Mimosa Letters (letters column), 
  title illo by Sheryl Birkhead and William Rotsler
{{ We were very pleased by the number of letters we received in response to Mimosa 21. We've said it before: letters of comment are the energy source that keeps fan editors like us publishing. Even though we can't publish every letter we receive, we want to let you know that all your comments, whether or not they appear here in the Letters Column, are collected and sent on to the contributors. Our contributors value the feedback as much as we do, so please continue to send us your comments.

 There were two items that received the much of our readers' comments this time -- Mike Resnick's fine article about the fandom-related books in his personal library, and Julia Morgan-Scott's whimsical cover for M21 that featured a runaway stagecoach, a western saloon, and jaywalking armadillo ladies. We'll get to Mike's article shortly, but first some comments on the cover. }}


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Pamela J. Boal, Wantage, Oxon, United Kingdom
 Thank you so much for Mimosa 21, a number that would have had significance except that Mimosa came of age almost from its inception. What a marvellous cover! It has everything -- humour, good design, excellent drawing and reproduction. Have I just been lacking observation or is this a first cover for Julia Morgan-Scott? Surely if she had produced such work before I would have remembered her name. I'd be interested in finding out a bit about her technique, it looks like scraperboard and yet I wonder because of the confident flow of the execution.

{{ You are correct; Julia did use scratchboard for the cover of M21. That was her first cover for us, though she's been a contributor in many other issues (check out her Letters Column illustration on page 36 of Mimosa 19). We hope to have another cover from her soon. }}

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Brad Foster, Irving, Texas
 Wow, what an absolutely amazing cover by Julia on Mimosa #21!! Scratchboard seems to be a dying art (with pen and ink running a close second), and to see such an incredibly well done piece that is also such a fun image with so much happening, well, it's like yet another in a long line of really knockout covers for Mimosa. How do you manage to keep getting these?

{{ That's really the least of our worries. There are so many good fan artists now that getting good cover art is not a problem. It's almost enough incentive to make us publish more often -- until we remember what the publication costs are! }}

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William Breiding, Tucson, Arizona
 I think Bill Mallardi definitely ought to degafiate. His piece on Joni Stopa {{"I Remember Joni" }} was fabulous (aside from a couple too many exclamation points there at the end!), and if there is any reality to the fandom-as-family thing, Bill got pretty close to proving it with this fine appreciation-cum-memoir. I think I met Joni just once at an Autoclave. She was sitting at a round table with Jackie Causgrove and Suzi Stefl and myself and I was being quizzed by them all. I'm sorry I didn't know Joni.

{{ As we were preparing this issue's letters column, we received the news of the passing of Jackie Causgrove. She had been in ill health for quite some time, so it wasn't entirely unexpected; Midwestcons won't be the same without her presence. }}

 And I can't let Julia Morgan-Scott's wonderful cover go unmentioned. I studied it for a long, long time. Particularly the scratch work on grandpa and the babes on the balcony.

illo by William Rotsler and Joe 
Mayhew
Ruth M. Shields, Jackson, Mississippi
 The cover of Mimosa 21 is great. It is nice to see somebody using scratchboard again! The use of it here is excellent, and I love the whimsy of the design. And I hope I'm forgiven if I wistfully assume the Armadilly wimmen made it to the doorway and avoided becoming stagecoach roadkill.

 In your Opening Comments {{ "A Tale of Two Worldcons" }}, your convention reminiscences reminded me of my own first worldcon, the year before yours: SunCon, Miami Beach, 1977. I attended with an old friend who was not only at her first worldcon, but her first con of any sort. We were both a bit lost, but we had fun despite being unaware of any of the activities available. I don't feel quite the same sense of wonder at worldcons anymore, but I still do feel that I've crammed weeks of enjoyment into those four or five days and it is still hard to return to the real world each time.

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Robert Lichtman, Glen Ellen, California
 Your jointly-written account of LoneStarCon was enjoyable reading, and I have a couple of comments: "Were we really that way once?" Some of us were, not all. I was sometimes, actually rarely, but mostly I was a bookish type who loved to occasionally rock out. Despite my particular pleasure with this column, I have always wished that ya'll would have a stronger individual editorial presence in Mimosa. When you do have individual columns, they tend to be mostly brief and business-like. Your longer stuff is always jointly written. While it's generally good, I miss your individual voices on these subjects.

