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Who's Coming

We are unable to accept any new program participant requests for Balticon 44. Please contact us in the fall to let us know you would like to be a program participant for Balticon 45. Thank you!

Click below for brief biographical information for program participants.

Click the links in the bios for the latest exploits of our program participants.

Webgoblins are working away, getting the list of program participants updated. Here are the confirmed participants as of 3/23/2010.

Ackley-McPhail, Danielle

Adler-Golden, Lisa

Bailey, Marc "Grailwolf"

Barrientos, Brick

Campbell, Jack (John Hemry)

DeCandido, Keith R. A.

Carriger, Gail

Chambers, James

Chase, Robert R.

Cipra, Carl

Cmar, John

Comic Book Goddess

Conderacci, Lee

Corvidae, Elaine

Cotman, Elwin

Cox, Caroline

Crist, Vonnie Winslow

Critzer, Michael

Critzer, Scarlett

D'Alessio, Charlene Taylor

Drey, Mychalus

Feld, Harold

Fleischer, Eric "Dr. Gandalf"

Flynn, Billy

Forbes, David

Fortuner, Kimberly A.

Fratz, Donald Douglas

French, John L.

Gendron, Darren "Dern" J.

Gideon, Thomas "cmdln"

Gilman, Laura Anne

Ginter, Erica V. D.

Gittlen, Barry M.

Goldberg, Richard

Gorman, Sarah

Greenman, Irina

Greene, Nancy O.

Griswold-Ford, Valerie

de Guardiola, Susan

Harknell

Harmon, Kelly A.

Hemry, John (Jack Campbell)

Henderson, C. J.

Hodges, Larry

Holderman, Daniel-Gary

Izenberg, Noam

Jaworski, Dion

Jaxton, Paulette

Kallick, Seth

Katz, Robert I.

Kim the Comic Book Goddess

Kimball, Eric

Kondo, Dr. Beatrice

Koscienski, Brian

Krulik, Theodore

Livengood, ScienceTim

Lowell, Nathan

Lunetta, Julia

Lurie, Perrianne

Lyman, Jeffrey

Martin, Gail Z.

Oszko, Lance

Petrini, Catherine M.

Prellwitz, Pete

Pisano, Chris

Podcasting's Rich Sigfrit

Reitz, Sr., Daniel J.

Render, Angela

Ridenour, Ray

Roberts, Mandee Ferrier

Rogow, Roberta

Ross, Jennifer

Saboe, Linda

Saunders, Lyle

Schiller, Lauren

Shubert, Andrea Jennifer

Sigfrit, Podcasting's Rich

Spieker, Heiko

Stevens, Wendy Hellier

Stiles, Elaine

Talbot, Major Thomas

Warner, Brent

Wilson, D.C.

If you would like to become a Balticon program participant, contact the department head in your area of interest or send your inquiry to our general information (Contact Us) mailbox. See the bottom of this page for some email links.

What is expected of program participants?

We ask Balticon program participants to:

Commit, if at all possible, to at least 1 program hour (a program hour is 50 minutes) per day of convention attendance. (There are, of course exceptions. If you are preparing an extensive half-day workshop, a dance or other event that requires significant amounts of advance preparation, you may not have time or energy for anything else!);

Let us know if there are technical requirements for your presentation such as a projection screen, a 40-inch monitor, or a sound system;

Show up where scheduled to appear a few minutes early and be ready to start on time when the door closes;

End appearances at scheduled times to facilitate getting attendees and other participants into and out of the rooms with a minimum of chaos;

Bear in mind that everyone (including all staff and BSFS officers) who works at Balticon is a volunteer and be kind -- they are working hard to make this event a success for everyone!

What's in it for me?

Program participants:

Receive a complimentary membership to Balticon;

Can purchase a membership for one SO, life partner, or traveling companion for one half the lowest published membership rate for the Balticon to be attended. [$24 for B44];

Can purchase children's memberships for the participant's eligible minor children at one half the lowest published children's membership membership rate for the Balticon to be attended. [$12 for B44];

Are invited to rest, recoup, snack and meet other participants as well as our Guests of Honor in the Balticon Green Room;

Will have an opportunity to meet and greet other participants, Guests of Honor and Balticon attendees during "Friday Face Time" on Friday evening at "Meet the Artists" in the Art Show, "Meet the Guests" in Frankie and Vinnie's (the Con Suite) and "Meet the Scientists" in Salon A (the Science Program room);

Acquire fame, adoration and undying devotion from Balticon attendees;

And can filch homemade chocolate chip cookies and other home baked goodies from the volunteer desk.

Participant Biographical Information

Index of Participant Biographical Information.
Biographical info is indexed alphabetically by Guest's last name.

