Karmen Ghia: What are you working on these days?

PB Wrapper: Essays. I'm beginning to be wary of the fannish convention that when RL rears its head and demands our attention, it's always a BAD THING, but right now, that's the case. Some essays lead to good fiction (I can't wait to get back to the stalled essay on Job, and the parallel exploration of just-how-good-a-god-figure-is-Kirk?), but others just turn the brain to peanut brittle.

KG: Okay, I'm sorry for the mundane questions but how long have you been in the Star Trek fan community?

PBW: Longer than most people here, I think; about eight years.

KG: Pre-internet explosion, eh? Have you stayed mainly in TOS or do you do other genres?

PBW: I ventured into Voyager for a while, but I think I've burnt out on that. I read Man From Uncle too occasionally.

KG: I used to watch that show; those two in bed never entered my tiny mind. Ever.

PBW: They shared a hotel room almost every week. Sooner or later, they would have pushed those twin beds together.

KG: What was your earliest story?

PBW: Amazon women. Terrible shortage of men. Senior officers misunderstanding poor Ensign Chekov. Actually, the same story I've been writing ever since. How embarrassing. Not slash though, although there was a fairly intense m-m relationship. Some bondage, a little rough sex with school girls. I hasten to add that it was the school girls who were being rough.

KG: How did you decide to start writing what was in your head? What was your motivation?

PBW: I bought a computer. The screen was blank. I started typing.

KG: And the word Chekov kept appearing over and over and over. I've heard that's quite common among us. How did your first story come about? Can you recall the decision to write it or did you just wake up one day, face down on the keyboard, and there was the first 3,000 words? (This happened to me, that's why I'm asking.)

PBW: I hardly ever write with any kind of a plan. Occasionally I'm heading towards a particular resolution, or showdown, but it's always vague. My first story, like the rest, just consisted of sticking in clues and following up to see where they'd take me. As I wrote I assembled mysterious insect-like aliens, (probably Zarbees, if you're a Doctor Who fan), cave dwellings, telepathy, a random assortment of SF ingredients. I had various characters and events, and I began to see an explanation for what was happening, and a way for someone to heroically put it all right. Once it gets that far, I just have to keep writing until it's all tied up. I suppose my 'first' story took about four months to finish in draft, and spent another three or four years being revised before anyone published it. But I'm usually writing five or six stories at any time. People who conceive a whole story, in every detail, and then sit down to actually write it, terrify me. I suspect they're aliens.

KG: They are a little scary, I agree. What writers do you feel have influenced your slash writing?

PBW: At the point when I started writing it, I'd hardly read any slash, and none at all that I'd have wanted to be influenced by. I liked the idea, but I didn't like what anyone had done with it. The few examples I'd got hold of were the kind of K/S where Kirk ended up giving Spock silk underwear, and it made me cringe. Why would he? What would either of them get out of the gesture? More recently, anyone whose ideas I can get away with stealing.

KG: Do you have some special technique for writing slash? (For example: I listen to really loud techno music. What do you do?)

PBW: Absolutely not. I need a theme, an idea of what the story is about, and how the sex fits into that (distraction, complication, justification, climax, whatever) and then I just want to get the story written to see what's going to happen. That, maybe, is my technique. I don't let myself know what's going to happen, so I have to keep writing.

KG: What do you feel is the future of K/S?

PWB: I wish more people would remember that Spock's an alien. 50 percent by blood, but probably 90% by upbringing. That so rarely comes across in slash. But that's not the future of slash. It's become a romance genre, a 'fairy tale' coupling, and it'll fade out as we all become disgraceful old ladies (and wolves). Eventually, our heirs will be scandalized to find lavender scented bundles of zines, tied up with string, among the empty gin bottles in the bottom of our wardrobes. *I* don't think K/S is going to go on looking like a dream coupling to enough new people to keep up the momentum.

KG: They'll find tequila bottles in the bottom of my wardrobe, alas. Why isn't there more Chekov slash?

PWB: I really cannot imagine. Could it be that only you and I find him at all attractive? Surely not.

KG: There are seventeen subscribers to Coco Channel if that makes you feel any better. Gives me great comfort. What makes Chekov an attractive slash subject for you?

PBW: He's an outsider. He's vulnerable. He's less self-sufficient than the rest, and once he's in a pair, the two of them are more linked in to the rest of the crew than say, Kirk and Spock are. I think it's a recurrent weakness of K/S that the ship and the rest of the crew, and the mission and Starfleet command, tend to evaporate to order for months on end while Kirk and his paramour resolve their problems. Also Chekov's paranoid, insecure and finds it hugely disconcerting to be in love with his captain. It's such fun.

And if I type anything beginning with upper case C, it comes out as Chekov, so I don't have much choice. It just happens.

KG: Me, I'm just a webizen so I know nothing of the printzine community, except for a brush or two with certain members. What is with those people? Are they really as uptight, narrow minded, hyper critical/sensitive and condescending as they seem or am I really just too fucked up to see their good points?

