Luba Kmetyk

By her own accountI started in fanfiction long before -- right after the original Star Trek was cancelled, back in the *true* dark ages when fanfiction meant mimeoed zines passed around at fan conventions. My first fanfic, at least that appeared in a real fanzine, was a humorous, non-explicit Spock/McCoy slash piece. I've also done Star Wars, Man from UNCLE and Avengers (as in Steed and Mrs Peel) fanfic, among a few others we won't mention, over various periods of time... In most cases, it was when the show was cancelled (or ruined -- can anybody say 'tara king' with a straight face?), or the next movie took way too long to come out, and I wanted more stories about characters I liked and considered friends and wanted to get to know better. IMHO (rec column) #14, "Scotch and Writers: A Retrospective of Luba Kmetyk", Luba was active as a "newcomer" in Star Trek fandom in the 1970scomment by Luba Kmetyk in "Menagerie" #12 and made a name for herself not only as a writer (sometimes under the name Kyla Luba), but also for her feedback and constructive criticism. 
Later she became legendary in comics fandom as a writer and as an archivist and to be invited to have a fic hosted on her site, Fonts of Wisdom was considered a great honor. Her first piece of comics fanfictionPer this article by Dex in his In My Humble Opinion series was the Hellblazer/Excalibur crossover "Pulling Their Fat Out Of The Fire" and from there she went on to explore the at the time unpopular canon relationship between Kitty Pryde and Pete Wisdom through her series of fics, ''Idylls of the Cat." 
This quote from Alara Rogers in 2002 sums up her impact on the fandom: 
"Every Pete Wisdom/Kitty Pryde story written today, or for the past four and a half years, is written with the impact of Luba Kmetyk in mind. This isn't the most popular pairing, and Wisdom isn't the most popular character, but given that Excalibur was a rather more obscure book than the mainstream X-titles, the impact is in that so much Pete Wisdom fic gets written at all. Luba's characterizations have become an important part of fanon (maybe not a part I *like*, but an important part.) She has exposed the work of more new authors to OTL than any other person, by posting works to OTL for people who don't have subscriptions of their own. Luba has encouraged the growth of New Mutants fanfic, which in 1998 was barely a footnote in comics fanfic, to a viable subgenre of its own, and is currently actively encouraging fanfic about Maddie Pryor, Emma Frost, and Psylocke. Also, Luba's archive and writings are partially responsible for Vertigo's growth from something no one bothered to write fanfic about to a respectable subfandom." "Never let it be said..." Alara Rogers' Livejournal, Oct 24, 2002She was inducted into the CBFFA Writer Hall of Fame in 2002. She was also featured by Dex in his IMHO reviews.
Luba was also a fan of Spike from Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel: the Series, writing and collecting fanfic by others at her archive.
You can find a number of her works on FanFiction.Net, but she does not appear to have an AO3 account and the bulk of her material can be found at Fonts of Wisdom.
== Notable Works ==
=== Star Trek ===
* A Shot in the Dark (Star Trek: TOS story) (as Kyla Luba)
=== X-Men ===
* Pulling Their Fat Out of the Fire - Excalibur/Hellblazer crossover
* Warning: Good Habits May Be Hazardous To Your Love Life - Pete Wisdom tries to clean up his act for Kitty.
* The Day After the Night Before (R) - set the morning after Pete Wisdom and Kitty Pryde got together in canon.
== Awards ==
CBFFAs
* 1998 - Best Excalibur Fic - Idylls of the Cat
* 1999 - Best Series - Idylls of the Cat
* 1999 - Best Established Writer
* 2000 - Fanfic Hall of Fame - Idylls of the Cat
* 2002 - Writer Hall of Fame
== Reviews and Recommendations ==
IMHO - Reader's Rave #3 - "Close Encounters of the Lethal Kind" (R)
IMHO #7 - Waking Dex and Other Tales of Lost Love - "Sheol"
IMHO #14 - Scotch and Writers - A Luba Kmetyk Retrospective
*"Pulling Their Fat Out Of The Fire"
*"Gehenna"
*"Warning: Good Habits May Be Hazardous To Your Love Life"
*"The Glow Of A Starlit Dawn". (R)
== Archives/Zines/Collections ==
=== Zines ===
==== As Contributor ====
* Obsc'zine - "Friendship and Obligation" - Issue #2, published August 1977. (Star Trek: TOS; Spock/Bones)
* Warped Space - LOC - Issue #24 (1977)
* Warped Space - LOC - Issue #25 (1977)
* Menagerie - LOC - Issue #12 (1977)
* Stardate: Unknown - B&W photo of Earthrise - Issue #3 (1977) 
=== Collections ===
==== As Contributor ====
Amazing Grace - A Shot in the Dark - Issue #3, published January 1996 (Star Trek: TOS, Kirk/Spock)
=== Archives ===
==== As Archivist ====
Fonts of Wisdom - Luba's personal fanfic archive, plus those she likes to read.
==== As Contributor ====
Lori's X-Men Archive
The itty bitty cyke and logan archive 
The Itty Bitty Archives ‎
==References==