A couple of months ago, I was contacted by Cody L. Martin, a contributing writer for the website ingenre.com, to write a short essay for their month-long tribute to Gene Roddenberry and his work on Star Trek, in commemoration of what would have been the 92nd birthday of the Great Bird of the Galaxy.

Because Star Trek has not only been very good to me professionally but also quite important to me on a personal level, I enthusiastically agreed.

Over the past few weeks, InGenre has posted several essays by a number of folks; mine is the last of them, the final essay in the Week Four roundup.

My friend and fellow Star Trek wordslinger Dayton Ward published this rundown of the essays on his blog, The Fog of Ward:

Week 1: Cody L. Martin; Elizabeth Delana Rosa

Week 2: Valerie Douglas; Karen A. Wyle; Dayton Ward

Week 3: Jacqueline Driggers; L. Anne Wooley; Dan Peyton

Week 4: Cassidy Frazee; R.K. Wigal; David Mack

My essay is entitled simply, “What Star Trek Means to Me,” and here is a small excerpt:

“Star Trek presents a vision of a future in which humanity has been tested in the cruelest ways possible, and the Earth has endured horrors worse even than those that marked the darkest chapters of the mid-twentieth century. Despite those setbacks, the human race emerged united into a brighter future, one in which it set aside childish things—racism, sexism, nationalism, prejudice, partisanship, greed, and selfishness. In my opinion, this was Gene Roddenberry’s crowning achievement as an artist: He gave us all hope that we could improve as a species and as a civilization by showing us what it would like if we did. He dared us to imagine a future in which—through peace, fellowship, and cooperation—humanity could achieve wonders.”

My thanks go out to Cody and to InGenre.com for letting me have this opportunity to express my gratitude to Star Trek for all that it has given not just to me, but to all of us, over the past forty-plus years.