{{ Ah, the pressures of trying to write something both interesting and related to the issue's theme, in only a limited amount of space. Part of the terseness you perceive is a result of having to make things fit. This issue, for instance, will run 52 pages, and after space has been allotted for everything else, there are only three pages left over for Opening and Closing Comments. At any rate, we seem to have fallen into a pattern lately where we do a jointly-written Opening Comments for issues of Mimosa that immediately follow a convention trip (such as LoneStarCon, which we wrote about last time). These combined editorials are actually harder to write, but when we're on the same topic, it avoids redundancy. }}

 It was interesting how, in Dave Kyle's memories of and comments on Sam Moskowitz {{ "SaM -- Fan Forever" }}, he's more detailed with his criticisms of SaM than in his previous articles mentioning him, in Nos. 6 and 20. Elsewhere, Arnie Katz has also written about SaM's feuds and foibles. I concur with Dave in hoping that SaM's archive remain intact and becomes accessible for researchers.

 But the real jewel of this issue is Mike Resnick's lengthy survey of "The Literature of Fandom." Of the items he lists that I don't have, I most faunch for the Proceedings volumes and for Jay Kay Klein's photo surveys. Aside from a number of photo covers on and photo sections in various fanzines over the years, the only thing I've got along those lines is the 1965 LASFS Album, published on the occasion of its 1,500th meeting. It was photos of LASFSers from the 1930s on.

 There are some items Mike apparently does not have that are worth mentioning to supplement his article:

 Another volume of SaM's fanhistorical writings, After All These Years, appeared in 1991 from Niekas Publications. It's most noteworthy for a lot of autobiographical details going back to childhood.

 Asimov's later autobiographical volume, I, Asimov: A Memoir, also deals extensively with the author's involvement in fandom.

 Lester del Rey wrote The World of Science Fiction: The History of a Subculture with a fair amount of mention of fandom.

 There's also John Robert Colombo's Years of Light: A Celebration of Leslie A. Croutch, a 200-page trade paperback published in Hounslow Press. Although most of the focus is on Pioneering Canadian fan Croutch, there's a lot of general Canadian fanhistory and it's worth a read.

 Another Carl Brandon volume besides Cacher of the Rye might still be available: The Portable Carl Brandon, put out by Jerry Kaufman for the 1988 Corflu. That same year, he also reprinted The Incompleat Terry Carr, Volume 1, also possibly still in print. Jerry was also responsible for a couple of collections of individuals' writings: Sweetmeats, collecting the writing of Sandra Miesel, and The Best of Susan Wood.

 And I'm perhaps most surprised that Mike doesn't have a copy of Anthony Boucher's 1942 Rocket to the Morgue, in which a thinly-disguised LASFS is part of the story.

illo by William Rotsler and Alexis 
Gilliland
David Langford, Reading, Berkshire, United Kingdom
 I was overwhelmed by the egoboo of being mentioned in Mike Resnick's selection from the literature of fandom; in fact I put on an old propeller beanie and wandered around the house uttering profound apophthegms like "Goshwowohboyohboyohboy!" until Hazel asked me to stop.

 Apparently one bit of evidence for Frederic Wertham's lack of in-depth study of fanzines is his logical deduction that a GoH is a convention's Guard of Honour...

 A suggested addition to Mike's list of fannish Novels is Diana Wynne Jones's Deep Secret, published over here by Gollancz in November 1997. This is a funny and exciting science-fantasy, a large part of which is set at a British Eastercon in a barely disguised version of the Adelphi Hotel (Liverpool; site of many Eastercons), with elements borrowed from the Britannia International Hotel (London Docklands; Eastercon, Fantasycon, World Fantasy Con). It's somehow very characteristic of Diana that the final clash of forces from various parts of the multiverse should take place in the con hall while the harassed GoH is trying to deliver his speech.

