Gafia

(Did you mean a fanzine by Ted White?)

Gafia is an initialism for Get Away From It All, i.e., to voluntarily quit one's fanac. One who has gafiated is a gafiate.

“Gafia” originally meant the opposite — getting away from mundania into fandom, but that meaning has entirely vanished.

See Fafia, Nydahl's Disease.

From Fancyclopedia 2, ca. 1959

(Dick Wilson) Get Away From It All. This useful phrase was originally an escapist slogan, meaning the intent to withdraw from the Macrocosm to indulge in some intense fanac, but has undergone a complete reversal of significance so that now "that flash of sanity known as Gafia" refers to a vacation from fandom back in the world of normalcy, where nobody reads that crazy Buck Rogers stuff. Diagnostic symptoms are sheer boredom while trying to read proz or fanzines, allowing correspondence to pile up unanswered, and wishing that half-finished fanzines could be forgotten for a while. Oh, and we should mention Gafia Press, Redd Boggs' publishing house, the source of Skyhook and many another worthy serious publication.

From Fancyclopedia 1, ca. 1944

(Wilson) - Get Away From It All; motto of escapism.

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Fanspeak

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