The Forbidden Star Trek Fanfiction [from Very Special Episodes]

Summary

Noble Blood: “The Forbidden Star Trek Fanfiction” (Very Special Episodes)

Date: June 20, 2026
Host: Dana Schwartz, with Jason English, Zarin Burnett, Jenna Sinclair, and others

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Episode Overview

This episode of "Very Special Episodes" (featured on Noble Blood for Pride Month) takes listeners on an investigative and emotional journey into the secret origin, legacy, and ethical questions surrounding “The Ring of Soshern,” the first-known piece of Star Trek “slash” fanfiction. Host Dana Schwartz, reporter Edie, and numerous guests reconstruct how this illicit, romantic Kirk/Spock story catalyzed queer fan communities, survived clandestine circulation, became the subject of controversy, and was eventually rediscovered and digitized—sparking debate about privacy, fandom, and queer creative history.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Beginnings: Star Trek, Fandom, and Fanfiction

• [07:39] Star Trek’s Superfans
  • When Star Trek first aired (1966), it wasn’t an immediate mainstream hit, but it quickly inspired a passionate fanbase hungry for more stories.
  • Jenna Sinclair (fan fiction writer):

    “I was 12 when it premiered... I would stay home from school… because I wanted to write about Kirk and Spock.” (08:19)

• [11:04] The Emergence of Fanzines
  • Early fans created “fanzines” filled with stories, poetry, and art to expand the world and relationships depicted on the show.
  • The first Star Trek fanzine was Spockanalia (1967). These zines even sometimes included letters from cast members playing their characters.

2. The Pioneering Slash Fic: “The Ring of Soshern”

• [12:32 - 16:16] The Amok Time Influence
  • The episode “Amok Time” (Season 2) introduced Spock as a sexual being, spurring fans to imagine deeper connections between Kirk and Spock.
  • Jenna Sinclair:

    “That was an episode that slapped everybody right in the face and turned Spock into a sexual person.” (12:32)

• [15:08] Jennifer Gutridge and “The Ring of Soshern”
  • Jennifer Gutridge, a private UK fan, wrote the story shortly after “Amok Time.”
  • The premise: Kirk and Spock, stranded and alone, confront Spock’s life-threatening Pon Farr together, leading to a romantic and physical connection.
  • This was the first known “K/S” (slash) fic, a foundational work for same-sex shipping in fandom.
  • Jenna Sinclair:

    “It is pretty well documented that it is the very first piece of fanfiction ever written for K/S, which kind of makes it the very first slash story ever written.” (15:08)

3. Underground Circulation and Risks

• [18:47] Drawer Flowers
  • “The Ring of Soshern” was not published, but passed secretly among trusted fans—stories called “drawer flowers.”
• [19:33 - 20:56] Legal and Social Dangers
  • The threat of lawsuits from copyright holders and taboos against same-sex relationships made public sharing risky, leading to profound secrecy.
  • Jenna Sinclair:

    “Homosexuality was taboo. People were being fired from government jobs because they were found to be gay... Many teachers... were all afraid of being found out.” (20:56)

4. KS Fandom: Sisterhood and Community

• [26:20 - 28:58] Fandom in the Shadows
  • KS (Kirk/Spock) communities, mostly made up of women, gradually found each other and formed a “sisterhood,” often within the margins of male-dominated sci-fi conventions.
  • Jenna Sinclair:

    “Once you had a name, a telephone number, an address, maybe the name of a KS zine, then you were in and you were in the sisterhood... the most important part.” (27:02)

  • Fans formed deep lifelong friendships, wrote songs, and celebrated their creativity at conventions-within-conventions.

5. The Perils and Triumphs of Publishing

• [30:18 - 32:32] The Zine Printing Challenge
  • Jenna details the challenges of printing erotic, queer fanfiction in the 1990s; male-run shops often refused the work, so female-run print shops became safe havens.
  • Jenna Sinclair:

    “We have printed your text, but take this smut away and let me tell you something. That was a moderate picture. So did I finally find a printer? Obviously I did…” (31:24)

6. The Controversy: Publication Without Permission

• [32:48 - 35:20] “Alien Brothers” and Legacy
  • In 1987, “Alien Brothers” zine printed “The Ring of Soshern,” likely without Gutridge’s explicit permission, causing controversy within the fandom.
  • Editor of Alien Brothers Zine (quoted):

    “It is one of the first and certainly the best underground KS tales circulated very privately and discreetly in manuscript photocopies only...” (33:24)

  • Uncertainty remains about whether Gutridge authorized the publication:
    Jenna Sinclair:

    “There is really a question as to whether Ring of Soshern… might have been published without permission. It’s a very murky subject.” (35:01)

7. Lost Media, Urban Legends, and the Modern Hunt

• [36:34 - 39:25] The Vanishing Zine
  • Over decades, “Alien Brothers” and “The Ring of Soshern” became nearly impossible to find, fueling fandom legends—burned copies, rumors of deliberate suppression.
  • Edie (Producer/Reporter):

    “There are a lot of people that knew of Alien Brothers but hadn’t heard of this controversy... maybe it wasn’t on as large of a scale as perhaps the fandom legend snowballed into…” (36:58)

• [44:01 - 45:46] The Pilgrimage to Texas
  • In 2020, a Tumblr/Reddit user, Prince Nimoy, drove 15 hours to Texas A&M University to locate and photograph the zine for the fandom.
  • Edie (Producer/Reporter):

    “She takes a picture of every page … and she put it first on a Dropbox and then she put it on Internet Archive. So now when you Google Ring of Soshern, you can just read it online.” (45:46)

