As we launch the New Utah Fan Culture podcast and blog, already known fangirl KellieAnn Halvorsen (former host of KSL’s Fan Effect podcast) continues her work diving into Utah’s vibrant geek scene! And this time, she is dragging some friends along with her. In this fandom-filled adventure, we introduce our Co-host, Chris Graham — a Tolkien superfan, Dune enthusiast, and Virginia transplant.

Chris shares his journey from Middle-earth through the diverse world of Utah fan culture, and prepping for FanX Salt Lake Comic & Pop Culture Convention 2026. He opens up about the connections, creativity, and community he’s found along the fandom way.

From his love of “The Hobbit“ and “The Lord of the Rings“ (this fantasy world led him to his bride!) to his first encounters with local conventions like LTUE and StoryCon. He also touches on how “Tiny Toons” helped him discover his passion for music, including his longtime love for the quirky alt-rock band, proving that his geeky interests go far beyond books and conventions.

Whether you’re gearing up for FanX or just want to nerd out with fellow fans, this episode is your backstage pass to the fun, surprisingly welcoming, and sometimes wonderfully weird world of Utah fandom.

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Overview:

• ​Host KellieAnn Halvorsen welcomes co-host and guest Chris Graham, and we get to know him through his fandom journey from Virginia to Utah, Tolkien to Tiny Toons, and the connections he has made along the way.
• The conversation highlights how KellieAnn found joy and inspiration in the story of DC Comics Supergirl, and how you can be scared and bold at the same time.  
• Both speakers reflect on how fandoms and pop culture have provided personal inspiration, growth, and connection in surprising ways.
• They invite listeners to participate in Utah’s fan culture by attending events like the upcoming FanX Salt Lake Comic & Pop Culture Convention 2026, and sharing the joy of their fandoms with others.
  

Transcript:

**KellieAnn Halvorsen:**

Hi, I’m KellieAnn Halvorsen. Welcome to our [Utah Fan Culture podcast](https://UtahFanCulture.com/).

I’m so excited to be launching this. We did a soft launch back in July with (Young Washington), but now we’re a little further ahead and we’re getting ready for [FanX](https://fanxsaltlake.com/).

So, I’m really trying to put out a little bit every week or so.

And one thing I love about fan culture here in Utah is how open and inviting it is, even though it does come to two big extremes. You have these very conservative, traditional arts and creativity, as well as this counter-cultural, wild, loud, against-all-that stuff, and it all comes together in this beautiful place that is Utah. So, we also have, like, awesome cosplaying opportunities, great film venues, and things like that. So, I thought a good way to kind of introduce the show, and to bring it in, is to talk a little bit about how these fan cultures impact us. And so, you have me—Utah’s fangirl, KellieAnn Halvorsen—and then we have someone who’s come here from a different state, my friend Chris Graham. We’re going to get to know him a little bit more today.

​

[00:01:15]

**KellieAnn Halvorsen:**

When did you move here to Utah, and where from?

​

[00:01:18]

**Chris Graham:**

Well, I was here in the mid-2000s when I was at school, so that was my first exposure. But, again, that was very college-based, which I think—I mean, it is a part of the culture—but also it’s like this sort of separate world to itself in a lot of ways, right? So, but then I moved back out here in 2018. So, it’s been about eight years or so that I’ve been here.

​

[00:01:48]

**KellieAnn Halvorsen:**

And you came from Virginia, right? People watching Young Washington know that’s where you were from.

​

[00:01:53]

**Chris Graham:**

Absolutely, yeah. So, I’m born and raised in Virginia, so I got that East Coast vibe. And—but yeah—so, coming here, I definitely, since moving out in 2018, this has been the time where I’ve experienced the Utah fan culture much more intensely and broadly, I think—you know—because I’ve now been to lots of different events up and down the state, you know: [FanX](https://fanxsaltlake.com/) being the biggest, but also all the other kinds of gaming and Ren fairs, and various writing genres, and everything.

​

[00:02:38]

**KellieAnn Halvorsen:**

Oh, yeah—the [Life, the Universe, and Everything](https://ltue.net/); [StoryCon](https://storymakersguild.org/conference/); all these different things. Were you surprised how creative and kind of fan-focused Utah was when you got here?

​

[00:02:49]

**Chris Graham:**

Yeah, I was—I didn’t know that there was this much fan culture, and also just the diversity of fan culture, right? Like, it’s not just your—the big ones, right?—that everyone, you know: *Star Trek*, *Star Wars*.

​

[00:03:07]

**KellieAnn Halvorsen:**

*Star Wars* is often—like, there’s many studies that show that we’re, like, the biggest nerds when it comes to *Star Wars*. Yeah. Well, you have those salt flats and all these beautiful places to do cosplay and everything.

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[00:03:18]

**Chris Graham:**

It’s true. So, yeah—no—but it’s not just those; it’s all sorts of niche areas and people into all sorts of stuff.

