found Science Fiction Fandom in 1980 when he attended Noreascon II, the 1980 WorldCon, in Boston. Soon afterwards, he attended his second convention, Boskone, where he discovered filk in February 1981.
It can be said that Steven Joel is the heart of the Baltimore-Washington area filk community. He started as assistant to filk activity at Balticon in 1991, and took it over in 1994; he has a talent for finding the perfect guests for each year. His filk track is held in high esteem by other programming heads. He built a strong filk following within the convention and passed it with loving hands to his successor. He is widely connected in the overall fan community, and he is not afraid to recruit any of those he does know for filk’s benefit. He is also is an incurable filk SMOF, and will share his extensive experience with filk and/or convention running, giving the slightest hint. His advice has been highly valued by the organizing committees of Conterpoint.
After years of being one of its staunchest supporters, in 2012 Steven Joel was added to the Interfilk Board as “second/spouse” to the Midwest Director. He has been a long time Interfilk supporter and willingly participates as a “mensch”. Together with his lovely wife, France, he has played host to many traveling filkers, providing a place to stay, a tour guide, or just a shoulder to lean on. They have also opened their house for house filks. He does a lot of un-credited work providing transport, hauling instruments, running errands for forgotten items, finding specialty diet foods, and entertaining and feeding children while parents are rehearsing. He spends at least one third of every convention helping with the mundane things no one really notices need doing. They can even be accused of raising another generation of filkers. Along with France, Steven Joel was a much appreciated Interfilk Guest at Conflikt in 2008.
He insists he is not a performer and, in fact, he insists that tunes have been known to produce power drills out of thin air to escape from the bucket he uses to carry them. He is encouraging to newcomers as well as excellent at making sure we don’t forget the classics. He’s also a funny, intelligent and approachable filk ambassador who is always willing to talk to the curious, sometimes at length. His strengths are in lore, offering years of recollections of filk and cons. Often, if someone was asked something by a newbie, the strategy was to say, “Why don’t you talk to Steven Joel about that?”, and then to hand them over graciously to a longer memory, and wider knowledge.
For these contributions to filk music and the filk community, Steven Joel Zeve is inducted into the Filk Hall of Fame this eighteenth day of April, two thousand fifteen.