8. Ethical Questions: Should It Be Online?

• [47:09 - 50:39] Respecting the Author’s Wishes
  • Debate ensues about whether it was ethical to upload “Ring of Soshern,” given Gutridge likely never wanted it widely published or online.
  • Jenna Sinclair:

    “We have to respect the wishes of the writer. And I don’t think it was right to just put that up online... but, you know, it’s always like the right to privacy. Where does it end?” (49:04)

  • Edie:

    “I see both sides of the issue, for sure. And ultimately where I land is that I think it’s sad when things become lost media, and that we should find ways to archive things… in sort of safe and accessible ways.” (50:12)

9. Fanfiction’s Mainstreaming and Lasting Impact

• [52:45 - 54:34] Fandom Goes Public
  • Fanfiction has moved from illegal, stigmatized backrooms to mainstream published books (Fifty Shades of Grey) and changing social attitudes about queer relationships.
  • Jenna Sinclair:

    “Fanfiction... starting out being absolutely anathema for the content, but also because primarily it is a woman’s space. It has been dismissed through misogyny...” (53:32)

  • The episode credits the persistence of fan communities—especially women and queer fans—for advancing both creative and social progress.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Romantic Tension (Cold Open):

  "Their eyes met, and the confines of the room receded into limitless distance. Time expanded, and in all eternity there were only the two of them." (03:31)

• The Hearth of Secret Fandom:

  “Once you had… the name of a KS zine, then you were in and you were in the sisterhood.”
  —Jenna Sinclair (27:02)

• Archiving vs. Privacy:

  “We have to respect the wishes of the writer. And I don’t think it was right to just put that up online… it’s always like the right to privacy. Where does it end?”
  —Jenna Sinclair (49:04)

• Driving 15 Hours for Fandom:

  “Monday I’m driving 15 hours round trip to finally meet Alien Brothers. Hopefully I will be allowed to scan it or take photos. Worst case scenario, I type it up word for word. All of it.”
  —Prince Nimoy (as recounted at 44:34)

• Legacy of KS Creators:

  “Would we have a heated rivalry if we didn’t have, you know, the sort of middle-aged moms in the 60s and 70s who were blazing this trail? … That is beautiful to read.”
  —Edie (Producer/Reporter) (47:09)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 03:31 | Excerpt from “Ring of Soshern” (Dramatic Cold Open)
• 08:19 – 09:32 | Jenna Sinclair describes discovering Star Trek as a child-fan
• 11:04 – 12:32 | Explaining early fanzines and first waves of fan creativity
• 12:32 – 13:37 | Amok Time and the birth of sexual/romantic Star Trek fiction
• 15:08 – 17:03 | Origin story of “The Ring of Soshern”
• 18:47 – 22:39 | Risks, secrecy, and social stigma for queer slash fandom
• 27:02 – 28:58 | KS community-building at conventions (“the sisterhood”)
• 31:24 – 32:32 | The challenge of printing erotic/queer zines in male-run shops
• 32:48 – 35:20 | “Alien Brothers” prints “Ring of Soshern,” birthing controversy
• 36:34 – 39:44 | Urban legends and the fan-driven hunt for the lost story
• 44:01 – 45:46 | The triumphant rediscovery of “Alien Brothers” at Texas A&M
• 47:09 – 50:39 | Ethical debate: archiving history vs. respecting privacy
• 52:45 – 54:57 | Fanfiction’s mainstreaming, and its role in shifting cultural norms

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Closing Thoughts

• [56:47 – 57:57] Dream Movie Casting
  • Hosts playfully cast Rooney Mara, Tilda Swinton, and Kristen Stewart in hypothetical adaptations of the “Ring of Soshern” journey.
• [57:17 – 58:19] Favorite Episode Moments & Ethical Debates
  • “How far would you go to help a buddy out?” Parallels drawn between in-story and real-world fandom devotion.
  • The hosts side with archiving “Ring of Soshern” as a historical necessity, likening it to a museum piece.

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Final Reflections

“The Forbidden Star Trek Fanfiction” is both a detective story and an homage to the creativity and bravery of marginalized fans, especially queer women, who built secret worlds from scraps and transformed the mainstream. The episode is insightful, witty, and heartfelt—a must-listen for anyone interested in the hidden legacies of popular culture and the communities that keep them alive.

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Happy Pride Month. “Noble Blood” and Very Special Episodes celebrate the power of queer fandom, the sisterhood of slash, and the stories we risk everything to keep alive.

Transcript

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[Dana Schwartz]

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[Narrator/Reader]

A soft knock came at the door. Kirk, who had begun to doze at his desk, started awake. The chronometer read 159. Come in, he said, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. The door opened soundlessly, and without a word, Spock slipped inside. Their eyes met, and the confines of the room receded into limitless distance. Time expanded, and in all eternity there were only the two of them. Very slightly, Kirk inclined his head and Spock turned to the door and locked it.

[Dana Schwartz]

You heard that, right? There was some serious romantic tension between two of the most famous characters in sci fi. However, hearing that made you feel I want you to pause right there, because in this episode we're going to make a case what you heard is actually really important. A Little Piece of History Even this story was so subversive that it took on mythical proportions for a niche audience. But over time, it became so impossible to find that many thought it had been scrubbed from existence. Was it snuffed out on purpose by disdainful readers? Or was it just the inevitable rot of pre Internet media that no one remembered to Save? More than 50 years later, someone would travel a dozen hours just to bring this mysterious story back from oblivion. But now some wonder if it was the right thing to do. This little piece of history is a bridge across three distinct time periods. This is a tale about a famous story that may not have wanted to be found. Welcome to Very Special Episodes, an I Heart original podcast. I'm your host, Dana Schwartz, and this is Searching for the Forbidden Star Trek Fan Fiction.

