Written by our Great Dear Founder (No, he's not North Korean), this piece reflects on the founding of our glorious organization.  With our 35th anniversary rapidly approaching, it's important to look back and see what made us the bunch of people we are today. Forumites.

In the Middle

The Founding of the Science Fiction Forum

by James R. Frenkel

In 1968, on a fall day that has become but a distant memory, two friends ambushed me.  I was more or less minding my own business, which in 1968 was less than anyone should have been doing, considering the state of campus life, real politics, and the Vietnam War.  Charlie Knopf, a freshman I had known in high school, and Eliot Jacobs, a suitemate in Henry College (now known as Hendrix) the year before, both thought it would be a great idea to start a science fiction club at S.U.N.Y. at Stony Brook.  I agreed and encouraged them to do so.

"No," Charlie explained, "we couldn't do it, but you (emphasis his) could.

"Why me, Charlie?"  Backpedaling fast.

"In high school you ran the SF club with Mark Levy."

"No, Charlie, Mark ran it, and I was his friend and helped out."  I said weakly, sensing with a sinking heart what came next.

"Well, Mark isn't here, and you are."

"Yeah," chimed in Eliot.  "And you know a lot more about how stuff runs on campus than we do."  I was a Junior, they were Sophomores.  Wow.

"Well, look," I countered, feeling cornered.  "I don't have a whole lot of time to start a club.  I'm not exactly full of free time here."  This was not an idle boast, I was a reporter and Associate Editor for the Arts section of the Statesman, played in two musical ensembles, was covering the squash and track teams for the newspaper, becoming increasingly active in anti-war demonstrations, had an active social life, and was taking sixteen credits.  I didn't need more activities.  Life was already too busy.

On the other hand, I was flattered by their confidence.  It's not every day that people volunteer you to head up a new club.  Obviously, they knew a sucker when they saw one.

"Okay.  Here's what I'll do.  Club night is tonight." -- this gave them the advantage of not giving me much time to think over what I was about to do next -- "and the organization with names starting with "S" are in our basement (I'm still not sure how they managed this coincidence).  If you, Eliot, will make a sign saying 'Science Fiction...Forum,' I'll sit behind it and take the names of anyone interested in joining.  Then, if we get enough people interested, I'll preside over a meeting to organize the club.  But then, I'm out.  I don't have the time to run something like this, and you guys are going to have to pitch in."

"No problem," said Eliot, beaming.  This was a big problem.  Eliot was often seen beaming.  He was usually there to volunteer to help out with some project or another, and he was reliable too, so I couldn't refuse to help if he was going to do the most work, could I?

That night, sixty-four people signed a sheet that said they wanted to join the new Stony Brook Science Fiction Forum.  Somehow, I had managed to discuss all sorts of programs the club was going to try to get going: an SF library, club meetings featuring book discussions, guest speakers, trips to special places like the Hayden Planetarium and a local theatrical showing of 2001: A Space Odyssey.  Clearly, I was in over my head.

Among the people who signed up, there were at least a half-dozen who were obviously interested in working their fair share to make this club happen.  So Eliot, Charlie, a few other people and I set up a meeting of prospective members a couple of weeks later.  We put up lots of little rexographed signs all over campus (campus was smaller then, but there were four quads already -- this was a lot of work).

Over forty people showed up at the meeting, and after I realized they weren't going to leave without hearing about our agenda, I started to talk.  They were all looking at me as if I were the leader, even though I kept peppering my remarks with comments like: "The people in charge," "Whoever leads the club," "Whatever you decide," and disclaimers of similar tone.  Apparently, my aura of command was such that it was obvious that I was in charge.  In retrospect I realize that this was inevitable, once I sat under the sign on club night, and started talking at this meeting without stating clearly that I wouldn't, under any circumstance, be in charge.

So we discussed basic objectives, elected officers, set another meeting date, and started working to make the whole thing happen.  It's hard to imagine that the present Forum with its long history, big collection of books, magazines and other materials, annual convention, and active membership all started and has been in continuous operation since those first days in 1968.  Many times that year, and the following year, I despaired over the monster I'd helped create -- I didn't wan the Forum to be the sort of club that rises and falls on a cult of personality, and it seemed very hard to find people to whom I could leave the club leadership, people who would be capable of continuing what the first bunch of us had started.

Luckily, the tradition of alumni involvement in the Forum began before very long, and key people kept the club alive long enough for tradition to take root, a tradition that had grown and continues to this day, and which took a new and positive direction with the first issue of The Road.

And while the Forum has prospered for more than twenty five years, I've been laboring in the fields of publishing, working variously as an editor, publisher, packager, consultant, and agent in SF and other fields.  Most of my work has been in SF and Fantasy, and when people ask me how I got into the business of science fiction, I always talk about how the Stony Brook SF Forum started.

I do this not because of sentiment (not that I am incapable of sentiment).  But there is a specific link between my role as founder of the Forum and my work in publishing.  When I interviewed for what was to become my first job in publishing, my prospective boss was looking at my resume.  It included, among other things, activities I had pursued in college, and among them was Founder and President of the Stony Brook Science Fiction Forum.  The publishing company published paperback books, but also owned two SF magazines, Galaxy and Worlds of If, both, sadly, gone now.  When she asked if I was still interested in SF, I replied that I was.  I got the job, and one thing I did early on was to help produce a few anthologies of stories from the two magazines.  If I hadn't had the early opportunity to edit SF, who knows if I would have gotten later chances?

I didn't take very long for me to become completely hooked on editing SF and Fantasy, and after my first job, I actively sought experience that would get me more SF and Fantasy books to edit.  It's been downhill ever since, and I expect to be working in this field as long as I continue working, period.  I also complicated my life a little more when I married an author with whom I had begun to work, Joan D. Vinge.  So you could say I'm married to the field, in a manner of speaking.

So we come to the title of this article: "In the Middle."  I'm in the middle of SF being both a fan and a professional.  As an editor, I'm in the middle of the publishing process, between author and publisher, bookseller and reader.  As a packager I'm between everybody: authors, editors, publishers, artists, marketing departments, you name it.  As with many things, being in the middle is fun - and dangerous!

Jim Frenkel, alumnus and Founder of the SFF, is currently an Editor and packager with Tor Books.  He resides with his wife, the author Joan Vinge, and children in Wisconsin.  This article originally appeared in The Road, Issue #2, 1990.