 Further novels whose action takes place at conventions (at least partly) are Vanna Bonta's 1995 'quantum fiction' novel Flight, which looks set to become a revered classic among turkeys, and Norman Spinrad's unpublished He Walked Among Us, an extract from which appears on his web site. But the only omission from Mike's list that I found slightly surprising was Anthony Boucher's murder mystery Rocket to the Morgue (1942), which lacks a convention scene but has plenty of fannish conversation and thinly concealed sf-writer characters.

{{Mike was expecting that Rocket to the Morgue and He Walked Among Us would be singled out as omissions. Here's what he had to say about them:

"Please point out that the article stated it never meant to be all-encompassing, but simply listed what was in my collection! Norman's book is unsold and doesn't count, and Rocket to the Morgue is filled with Tuckerized pros, not fen." }}

 Other items from my own collection include a clutch of UK fanthologies like Mood 70 (ed. Kevin Smith) and By British (ed. Ian Maule and Joseph Nicholas), both published for the 1979 Brighton worldcon; Now Read On (ed. Rob Hansen), published for Conspiracy `87; and Embryonic Journey (ed. Graham James [1987]). Somewhere, mislaid, are copies of Eric Bentcliffe's When Yngvi Was A Louse, reprinting 1950s British fanwriting, and Linda Krawecke's Tiger Tea, with material from the all-female APA, The Women's Periodical.

 Then there's Rob Hansen's Then, a conscientious if not very stylish history of British fandom whose four volumes (so far) cover the `30s and `40s, the `50s, the `60s and the `70s; and D. West's remarkable collections of his own articles, Fanzines in Theory and in Practice (1984) and Deliverance (1995). Also there are all those further fan memoirs -- but not enough -- in the form of fan fund trip reports....

 Speaking of which, there's a tiny error in Bill Mallardi's memoir of Joni Stopa -- trivial, but something which should have been spotted by the eagle-eyed historian of `60s fandom! Ella Parker didn't come to the U.S. as a TAFF winner; her journey was assisted by the one-off Parker Pond Fund which spontaneously formed after she'd announced her trip plans at the 1961 Eastercon.

{{Many people who wrote us gave other suggestions (which we're forwarding to Mike) for inclusion in a 'dream list' of books about fandom. Among them were Ed Meskys and John Boston (and perhaps some others) who suggested Mack Reynolds' The Case of the Little Green Men (which is set at a convention), Ahrvid Engholm who suggested Colin Lester's The International Science Fiction Yearbook (from 1978), Ron Bennett who recommended Brian Aldiss' The Shape of Further Things (which includes a chapter on British conventions of the 1950s), and Lloyd Penney who mentioned T. Bruce Yerke's early LASFS remembrance Memoirs of a Superfluous Fan, Susan M. Garrett's media SF-oriented The Fantastically Fundamentally Functional Guide to Fandom, Arnie Katz's recent The Trufan's Advisor: An Introductory Guide to Fanzine Fandom, Donald Franson's A Key to the Terminology of S-F Fandom, and Robert Lichtman's The Amateur Press Associations in S-F Fandom (which Robert himself neglected to mention in his earlier letter). And there was more yet: }}

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Martin Morse Wooster, Silver Spring, Maryland
 Resnick's article will certainly get people mad at him. British fans should rightly complain that Resnick does not mention Rob Hansen or D. West. Australian fans will also find their fanhistory slighted. And Ahrvid Engholm will not doubt complain that Resnick does not mention the two highly peculiar 'fanthologies' he published (Swede Ishes).

 By omitting foreign fandoms, Resnick doesn't put fanhistory in perspective. For example, he's certainly right that Robert Bloch's Once Around the Bloch would be a better book if it has more about fandom and less about the Milwaukee mayoral race of 1940. But George Turner's In the Heart or in the Head (Norstrillia Press, 1985) has as much or more about fandom -- and Turner is a more important writer than Bloch.

 Resnick also makes some errors. If Damon Knight's The Futurians appeared in paperback, I'd love to know about it. The second edition of David Hartwell's Age of Wonders is not a reprint, but is expanded about 100 pages from the first edition. And he omits the important two-volume reprint of the first 200 issues of Locus (which certainly used to be a fanzine) which Gregg Press came out with in the early 1980s.