[Jason English]

Welcome back to Very Special Episodes. My name is Jason English, joined as always by Dana Schwartz.

[Zarin Burnett]

Hey. Hey.

[Jason English]

And Zarin Burnett. What's up, y'?

[Narrator/Reader]

All?

[Jason English]

We have a very interesting rabbit hole we're going down today. The world of fan fiction.

[Zarin Burnett]

Oh, I loved this.

[Guest/Co-host (possibly a fan or commentator)]

Totally.

[Jason English]

Dana, is there anatomy or Arcane Arts fanfiction that's come on your radar yet?

[Zarin Burnett]

I mean, Arcane Arts is pretty much its own fan fiction in terms of content, but no, I would love fan fiction. I find that subculture so fascinating. It's not something I've ever participated in, But I love the idea of just like people writing purely for themselves and their audience. There's nothing commercial about it. I just. I love it.

[Guest/Co-host (possibly a fan or commentator)]

I'm right there with you. I have to admit, I've never read a single piece of fanfic, so this story was like a window into weird and wonderful world I knew nothing about. But I loved it.

[Jason English]

There are some great examples out there. I asked one of our researchers to just dig up what are some unexpected topics for fan fiction. The insurance industry mascots seem to be a big target. The Geico Gecko. Whole lots of different stuff, sometimes with flow from progressive.

[Zarin Burnett]

The Geico Gecko.

[Jason English]

The Geico Gecko.

[Dana Schwartz]

Oh, no.

[Jason English]

The Limu Emu. And Doug. Some of it wholesome, some of it not. We probably can't quote from it, but Thomas the Tank Engine, My kids are a little bit older. You know, that's kind of a darker show than I remember just reading about it. The fan fiction leans all the way into that side of it.

[Guest/Co-host (possibly a fan or commentator)]

Yeah, the possibilities must be endless.

[Jason English]

And someone wrote a Seinfeld spec script, I guess, where Jerry and Kramer discover fanfiction about them. So very meta. Love that.

[Guest/Co-host (possibly a fan or commentator)]

Yes, that is great.

[Dana Schwartz]

1966. Star Trek hits the air. I'm sure you know it well. A diverse crew of spacefarers boldly go where no man has gone before, encountering strange new worlds and otherworldly creatures. What may surprise you is it wasn't an immediate hit among wider audiences. It was ambitious and expensive and it teetered on cancellation for the three years it ran. But ratings can only tell you so much. From the very beginning, Star Trek created superfans.

[Jenna Sinclair]

I was 12 when it premiered. But let me tell you, I definitely had top drawer fiction that I had handwritten. Sometimes I would stay home from school. Oh, Mom, I'm so sorry. I really can't go to school because I wanted to write about Kirk and Spock.

[Dana Schwartz]

This superfan will be guiding us through most of our story today.

[Jenna Sinclair]

My pen name is Jenna Sinclair, and that's what I would like to be known as. And I am a fan fiction writer and passionate advocate.

[Dana Schwartz]

Jenna would grow to have a deep connection with Star Trek and the community that sprung up around it. But at first, sitting in front of the TV in her living room in 1966, it was just her and the show. And the best thing about the show was Kirk and Spock. The mission of the Enterprise is to seek out and contact alien life. Has it occurred to you that there's a certain inefficiency and constantly questioning me

[Jenna Sinclair]

on things you've already made up your mind about?

[Dana Schwartz]

It gives me emotional security.

[Jenna Sinclair]

There was a sense of connection between two extremely different people. Spock being a Vulcan and so, didn't like to express any of his emotions, although everybody knew deep down that he had them, right? Yeah. And Kirk, the action man, the leader, expressive where Spock was introverted. And yet if you look on the screen, you can see that they appear to have a deep friendship. And, you know, I could point you to different episodes, say, oh, look at them walk around the top of the bridge. See how they lean towards each other. See how Kirk stands in front of the science station and asks interesting questions of Spock and how they look at one another. Now, you know, that sounds bizarre. It sounds bizarre to me, okay. And yet I was not the only person who reacted to that.

[Dana Schwartz]

This unique alien human relationship couched in a unique and exciting show brought on a deep creative energy in tons of fans. And hey, maybe today, in 2026, you're noticing some subtext in the way that Jenna described that relationship. And don't worry, we'll get there. For now, let's just say Kirk and Spock had an intriguing friendship, creating many fans. Those fans needed a creative outlet, and that outlet was fanzines.

[Jenna Sinclair]

A fanzine is printed stories, poetry and art based on a particular banished subject, based on a media presentation. It could be television, it could be movies. Fanzines emerged out of love. For some reason, when people become really, really interested in a television show, let us say creativity seems to follow immediately. There is a tremendous urge to use your imagination and go way beyond what is presented to us on the screen.

[Dana Schwartz]

The very first Star Trek fanzine came out in 1967. It was called Spockanalia. The zine featured art of the characters, poetry and original stories, some of which were penned by authors who'd go on to write official Star Trek novels. Later, Spakanalia issues would even include letters from the show's actors written in character. DeForest Kelly as Dr. McCoy complains about Spock's wacky anatomy. And Leonard Nimoy as Spock dryly claps back. That kind of thing. So that's what the fandom looked like early on. But it wasn't long before a turning point hit the show in the form of an unusual episode.

