The National Fantasy Fan Federation, founded in 1941 by The Sixty-Four Immortal Fen, is the world’s oldest non-local science fiction club. Our founders included famous science fiction fans and famous SF writers. We still welcome all fen (plural of fan) and writers to our ranks.

The N3F’s work is done by our volunteers; there are no paid employees. Much of the important fannish work is done by our many Bureaus and their Bureau Heads. The N3F is governed by the five members of the N3F Directorate, as described by the N3F Constitution and the N3F Bylaws. A President, a Treasurer, and a Membership Secretary play operational roles.

Our Site was Hacked

We eventually found that only a complete uninstall and reinstall would solve our problems. Reinstallation will take a while. We now have even more layers of security. We believe we have all the material needed to restore the site, but the process is a bit complicated and a bit slow. Distribution of our fanzines was also interrupted. The hacker corrupted our DKIM and SPF files, so our emails were not going anyplace. We think we have now fixed the problem, knock on wood.

More about the N3F

The mission of N3F is to help members enjoy and discuss science fiction and science fiction fandom in all media. The N3F welcomes the membership of fen of all nations, backgrounds, and political persuasions. We are here united in our love of science fiction and fantasy, broadly defined. Just as you take off your muddy shoes at the door when you come into the house, so also here you take off your real-world politics and leave them at the entrance, because we are not here to discuss real-world politics.

And check out our electronic science fiction convention NefferCon at
https://mewe.com/group/60a9bfa0d982f519ecc95c14

The N3F is an old club, solidly embedded in Fandom’s history and present – and, from all appearances, its future as well. The N3F began in April 1941, when all types of imaginative literature – including science fiction – were called fantasy. We’re the oldest non-local science fiction and fantasy fan club still operating. In all the time since then, the N3F has undergone almost every combination of success and failure imaginable. Our membership has sometimes been in the hundreds, and sometimes under ten. It has produced some of Fandom’s most memorable fanzines and some of the worst crudzines. Since the beginning N3F members have included world-famous SF authors and fen (plural of fan) newly arrived to the hobby.

We have succeeded, and continue to succeed, because we are here to help you to participate in fandom. No matter your particular interests in SF fandom, if you are a dues-paying member we are here to support your work. Members are encouraged to seek out others sharing their interests, and to start or join a group on that interest. Thus, we have a Writer’s workshop, an Artist’s Bureau, the WelCommittee (we have the original one true WelCommittee; beware of imitations!), fanzines, a Pro Bureau, and many more. Want to have someone critique your short story or novel? We can help you.

Dues-paying? We have two classes of member, dues-paying members and public members. Dues-paying members in different dues classes pay their dues (Life Members paid a long time ago), can run for club office, vote in our elections, vote on the Laureate awards, and may publish zines in N’APA.

The N3F has one paper-mail magazine, and nine electronic magazines. The papermail magazine is the club newsletter, The National Fantasy Fan. The email-only zines are Tightbeam, Ionisphere, N’APA, Origin, The N3F Review of Books, Eldritch Science, Films Fantastic, Mangaverse, and A Gentle Stroll. We occasionally publish books or shorter pamphlets.

The National Fantasy Fan (TNFF), the second oldest fanzine still published in science fiction fandom, comes out monthly. First published in 1941 under the title “Bonfire”, it contains club business, information about club activities and areas of interest, free space for member ads, member art, poetry, letters of comment, member-written articles and reviews, and other fannish material. Members may choose to receive TNFF via e-mail as a PDF attachment or (at greater expense) via papermail.

Tightbeam, Ionisphere, N’APA, Origin, The N3F Review of Books, Eldritch Science, Films Fantastic, Mangaverse and A Gentle Stroll are published electronically.