 There are also other important omissions. Nearly all of the articles in Fred Lerner's A Bookman's Fantasy (NESFA Press, 1995) are from fanzines. And about half of the articles in a Phillip K. Dick non-fiction collection published by Pantheon in 1993 (whose title I can't find) are from fanzines, including Niekas and Lighthouse!

{{ These are all good points, but once again we should mention that Mike's article dealt only with the books about fandom he has in his personal library. Actually, we're a bit envious of Mike for having all those resources at hand; it also show that he is as at least as much (if not more) a fan as a professional writer. }}

illo by William Rotsler and Steve 
Stiles
Harry Warner, Jr., Hagerstown, Maryland
 Jack Chalker's memories of Baltimore-Washington fandom {{"A Short History of Baltimore Fandom (Part 2)" }} continued to enlighten me about individuals and events which I've known little or nothing about when they were active and happening. I didn't even realize that Baltimore's fan group has a building of its own. Technically, it is the fourth such club-owned headquarters. The Decker, Indiana fan club which shone brightly but briefly in the 1940s had a small clubhouse, the first in the world of its type.

 Mike Resnick's article is a badly needed one. It would be a good idea to draw the basic list of books from this article and a few additions and keep the resulting leaflet available for newcomers to fandom, along with the Tucker guide to neo-fans.

 However, there are several omissions and also one inaccuracy in Mike's essay. Advent did not reject the A Wealth of Fable manuscript. I was already upset over the fact that Advent had decided to withhold publication of my book until all three volumes of the Tuck Encyclopedia were in print. This appeared to create a two-year delay in publication of my manuscript, and as it turned out, it would have been even longer because there were so many delays before the Tuck work was completely published. At this point, Ed Wood submitted to me a list of things which he thought I should insert in my manuscript. Every one of these items had one thing in common: they concerned Ed Wood's activities in fandom or matters with which he had been closely associated. I asked the return of the manuscript because I wasn't in any mood to let a very minor fannish figure of the 1950s swing his weight around simply because of his status as an Advent publisher.

 Meanwhile, I certainly hope that Walt Willis manages to find the missing correspondence files before someone offers him a small fortune for his big wardrobe and hauls away those precious fannish documents. Walter's column {{"I Remember Me" }} is perhaps the most entertaining thing in this issue, as distinguished from the informative and eulogistic contributions.

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Robert Coulson, Hartford City, Indiana
 Good article by Resnick. Gene DeWeese's and my novel that he referred to {{titled Charles Fort Never Mentioned Wombats }}, which was set at the 1975 Australia Worldcon, is a triumph(?) of the imagination. We were a bit appalled when the Doubleday editor asked for it, since neither of us planned to (or did) attend the convention. We threw in the names of Australian fans we knew, mentioned some typical convention items, and hastily got the protagonists off into the bush where nobody could tell us that "it didn't happen that way." We also used the names of fans for many of the characters in our two The Man from U.N.C.L.E. books, despite a directive from editor Terry Carr that this wasn't permitted; we used names of Indiana club fans whom Terry had never heard of, and got away with it.

illo by Joe Mayhew
George Flynn, Cambridge, Massachusetts
 It's gratifying that Mike Resnick's review of "The Literature of Fandom" recommends so many books published by NESFA Press and MCFI (most of which I copyedited). However, shame on Mike for writing that "It's been well over a decade since the last [Worldcon] photo memory book was produced"; I have sent him a copy of the Noreascon Three Memory Book. Even more puzzling, Mike's description of Barry Malzberg's two novels about fandom doesn't mention that both are in print in the NESFA Press collection The Passage of the Light -- which Mike co-edited! And another NESFA Press book that should be mentioned is James White's The White Papers (produced for L.A.con III), half of which is a collection of White's fannish writing (the other half being his SF).

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Evelyn Leeper, Matawan, New Jersey
 Thanks to Mike Resnick for his almost complete article on the literature of fandom, but he forgot to mention any of the many short stories about science fiction and fandom (including conventions). This may have been because it would have expanded the article unmanageably, or it may have been out of a false sense of modesty, as he actually edited several of the anthologies of these, including Inside The Funhouse; Alternate Worldcons; Again, Alternate Worldcons; and (most recently) Alternate Skiffy.