PBW: I've had very good experiences with the few printzine eds I've dealt with, both in and out of the Trek circle. I've bought more completely crappy Trek zines than I like to contemplate, and I do wonder how some of them managed to convince themselves that what they were selling was worth anyone's money, but artistic differences aside, they were still straightforward and cheerful people to do business with. In 'Enterprising Women' (I forget the author) [Camille Bacon-Smith (kg)] there's a description of the zine community as something like the scientologists. You only get admitted to successively higher levels as you prove yourself to be 'one of us'. Now, imagine some rogue scientologist setting up a web page that admitted *anyone* to the upper levels of Hubbard's empire, and the reaction there'd be from the hierarchy - you're stealing *some* people's reason for living. Not only were they authors and editors themselves, but they thought that new authors and editors could only come about by the laying on of their hands. For *other* people, it's no big deal, but they're sticking by their friends. Others still have made the transition to the net with no problems. I think all of us who were involved with printzines have regrets. A manila envelope hitting the doormat sounds *special*.

KG: What's your thinking on chicks with dicks and Tupper Trek? I don't find it interesting, but my tastes are more, um, graphic. (I actually have trouble figuring what's going on [sexually] in much of K/S, it's way too subtle or something for me.)

PBW: I don't honestly have a clue what gay men get up to, mechanics aside. So I'm not aiming for realism. What I try to write, and like to read, are relationships that are unconventional, intense, involve an element of problem-solving, and are between people acting like adults who are capable of running a starship. I'm not romantic myself. I don't want to read 'shopping novels' and 'white weddings' (which rules out a surprising number of highly rated Man From Uncle zines). I do like 'first time' stories, for the conundrum of getting the relationship established. I don't want domestic detail, but I don't mind domestic crises. I grew up reading SF, so I *do* want the element of unknown, unexpected, mind-blowingly alien novelty. Like buses on Vulcan, and Klingons who are into haute couture. Surprise me. I can get by without being turned on.

KG: You've had experience in the printzine community and the webslash community. In what ways do their inherent strengths cause them to be inherently antagonistic? Or do I think that because I'm an asshole? (Okay, it's an awkward question, rephrase at will.)

PBW: Printzines need a market. People won't pay for what they can get for free, even if the free stuff is substandard. It's a trade dispute, isn't it? Print people are trying to protect their patch from substandard imports that will wreck their business. The recent 'foresmutters project' looked like an attempt to reposition their product in the market. They're telling the netizens that it isn't just good, it's a superb cultural treasure, and should be hedged around with controls to preserve it. Unfortunately, that's just not true. I can't think of a single printzine that's as good as the best of what's available on the web, and very few editors were utterly reliable purveyors of excellent material. I'm very pleased to see some of the old 'classics' available to everyone on the internet. They just don't look like classics any more. They look like what they always were: imaginative, amusing (not always intentionally) romance stories, well enough written, vastly overpriced and part of the fun of belonging to a secret society.

KG: I was recently reading an article in diary form about filmmaker Roger Nygard latest project. This 'feels' partly true to me (even I'm sure there's more to K/S than this) but I'm wondering if you have any reaction to this quote from the article: "March 22, 1997, Pasadena: Today we interviewed two writers of underground, homoerotic Kirk/Spock stories at the Pasadena Convention Center. These stories are typically written by and for heterosexual women - women who want to read sexual stories about Kirk and Spock but don't want to imagine them with other women." (LAT Magazine 6/20/99)

PBW: Apart from Jungle Kitty, I don't know anyone who's managed to write an interesting on-going female partner for Kirk or Spock. You either fall foul of 45 minute syndrome, and have to kill off your heroine, or you write her as a second string. In terms of a permanent relationship for Kirk, sexual or not, there can only be Spock. Brandt is fine, but she fails the 'romance test' ultimately because she doesn't need Kirk, and Kirk doesn't need her. Take Spock away, and Kirk is diminished. Take Brandt away, and Kirk is unhappy. Generalizations, I know, but that's the power of the relationship as I see it. I don't know if early K/S writers started off by trying to write conventional romances for their icons, and found it didn't work, but I do wonder if they stumbled into the delights of K/S almost by accident. It was never unique to Trek. That slight sexual frisson between leading male characters is all over the place, and always has been. Trek was just a show where there were always possibilities. Quite how that impacts on Chekov writers though... I don't mind reading stories in which Chekov has female partners. He, let me assure you, vastly prefers being in stories with female partners. He's a straightforward little fellow. But if he's happy, and she's happy, then where's the story?

KG: What is the motivation to write slash? One can't sell it; one can't even eat it.

PBW: See above.

KG: Do you have any thoughts on the future of Slash on the Web?

PBW: It would be fun if Viacom came up with some legal wheeze to stop it. Someone would publish a list of all the trademarked character and ship names and other distinctive terms. Against that would be the list of neutral but unusual words to be used in their place. We'd circularize handy software plugins for setting up your word processor to make the substitutions. Such attacks would probably just reinvigorate what might otherwise become an aging and inward looking community.

KG: The healthier aspect of the siege mentality, yes. Is there anyone you would like to see interviewed here? Do you have their email and can I say you sent me?

PBW: I think you already have my wish list well in hand.

KG: You're very cool. Would you like to recommend some URL's here?

PWB: I have to admit, I don't do much 'speculative' browsing myself. I tend to go where other people point me, so I'll be taking note of any pointers that come out of the other interviews.

KG: And one final question - in your opinion, who's bigger? Kirk or Spock?

PBW: Back to the alien sex thing: Spock is just different. More different than you ever imagined.

KG: Thank you, PB.

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