XYZ


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Ackley-McPhail, Danielle

Award-winning author Danielle Ackley-McPhail has worked both sides of the publishing industry for over fifteen years. Her works include the urban fantasies, Yesterday's Dreams, Tomorrow's Memories, and The Halfling's Court: A Bad-Ass Faerie Tale. She has edited the Bad-Ass Faeries anthology series, and No Longer Dreams, and has contributed to numerous other anthologies and collections, including Dark Furies, Breach the Hull, So It Begins, Space Pirates, Barbarians at the Jumpgate, and New Blood.

She is a member of The Garden State Horror Writers and Broad Universe, a writer's organization focusing on promoting the works of women authors in the speculative genres.

Danielle lives somewhere in New Jersey with husband and fellow writer, Mike McPhail, mother-in-law Teresa, and three extremely spoiled cats. She can be found on LiveJournal (damcphail), Facebook (Danielle Ackley-McPhail), and Twitter (DMcPhail).

Addams, Jhada Rogue

Jhada Rogue Addams has always gravitated toward the psychologically spooky or ghoulish. It's a feature that she's proud to have received from her sainted mother who passed away in early 2009. Having grown up with a mother that had started reading Poe at age four, Jhada was honored to have a weird headed, at times, mom. She has had no formal training/education in writing and is pretty much a self starter. She currently lives in Alexandria, Virginia with a union Ironworker and two cats that seem hellbent on destroying her entire apartment and taking over the world - one stuffed mouse at a time.

It Never Ends (Soylent Publications) is her first novel.

Adler-Golden, Lisa

Lisa Adler-Golden has been distracted by many things, but is really a scientist at heart. She spends far too long on the internet and enjoys all things fannish, up to and including Harry Potter legal cases.

Alama, Pauline J.

Pauline J. Alama's fantasy novel THE EYE OF NIGHT (Bantam Spectra 2002) was a finalist for the Compton Crook Award. She has also published stories in numerous anthologies, most recently THE TROUBLE WITH HEROES (DAW 2009). A lapsed medieval scholar, she was driven out of the academy for her controversial theory of the Klingon origin of Beowulf. She is seeking an agent for her second novel, THE GHOST-BEARERS.

Alexander, Tristan

Tristan Alexander is a 53-year-old artist who has done art for many fanzines and for the SCA (Society for Creative Anachronism, Inc.), a nonprofit medieval recreation organization. He has sold at many East Coast cons for the past 24 years and this will be his 24th Balticon. He has done art panels on various subjects related to fantasy art at the past 6 Balticons. He is well known for his semi-erotic males and his illustrative style. He lives in Westminster, MD with his husband of 24 years and six cats.

Ashmead, John

John Ashmead has worked as an assistant editor for Isaac Asimov's SF Magazine and has been involved with Philadelphia SF for many, many moons. He now makes his living as a computer consultant, making sure you get your bills and commercial on time (no thanks necessary; the work is its own reward). He is also writing a book about debugging software: "Zen and the Art of Debugging". He has a BA from Harvard and a master's from Princeton, both in physics. He is currently working on getting a doctorate in physics. But his life's ambition is to create a really practical time machine.

Ashton, Lisa

Lisa Ashton is a local costumer, well-known to Balticon. She loves beads and beading, quilting, embroidery, and in mundane life, hunting, gardening, and having a clean house. Her most recent costume at Arisia 2010 combined several of these loves as the "Victorian Lady's Game Hunting Costume". She now has an expanding late Victorian wardrobe, for those elegant occasions.

Axelrod, Jared

Jared Axelrod is an author, an illustrator, a graphic designer, a podcaster and quite a few other things that he's lost track of but will no doubt remember when the situation calls for it. He is the writer and producer of three science-fiction podcasts, The Voice Of Free Planet X and the serials Aliens You Will Meet and Fables of the Flying City. For more information about those podcasts, as well as Axelrod himself, his website is place to look. He is not domestic, he is a luxury, and in that sense, necessary.


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Bailey, Marc "Grailwolf"

Marc Bailey (aka "Grailwolf") is the host of the Grailwolf's Geek Life podcast, in which he discusses science fiction, fantasy, horror, gadgets, and other aspects of the current Geek Renaissance. He is also an editor and forum moderator for TV.com and has done voice acting for the podcast dramas Metamor City, Morevi Remastered, and The Empress Sword, and has appeared in episodes of Form Letter Rejection Theatre and Transmissions From Beyond. He has been on sabbatical for most of 2009 due to the birth of his son, the Grailpup, who is quickly becoming more well known than he is.

Ballantine, Philippa

Philippa Ballantine is a writer and podcaster from Wellington, New Zealand. She has had two books published with DragonMoon Press - Chasing the Bard and Digital Magic. Chasing the Bard in its podcast version won a Sir Julius Vogel award. She is also the host of Erotica a la Carte, a speculative fiction erotica podcast that was Short listed for best anthology in the 2009 Parsecs. Pip recently signed a two book deal with Ace, and the first of which Geist, is coming November 2010.

