Goodbye to Alarums & Excursions APA
After five decades of continuous publication, the legendary Alarums & Excursions APA has come to an end. Lee Gold shared so with us, regular contributors, in late March, and then officially in the April issue of A&E (no. 593).
A&E begun its incredible run in June 1975, and continued all until April 2025. Lee's incredible tenacity and dedication is laudable, and I am forever grateful that she—with the help of other long-time contributors—was also able to make the back-issues available for as long as she was publishing new issues. I had an honour of contributing to A&E since August 2022, publishing a total of 33 issues of the Overlord's Annals zine.
Wikipedia and Fanlore entries provide a good summary of A&E APA for anyone interested. Grossly oversimplified, it was a bundle of individual fanzines focused on role-playing games. Each contributor would send in their zine, and then Lee would edit, collate, and distribute. Contributors would often address each other in their contributions, thus creating a community. At the time when there were no blogs nor forums, this was huge.
Lee was incredibly prolific. Fight On! issue dedicated to her includes a nice little essay “World Creating as a Hobby” as well as short interview. I also recommend Meet the Woman Who by 1976 Was the Most Important Gamer in Roleplaying After Gary article and Game Design History with Lee Gold video interview.
Thank you for everything Lee!
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