A Life in Four Colors Part Fifty-Five

Fandom and fanzines remained an important part of our lives in those early years of our marriage--and in fact, they seemed to increase in importance. We were both active in two amateur press alliances Myriad (founded in 1968 by Stven Carlberg) and Galaxy (founded in 1970 by Gary Steele). In addition, we would occasionally drift into and out of the Southern Fandom Press Alliance, whose existence predated our involvement in fandom by several years.

It's hard to explain the fanzine subculture to people who aren't familiar with fandom and the fan press. Fanzines--of which apas (apa being an acronym for amateur press alliance) are a subset--appeal to people who enjoy expressing themselves in print. It's a way to share opinions, experiences, observations, and communication with a larger group of friends, acquaintances, and colleagues. Apazines (individual fanzines produced for distribution to the membership of an apa) can be almost as personal as a letter, but they're intended to be read to a select group of friends. Some alas are more open; others are very secretive.

Myriad was my first apa experience. Gary and I were founding members, invited by our friend Stven Carlberg as he prepared to launch the new apa in 1968. Stven had become a fan friend of mine when I first discovered his fanzine Quantum through an ad. Shortly afterwards, the more general SF and comics fanzine Quantum came to an end; Stven replaced it with the fanzine SEC,  whose name was derived from his initials. He expanded SEC to include fiction, poetry, and more. I contributed to SEC, and I believe that Gary did as well. So it was understandable that Stven was invite the both of us to help launch his new apa.

Susan became involved because I invited her--or rather, I encouraged Stven to invite her, since he was the only one who could officially invite a member at that time. I had met Susan just a couple of months before Myriad began, and within a few months I had introduced her to the world of fanzines.

Galaxy came along almost two years later, and to be honest I don't know why. Gary never told us why he felt the need to create a new apa--particularly one that shared so much of its membership with Myriad's roster. He invited Susan and me to become charter members, and we did--Gary was our friend, after all.

Not too long after Susan and I got married, Stven decided that he was ready to pass the Official Editorship of Myriad on to someone else. So Susan and I decided to run.

I can't offer an logical explanation for our decision. We were both working, I was in school, we were newly married and trying to build our own lives--but we also enjoyed doing apazines, and we liked the friends we had come to know through them. Joe Brancatelli, Joel Thingvall, Arvell Jones, Merlin Haas, Mark Evanier, Bob Pinaha, Cecil Hutto, Mark Verheiden, Rob Solomon, Steve & Binker Hughes, mike weber--these were just a few of the friends we made through Myriad and other apas.

I also think that my desire for instant gratification may have played a part in our decision to run for OE. If we were the Official Editors, we got to see everyone's apazines as soon as they sent them to us, rather than having to wait for the apa containing all those individual zines to be mailed to the members. I have never been a particularly patient person...

So in 1972, Susan and I became Official Editors of Myriad, which meant that two amateur press alliances were produced within twenty miles of one another. Gary would help us to assemble every mailing of Myriad; we would help him to assemble every mailing of Galaxy.

In 1973, we moved from our small rundown house a 621 1/2 Olive Street to the larger house at 621 Olive Street. As I mentioned before, I suspect the tiny house was originally a garage or outbuilding for the larger house located directly in front of it. Whatever the explanation, 621 Olive Street was a tremendous step up for us--it was a house with two bedrooms, a living room, a large kitchen, a floor furnace, and a normal sized bathroom.

When we moved into that larger house, we also decided to get a telephone. Our income had grown enough that we could afford the extra $11 a month for a phone--and since we were running Myriad, other members of the apa had asked if there was any way to call us to let us know they had sent us a package, or to see if it had arrived (there was no tracking for most mail at this time). So we got a phone, and a phone number to go with it.

404-748-6363. Or, if you used the letters assigned to the designated numbers, 404-748-OEOE. What number could be more perfect for two Official Editors of Myriad?  (And no, we did not request that phone number--back then, I didn't even know that you could request phone numbers!)

We turned the second bedroom into a fan room. We put up a metal shelving in the room--not only along the walls, but also in freestanding rows in the middle of the room, like a library, with books accessible from both sides of the shelves. We moved our desk in there. We added a table for our mimeograph. We even had enough room to set up my Royal typewriter and Susan's Underwood. And that freed up the rest of the house to decorate like a--well, like a house!

Gradually, fandom was becoming a larger part of our lives. By 1973, every one of our close friends was someone we had met through fandom. Our larger house meant that we had room for out-of-town fans to stay overnight--and our living room sofa was also a sofa bed, so we actually had a place for guests to sleep. While most people planned vacations, we planned our summers around science fiction conventions like DeepSouthCon or Kubla Khan. We even began doing some paying work for "professional fanzines" like Jim Steranko's Mediascene.

That intense involvement with fandom would continue for a decade, leading us to launch our own review fanzine Future Retrospective, to help create the Atlanta Science Fiction Club (ASFiC), to help launch a regular Atlanta convention (ASFiCon), and even to host small conventions in Rome (Halfacon  and Romega-Con). It would eventually end with bitterness and rancor, but the skills I learned in fandom would pave the way for a career that has lasted half of my lifetime.