Tightbeam (named as Hyperspace Tightbeam by former neffer Marion Zimmer Bradley) publishes art, long and short reviews of books and fanzines, and letters of comment. Publication is currently monthly. The last issue of 2025 was issue 375. If you have art, fiction, media reviews, essays, guides, thoughtful pieces of commentary, or other material of general interest, please send it as soon as possible to Editor George Phillies, phillies@4liberty.net.

N’APA is our amateur press association. N’APA, published since 1959, collates together the zines of its contributors and circulates the collated back to people who make at least occasional contributions. Founded in 1959, N’APA has now passed issue 280. Send contribution in the form of .pdf or .doc pages to Jefferson Swycaffer, abontides@gmail.com.

The N3F Fan Gazette (Editrix Mindy Hunt, mindy@scifi4me.com) is our monthly science fiction fandom news zine. Our Founder, a prominent Neffer, asked ‘What is the N3F not doing?’, and recognized that we were not publishing a news zine. He launched Nameless News, which after a few issues became the FanActivity Gazette, and which is now the N3F Fan Gazette. The Gazette is published monthly under the leadership of Editrix Mindy Hunt and Co-Editor Jason Hunt.

Ionisphere is the journal of the N3F Fan-Pro Coordinating Activity Bureau. It exists to promote a closer relationship between science fiction and fantasy fans and the writers and editors and artists who create this form of literature. Ionisphere also publishes long interviews with famous fans and writers. Publication is currently bimonthly. Send contributions to Jean-Paul Garnier spacecowboybooks@gmail.com.

Eldritch Science is our fiction, poetry, and art magazine. Eldritch Science publishes longer works of fiction (7500 words to complete novels), poems, and related artwork. Send contributions to Editor Steve Condrey steve.condrey.tnfff@gmail.com

Mangaverse covers manga, anime, comic books, and aspects of Japanese culture. The new editor, Patrick Ijima-Washburn, welcomes contributions at patokon.com@gmail.com.

Films Fantastic (editor Jason P. Hunt, jphunt@scifi4me.com) treats motion pictures of long ago.

The N3F Historical and Research Bureau publishes Origins, covering all aspects of fannish history. Send material to its Editor, Sam Lubell SamJLubell@gmail.com.

The N3F Review of Books Incorporating Prose Bono seeks to publish a review of every published SF novel. There are clearly challenges here, but every month or two the N3F Pro, Book Review, and Writer’s Exchange Bureaus publish reviews of perhaps two dozen novels, plus multiple articles on writing, and interviews with authors. Send your reviews to Editor George Phillies, phillies@4liberty.net.

FrankinZine, is our current approach to honoring the original purpose of the N3F. Once upon a time, the purpose of the N3F was supposed to be to receive stacks of fanzines from their editors and publishers, resort them and mail them to the individual fen who had subscribed to them. Changes in the postal rate structure made this approach impractical. Changes in spam blockers made it impossible to remail individual zines to all of our members. On an irregular basis, we assemble zines sent to us in a given month into a single ZIP file, FrankinZine from the N3F Franking Service, and post it on our web pages.

Our latest zine is the bimonthly APA A Gentle Stroll. The APA (collator George Phillies, phillies@4liberty.net) collects and binds together zines on roleplaying games and related topics. We launched A Gentle Stroll as a replacement APA when the classic D&D APA Alarums and Excursions suddenly ceased publication, almost at issue 500. “A Gentle Stroll” is a play on the name of another rolegaming APA of days of yore, namely The Wild Hunt. Unlike all of our other zines, A Gentle Stroll is only available by request to the collator.

Finally, we have less regular publications. Fandbooks (Fan-Handbooks) are collections of historical and other material.

A Sea of Stars Like Diamonds is our book-length collection of short stories. Published at the end of 2016, A Sea of Stars Like Diamonds is our 75th anniversary commemorative volume.

For the first 50 years of its existence, N3F was a papermail organization, but we now embrace the world of the Internet as well as keeping some our traditional activities going. We also offer online activities on social media including Facebook, Mewe, and Discord.