The X-Files Lexicon Interview with Sarah Stegall

Interviews by Fans
Title:	The X-Files Lexicon Interview with Sarah Stegall
Interviewer:	Matt Allair
Interviewee:	Sarah Stegall
Date(s):	December 30, 2012
Medium:	online
Fandom(s):	The X-Files
External Links:	interview is here, Archived version
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Sarah Stegall was interviewed by Matt Allair in 2012 for The X-Files Lexicon.

Some Excerpts

You were involved with on-line fandom from early on; I recall back in the Alt.TV.X-Files era, what was the climate like with fandom from that period? Do you stay in touch with any of the early fans?

It was really like a club house, you know. It’s not so much that you had a secret handshake or anything, but you didn’t have to explain anything, People got it, when you mentioned the Cigarette-Smoking Man, I knew exactly what you were talking about. It wasn’t like you had to excuse or explain why you were obsessed with this TV show about aliens, but I think one of the best parts for me was just hooking up with other people. I had been watching TV all of my life, but [when] we watched, it was always solitary, but now it was like this big invisible party in my living room. [Regarding staying in touch] Yes, I am. Back in 1993, I was one of the original members of the DDEB – David Duchovny Estrogen Brigade. We were a closed e-mail group because the servers were catching fire from the amount of traffic on the list, and we have been on-line chatting with each other, every single day, 365 days a year. Next year will be our twentieth anniversary. Some of the members have bowed out, some of them are still with us. A couple of them were actually journalists. I won’t give you their names, but they reported on The X-Files, they interviewed people. You would recognize their names. It’s been going on for decades.

Do you recall at what point did you become aware that the staff from Ten-Thirteen became aware of your reviews?

I don’t know if you remember the Delphi forum. A friend of mine convinced me to join the Delphi forum, and I started getting private e-mails from people saying, “Hey, I work on the show, I read your review.” I guess this was the Spring of ’94, I think, and I didn’t believe them. They weren’t using real names, anyway. I didn’t know who was who on the internet. Then this guy who was running the forum--his name was ‘Reapr,’ or under the name of ‘Reapr’--e-mailed me privately and said, “I work for 1013 and these guys are reading your reviews.” Then one day out of the blue Reapr e-mailed me at work and said “I need your phone number,” and I was, “Yeah, right,” and the next thing I know I was getting a phone call at work from Chris Carter. Chris gets on and says, “I’m sitting here reading your review for “Humbug,” which had just been published, “and David is here with me, and we just wanted to talk about the review.” He had very flattering things to say. He asked about my background, where I studied, stuff like that. Then he asked if I had ever written a script, and I said, ‘yes.’ He asked me to send him any X-File script I had written. I did so. He didn’t buy it, but I did get back four pages of notes from Frank Spotnitz. After that, Chris would call me about once a month, chat about the show very, very gracious, very, very nice.