Joan Burns
(???? –)
Joan Burns was a British fan from Newcastle upon Tyne briefly active in the mid-1950s. She contributed to the fanzines Femizine and Satellite and was a member of Cytricon, the 1955 Eastercon, although it's not known if she attended. She is listed in Ron Bennett's Directory of Science Fiction Fandom for 1955 but not subsequently. She was married to fellow fan Alan Burns.
It is perhaps worth saying a little more about her as a passing comment by Don Allen in Relapse 17 (Spring 2010) implied she didn't exist.
Joan Burns had an article in Femizine 5 (February 1955) and also provided the cover. The same issue includes a piece by Grace Burns, her mother-in-law and thus Alan's mother. In Satellite 5 (Spring 1955) Don Allen said that "Alan Burns and Joan Burns are among those going" to the 1955 Eastercon in Kettering. Joan is listed as a member of the convention society. She isn't specifically mentioned in any of the accounts, but Alan is only mentioned once and briefly so it doesn't necessarily mean she wasn't there.
However in Relapse 17 a letter from Don Allen said, "Joan Burns was Alan Burns, doing a Sandy Sanderson (making up a female persona)." Which if true does invoke the image of man pretending to be a woman called Joan submitting work to a fanzine created by a man pretending to be a woman called Joan.
A further complication arises from Terry Jeeves's Erg. Alan Burns was a regular correspondent and in 52 (October 1975), Jeeves wrote about his recent travels, saying "I had a few days' rest before Newcastling it to attend the Burns' wedding." In Erg 81 (January 1983) he said, "I'd like to extend my thanks to all those good fen and true who sent me cards on my 60th birthday... and especially to Joan and Alan Burns for their very kind thought."
Research at ancestry.co.uk identifies an Alan and Joan Burns who married in 1950 and both are shown in electoral rolls at various dates in the 1950s at addresses coinciding with those for Alan Burns in the Bennett directories. However, at some point in the late-1950s or early-1960s Joan is no longer in evidence. And in July 1975 an Alan Burns married a different woman called Joan.
There is a bit of conjecture involved here – the names aren't uncommon – but it seems the 1950s wife-of-Alan was a real person. The remaining question is whether Don Allen's comment implies that while Joan was herself real the fannish activity ascribed to her was rather husband Alan using her name.
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