[Jenna Sinclair]

The first episode of the second season, which was Amok Time, which was explicitly sexual because Spock goes into the version of the Vulcan Heat, where he must mate or die. So that was an episode that slapped everybody right in the face and turned Spock into a sexual person.

[Dana Schwartz]

This Vulcan heat is called Pon Fart. In order to overcome it, Spock must mate with his space fiance, who he telepathically bonded with as a kid. But when she rejects him, he has to undergo a ritual battle instead.

[Jenna Sinclair]

So who does he end up fighting on the sands of Vulcan for the right to his fiance? If you want to call her that, it was Captain Kirk. So here they are, rolling around together on the sands, one directly on top of the other. And if you hadn't had thoughts like this before, that certainly brought them to your mind.

[Dana Schwartz]

According to Jenna, that episode planted a romantic seed in the minds of so many viewers. And you can see why, right? It's a classic trope, the Mr. Darcy, if you will. It turns out the handsome, restrained, and mysterious character actually has more emotion under the surface. It lit a fire under the brewing obsession with Spock in the fandom. And who is the recipient of that emotion in this episode? Why, his best friend, Kirk. Was this just a deep friendship or could it be more?

[Jenna Sinclair]

Imagine watching that in real time. You're a 12 year old or a 13 year old, all of a sudden,

[Dana Schwartz]

Thousands of miles away from young Jenna. Watching that episode in the UK was a woman named Jennifer Gutridge. Jenny was a private person. Not a lot of information about her is publicly available online. We know she was a talented descriptive authority. She loved sci fi and westerns like Bonanza. And when she saw the Pon Far episode of Star Trek for the first time, she was likely in her 30s or 40s. When Jenny saw that episode, she started writing and she penned a story that would grow into something much larger. The Ring of Soshern.

[Jenna Sinclair]

The Ring of Soshern holds a very special place in KS Phantom because it is pretty well documented. That it is the very first piece of fanfiction ever written. 4Ks. Which kind of makes it the very first slash story ever written.

[Dana Schwartz]

This is where we delve into a strange new world for many listeners, I'm sure. But that's in the spirit of Star Trek, isn't it? It's time to define a couple terms. First, that word Jenna used, slash. It's certainly more mainstream now than it was in the 60s, but just in case, let's make sure we're on the same page. Slash means romantic fiction, usually fan fiction about two same sex characters. It's called that because of how couples are usually written out. For example, Kirk, Spock or K S simply pronounced K s. KS would eventually become the name of a bigger fandom, but for now we just have Jenny and her story.

[Jenna Sinclair]

I communicated with the author back in the aughts to confirm most of this and she watched the Pon Far episode in the second season, which was amok time. And like so many other people, she was inspired and thought about it a lot and had the writing chops to sit down and write the very first KS sexually charged story. And she told me that she wrote it just a few months after the episode. So let us since that was 1967, September I believe. I think she finished writing it in very early 1968.

[Dana Schwartz]

So what is it about? Well, Kirk and Spock wind up stranded on an alien planet. They're accosted by aggressive prehistoric creatures and end up camping out in a cave. But Spock is showing signs of emotion and distress. It turns out shock of shocks. Spock is undergoing the dreaded PON4 far. But they're days from any help. Maybe you can see where this is going. Spock has to mate or he won't live much longer. Kirk can't stand to see his best friend suffering and so, well, he agrees to help him out. They both realize pretty quickly they're in love with each other. And when the Enterprise manages to rescue them after much more danger and hardship from the local fauna, the dynamic duo decide to continue their relationship and live happily ever after. The end.

[Jenna Sinclair]

What in the world do you do with such a thing after you have finished writing it, when you creatively express yourself, it's meant to be shared. So she did, and she passed it around to a few other people that she thought maybe would be open minded enough and think about what a chance she took there. That's not something that you just talk about. Oh yeah, I just met you, my neighbor down the street. What do you think about Homosexuality, especially cross species, vulcan and human. But she did, and she managed to find like minded people.

[Dana Schwartz]

Ring of Soshern became what is now sometimes called drawer flowers. That's a story passed covertly among friends, hidden away in the top drawer among socks and underwear, not meant to see the light of day. But people who got their hands on Ring of Soshern passed it to others, who passed it to others, and the story even found its way across the pond to the United States.

[Jenna Sinclair]

I would say more than anything, that story is what solidified and even created a community that was able to call itself KS Fandom. For years, it was the primary piece of fiction that people knew about.

[Dana Schwartz]

Ring of Soshern was popular, but not published. The fact is, this was a dangerous story and the folks who read and circulated it were playing a dangerous game. First of all, was fanfiction even legal? One author who knew Jennifer Gutridge said

[Editor of Alien Brothers Zine]

in an interview, Jennifer told me that Ring of Soshern would never be published anywhere because she wanted to meet Nimoy, but not in a court. There was a fear, I suppose, that if the actors heard about it, they'd sue.

[Dana Schwartz]

Many fanzines that were published were intentionally small circulation and intentionally made little profit, if any. Even if the actors and the creator of the show enjoyed fan culture, the TV network could have other plans if a zine got too big. And what if that fan work depicted the two most famous characters in a sexual way? At that point, you might even lose the support of the actors and get hauled off to court. Because of course, most importantly at this time, gay relationships were massively stigmatized. That created an even greater risk than the possibility of a lawsuit.

