I was never much of a reader in my school days, but I do remember reading TV tie-ins even way back then - I remember the first Sci Fi book I ever read was a Star Trek story. At some point, I found zines, but I don't remember which fandom introduced me to them - I believe it was Beauty and the Beast. I think I found fanfiction.net through the X Files and I've read through several fandoms worth. I was always very cautious to keep my professional life (teaching) and my fan life separate, because unless one is also a fan, one tends to look down on fans. I am very lucky that my husband is also a fan (Batman is his obsession) so he totally understands when I join my internet friends for a "vaccation" somewhere in the country to see some celbrity or other. The funny thing is, I've recently started to admit fan stuff to my colleagues. Several of them know that I go "visit" Bruce Boxleitner and Melissa Gilbert at various events, and pictures from those events are my screensaver, which has launched during presentations. No one recognized them and wonder if they are realtives, which is fine for me but sad for them. What brought me here is the fact that around Halloween, our direct TV stopped working, and hubby never got around to calling to get it fixed, and so we've been watching DVDs ever since, since we can't watch TV. Needless to say, I'm wearing out season 1 and when there was no more, I went to fanfic. I can't believe I wasn't part of this fandom earlier, butI guess at the time I couldn't handle more than one fandom at a time and I was totally into the X Files. I recently told a colleague about fanfic - just before Christmas vacation, and she went abroad for two weeks, so I haven't seen her since. I also showed her and another colleague one of the trailers. I'll let you know if I've hooked them or not.
Cheryl
