Someone who likes filksongs. Someone who performs filk songs. Sometimes both. There's filksinging by filkers at fan conventions (both programmed and informal) and filk dealers at fan convention huckster rooms selling songbooks, cassettes and CDs (mainly the latter two). Filksongs can and do appear in mainstream fanzine genzines and apazines and there are fan conventions that have Filk (or Music) GoHs. NESFA publishes two major filksong books and Boskone used to have a filk song contest. There are even filk songs about events in fannish history.
Interfilk draws its inspiration from TAFF and DUFF but sends filkers to filk conventions in other regions, rather than the Worldcon or more standard sf conventions. There’s also the Filk Hall of Fame presented at FilkOntario and the Pegasus Awards presented at the Ohio Valley Filk Festival. Like other activities which have begun in sf fandom, and continue to be part of it to an extent, filkdom is in many respects a fandom unto itself.
Contributions: Dr. Gafia
