In Memoriam: Joan Winston, 1931-2008

[thatcrazycajun]

With thanks to kradical for passing along the sad news: The woman who made it possible for me to be among you today is gone from us. Joan Winston, who with Sondra Marshak and Jacqueline Lichtenberg helped put on the earliest Star Trek fan conventions and wrote two books about the experience, Star Trek Lives! and Making of the Trek Conventions, has died after a long illness severe enough that she had to move into an assisted-living facility. The full story is here.

It is not in the least hyperbolic to say that without Joan's writings, I might never have discovered Star Trek fandom—or the much wider world of general science-fiction and fantasy fandom that lay beyond it. At the very least, if not, it would have taken substantially longer, stuck as I was in what at the time seemed to me a backwater town in southwest Louisiana with very few other fans of this series and genre. Through reading these books, the first of which I happened upon in a supermarket's paperback carousel rack at just the right time—about 13 or so, when I was just discovering the Original Series in syndicated reruns on a local TV station—I found out that I was not alone in my obsession, that there were indeed others who enjoyed it and not only got together, but staged whole conventions with thousands of people to share it with each other and with the then-bemused stars, writers and creator of the series.

Because of her, I joined a local SF club in Lafayette, LA when I managed to find out about it, and attended my very first con in New Orleans in August of 1978. Within a year I was working staff on Lafayette's very first SF convention, AcadianaCon I, and attending still more cons elsewhere.

Science fiction and fantasy, as genres in both literature and visual media, are the poorer for her passing...but oh, so much richer for her having lived. My heart, thoughts and prayers are with her family, friends and all those like me who owe their social lives and circles of friends to this remarkable woman. Thank you again, Joanie, and may you have a seat right next to Jimmy, Mark, De and the Great Bird up in the heavenly screening room. (And it better be showing not only every Trek series and film ever, but also Galaxy Quest, which would never have had a basis without you.)

Comments

[trektone.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the post.

I recently pulled out my copy of "Star Trek Lives" and "Making ..." when I commented here: http://community.livejournal.com/filk/337435.html?thread=1533211#t1533211

I'd met Winston a few times. She was very patient and nice.

[wouldyoueva.livejournal.com]

So sorry to hear this. I liked her a lot, and I was sorry when she gafiated.

[sffilk.livejournal.com]

Here's a Joanie Winston story from a friend of mine who was a friend of hers:

She was our "spy" at NBC when Trek was on, and she was the one who let us know that when the second letter writing campaign to save Trek was on, she let it out to the fen that NBC's computers broke down due to the number of letters the network received to save Trek.

[sodyera.livejournal.com]

I'd mentioned her passing a couple of days back and I'm off to her funeral service this AM.

Joanie Winaton Passes at 77

[(Anonymous)]

Memorial tributes to Joanie Winston can be read on the Sime~Gen website, co-owned by her co-author, Jacqueline Lichtenberg. We at Sime~Gen invite you to visit:

http://www.simegen.com/sgfandom/rimonslibrary/cz/cz24/JoanWinston.html

To add a memorial message, email Karen MacLeod, by clicking her link on the bottom of the page.