Karen Anderson
Karen Anderson is a writer, artist and zine publisher from California, U.S.A.
In the 1950s and 1960s, Karen Anderson produced The Zed, a mimeographed fanzine made for the Spectator Amateur Press Society (SAPS). This was a long-running small publication, with some issues consisting of just six pages, as was the tradition with many Apazines.
The Zed was short for Die Zeitschrift für Vollstandige Unsinn translated as The Journal for Utter Nonsense.
In the 1950s, Karen Anderson spotted a typo in a fanzine while reading an essay by Lee Jacobs on folk music, where he had mistyped "folk" as "filk". In her words, "Who ever heard of a filk? Since the essay appeared in an amateur publication circulated among science fiction fans, though, there was only one thing to do. Rather than waste a phrase like "filk song", something must be created to which the name could be applied." There had been songs written by science fiction fans since the 1940s, but Anderson's new name for them caught on, and she is created with naming "filk songs".
In 1958 she edited and published the one issue tribute, Henry Kuttner - A Memorial Symposium, in honor of the death that same year of Henry Kuttner.
In the late 1950s Anderson appeared in the LASFS {Los Angeles Science Fantasy Society) sponsored film The Musquite Kid Rides Again, based on a story from Lee Jacobs fanzine The Ballard Chronicles, co-starring with Bjo Trimble and John Trimble, Charles Burbee, Terry Carr, Jim Caughran, Dean Dickensheet, Ingrid Fritsch, Jack Harness, Ted Johnstone, Robert Lichtman, Bruce Pelz, Ernie Wheatley, and Ron Ellik as 'The Musquite Kid'.
From 1960 till 1963, she also produced five issues of Vorpal Glass.
In the 1960s, Anderson exhibited her drawings and paintings at Bjo Trimble's "Project Art Show" at scince fiction conventions.
Karen Anderson is also a novelist who collaborated with her husband, Poul Anderson, on a number of books, starting in the 1950s until the 1990s.
Zines
- Alif
- Ampersand
- Calmatema
- Goliard (with Poul Anderson) (1965)
- Henry Kuttner - A Memorial Symposium
- Jongleur
- No Holds Barred (with Poul Anderson)
- Trobairitz
- Vorpal Glass
- The Zed
Contributions
Films
- The Musquite Kid Rides Again
