For many television fans, Star Trek embodies the idea of adventure and discovery.
For novelist Susanne Lambdin, that meant boldly venturing out West.
“I was a bailiff in criminal court here in town, and The Wichita Eagle came across my desk and it said, ‘Star Trek: Next Generation. New TV show. LA.’ Gave you the cast. And I absolutely loved Patrick Stewart.
“I thought, ‘You know what, I'll sell my three horses.’ I went out with $3,000, moved out to Los Angeles. Within the year, I had a job at Paramount Pictures.”
Lambdin was hired as a legal assistant on the Arsenio Hall Show, which put her in proximity to the production of Star Trek: The Next Generation. Like many, she dreamed of writing for the legendary science fiction franchise.
“I just was trying whatever I could try to get on staff,” she said. “But it was really weird at that time, so it would be late ’80s … I felt like Hollywood didn't think women could write science fiction. There were no other female writers on staff at that time.”
Luckily for Lambdin, the producers for Star Trek were open to pitches from nonstaff writers. So, she teamed up with a young man in the mail room named Bryan Stuart to write a heartfelt script about one of the show's beloved characters.
“He said, ‘Hey, I have an idea … My father just died, and I had things I wanted to tell him that I wasn't able to,’ and he goes, ‘And I really identify with Wesley Crusher. And I would know what his dead father, Jack Crusher, would say to him if he could.’ ”
Portions of their script were purchased and incorporated into the Season 4 episode titled “Family.”
“When you're watching Wesley Crusher talking to his dad, those are real things a boy wanted to tell his dad that he wasn't able to,” Lambdin said of the episode. “So, it just made it lovely or more heartfelt.”
After eight years in LA, Lambdin faced a tragedy of her own before a job interview on another Star Trek series.
“I'm literally walking out of a meeting, and they're going, ‘Susanne, where are you going? You know, this is your … meeting about Deep Space Nine. Why are you leaving?’
“It's like, ‘I have to … go back to Kansas. My brother's dead, and my family's suffering.’ And I choose family over, you know, Hollywood, absolutely. And so then I came home.”
Lambdin’s return to Wichita started her on the path to becoming a novelist, writing in the zombie and dark fantasy genre. With 30 books published, she has found a craft to sustain her passion for creating.
“Writing screenplays is almost like the jigsaw puzzle, putting the pieces together because you could move the scenes around,” she said. “It's just more technical writing, and it's not pleasurable to me as when you're writing fiction. It is free flowing, and you don't have to do what anyone else tells you to do, which is the beauty of fiction.”
Regardless, she’s still grateful for what Star Trek has afforded her
“It allowed me then to have a fan base, which has been really helpful because then it's … if they liked that episode, then you're gonna like my heartfelt fantasy stories. So, it has helped in that regard.
“I've been watching some of the new series. I really like Christopher Pike.”
Lambdin will be reading a horror story at the Wichita Public Library as part of a spooky literature event on October 24 at 7 p.m.
