PEAPS: Pulp Era Amateur Press Society

Some may or may not be aware of the Pulp Era Amateur Press Society, also called PEAPS.

It’s been around since 1987 and is what is known as an “amateur press association”, which have been around since 1876. In an APA, members submit their own fanzines (or at least pages) to a central mailer, who compiles them and mails them as a set to all the members.

I have heard about these from decades among science-fiction and comics fandom, and eventually heard about PEAPS.

With PEAPS, the members create their own fanzines, which are compiled into mailings. At this time there have been 140 mailings, and mailings come out quarterly.

Members are expected to have a “floating” average of six pages every two mailings. PEAPS is limited to a maximum of 28 members, though at present there aren’t that many, so more can join. The big thing is, can you put out that many pages? And it needs to be original stuff, not previously published stuff.

One copy is also sent to the Browne Popular Culture Library at Bowling Green State University.

I decided to join after talking about it with other pulp collectors at PulpFest this year. I am putting out postings all the time here on my blog, so I am already producing stuff that I can use. However, as I can’t repeat stuff previously published, I will instead set aside postings for the PEAPS mailings, and later make the material available here as a posting after its publication.

I have already submitted my contribution for PEAPS #141, and have most of the contribution for #142 ready, with ideas for further issues as well. I’m not sure if I will make my fanzine available outside of PEAPS, but I am thinking of creating a series of “special editions,” reusing some of my postings, that I can use to promote my blog. I already created one as a test run.

I think this will be interesting, and I hope we can find additional people that will want to join in so we can get up to the max. You can read about PEAPS on its website.