has been active in filking for over twenty-five years. She started by running the Boskone filksings, especially the group singing, then progressed to judging its filk contests and contributing to its NESFA Hymnal, Volume 2. By 1987, she was a concom member, organising the filk program for Boskone.
Since 1990, Lois been one of the dynamos of M.A.S.S. F.I.L.C. She is the most effective recruiter of new members and has done a three-year stint as its president. She has helped with many other activities, including hosting monthly meetings, collating the M.A.S.S. F.I.L.C. songbooks and continuing her activities of leadership and encouragement at M.A.S.S. F.I.L.C. housefilks all over eastern New England. She served on the ConCertino concom for four cons including acting as Chair in 2003. Her activities also extend to working on filk programming for Noreascon 3 and Noreascon 4.
At Boston area conventions, Lois runs hymnal filksings and rounds singing. Both of these have been a fixture of local SF musical programming for some time, and regularly bring new people into filk. Lois herself sang as a member of “Critical Mass” a filk group that performed in the early 1990’s.
Lois has promoted filk outside the filk community to science fiction groups, and even to folk groups. She defended filk and spoke on its behalf to the New England Science Fiction Association (NESFA), at a time when filk was out of favour. The New England Folk Festival (NEFFA) was initially quite against the idea of filk at the annual festival, but Lois was able to persuade them that filk was truly a long established form of folk music for Science Fiction and Fantasy and to schedule a science fiction folk music event. She then led it, creating handouts, scheduling performers, and acting as Mistress of Ceremonies. NEFFA continues to include filk on its program.
As a recruiter of new filkers, she will patiently explain filking to any and all. She is the embodiment of a filk ambassador. She has a persistent yet gentle style of getting people involved and her enthusiasm is contagious. She is a formidable force for filking. Sing somebody a filk song, and you entertain them for a few minutes… if you’re lucky. Make somebody a filker, and you keep them, and other filkers, entertained for the rest of their life.
For these contributions to filk music and the filk community, Lois Mangan is inducted into the Filk Hall of Fame this first day of April, Two Thousand and Six.
Photo credit: Paul Mangan, 1994
RIP 2008