Peg Kennedy

Fan
Name:	Peg Kennedy
Alias(es):
Type:	zine editor, fan writer
Fandoms:	Blake's 7, Robin of Sherwood, Star Trek: The Original Series, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Beauty and the Beast, The X-Files, Doctor Who
Communities:
Other:
URL:
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Peg Kennedy is a prolific author, zine editor, and a writer and performer of filk songs. She ran New Leaf Press with Linda Knights and Gypsy Moth Productions with Bill Hupe.

Awards

Peg won a 1989 Fan Q for her Robin of Sherwood filk tape, Rhiannon's Wheel. She also won a Gold Major Oak Award for the 1989 Novel/novella In the Shadow of the Wheel, together with Cindy Fairbanks and Jeanine Hennig.

She won two Fan Q awards in 1991 with Bill Hupe; first for Abode of Strife, a Doctor Who zine that they co-edited. She and Bill Hupe also tied for Best Star Trek Zine Editor with Sheila Clark.

She won a 1992 Fan Q for Best Star Trek Zine Editor for The Pirates of Avalon.

In 1996 she received an honorable mention for her gen multimedia zine, Lions and Tigers and Zines, Oh My! 3.

Editor

• A Truth Beyond Knowledge (Beauty and the Beast, gen)
• Rebel Desires (Blake's 7 slash)
• Qubed (with Bill Hupe) (Star Trek: The Next Generation)

• Many others

Zine Agent

In June 1996, Bill Hupe the largest fanzine dealer and agent in North America retired and handed over his inventory to Peg Kennedy. Within one year, the business had fallen into such disarray that fanzine publishers such as Mysti Frank, Marion McChesney, Deathless Pros Press, Firetrine Press, Village Press and others withdrew reprint and distribution rights. Part of the problem may have been that Bill ran the business as a full time operation with his wife Ann (who was working) funding many of the business expenses with her salary, whereas Peg attempted to manage it part-time without additional outside financial support. A fan in fall of 1996 commented:

I wonder how Peg Kennedy & Linda Knights are handling their assumption of Bill Hupe's zine business?... I'm rather leery of ordering from them as they have no track record on handling orders on their own.

In July of 1997, Mysti Frank wrote an open letter to fandom (which in in light of her own business failures, specifically in 2016, is extremely ironic.). This open letter was titled, Thief in Fandom, and Frank asked to be distributed throughout fandom:

"This is a call-to-arms. I need to hear from any dealers who have been lied to and deceived by Peg Kennedy (aka New Leaf Productions) and would like to join a group of dealers who are putting their collective foot down. We are informing fandom at large that Peg Kennedy no longer has the right to sell our zines and we demand our stock and all monies owed to us be sent to us IMMEDIATELY. Join us and be counted. I will be writing up a statement that will be sent out to all dealers who wish to stand with us and make a joint statement so that they may make corrections and additions, then together we will be sending this missive to everyone in fandom we can think of. Please pass this message on to ANY list and ANY person you can think of so that we can stop Peg Kennedy from drawing in any new dealers who are unaware of the situation and how she has been treating all the people she is supposedly agenting for! Let's show Peg that fandom as a whole WILL NOT TOLERATE THIS."

Not all publishers jumped on the bandwagon:

"Peg Kennedy is a nice lady. She may be a bad business person, or she may simply have gotten in *way* over her head trying to take over the work Bill Hupe started years ago. Either way, while it would likely be a relief for her to have some people remove their zines from her inventory (we all know a smaller inventory equals less hassle), I hesitate to be a part of some sort of fannish possee, riding to the northwest to haul Peg in. Of course, that's because I *like* Peg, and because when I run into her at conventions I ask for payouts and she promptly grants them. It's also because I know how easy it is to get overwhelmed with something that started out as a fun, friendly hobby."

From the December Progress Report for MediaWest*Con:

It is our understanding that Orphan 'Zine sales were slow this year. Unfortunately, we have heard that Peg Kennedy has had some financial problems and has apparently gone to ground, not responding to mail, e-mail, etc.. We have not heard from her directly since the con, and have been unsuccessful in contacting her, so we do not know the specifics of her situation. We hope that everyone (including T'Kuhtian Press) will eventually get a full accounting.

It was later learned that sometime before late 1998, Peg's inventory had been abandoned in a storage locker. Due to lack of payment, thousands of fanzines and art prints fell into the hands of a sports collector who then attempted to sell them back to the zine publishers. See Fanzines Rescue Operation for more about the subject.

After the collapse of her zine business, many fanzine publishers switched to Knightwriter Press and Agent With Style as zine agents.

A 2003 comment by Jean Kluge:

Being a fannish mogul *is* hard work. Just ask Bill Hupe. But Bill ran his empire with goodwill, good nature, and unquestioned honesty.... I dealt with Bill as an agent for my Trek prints years ago, then parted amicably because Bill just had too much on his plate. He put out horrible zines, bless him, *but* he was scrupulous and honest. He made mistakes from time to time, but always tried to make good on them. He meant well, and for the most part ran his huge empire well, considering its volume. His biggest mistake was in kindheartedly but misguidedly turning over his empire to Peg Kennedy when he was ready to "retire" from it all. Peg had no business sense, was perpetually broke, and had always been terrible at handling money. But even she, despite using zine pre-order money to support herself and foolishly hoping it would all turn out all right sometime in the hazy future, never seemed to me to have the malicious bent, the truly calculating, deliberate intent to do wrong that She Of Whom We Are Speaking demonstrates, IMO, again and again.