Roberta Rogow

Roberta Rogow is a fan writer, filker, poet, and fanzine editor in several different fandoms. 
She became involved in science fiction and media fandom in 1973, and was active for many years. 
Her stories were published in a number of fanzines, including Academy Chronicles, Laff Trek II: The Wrath of Dijon, Beyond Orion, Happy Tails, The Compleat Dirtie Nellie and many others. She edited the multimedia fanzine Grip.
Rogow is also very well-known for her creation of Trexindex, an index of early Star Trek fanzines. The zines she collected for this fanwork were sent to the Paterson Fanzine Library, where Rogow had started a fan club in 1976 called Memory Alpha Star Trek Club. 
Her filk lyrics were published in zines such as Rec-Room Rhymes and Sing a Song of Trekkin'. As a filker, she was often partnered with Gregory Baker; for instance, she sang his filk, Zaphod Beeblebrox and Me (mp3 of Rogow singing.) She also published the Filkindex, a filk resource zine. Rogow was a member of APA-Filk. Rogow was inducted into the Filk Hall of Fame on April 20, 2013.
Rogow was a member of Memory Beta and Vulcan Irregulars.
 
She is also a children's librarian, and a professionally published writer with several mystery novels, short stories, and a non-fiction book Futurespeak: A Fan's Guide to the Language of Science Fiction.
Rogow was the winner of the most humorous costume award at the 1974 International Star Trek Con where she was dressed as a Vaal Worshipper, six months after the crew of the Enterprise had visited her planet; Rogow was six months pregnant at the time. from Who's Who in Star Trek Fandom. 
==Interview==
* Media Fandom Oral History Project Interview with Roberta Rogow (2017)
==Meta==
* A Trekker's Con-Fessions (1977)
* Editor (1988 New Yorker article about zines) (1988)
* Having Fun with Fanzines (1992)
* Whose Characters Are They Anyway? (1992)
* The Crime of Character Rape (1992)
==Publication Contributor==
===Blake's 7===
5th Season | Powerplay
===Darkover===
Bitter Honeymoon and Other Stories: The Amorous Adventures of Dyan Ardais | Contes di Cottman IV | Jumeaux | Moon Phases | Starstone
===Filk ===
Alive and Filking | The Bastard Children of Argo | The Filker Strikes Back | Filkindex | Loose Notes | No Sheep Aloud | One Filk, Two Filk, Old Filk, New Filk | People and Places | Rec-Room Rhymes | Recycled Rogow | Recycled Rogow | Recycled Rogow | Rogow and Co. | Sing a Song of Trekkin' | Stave the Wails | The Trek Goes On | The Westerfilk Collection
===Harry & Johnny===
A Face in the Crowd | A Little Past, A Little Future | Spring Fling | Timeline
===Indiana Jones===
 Facets | Field Studies | Well of the Souls
===Misc.===
Above & Below's Dreamscapes | Beyond | Cityspeak: The Special Edition | Cops and Robbers and Spies...Oh, My! | Cutters Goose | Diverse Dimensions | Edge of the Vth | The Eyes Have It! | Fantazy | Fresh Beaver Tails | Ladyhawke: A Medieval Journal | Lions and Tigers and Zines, Oh My! | Median | Miami Vice Collected Stories | Outlands Chronicles | Paladin | Protocols | Pushin' the Odds | Rerun | Shuriken | Southern Comfort | Time Warp | The U.N.C.L.E. Special
===Star Trek===
1001 Trek Tales | Abode of Strife Academy Chronicles | Alnitah | Atavachron | Antithesis | Avatar | Beyond Orion | The Cage | The Clipper Trade Ship | Communications Console | The Compleat Dirtie Nellie | Enterprise Reprise | Everything But the Kitchen Sink | Fesarius | Generation Gap | Grip | Guardian | In a Different Reality | Kraith Collected | Laff Trek | Masiform D | A Matter of Honor | Mélange | Moonbeam | Nexus | The Ninth Quadrant | Obsc'zine | Pastak | Pastaklan Vesla | Saurian Brandy Digest | Spectrum | Starfleet Annals | Star Trek Magazine | Sardonac | Time Warp | Tetrumbriant | TrexIndex | Vault of Tomorrow | Warped Space
===Star Wars===
Against the Sith | Pegasus | Showcase Presents the Alternate Universes of Star Wars
===Westerns===
Ghost Riders | Happy Tails | Wide Open Spaces
==An Outspoken Opponent of Slash==
Some early fannish commentary by Rogow: two filks -- The Editor's Dilemma: Kiss by Feyrer (1980) and 
Mucho Macho?, or A PROTEST SONG (1980).
Captain's Log #6 (February 1982) has a LoC by Roberta Rogow in which she derides a popular zine series and its content: 
In the editorial to Grip #23 (1986), Rogow, editor of the Trekindex, described having been loudly opposed to 'the premise' back in the beginning:
Rogow was the subject of a two-page article in the New Yorker for December 12, 1988 in which she described slash books as "basically harmless" and "girlish romantic fantasy" substituting James Kirk for the usual romance novel heroine. However, she also said that slash was "threatening the zine universe" because it ignored basic characterization: Spock is sexually active only once every seven years, so that "when you ignore a rule like that, it seems to me you're not writing literature any more." Uncredited article, "Editor," New Yorker, December 12, 1988, pages 37-38. See The 1988 "New Yorker" Article. 
In 1993, she remained still vocal in her opposition to slash. At the 1993 Worldcon, for instance, she helped staff Bill Hupe's fanzine table. She refused to handle any money for the sale of slash zines and refused to sell gen zines to fans who had expressed interest in slash zines. Source: convention reports posted to the Virgule-L mailing list, reposted anonymously with permission.
Rogow herself wrote slash in 1984 and 1986 in the H/J Dirty Harry universe: Timeline and Mixed Media She may not have written the sex parts though. A fan in 1994 wrote: "I was laughing at the author, not the fandom. [M] quoted Roberta Rogow in her slash bibliography (Roberta has said that slash is ruining fan fiction, all slash fans are maladjusted closet cases, etc.). Well, Roberta used to write H/J, but that doesn't count, because she didn't write the sex scenes, and anyway she only wanted to write in the police procedural format." -- Strange Bedfellows APA #4 (February 1994) 
A fan in 2008 described some incidents at conventions: 
==Her Beginning in Fandom==
==The 1988 "New Yorker" Article: "Editor"==
Roberta Rogow was the subject of a two-page article in the December 12, 1988 edition of "The New Yorker." See Editor (1988 New Yorker article about zines).
Rogow wrote about this interview in APA-Filk #41 in February 1989:
Some excerpts from the article: 
 
 
== Filks (as writer) ==
Lyrics of one of her early filk songs from SWIL Filkbook issue #1: 
==References==
Category:Fanwriters
Category:Filkers
Category:Zine Publishers