Fannish Elite Amateur Publishing Association

The Fannish Elite Amateur Publishing Association (FEAPA) was a short-lived invitational UK APA founded by Dave Langford and Chris Priest in the aftermath of Seacon '79, the 1979 Worldcon. Its only mailing appeared in March 1980.

At the time there were no APAs in the UK. The long-lasting OMPA had faded away in the late 1970s and the rival ROMPA only lasted for five mailings in 1974–5. Langford wrote in Cloud Chamber #4:

all that Chris and I really remember is suddenly having thought an apa might be an interesting notion, with the general hope that deadlines and regularity and things might perhaps spur the super fanwriters whom we'd invite into more effort than otherwise we would have seen from them. That's all, really. Except that the madness went on into the devising of RULES which were part serious and part parody of other apas (I think)

The 10 rules were: invitation only, no waiting list, minimum contribution 6 sides A4 per mailing, two mailings a year, mailing comments discouraged, no postmailings, no outside distribution, no admission of what FEAPA stood for, £1 annual fee, 30 copies to be provided.

The initial invitation list was assembled by Priest, Langford and John Foyster from 'dim memories of past glories', but the entire project might have been stillborn had Mike Glicksohn not sent a contribution and 'Terry Hughes, Paul Kincaid, Alan Dorey, Joe Nicholas and Joyce Scrivner all expressed varying degrees of commitment' [both ibid].

A first mailing duly appeared, '"Mailing Omega", as we are referring to it' (Cloud Chamber #5), although it was also explicitly the last, a chance for 'the poor misled originators of FEAPA [to] issue a final statement of apology, contrition, defiance, apathy and nausea about the whole thing'.

The next British APA would be APA-SFAF in 1981 but it too was relatively short-lived. The UK wouldn't see an enduring APA until the launch of The Women's Periodical in 1982.

Members and Apazines

• Jim Barker – cover cartoon
• Mike Glicksohn – Scuddick
• John Foyster – Klactoveesedstene
• John Harvey – Seacon Behind Closed Doors
• Rob Holdstock – Speaking Out (An Agony Column)
• Paul Kincaid – A Pauling [#1; later issues appeared elsewhere]
• Dave Langford – Cloud Chamber [#4 and #5; earlier and later issues appeared elsewhere]
• Joseph Nicholas – Napalm in the Morning [unnumbered; later rewritten as #1 elsewhere]
• Chris Priest – Pax Ortygia
• Peter Roberts – Men With Big Swords

Cloud Chamber #4 included letters from Ian Williams, D. West, Andrew Stephenson and Harry Bell, all of whom had been invited to participate but had declined.

Links

• Cloud Chamber #4 (Dave Langford) includes much of the backstory of FEAPA

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Publication

1980—1980

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