Welcome to the FOAFtale News - the newsletter of the International Society for Contemporary Legend Research (ISCLR). The idea behind putting FTN on-line was to reach out to a number of our former subscribers, keeping them abreast of what ISCLR was still doing, as well as encouraging new subscribers to the society.

We are always encouraging new members to join our society, as well as those members who have let their subscriptions lapse. We have posted an up-to-date membership subscription form with our latest rates for personal, institutional and student memberships. All you have to do is click here, print out the form and send it, along with your payment, to the addresses on the form. We are hoping, in the near future, to be able to accept credit cards, but until then all payments must be made in cash, cheque or money/postal order form. Membership also includes subscription to our annual journal, Contemporary Legend and members are able to vote at Society meetings and hold Society office.

FoafTale News (FTN) is the newsletter of the International Society for Contemporary Legend Research.  We study "modern" and "urban" legends, and also any legend circulating actively.  FoafTale News is indexed in the MLA Bibliography.

This newsletter is called FoafTale News for the jocular term current among legend scholars for over twenty years.  The term "foaf" was introduced by Rodney Dale (in his 1978 book, The Tumour in the Whale) for an oft-attributed but anonymous source of contemporary legends: a "friend of a friend."  Dale pointed out that contemporary legends always seemed to be about someone just two or three steps from the teller -  a boyfriend's cousin, a co-worker's aunt, or a neighbor of the teller's mechanic.  "Foaf" became a popular term at the Sheffield legend conferences in the 1980s.   It was only a short step to the pun "foaftale," a step taken by a yet-anonymous wag. 

FoafTale News welcomes contributions, including those documenting legends' travels on electronic media and in the press.  All research notes and articles are copyright by the individual authors who reserve all rights.  For permission to reprint, contact them at the addresses given in the headnote of the article. Send queries, notices, and research reports to a maximum of 3000 words to the Editor;  clippings, offprints, and citations are also encouraged. 

Contributions to FoafTale News should be in a format that will easily be slotted into the newsletter.  Queries, acknowledgements, observations, "sightings" and bibliographic references are all welcome.  They should be written as textual notes in a form that will need little editing for publication.  Contributions should include the writer's name and address;  an email address can be included if one is available. The editor reserves the right to cut or change for brevity, clarity and the newsletter's style, but published text will remain as close as possible to the author's text.   Emailed text can be sent as straight ASCII or as an attachment file. Please do not embed footnotes and endnotes in your text.  FoafTale News can handle (rare) footnotes but, if citations are necessary,  the preferred method is short in-text citations with a full bibliographic citation at the end.

The opinions expressed in FoafTale News are those of the authors and do not in any necessary way represent those of the editor, the contributing compilers, the International Society for the Study of Contemporary Legends, its Council, or its members.

Editor: Ian Brodie

Email: ian_brodie@cbu.ca
Dept. of History and Culture, Cape Breton University
Sydney, Nova Scotia, B1P 6L2 CANADA
Phone 902-563-1418

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