[Jenna Sinclair]

This was the 60s. Homosexuality was taboo. People were being fired from government jobs because they were found to be gay. So any thoughts that they might have had to be deeply underground. I cannot tell you the number of women who never told their husbands what they were doing. And there was one very, very, very sad instance where one of those women did tell her husband and he reacted very poorly. And they talked about divorce and decided they wouldn't divorce. And instead, for the next 20 years, because I was friends with this person, so I know for the next 20 years it was, you know, just a chilly, chilly kind of relationship. And as a side also the need to keep it quiet were the morals clauses in teachers contracts. Many, many teachers were in the fandom and they were all afraid of being found out. And that's one of the reasons why, why we use pen names or did use pen names.

[Dana Schwartz]

It's important to understand just how vital it was to many women for their drawer fic to remain just that.

[Jenna Sinclair]

So in the 60s, in the 70s. I really admire the women who organized themselves even in the smallest bit at that time because they were pushing back back against a massive societal disapproval for their interest. But they were open minded and they were compelled by this interest to be creative.

[Dana Schwartz]

Despite the need for secrecy, these women found each other and as a result, Ring of Soshern grew and grew and grew until it became a ubiquitous legend. It wasn't just that one story either. Something had begun and it wouldn't be long before that something would burst out of the top drawer and into the world. But how would the world respond?

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[Dana Schwartz]

1987 the original Star Trek series the TV show was off the air, but the flames of fandom kept rising through the release of several movies, I have

[Jenna Sinclair]

been and always shall be your friend.

[Dana Schwartz]

The fan culture around KS was only growing at that point. There were many fanzines specifically for ks. Stigma had not completely thawed, but the community had found its niche and it managed to find places to gather. Throughout the 80s and 90s and still today really, Star Trek was a huge feature of fan events and conventions, but while sci fi conventions drew thousands, it wasn't always easy to find the/community KS fandom.

[Jenna Sinclair]

I would imagine almost any of these fandoms were so welcoming once you manage to find them and get in. And it was never easy to find them. People you know have told me so many stories about how frustrated they were. It took them years to gain the all entree to get the information that they needed. But once you had a name, a telephone number, an address, maybe the name of a KS zine, then you were in and you were in the sisterhood. And that as almost any person in a fandom will tell you, that's the most important part.

[Dana Schwartz]

These women were carving out their own secret spaces within a massive male dominated fandom. And as the 80s progressed, the energy did too.

[Jenna Sinclair]

It's the community that thinks like you think that is energized the way you are energized. So boy did I ever get energized through the 90s, I was invited to one of the big Star Trek conventions in Baltimore called Shore Leave. And I would go every year to Shore Leave and a contingent of KS fans would always meet there. There would be, I would say, 60Ks fans who would have a convention within a convention. And I decided that we needed to organize ourselves a little bit better than just meeting in the hallways and having room parties. I organized a party for us on Saturday nights where I had a specified gathering room at the hotel. And we put up art, we sang songs. Eventually we had wine. That was a good one. We had art auctions, we had other creative work auctions, and of course, we talked.

[Dana Schwartz]

For Jenna and many others, the KS fandom became a source of lifelong friendships and endless creativity.

[Jenna Sinclair]

I met somebody by writing letters back and forth to her, and we each wanted to sing. We didn't know what each other's voices sounded like. We wanted to write folk songs about Kirk and Spock. And we agreed that we would go to the Shore Live convention and in their talent show, we would get up on the stage and we'd sing. We met for the first time at that convention. We sang together with the guitar anyway, at that convention. And yet you meet them and you are instantly friends. I have so many deep relationships which came from fandom. I have been asked, what was the happiest time of your life, Jenna? My happiest time was my deep involvement in KS fandom other than, you know, family. But it's true, the things that the fandom gave me the opportunity to do with people who were smart, engaged, so creative, open minded, like, like I am, was priceless.

[Dana Schwartz]

As the community grew, so did the fanzines. Fan fictions that were once passed around from friend to friend under the radar were now being distributed on a larger scale with all the benefits and challenges you'd imagine going along with that. To illustrate just how challenging it could be to bring one of these slash zines to life, Jenna shared a story about her journey to publish her first slash zine on a wider scale in the late 90s. Of course, to get hundreds of copies of a 200 or so page fanzine, you're going to need a printer. But these zines were filled with sexual poetry, writing and art of the not safe for work variety. Jenna was turned away from print shop after print shop, toting this thick stack of pages with her as she went. At last, she found a print shop staffed with female employees who were happy to get the business, no matter the content. But just as she Thought she was in the clear.

[Jenna Sinclair]

I get a call, come and get this stuff. I go down to the print shop and I am told to go into the office with the boss, who was male, and he looked at me in total indignation, pulled out the original piece of art, shoved it under my nose and he said, do you know what this is showing? And I said, yes, I certainly do. It's two men naked, hugging. And I said, I was given the okay. I was told that you would. No, no, no, no, absolutely not. We have printed your text, but take this smut away and let me tell you something. That was a moderate picture. Okay? So did I finally find a printer? Obviously I did. I went to an all female shop and sure, they had no problem, they also had no interest, but they had no problem and I used them for almost 15 years.

[Dana Schwartz]

Hundreds of zines managed to overcome these challenges and find circulation among this dedicated group of mostly female fans. And it was in the heyday of KS story writing that a familiar story would resurface.

[Jenna Sinclair]

But the editor of a zine, which was called Alien Brothers somehow got her hands on a copy of Ring of Soshern. And the presumption is that there was some sort of contact with the author, so that it was indeed printed in the zine.

[Dana Schwartz]

Alien Brothers was 275 pages of stories and art. It cost $25, over $70 in today's money. And there on page nine was Ring of Soshern. In an introduction, the editor.