​

[00:03:30]

**KellieAnn Halvorsen:**

Oh, I love it. Well—and if you know me—so I actually hosted and produced [Fan Effect with KSL](https://kslnewsradio.com/category/fan-effect/) for many years, and now I’m moving on to this project. So, what I would like to do is to introduce people, outside of the state and within the state, to different fandoms, to different fans, to events, and everything like that, with kind of a Utah spin. We are uniquely Utah here; it’s a bit different. And so, that’s one thing I wanted to do here. And one of my favorite FanX panels I’ve ever done at my time with KSL with Fan Effect was one where we actually—it was “What’s your favorite fandom and why?”—and we kind of compared it to the *Spider-Man* movie with canon events, like you can’t mess up the canon events or anything like that, as well as some of the other ones, and those events that kind of change you. And one thing I talked about was how, in my late 20s, I was really struggling—I had kind of left a group of friends, I was changing careers, I was really dealing with some medical stuff. And it was when the CW *Supergirl* was out. And one thing that really stuck to me was the difference of being scared and being brave. In the first season, one thing that is said was, “Scared is how you’re feeling, and brave is what you’re doing.” And that’s something that really hit me at that time—it’s okay to be afraid, but you still got to be brave and do it anyway. And right now, in the past few months, as I’ve switched from a career in the newsroom to my work as a massage therapist and a creative here, I’ve really had that going in my head a lot. It’s like, “Okay, then do it scared.” It’s okay to do things scared. And so, I think, for me, that’s one of those fandoms and those fan canon moments that’s really helped me to move forward. And that is something I spoke about at that FanX panel. And so, people kind of know me a bit from my time at KSL and my different postings. I thought we’d get a little about you today—what got you into fandoms, and what your favorite fandoms are.

​

[00:05:45]

**Chris Graham:**

Sure. Well, I think, you know, the first one—and the one that’s been sort of with me my whole life now—is Tolkien, and being just very much influenced by him; not just the writings, but also him as a person and the way he approached life and things, you know. Yeah, so I think it’s one of those things where I was slightly exposed to it as a younger kid through, like, the Rankin/Bass cartoons.

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[00:06:23]

**KellieAnn Halvorsen:**

Yeah, we’ve watched that together for—yeah, you and your wife and everything. It’s been really fun.

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[00:06:28]

**Chris Graham:**

It’s great. Yeah, no—so that is a great intro. And also, we had those little record player things that you could—you would, like, read the storybook and listen to the record, and it was the Rankin/Bass, but it was just in book form. So, actually, that was where I got most of my exposure to it as a younger kid. And then, it was just a book report that came along in—I guess it was seventh grade—and happened to be on the list of approved books that we could pick from.

​

[00:07:01]

**KellieAnn Halvorsen:**

I did that in seventh grade too! Yeah, that’s when I actually read The Hobbit.

​

[00:07:05]

**Chris Graham:**

You know, so many people, though, that I’ve come across in this fandom learned about it because of a parent or, especially, like, siblings.

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[00:07:14]

**KellieAnn Halvorsen:**

Which is where I learned—my dad is a huge Tolkien head, even before the movies and everything. I grew up on, you know, the illustrated books and hearing about *The Lord of the Rings*. Our dog was named Strider after Aragorn and, you know, we were huge *Lord of the Rings* people.

​

[00:07:30]

**Chris Graham:**

But, see, for me, I was the oldest of my siblings and my parents had no idea about it. So, like, it really became kind of my thing. You know, and, in fact, at the time, you know, so I read *The Hobbit*, and then it said at the end of the book—it was like, “If you like this, you should read *The Lord of the Rings*. There’s more.” And when I finally went to my middle school library, the books—the *Lord of the Rings* books—were there, but they were down in this bottom corner, in this dusty little part, that it looked like nobody had been to in a while. I remember pulling them out almost like they’re these old tomes and blowing the dust off. And I think, in fact, the last time somebody had checked it out had been years before. So, because this was before the movies had come out, *Lord of the Rings* was not the cultural thing it is now.

​

[00:08:28]

**KellieAnn Halvorsen:**

It’s huge now.

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[00:08:29]

**Chris Graham:**

It’s totally immersed the culture. But then, you know, I mean, it had a moment in the ’60s after they were first written, where it kind of became this cultural thing, but then it had spent 20, 25 years or so not really like…

​

[00:08:45]

**KellieAnn Halvorsen:**

Do you think that’s why my dad and my uncles really enjoyed it, and most everyone kind of faded off? But, like, no—my dad kept on about that Lord of the Rings.

​

[00:08:55]

**Chris Graham:**

Um, so I was really lucky to have found it at that time, where it really felt like I was discovering this manuscript, right? And, like, going, “This is an amazing story!” And I would tell people, “Have you heard of this? Have you heard of this?” And so many people were like, “No,” or “I guess I kind of have heard of that,” but, like, nobody anyway. So, it was my thing. I loved it. I fell in love with it, started reading it, you know, over and over. And then—um—the impact that it’s had on me has been—it’s, you know—first of all, Tolkien, of course, is a lover of language, and it’s gotten me really interested in language and the structure of how language comes about. Being so interested in the history of Middle-earth has also made me very interested in the history of real Earth—you know, our world.

​

[00:09:52]

**KellieAnn Halvorsen:**

We’re both history nerds. I can’t remember things, but he does, so I just ask him.

​

[00:09:57]

**Chris Graham:**

And then, you know, the morality in it, too—you know, like, there’s a lot of great lessons about, you know, what a good person can do in the world to make a difference and change the world, and ways to sort of accept the things we can’t change, right? And change the things we can. And there are so many good little lessons all throughout it. So, for those reasons, yeah, I think that’s stuck with me so much and…

—

**Links to referenced events and shows:**

– [Utah Fan Culture podcast](https://kslnewsradio.com/category/podcasts/)

– [Fan Effect with KSL](https://kslnewsradio.com/category/fan-effect/)

– [FanX Salt Lake Comic Convention](https://fanxsaltlake.com/)

– [Life, the Universe, & Everything (LTUE) Symposium](https://ltue.net/)

– [StoryCon / Storymakers Conference](https://storymakersguild.org/conference/)