Media Fandom Oral History Project Interview with Vonne Shepard

Interviews by Fans
Title:	Media Fandom Oral History Project Interview with Vonne Shepard
Interviewer:	Franzeska Dickson
Interviewee:	Vonne Shepard
Date(s):	February 2012
Medium:	vocal recording, transcribed, 1555 words
Fandom(s):	Star Trek: TOS, The Professionals, General Hospital, The Magnificent 7, Beauty and the Beast
External Links:	Media Fandom Oral History Project Interview with Vonne Shepard
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In 2012, Vonne Shepard was interviewed at Escapade as part of the Media Fandom Oral History Project.

For more information about the origins of this interview, where it is housed, contact information, suggestions regarding future interviewee candidates, and how to become volunteer interviewer, see the Media Fandom Oral History Project page.

Some Topics Discussed

• being a hurt/comfort fan
• the Southern California slashbashes
• becoming a Professionals fan after reading Camera Shy and Stage Fright
• fan-run cons vs for-profit cons
• TunnelCon

Excerpts

I’ve always been an original Star Trek fan. I love Dr. McCoy. The second year I was in nursing school and my sister and I were watching this and when Kirk gets stabbed, I knew exactly where he got stabbed and everything. But I’ve always been—because of being a nurse, it was a big influence to me. My first Star Trek convention—I moved to California in ’78 from Ohio and met up with my two best friends, Kathy Ritchie and Trudy (?), and Trudy and I went to a Creation Con which I had never been to fan run cons and I got information on DeForest Kelley’s fanclub. Sue Keenan was running it and I met her and she told me about Lily Fulford, I think Kathy Snow had told you about her. I got into Pro’s fandom in 1990, after the first Revelcon in Houston, Candy Pulleine, and I saw a music video and it was from Clansman. I’m a hurt/comfort person, being a nurse.

[Fandom's] a family, and fans are fans forever. We went to the first Tunnel Con in 1990. My sister came to California, she was in Ohio also, and we took the train up to Las Vegas to the first Tunnel Con. But Trudy and I had been at another Beauty and the Beast fandom that Ron Perlman was at, I think there was like one dealer there, it was out at a hotel by LAX. That’s where I discovered after Revelcon, fan run cons were so much better than Creation. We’d go to Creations and get in line, that’s before they got greedy and you have to pay extra for fancy seats and stuff, and they had plays in certain sections of the Star Trek universe, because I was McCoy in one and I met some people down in Orange County. It just grows. Then there were six Mountain Media Cons in Denver through Kathy Snow and some other people, we helped out with that, and after that I was on a couple of panels on medical terminology and stuff and I put out a booklet called Medical Facts for Fan Fiction Writers. Because one of my very big pet peeves when I’m reading a story is when a person is listed as prone.... Which means they’re on their face, but someone’s kissing them, on the back of their head—and you have to be supine.

... when I see stories—I’m a GH fan, General Hospital and other things—you don’t need to kill a character off, just send them off somewhere. I hate it when they kill a character off, ‘cause, especially in soap operas, they’re going to bring them back eventually anyway... they’ll be reincarnated. You don’t need to kill the characters off, just—unfortunately with Highlander and Darius, I mean the actor died. And with Kung Fu, the actor Robert Lansing died and you can’t help that. But you don’t need to kill them off, just send them off somewhere. There’s enough places to go... I never was a big Ritchie fan. I don’t think they needed to do that either. That’s why the second—that is one series that ended properly, because you had the alternate endings. Because Bellisario, with Quantum Leap—I’ve never forgiven him because Sam never got to come home. And you don’t need—if you’re going to end a series, do like the Highlander people did.