[Editor of Alien Brothers Zine]

Written probably before 1976, this story has never before appeared in a fanzine. It is one of the first and certainly the best underground Chaos tales circulated very privately and discreetly in manuscript photocopies. Only Ring of Soshern set the pattern for many early chaos stories and had many imitators, but none surpassed it.

[Dana Schwartz]

The zine was controversial on a few different levels. While some praised the writing and variety, others criticized it heavily. It was too violent, too expensive, and the editor was pretty unpopular at the time. But one troubling question surfaced after the zine's publication.

[Jenna Sinclair]

We wouldn't be talking about this if there were not some sort of controversy about it, because I think the author was shocked. From what I have taken from the little bit of research that is available and did not want to have her story printed. Remember, she wrote this in 1968. Okay, so she had the attitude, people from the 60s, from the 70s, from the 80s, that this was an extremely dangerous thing even to have it printed in a zine.

[Dana Schwartz]

Some fans claimed that the editor had permission, while Others claimed she didn't remember. This was 1987, the pre world Wide Web days. We're talking about an American supposedly communicating with someone in the uk. It's hard to know exactly what happened.

[Jenna Sinclair]

And there is really a question as to whether Ring of Soshern, which has such a special place in our fandom that basically helped found it might have been published without permission. It's a very murky subject. I don't think that anybody can say for sure what the real story was there.

[Dana Schwartz]

Believe it or not, the Alien Brothers controversy doesn't end there. To understand how this story evolved over time, we also need to hear from a fan who dove into Star Trek later on, a sort of modern day archivist.

[Edie (Producer/Reporter)]

There's a way in fandom that stories can spiral and escalate and become legend.

[Dana Schwartz]

That's Edie, the producer who reported on this story. She's been a Star Trek fan for a decade now, following the lore and development around the Ring of Soshern every step of the way. That gives her a bird's eye view of the role this fanfiction plays in the 21st century. Though many old school KS fans knew about the Ring of Soshern for quite a while before it was published, coming out in Alien Brothers was a turning point for the story. This is the beginning of the Ring of Soshern as an online urban legend in the fanfiction community. An example of what happens when a Dror fic is released into the world.

[Edie (Producer/Reporter)]

Back in the 80s, somebody did apparently write in a fanzine that one vindictive fan in the southern US was so offended that she wanted to censor the fic and like burned copies.

[Dana Schwartz]

On one hand, both the zine and the fanfiction itself were controversial. At the same time though, sometimes these things aren't what they seem.

[Edie (Producer/Reporter)]

And I've also talked to a lot of fans, sort of specifically, and there are a lot of people that knew of Alien Brothers but hadn't heard of this controversy and or just contended that maybe this didn't happen at all, or that maybe it wasn't on as large of a scale as perhaps the fandom legend snowballed into it being

[Dana Schwartz]

whether or not a fan went on a vindictive destruction campaign. Over the next few decades, something strange happened. The zine and the famous story inside of it became very hard to find. Of course, we know these zines didn't have a huge circulation even if they were famous within the KS fandom, but this zine just seemed to vanish in a way that felt out of place for how famous the story inside it really was. And the zine stayed disappeared even as the world Wide web came to be. Decades passed. The 90s tipped into the 2000s. Windbreakers fell in and out of fashion and the Ring of Soshern stayed gone. The noughties turned into the 2010s. Low rise. Jeans became skinny jeans became high waisted jeans, and the Ring of Soshern stayed gone.

[Edie (Producer/Reporter)]

I stumbled upon this Fanlore article. Fanlore is a wiki that has a lot of fan and fandom related pages and there's a really extensive article on the Ring of Soshern. It's been there for many years and there are even segments of the fanfic in the article. It describes the history, like where it wound up, where it was published. So of course I see this and I'm like, oh, like there are segments, there are photos, there are scans of the original publication, but it's not there in its entirety. So I'm like, well, they have segments, they have quotes, they have a lot of things. It must be online somewhere. So I go digging and I don't find a thing. There is no Ring of so Shern on the Internet.

[Dana Schwartz]

In an era where we're used to being able to Google and find essentially everything we want, it's hard to believe something can truly be impossible to track down. Sure, someone may have had an old copy kicking around the house, but no one thought, hey, I'll put this online.

[Edie (Producer/Reporter)]

So I looked everywhere, I couldn't find it, and I ultimately stumbled upon a Reddit post, as folks often do when they are traversing the Internet from somebody else who is trying to find this story. And the title of the Reddit post is simply, where can I read the Ring of Soshern? And someone in that Reddit post responds, this could be a challenge. Apparently it was so controversial that one fan acquired as many copies as she could to get her hands on just to burn them. The author didn't intend for it to be published, but shared privately among friends. Someone else responds, essentially saying the same thing, you're going to have a really hard time finding this. It wasn't meant to be published in the first place. And they go on to say, I did, however, find the zine. It was published in the holdings of Texas A and M University. If any enterprising person is able to go there, copy it and upload it, I'd love a copy. So at this point I'm like, oh, someone's going to have to go to Texas A&M University.

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[Dana Schwartz]

Good morning, Tumblr. I just woke up in my hotel room in College Station, Texas. It's morning.

[Edie (Producer/Reporter)]

The library where Alien Brothers is housed will open shortly.

[Dana Schwartz]

It's 2020 and someone is on the hunt for Alien Brothers. The audio you heard is from a Tumblr user called Prince Nimoy, our fanfiction anthropologist on the hunt for this long lost copy of Alien Brothers.

