Not Tonight, Spock! Interview with Diana King

Interviews by Fans
Title:	Not Tonight, Spock! Interview with Diana King
Interviewer:	Sarah Leibold
Interviewee:	Diana King
Date(s):	1984
Medium:	print
Fandom(s):	Star Trek TOS, slash
External Links:
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In 1984, Diana King was interviewed for the zine Not Tonight, Spock! #6.

Excerpts

What I'd really like to do is write well-crafted short stories like Syn Ferguson's "Freedom Is Standing In The Light." Unfortunately I am too damned long-winded, and my stories always seem to swell up like sponges. Hence the novels. If I have a flair for writing, it's for narrative. Also, I don't have an artist's eye, and my mind tends to work prosaically, not poetically. Therefore, I am rarely inspired to write a poem. How rarely is shown by the fact that me two NOME poems ("The Mountain Weeps" and "In Silence Parted") are the only poems I've tried in 22 years. And "The Mountain Weeps" is essentially narrative.

I have only been involved in fandom since 1978, when I sent Carol Frisbie a draft of Deathdance and, after some marathon phone conversations, she invited me over to meet Susan K. James, and then to a party at Susan's where I met Bev Volker, Nancy Kippax, Ginna LaCroix, Susie Gordon, [April Valentine], Teri and Gerri Sylvester, and others who probably don't remember that I was even there. I was quite swept away by the experience and my life has never been the same, thank god!

Star Trek I have loved since that fateful day in September of '66 when "Where No Man Has Gone Before" first aired. I had never been interested in science fiction before that, and I only decided to tune in because of William Shatner. When the program was over, my husband and I looked at each other and said, "That was terrific!" We both watched devotedly for three years. Cancellation is something I have never forgiven NBC for. Afterward, the flame was kept alive by the steady progression of paperbacks about Trek, as well as the animated vers ion, and then, of course, the syndicated reruns. I heard about the letter campaigns and early cons, but I knew no one who was involved, and besides, as I said, I'm more of a loner than a joiner. Also, by that time I had two babies and no money to travel.

What really galvanized me was New Voyages. When I read these stories by other fans, I decided to try writing some of my own. I spent a large part of '77 working on one (still unfinished). As I worked I became worried that some other fan had already dealt with my theme in a fanzine (I'd never seen a zine, of course), so I sent an outline and sample scenes to Marshak and Culbreath just to ask if I was duplicating someone else's idea. Months later I got them back with a note from Carol Frisbie saying that the story sounded interesting and that I should go ahead with it. I had no idea who Carol was or why she was answering Marshak and Culbreath's mail. Also, it was intriguing that she lived nearby. So I wrote back, rather baldly demanding to know who she was, etc. She hasn't recovered yet, but her answer was cordial, and she was willing to take a look at Deathdance, which I had been working on furiously for several months. Carol also introduced me to the K/S premise, although I can't recall exactly when. (I think it was in an early phone conversation, but I'm not sure.) It came as no big shock because I'd had some thoughts along those lines myself. Anyway, since I wasn't repelled, she gave me [Gayle F's] "Desert Heat" to read, then Thrust. I don't know a better way to get into K/S.

I should admit upfront that K/S is not my primary orientation. What I realLy prefer is a blend of hurt/comfort with friendship/love and action/adventure--which is why I was gound to be crazy about both ST II and ST III. Also, the friendship that interests me is not just K&S but K&S&M. And it's the tensions among them as well as the understandings they reach, that I like to deal with. For me, a story in which Kirk and Spock achieve everlasting joy and harmony is not very satisfying. Basically, the way I deal with K/S is to compartmentalize, because although I can believe in K/S, I can't accept it as the only reality. So in one part of my mind, I keep Kirk and Spock the way they were on the original series, with a complex friendship but no sexual relationship. In another compartment they are essentially the same but with sex added to the relationship. In still other compartments I can deal with mirror/alternate universes and other situations. Although I like to read K/S written by others, I hardly ever write it myself because then it becomes hard work rather than pleasure, turning me off instead of on. Besides, when I do write a sex scene, I usually end up with the frustrated feeling that everybody can write them better than I can.

Response to K/S is such a personal thing, sometimes it isn't even under one's control. I'd like to be able to enjoy all kinds of K/S stories, as some say they do, but I can't. Although I think of myself as pretty broadminded, some K/S storylines do nothing for me, including those that present either Kirk or Spock as a male prostitute, or Kirk as a wimpy teenage slave; any story that grafts the external trappings of 20th century gay culture onto the characters; stories that present Kirk as having had youthful affairs with people like Finnegan or Gary Mitchell.

I hope no one reading these remarks will Interpret them as a putdown. Fen have the right to fantasize and draw and read and write whatever views of Trek they prefer. My inability to enjoy them all is my problem.

I don't think my ideas about K/S have undergone much change. I've always accepted the possibility of K/S, not only because of the obvious love Kirk and Spock have for each other, but also because it seems equally obvious that their century will have much more complete knowledge of all aspects of human sexuality and far fewer hangups about it. After I read Thrust, my question was whether I now had to believe that it was inevitable for the Kirk-Spock friendship to develop the sexual dimension. It took me a couple of years to decide that my answer is no, though yours may be different. I just can't give up the mainstream view of the characters, even though I can enjoy K/S as a change of pace.

[Will there be a sequel to "Captives"?:] Whenever this question is asked, I always feel highly complimented and very touched. Unfortunately I always have to answer in the negative. When I wrote Captives, I was doing two things: First I was telling ray own fantasy about Spock's having to drink a slave dealer under the table in order to buy back an injured Kirk; second, I was trying to work out my own explanation of a way (aside from pon farr) that they might come to the point of admitting a physical interest in each other. I ended the story where I did because to continue it (and resolve Kirk's hangup about his mistreatment on Orion) would have meant writing another 50 to 100 pages of heavily psychological stuff. I'm just not very interested in that part of the story, and I couldn't do it justice. Maybe I should cop out by letting other people try to write Part 3, then collecting the results and publishing them as a zine.

For several years I've been working on 3 different stories. None is K/S. In fact, they aren't even K & S; they focus on Kirk. They present views of his past, present, and future. Some day I hope to combine them into one zine. However, progress has been discouraging slow.