actifan n.

Thought-variant stories…draw popular acclaim as well as response from the actifan.

A flood of new fans came into fandom, usually thru the Triumvirs’ activities, and many remained and became actifans.

If there are any fans in North Carolina, would you please get in touch with me at 200 Williamsboro St., Oxford, N. C. If you even read StF you'll do. You don’t have to be an actifan, just so you read StF. Y’see, we're trying to form a statewide organization of fans and fannes in North Carolina to give StF a wider range in the Old North State, and generally improve fen conditions here.

One thing about this ’zine, published for the International Science Fiction Correspondence Club, is that it improves with each issue, or so it is fondly hoped. Circulation increases, but it could grow more if enough fans hear of it. ISFCC is international in more than its name and merits actifan attention.

Anyone who dips into an assortment of typical fanzines will find a bewildering array of neologisms and ‘running gags.’ He will learn the distinction between acti-fans (a portmanteau word which means just what you might suspect) and fake-fans (a term of mild contempt directed at those harmless parasites who hang around the fringes, reading but never writing for fanzines, attending conventions but seldom participating in the program or in the social activities). He will also encounter the neo-fan (a newcomer to the field) and the insurgents (the fun-loving crowd, who often delight in baiting those who take their hobby more seriously).

ACTIFAN—Active fan. One who proves that misery really does love company by attempting to spread and intensify the disease as much as possible. He organizes and officers fan clubs, publishes or writes for fan or pro zines, writes innumerable letters, etc., etc., etc., ad infinitum.

LETTERCOL — A letter column. One of the favorite haunts of the actifans. Many fanzines have them, but in prozines they are practically standard equipment. A prozine without a letter column is a fakezine, and no trufan will buy one.

This is a matter of degree, and depending on the extent to which a given fan indulges in anything more than local club activity he may be distinguished as an actifan (as opposed to passifen); stress on crifanac rather than congoing, among actifans, is the chief extensional distinction between trufans and confans.

Successively or simultaneously, damon knight has been a science fiction fan, even an actifan (the uninitiated will have no trouble with that fannish word if they'll simply pronounce it aloud), an editor, a critic and a creative writer.

Comments on fanzines received:… Useful for the actifan.

Worldcon site selection as administered is generally only voted on by a minority, I do believe, of Worldcon attendees. Most of those who vote are very probably actifen.