[Edie (Producer/Reporter)]

And I stumble upon a Tumblr post from March 6, 2020, essentially saying that they are going to make the pilgrimage to Texas to find and scan the Ring of Soshern. Prince Nimoy writes Monday I'm driving 15 hours round trip to finally meet Alien Brothers. Hopefully I will be allowed to scan it or take photos. Worst case scenario, I type it up word for word. All of it. I really can't believe it. The fandom has mourned its loss for decades and now it's back from the dead.

[Dana Schwartz]

The next video update from Prince Nimoy shows her flipping through the pages of the legendary Alien Brothers zine. She flips slowly through the title page, a page granting awards to submissions, and finally to the table of contents. She points at the title and zooms in. Ring of Soshern by Jay Gutridge, Page nine she finds the zine.

[Edie (Producer/Reporter)]

They don't necessarily let her scan it or use any of their equipment, but she takes a picture of every page of the fanfiction and she put it first on a Dropbox and then she put it on Internet Archive. So now when you Google Ring of Soshern, you can just read it online. It's just there in PDF form.

[Dana Schwartz]

Years after first hearing of this fabled tale, Edie finally read it. And how was it?

[Edie (Producer/Reporter)]

That's a good question. I think that as a piece of history, it is fascinating to read the fledgling sort of versions of tropes that have become well known in the fandom.

[Dana Schwartz]

So it's fine. Ring of Soshern is a pretty run of the mill, well written, entertaining piece of fanfiction. There's nothing particularly standout about it if you place it next to a piece of KS fanfic from today. And that's the point. No small part of this story's legacy is the fact that 60 years after a fan penned it and stashed it away in a drawer, it still resonates.

[Edie (Producer/Reporter)]

It is beautiful to see how fans have always explored dark themes and written stories that are messy and grittily realistic and human or vulcan as it were. And yeah, like, would we have a heated rivalry if we didn't have, you know, the sort of middle aged moms in the 60s and 70s who were blazing this trail? And that is beautiful to read. I love to imagine this community of people, a bunch of women, independently, maybe watching the same thing that I watched, feeling like, hang on, I could have angst in my queer romance between an alien and a human. It's like the same sort of recurring themes and motifs that we see throughout fan literature. And now those things have hit the mainstream. So to see the baby version of those things, the early version of those things coming independently out of of someone's brain, that is like, fascinating to see.

[Dana Schwartz]

So the Ring of Soshern is online now. In many ways it is a thread connecting fans today to fans from 60 years ago. But keen eared listeners may remember a key detail, a detail that's easy to forget in the frenzy of finding a piece of history that had been so hard to find for so many decades. Jennifer Gutridge may have never wanted the story published in the first place. She died in 2004 and now there's no way to ask if she wanted it put online.

[Jenna Sinclair]

Oh, it's such a difficult subject and I have such mixed feelings.

[Dana Schwartz]

That's Jenna again.

[Jenna Sinclair]

There was this hunger for the older zines that were not still available because these were only out of print zines. And there were a lot of out of print zines. It hurts my heart that they are not available. But considering the environment in which so many of these zines were written, published the stories, you know, this was a deep fear that many of the writers had that they would be outed in a sense, and I am so sorry these stories will not be read and enjoyed. It's so interesting to see the evolution of the writing, how it changed over the many long years. But where I come down on is that we have to respect the wishes of the writer. And I don't think it was right to just put that up online. Sorry to say that I can't say I'm terribly upset about it, but, you know, it's always like the right to privacy. Where does it end?

[Edie (Producer/Reporter)]

I still haven't worked out my own thoughts about it completely. I see both sides of the issue, for sure. And ultimately where I land is that I think it's sad when things become lost media, and that we should find ways to archive things and make sure that they are not lost, that we should tell our history, remember our history, archive things where possible in sort of safe and accessible ways.

[Dana Schwartz]

Whether or not it was the right thing to put Ring of Soshern online is up for debate. But one thing is certain, it is a piece of history. When you read about Ring of Soshern or Alien Brothers, the reviews, the controversy, the excitement, you get a window into a vibrant version fandom that has existed for decades. You can almost imagine hanging out with Jenna and 60 of her friends at a convention within a convention, being part of the sisterhood. And it's so easy for these stories to be dismissed and erased.

[Jenna Sinclair]

We had one KS writer. She was really a good writer and a marvelous artist who died quite suddenly. And those of her friends did not find out about it for a couple of weeks because the intention would have been to get into her apartment and take all the chaos stuff out. And instead what happened was her family, obviously, you know, along with their grief, found that their dear daughter was writing and drawing Kirk and Spock stories and art, and all of it was trashed. Her original artwork was trashed. That hurts me even today to say that there is something precious about original artwork. It was so important that somebody took the time to sit down and create this new world, because you put something of yourself in these novels and in these stories. So when you lose the fiction, you lose the person, and you also lose the place of the story within the community. Because every single one of these stories and every single one of these zines stood next to the human beings who were in the fandom too.

[Dana Schwartz]

In the 1960s, it wasn't clear whether fanfiction was even legal. Thanks to stigma about writing fan work and about gay relationships, everything had to be done completely under the table. But now we see stories that were once fan fictions becoming published novels, like the after series, the Love Hypothesis, maybe even City of Bones, and even hitting the big screen. Fifty Shades of Grey, anyone? This once secretive art form is now mainstream. Sure, fanfiction isn't necessarily seen as high art by society at large, but Maybe people are starting to understand that there's more to it than meets the eye.