{{ Our thanks to everyone who gave suggestions! Perhaps this will be the beginning of a new fan bibliography project! That said, this seems like a good opportunity to segue into more comments about Sam Moskowitz -- someone whose science fiction collection all by itself could be the subject of a bibliography... }}

illo by William Rotsler and Brad 
Foster
Leigh Kimmel, Carbondale, Illinois
 Dave Kyle's "SaM -- Fan Forever" was a fascinating reflection upon the role of the late Sam Moskowitz in the early days of fandom. It was rather poignant to read about how he would let past events rankle and jump upon every opportunity to present his views of them. Yet it is such a very human response, to desire to have one's own role look the best possible.

 I also enjoyed the second installment of Jack Chalker's "A Short History of Baltimore Fandom." Alas, the fannish politics sound all too familiar, as I have come across some of the same behavior in other fan clubs I've been associated with.

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Mike Glicksohn, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
 There's probably nobody better qualified to write a reminiscence about Sam Moskowitz than Dave Kyle and I doubt anyone could have done a fairer job of discussing one of the great iconoclastic fans of all time. Dave's article about SaM was intensely personal, balanced and fair, all despite the fact that Dave has more reasons than most to denigrate SaM. SaM was only a bit player on the extreme sidelines of fandom when I was active and my own interactions with him were limited but extremely cordial. Dave does a fine job of placing SaM in the overall context of fannish history and by so doing tells us a lot about Sam Moskowitz. And not a little bit about Dave Kyle.

 A fine piece of autobiographical writing by Michael Burstein {{"Asimov and Me" }}. I was always ambivalent towards Asimov. Despite the fact that his novels drew me to science fiction I always found his convention persona distasteful, and since we had minimal personal contact (my introducing him at a Toronto convention being as close as we ever got), that was all I really had to go on. I'm told his dirty-old-man routine was only a schtick but it was tasteless schtick which a more sensitive individual would have retired years and years ago. Evidently Michael never saw such feet of clay on his idol, which makes him luckier than I.

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Robert Whitaker Sirignano, Wilmington, Delaware
 I always liked Sam Moskowitz's research into older SF, though his opinions and literary judgements were quirky. Often he confused nostalgia with quality. Once or twice I'd read a salivating passage about a work of fiction by a Mr. Forgotten Writer and would seek out the story, only to find that SaM's value judgements about something he'd read at age twelve were still the value judgements of someone aged twelve. But in fairness, SaM's writing pointed out "where to look" and would find the really good "gosh wow" stuff that kept me interested in SF.

 As for Forry Ackerman's article {{"Through Time and Space With Forry Ackerman (Part 6)," which described his friendship with the famous film director, Fritz Lang }}, I know about various variant prints of Metropolis. Some of the ones shown at conventions run 90 minutes and have a soundtrack. I have one (on video) that's approximately two hours, sans sound. Forry's statement of the excessive amount of footage shot for Metropolis was interesting; this means a 'definitive' version will be difficult to assemble.

 But I'm surprised that Forry didn't mention The Testament of Dr. Mabuse (1932) when discussing Fritz Lang. Dr. Mabuse was a madman who wanted to dominate the world. Lang had a copy of the film delivered to Hitler as he was on his way out of the country. Hitler had wanted Lang to head the German film industry.

illo by William Rotsler and Teddy 
Harvia
Joseph T. Major, Louisville, Kentucky
 Forry Ackerman probably will not be surprised (but others may) to learn that Fritz Lang was not the only director to use different shots to make different versions of films for different markets. In his book on restoring Abel Gance's movie Napoleon, British film writer Kevin Brownlow discusses the different national versions of the movie. The film stock of those days, it seems, had its problems, so it was easier to make up a new negative for different distributions. This is why Brownlow's latest version of the movie is five and a half hours long while the most widely distributed version (the one on video, for example) is four hours long -- he kept on finding more scenes. So I can understand that the 'complete' version of Metropolis might be much longer.

