Trudy Kuslan
(October 27, 1923 – )
Gertrude “Trudy” Kuslan (later Lampert, also known as tKuslan) was an early fan who lived in West Haven, Connecticut. She and her brother, Louis Kuslan, shared a publishing house, LuGerKus and a fanzine, Cosmic Tales. Trudy also pubbed the FAPAzines FAPA Review and Nucleus. She may have been fandom’s first female faned.
She was briefly romantically involved with Earl Singleton, of pseuicide fame, who dedicated the first issue of Nepenthe, his poetry fanzine, to her. Although she became aware that his announced suicide was a hoax, she helped promote the deception, putting on an emotional outburst at the first Boskone in 1941.
Trudy was very active during the 1930s–40s, and attended conventions as late as 1956. The siblings were on the membership rolls of the first several Worldcons. She and Lou were charter members of The National Fantasy Fan Federation (N3F) in 1941. Trudy joined FAPA during the early 1940s, and sporadically contributed to the apa until 1974.
In the mundane world, Trudy was a schoolteacher in Connecticut. In the early 1950s, she married Laurence Ladislau Lampert (July 21, 1926 – February 14, 1998), a Romanian-American survivor of the Holocaust, and traveled out of the US many times. A 1960 passenger immigration card listed a permanent address in the Altamira neighborhood of Caracas, Venezuela, but later records showed her living in Lenox Hill, Manhattan, in the 1990s. As of late 2019, she appeared to be living there still; her condo unit was put partially in trust. She was listed in April 2023 as a current supporter of the New York City Center.
- Photo in Harry Warner’s history of fandom in the 1940s, All Our Yesterdays.
- A tribute to her and Louis in the December 2016 issue (Volume 75, Number 12) of The National Fantasy Fan.
- Cosmic Tales
- FAPA Review (One-shot) [1940]
- Nucleus [1938–????]
| Person | 1924— |
| This is a biography page. Please extend it by adding more information about the person, such as fanzines and apazines published, awards, clubs, conventions worked on, GoHships, impact on fandom, external links, anecdotes, etc. See Standards for People and The Naming of Names. |
