossover "Pulling Their Fat Out Of The Fire" and from there she went on to explore the at the time unpopular canon relationship between Kitty Pryde and Pete Wisdom through her series of fics, ''Idylls of the Cat."

This quote from Alara Rogers in 2002 sums up her impact on the fandom:

"Every Pete Wisdom/Kitty Pryde story written today, or for the past four and a half years, is written with the impact of Luba Kmetyk in mind. This isn't the most popular pairing, and Wisdom isn't the most popular character, but given that Excalibur was a rather more obscure book than the mainstream X-titles, the impact is in that so much Pete Wisdom fic gets written at all. Luba's characterizations have become an important part of fanon (maybe not a part I *like*, but an important part.) She has exposed the work of more new authors to OTL than any other person, by posting works to OTL for people who don't have subscriptions of their own. Luba has encouraged the growth of New Mutants fanfic, which in 1998 was barely a footnote in comics fanfic, to a viable subgenre of its own, and is currently actively encouraging fanfic about Maddie Pryor, Emma Frost, and Psylocke. Also, Luba's archive and writings are partially responsible for Vertigo's growth from something no one bothered to write fanfic about to a respectable subfandom." [4]

She was inducted into the CBFFA Writer Hall of Fame in 2002. She was also featured by Dex Farkin in his IMHO (rec column) reviews.

Luba was also a fan of Spike from Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel: the Series, writing and collecting fanfic by others at her archive.

You can find a number of her works on FanFiction.Net, but she does not appear to have an AO3 account and the bulk of her material can be found at Fonts of Wisdom.

Any look at the best at fanfiction must eventually come to one person, no matter how narrow or skewed their taste may be. When you make a poll of the writers in this genre about their favorite writers, invariably the conversation will end off with 'and, of course, Luba Kmetyk.' The first lady of fan-fiction and one of it's oldest adherents, here is the woman that writ large across the face of comicbook fanfiction, and changed everything...

...Luba Kmetyk herself is one of the great personalities of the genre. While eschewing mIRC, she's known through voluminous betas, e-mails and submission requests. In fact, it's amazing that she has the time to troll through the dross to find the regular pearls that she posts on her site, while out-producing most writers on-line.

Still, ever self-less, her final words on how she'd like to be remembered by the community to which she's devoted so much are summed up in twenty-one words:

I'd like it if my writing and archive gave back a small fraction of the pleasure the community has given me.

IMHO #14 - a Luba Kmetyk Restrospective by Dex Farkin

Notable Works

Star Trek

X-Men

Awards

CBFFAs

  • 1998 - Best Excalibur Fic - Idylls of the Cat
  • 1999 - Best Series - Idylls of the Cat
  • 1999 - Best Established Writer
  • 2000 - Fanfic Hall of Fame - Idylls of the Cat
  • 2002 - Writer Hall of Fame

Reviews and Recommendations

IMHO - Reader's Rave #3 - "Close Encounters of the Lethal Kind" (R)

IMHO #7 - Waking Dex and Other Tales of Lost Love - "Sheol"

IMHO #14 - Scotch and Writers - A Luba Kmetyk Retrospective

Archives/Zines/Collections

Zines

As Contributor

Collections

As Contributor

Amazing Grace - A Shot in the Dark - Issue #3, published January 1996 (Star Trek: TOS, Kirk/Spock)

Archives

As Archivist

Fonts of Wisdom - Luba's personal fanfic archive, plus those she likes to read.

As Contributor

Lori's X-Men Archive

The itty bitty cyke and logan archive

The Itty Bitty Archives ‎

References

  1. ^ I started in fanfiction long before -- right after the original Star Trek was cancelled, back in the *true* dark ages when fanfiction meant mimeoed zines passed around at fan conventions. My first fanfic, at least that appeared in a real fanzine, was a humorous, non-explicit Spock/McCoy slash piece. I've also done Star Wars, Man from UNCLE and Avengers (as in Steed and Mrs Peel) fanfic, among a few others we won't mention, over various periods of time... In most cases, it was when the show was cancelled (or ruined -- can anybody say 'tara king' with a straight face?), or the next movie took way too long to come out, and I wanted more stories about characters I liked and considered friends and wanted to get to know better. IMHO (rec column) #14, "Scotch and Writers: A Retrospective of Luba Kmetyk"
  2. ^ comment by Luba Kmetyk in "Menagerie" #12
  3. ^ Per this article by Dex in his In My Humble Opinion series
  4. ^ "Never let it be said..." Alara Rogers' Livejournal, Oct 24, 2002
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