The Classic-Trek Kraith Universe was originated by Jacqueline Lichtenberg, after she had become a professional writer with her first published story in the January 1969 issue of IF MAGAZINE OF SCIENCE FICTION.  Read about the connection between that first professional sale and the non-fiction Bantam Paperback Star Trek Lives!  

Kraith was originated as a series of homework assignments for the lessons of the Famous Writers School fiction course.  Ordinarily, students are not expected to produce a connected body of work in response to the homework assignments, but Jacqueline Lichtenberg did because she just plain wanted to write Star Trek -- and because there was a budding fanzine market for the stories.

She sent each of the main-line Kraith stories to Ruth Berman who published them in the now famous fanzine T-Negative.  Later Carol Lynn and Debbie Goldstein, who met Jacqueline at the very first Star Trek Convention in New York City and proposed to collect the widely scattered Kraith Series, which had proliferated and been scattered among many fanzines.  That became Kraith Collected.

The scattering of the Kraith stories which were not on the main-line of the plot, both the ones by Jacqueline Lichtenberg and the ones by other authors, was done deliberately in order to trace the connectivity among the fast growing number of Star Trek fanzines and their readerships.  With the publication of Kraith Collected though the Kraith readership grew and the number of other authors, artists and nonfiction writers participating in the creation of this Alternate-Universe Star Trek saga grew to over 50.  

The result of the research conducted through the various publications of Kraith is published in the Bantam paperback, Star Trek Lives! by Jacqueline Lichtenberg, Sondra Marshak and Joan Winston.  

 This Page Last Updated 07/26/2015