chasers but not to the editors or writers -- could be given the option to
read the work in the home of the purchaser, but generally could not
receive full access until they became well known in the fan group.

Fans of another television show circulate their fiction almost en-
tirely through underground photocopy. Stories created in this group
are passed anonymously, or with pseudonyms. Members of the com-
munity may find out who created specific stories and will know who
creates in the community as a whole, but participants guard their out-
side identities.

Infringing copyrights, the law they break, is only the mildest part of
the subversion fomented in the ladies' literary group and terrorist so-
ciety. As their greatest transgression, many of the ladies write about
sex in all its permutations. In fact, sex is a primary metaphor in the
language of the group; it symbolizes the search for trust and commu-
nity and security.

In the following pages you will meet this group of Trekkers, Blake's
7 fans, and action-adventure fans. You will come to see them in the
spirit of IDIC -- Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations -- with all
their diversity, in the good and bad, in pain, struggle and death, but
also in the joy of creating a new kind of community that fulfills
women's needs to reach out and be heard. And you will discover why
they choose this very public medium to create an equally private space
for themselves and their world.

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