Chuck Harris

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Sue and Chuck Harris landing for Corflu 6, 1989; photo Geri Sullivan. (Click to enlarge somewhat)

(December 23, 1927 — July 5, 1999)

Charles "Chuck" Harris, also sometimes called Chuch — from “Chuck Harris” — or using a fake middle name Charles Randolph Harris, was a major British fan, active from the 1950s. He ran Tentacles Across the Sea with Dean Grennell (a kind of fanzine clearinghouse for dollar payments when UK currency controls didn't allow these) and was an English member of Irish Fandom.

With Walt Willis he was a founding editor of the distinguished fanzine Hyphen in 1952. It was nominated for the 1956, the 1957 and the 1959 Best Fanzine Hugo and, in 2004, the 1954 Best Fanzine Retro Hugo.

They also indulged in the Harris-White Feud, an early ’50s hoax. Later in the decade, they would be involved in the very real TAFF Wars, as a result of which Harris gafiated. He emerged briefly to attend Loncon II in 1965, but wasn’t heard from again almost two decades.

Harris's regular fanzine columns included "Random" for Hyphen (revived in Science-Fiction Five-Yearly #8 and #9, 1986/91) and "Creative Random History" for the UK Microwave (published 1982–5) and Pulp (in 1986–90). He was the subject of the Chuch Harris Appreciation Magazine (1989). "Creative Random History" and later columns were stitched together from letters, which he found easier to write than formal articles.

After his return to fandom in 1984 he circulated copies of letters (both sent and received) to a select audience, first as untitled bundles and then stapled up as Quinsy alias Q, with 23 numbered issues from September 1985 to November 1989 — the final #23 being a more widely circulated trip report on his and his wife Sue's attendance of Corflu 6 as special guests thanks to the Chuck Harris Fund. Q was followed by Charrisma, a more fanzine-like group letter or letter-substitute personalzine with 15 known issues from February 1993 (numbered #1) to August 1995 (like most issues not numbered). A large collection of his articles and correspondence was published as Creative Random Harris (Ansible Editions, 2021).

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Person 19271999
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