Linda Strickler

Linda began as an American fan in California in 1973 and became a British fan when she moved to Leeds, UK in 1981.

Always an avid reader, she started reading SF with the book The Door Into SummerItalic text, a book that she found very endearing because of the cat belonging to the main character... a cat that would go from door to door looking for summer, giving the book its title. There are also time travel and cryogenics in the novel, all of which appealed to her.

In American fandom, she was part of a group called United For Our Expanded Space Programs (UFOESP), of which she was a founding member. She attended several SF conventions on the West Coast in the early years, sometimes giving presentations, sometimes in the Huckster room with a table filled with information leaflets and magazines about space exploration that was meant to be peaceful.

When her first daughter was only a couple of months old, she attended Westercon and met Alfred Bester and his then girlfriend.

UFOESP held a space rally in San Francisco where bumper stickers that proclaimed SPACE IS THE PLACE were given away. Diane Feinstein was a featured speaker at the rally.

Linda represented UFOESP at the World Con in Brighton in 1979 and met the Leeds Fans on the first day. Welcomed with open arms (and a lot of laughter) she found a group of kindred spirits. It wasn't long before she had teamed up with Graham James and eventually visited him in Spring of 1980. Returning to California, Linda soon realised that her heart had remained in England, so she and her two daughters moved to Leeds at the end of March 1981, in time for her to be involved with the running of a very successful Yorcon.

She became an integral part of the Leeds SF group and over the following years was involved in conventions, including being chair person of Conception 1986, which celebrated 50 years of SF conventions, which had begun in the heart of Leeds in 1936.

During one of the many weekly meetings at the West Riding a new magazine was born. Matrix began a rise to fame as it became more and more well-known, and today still provides a vehicle for new authors.

A British fan who edited clubzine Matrix for the BSFA.

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