 In the letters column, interesting discussion of the 'First Convention' matter by Ahrvid Engholm, Ben Yalow, Harry Warner, and Steven Green. Alas, this seems to be one of those matters that is incapable of resolution because the debaters will not even accept a common definition of what they are discussing in the first place.

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Gene Stewart, APO AE
 Dave Kyle's take on SaM struck me as balanced and fair. Thanks for not suppressing some of the negative stuff. Too often, death seems to take away all the well-rounded accounts of the deceased, only to replace them with bland shiny eulogies of little use to anyone. Kyle's article, on the other hand, will be of use to fan historians from here on. Does anyone know what's become of SaM's collection?

{{We've not heard anything very definite. Reports and rumors are floating around that part of his collection will be sold at auction, while other parts will remain intact as a resource for future researchers and historians. We certainly hope the latter is true. }}

 "Asimov and Me" interested me because I met the Good Doctor once and managed to get an article about the meeting published in both Cricket and Sirs/Discoverer CD-ROM for Schools & Libraries, thus, I hope, inspiring children to check out that skiffy stuff with half an open mind. Great article, with trenchant observations, particularly on how tired Asimov became of spending time away from writing. And he was, indeed, a joyous man.

 And I must comment on Harvia's cartoons, too. While I'm a fan of his work, and always find his stuff funny and pointed, that undead/undeaf 'toon really cracked me up. Also, the CHAT pun on 'near myth' was a good one, too. More.

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Ed Meskys, Center Harbor, New Hampshire
 In Michael Burstein's reminiscence of Asimov he mentioned that the last time he saw him was at a book signing shortly before his death, and speculated that Asimov was probably worrying about wasting time there and not writing. For much of his life Asimov was a compulsive writer. In 1972, when I lost my sight, I went into a rehab center in Newton, Massachusetts, not far from Asimov's home. One of the teachers there knew his (by then ex) wife and heard from her about Asimov's compulsion. He had four selectrics scattered around the house, including one in the bathroom so he could continue to write while on the pot. He spent just about every waking moment writing.

{{ While we're on the topic, Michael asked us to correct a very minor error in his article: the date he first met Isaac Asimov was actually Sunday, November 4th, 1979, not three days later. (This has been corrected in the online version of M21.) }}

illo by Brad Foster
Terry Jeeves, Scarborough, United Kingdom
 Kyle on SaM was really timebinding and I recall that European trip they all took in 1957, and the snafu which arose. Eric Bentcliffe, Jan Jansen and I had arranged to meet them all off their plane at Schipol airport in Holland. We got there ... and waited ... and waited. No incoming flights which could have been theirs. Jan tried the 'information' desk several times until finally they discovered, and told us that the Americans had arrived early and instead of waiting for us, had taken the bus into Amsterdam and were waiting for us at KLM offices. We finally found then all and took them to the hotel Jan had organised -- and sampled the Kyles' wedding cake.

 Forry's memoirs were as interesting as ever but the real time-binder was Ron Bennett's memory-stirring piece {{"May I Have the Pl...?" }}. Ah happy days of PLOY, Triode, BEM, Space Times and many others. Fans and fanzines have changed greatly since those days. There were so few of us, it was quite possible to know everyone in British fandom. Conventions netted no more than fifty people to start with.

 Finally, Michael A. Burstein's Asimov piece well brought out the fact that Asimov wasn't a pompous untouchable but, unlike many other 'names', an approachable human being not above helping a youngster along.

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Ron Bennett, North Yorkshire, United Kingdom
 Forry's reminiscences are always a joy. Hell's teeth! Wandering around with Fritz Lang and Béla Lugosi as though they were merely people! Almost as mind-blowing as the life I live here in Harrogate in my little Shepherd's hut on the edge of the North Yorks Moors. Why, only yesterday I had a ten minute chat with the local milkman.