[Jenna Sinclair]

Fanfiction has come, gone through such an evolution over the last 50 years, plus 60 years, and so has its place in society, starting out being absolutely anathema for the content, but also because primarily it is a woman's space. It has been dismissed through misogyny and through our position as, you know, not people who are doing anything serious creatively. Okay. Times have changed, and I think people are beginning to understand that the work itself is worth something. It is a creative explosion from the heart. Okay. Regardless of the source, regardless of what has compelled people to write, they are writing, they are drawing, they are singing. Okay. And I don't know, can we ever dismiss an upwelling of creativity? I don't think so.

[Dana Schwartz]

And that's to say nothing of the real world impact communities like this may have had on the perception of queer relationships in real life. For community members like Jenna fighting to make space in sometimes hostile fandoms and supporting friends, friends experiencing the effect of stigma in their lives, that impact is real.

[Jenna Sinclair]

There is a streaming series called Heated Rivalry, which is about a gay relationship between two hockey players, and it has taken the Internet by storm. People are not afraid of the content of this series. I can think that this is nothing but good. And I frankly think that my role and other fans roles in keeping fandom going through tough times, encouraging it, proselytizing for it, getting it up online, making archives online, contributing to Archive of Our Own, has played a part in this openness and the opening of understanding about homosexuality. So, yeah, we're in the middle of a wonderful story, and I'm glad that I was part of it.

[Jason English]

All right. You know, if we were still in the era of podcasting, where we were doing a lot of limited series, I think we could have stretched this one out into eight episodes. The whole search, head down to Texas A and M. I mean, that could have been like a three episode arc.

[Zarin Burnett]

We did a whole podcast about looking for one comic book.

[Jason English]

That's right. This was our thing. This was our lane, right at the

[Guest/Co-host (possibly a fan or commentator)]

wheelhouse with this one.

[Jason English]

Zarin, were you able to think about this as a motion picture or a series?

[Guest/Co-host (possibly a fan or commentator)]

I did, actually. And I have to say, I really liked the characters in it. As I said earlier, I was like, this is just a new world to me. So I had some fun trying to cast it for Jenna Sinclair, the fan fiction writer and the passionate advocate. I went with one of my favorites, Rooney Mara, because I didn't think she could hold down anything literary. And then for Jennifer Gutridge, the author of the fanfic, I went with Tilda Swinton. I know she's Scottish, but I think it still works for an English lady.

[Zarin Burnett]

Oh, Tilda Swinton can do anything, right?

[Guest/Co-host (possibly a fan or commentator)]

That was my thought. I was like, you know, come on. Like, I think she would just eat this up. And Prince Nimoy, our female fanfic anthropologist, the one who goes on the hunt for the copy of Alien Brothers, I thought Kristen Stewart. And that would be a sly shout out to 50 shades of grey, being a fanfic of Twilight. So you get it all.

[Jason English]

Love it. That's smart casting there. Right?

[Guest/Co-host (possibly a fan or commentator)]

And did you guys have any favorite special moments? I had two, but if you need time to think, I can tell you mine. Or I'd love to hear yours.

[Zarin Burnett]

Yeah. What are your moments?

[Guest/Co-host (possibly a fan or commentator)]

All right, for one, I loved how far would you go to help a buddy out? Just that question alone was, like, awesome. Right? And then the other one was, how far would you drive to help out a fellow fan online? And both of them were just such, like, beautiful little moments. And I love that it's 15 hours round trip to go and do this. I was like, I would totally be that person. So I love that Prince Nimoy's like, put it on my shoulders. Give me a map, I'm gone.

[Zarin Burnett]

I love it. I love the camaraderie and the community and the sense of belonging that fandom can give people. And something that I learned was how female this community was. I loved it totally.

[Guest/Co-host (possibly a fan or commentator)]

I didn't know that it leaned so female, but I then wanted to almost kind of, like, safeguard it. Like, just let them cook. This is amazing. Oh, also, I have a very special question of ethics that came up in this.

[Jason English]

Yes.

[Guest/Co-host (possibly a fan or commentator)]

Was it or was it not the right thing to put Ring of Sacher online?

[Zarin Burnett]

I think it was the right thing. I think it's like a museum piece.

[Jason English]

I agree. It's history.

[Zarin Burnett]

It's history.

[Guest/Co-host (possibly a fan or commentator)]

I think it's kind of like one of those things. I mean, as creators, we know this. Once you create something, it no longer belongs to you. I mean, yes, maybe the rights belong to you, but the actual work doesn't. It now is given to the audience, so it's like kind of their call. And I agree with you. This deserves to be in a museum.

[Zarin Burnett]

Yeah.

[Jason English]

I want to give a quick shout out to I Heart's outspoken Slate for inviting us to participate in their Pride Month programming, the Olympics, the Super Bowl Pride. We are always down for a theme, so thank them and bring it on any other network here at iHeart, let us know. We're game.

[Guest/Co-host (possibly a fan or commentator)]

Totally. Happy Pride Month, y'.

[Bethenny Frankel]

All.

[Jason English]

Very Special Episodes is made by some very special people. This show is hosted by Dana Schwartz, Zarin Burnett and Jason English. Our senior producer is Josh Fisher. Today's Episode Episode was written by Edie Allard and edited by Carmen Borca Carillo. Editing and sound design by Chris Childs Additional editing by Mary Dube Mixing and mastering by Josh Fisher. Original Music by Elise McCoy show logo by Lucy Quintanilla Social clips by Yarberry Media. Executive producer is Jason English. Today's Episode was produced in partnership with Acast Creative Studios. Very Special Episodes is a production of iHeart podcasts.

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