 Also, I loved Howard Devore's piece about the Werewolf Bookshop {{"Way Down in Verona" }}. Yes, I, too, was suckered in by the advert I read in Weird Tales and ordered a $50 pair of books for $12 (double rates for overseas customers). Now, at least, I know what happened to the copy I ordered of How to Raise Pigs for Profit. All I got were a couple of an Arkham House publications called Skullface and The Outsider and Others. Howard, by the way, was an early news contributor to Skyrack. Isn't it comforting to learn earth-shattering facts like this? Fandom always was educational.

illo by William Rotsler
Marty Cantor, North Hollywood, California
 Ron Bennett certainly 'exployned' things very well, concerning his fanzine PLOY. I do not know, though, whether I fully accept the point which he made (or at least 'imployed') that the contributors to a fanzine are much more important than the faned. Even though some faneds only put everything together, others have a presence in their zines at least as important as that of their contributors. As an example, think of what Terry Carr's zines would be like without the presence of Terry. Yes, they would be good zines (given their quality contributions/contributors), but Terry's presence is what always made his zines work at their top level.

 In the letters column, Martin Morse Wooster's comment about how we tend to forget that the fanlegends who founded clubs and Worldcons were teenagers when they did those things stirs in me some strange feelings. It is not that I am envious of their deeds, it is just that, when I discovered fandom some 22+ years ago, it was just before by 40th birthday. I was sitting in my tobacco shop in Monrovia, reading a science fiction book (on a slow day), when in walked a person who turned out to be June Moffatt's son. He saw what I had been reading and told me about LASFS and fandom. I have never turned back. Maybe my experience of getting active in fandom during middle age can alleviate Ahrvid Engholm's fear that fandom dying because its older fans are dying.

 In your comment on Roy Tackett's letter, you write, "It may be the increasingly high costs of producing fanzines that's resulting in fewer of the kind that interest you." I will agree that this is partly true; on getting back to genzine production after a gap of seven years, I am amazed at the increased costs 'twixt then and now -- and costs were high back then!

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Teddy Harvia, Hurst, Texas
 That there scratchy board dillo art by Julia Morgan-Scott is I reckon the best goll darn piece of fan art I've seen in ages. Chat liked her so well he liked near sank his teeth into the critters' pitcher afore I convinced him it twernt real. (Translation available upon request.)

 As for Bill Rotsler's letter of comment, I may have gotten the details of his Marilyn Monroe story wrong (he told it to me in a small car with L.A. traffic noise in the background) but I stand behind the truth of what I said: Bill was somebody!

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Rodney Leighton, Tatamagouche, Nova Scotia, Canada
 Thanks very much for Mimosa 21. I admit to being a tad disheartened at being WAHFed two issues in a row but then I read over that list and felt much better. After all, I am in extremely illustrious company. If I can continue, next thing you know some fool will be calling me a BNF or something. I can see my fannish obituary: Rodney's greatest accomplishment was to appear in the Mimosa WAHF list for twenty-five straight issues.

{{We apologize for making you start counting all over again. }}

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We Also Heard From:
John Boston, Michael A. Burstein, Jack Chalker, Chester Cuthbert, Richard Dengrove, Howard DeVore, Ahrvid Engholm, Richard Geis, Steve Green, Dean Grennell, Kim Huett, Ben Indick, Joyce Katz, Robert Kennedy, R'ykandar Korra'ti, Ken Lake, Cato Lindberg, Heidi Lyshol, Steve Michaluk, Franz H. Miklis, Catherine Mintz, Yuri A. Mironets, Murray Moore, Joseph Nicholas, Elizabeth Osborne, Lloyd Penney, Bob Perlongo, Robert Peterson, Derek Pickles, Thomas Recktenwald, Mike Resnick, Yvonne Rousseau, David Rowe, Anthony Shepherd, Fred Smith, Steve Sneyd, Mae Strelkov, Alan J. Sullivan, David Truesdale, Roger Waddington, Michael Waite, Taral Wayne, Henry Welch, Malgorzata Wilk, Walter Willis, and Taras Wolansky. Thanks to one and all!

illo by William Rotsler

Title illustration by Sheryl Birkhead & William Rotsler
Other illustrations by Joe Mayhew, Brad Foster, William Rotsler, Mayhew & Rotsler, Gilliland & Rotsler, Stiles & Rotsler, Foster & Rotsler, and Harvia & Rotsler


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