Bekemeyer, Michele

As a native Floridian, Michele Bekemeyer spent the majority of her youth out of the heat and inside where the air was cool and she didn't have to worry about sunburns. While most of her friends were outside, she could be found with her nose in between the pages of a book.

Still, it took her awhile to realize that she didn't just love reading, she loved writing; loved the idea that the characters she connected with were born from a tiny little spot inside someone's brain. From truly awful poetry came short stories, then screenplays, and eventually, novels.

Michele recently finished podcasting Trapping a Duchess, her first Regency-era romance novel and is currently in a state of frenzied writing on the second book in the series.

Blackwell, J. R.

J.R. Blackwell is a writer and photographer. Her stories have been published by Aoife's Kiss, Kaleidotrope, Bewildering Stories, Static Movement Magazine, EMG Magazine, HeavyGlow Magazine and in the first Podiobook anthology Voices: New Media Fiction. She is one of the founding members of 365tomorrows DOT com, which produces a new piece of science fiction daily.

J.R. has produced the covers to the Anthology Voices: New Media Fiction the novel Playing for Keeps. She has also produced the cover artwork for novels The Case of the Singing Sword and Pitchers Pendant, both by Tee Morris. Her photography has been featured in SubLit Magazine and Flames Rising.

J.R. holds a Masters of Liberal Arts from the University of Pennsylvania.

Brio, Alessia

Alessia Brio is the sexy, erotica-writing alter ego of a frumpy Appalachian soccer mom. In addition, she is a cover artist, editor of the Coming Together charity anthology series, self-publisher, ebook enthusiast, and all-purpose rabble rouser.

Ms. Brio lives in the mountains near Pittsburgh and is barefoot as much as life allows. She has an obsessive aversion to "to be" verbs in her prose and gets aroused by creative enjambment in her poetry. Her fetishes include SuDoku, rare steak, stainless steel, and office supplies. You can visit her online.

Burke, Stephanie "Flash"

Stephanie "Flash" Burke is a multi-published, multi-award-winning wife and mother of two, known for her love of the outrageous, strong female characters, believable worlds, male characters filled with depth, and interracial fiction that make the reader sit up and take notice. She currently writes for Changeling Press, Ellora's Cave and Loose-ID Press. From sex-shifting, shape-shifting dragons to undersea worlds to sexually confused elemental fey and homoerotic mysteries to pastel-challenged urban sprites, Stephanie has done it all, and hopes to do more.

Stephanie is co-founder of the charitable organization Write 4 Hope, an orator on writing and world building, a sometimes teacher (when you feed her enough coffee and donuts), an anime nut, a costumer, and a frequent guest of sci-fi and writing cons where she can be found leading panels or researching legends and theories to improve her writing skills.

Burns, Laura

Laura A. Burns has been a space enthusiast her entire life. She has worked as an engineer with various NASA contractors for over a decade. She worked on the James Webb Space Telescope, a new Landsat Satellite. Most recently she has been working on several small class missions called Explorers. During the summer of 2007, she spent 9 weeks in Beijing, China at the International Space University. She regularly attends space conferences and enjoys speaking to the public on space related topics. She tweets about space and science at moonrangerlaura. In addition to her interest in space, she is a long time science fiction and fantasy fan, podcast listener, board game player, board game player, and an avid book collector. Laura has contributed to several podcasts and is also the head of the Parsec Awards Steering Committee.


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Campbell, Jack

See Hemry, John

Carriger, Gail

Gail Carriger began writing in order to cope with being raised in obscurity by an expatriate Brit and an incurable curmudgeon. She escaped small town life and inadvertently acquired several degrees in Higher Learning. Ms. Carriger then traveled the historic cities of Europe, subsisting entirely on biscuits secreted in her handbag. She now resides in the Colonies, surrounded by fantastic shoes, where she insists on tea imported directly from London. Her Parasol Protectorate books include: Soulless (Oct. 2009), Changeless (March 2010), and Blameless (September 2010). Soulless won the ALA's Alex Award. Wearing other hats (neither pith helmet nor fedora) she tromps the highlands of Peru excavating pottery, and writes cryptic reviews of YA novels for the Horn Book Guide.

Chambers, James

James Chambers' tales of horror, fantasy, and science fiction have appeared in Bad-Ass Faeries, Breach the Hull, Dark Furies, The Dead Walk, Hardboiled Cthulhu, No Longer Dreams, So It Begins, and the magazines Bare Bone, Cthulhu Sex, and Allen K's Inhuman. He is also the author of The Midnight Hour: Saint Lawn Hill and Other Tales. His new short story collection, Resurrection House, was published by Dark Regions Press in 2009. His website is James Chambers Online.

Chase, Robert R.

Robert R. Chase is acting chief counsel of the Army Research Laboratory. He is the author of three published SF novels (The Game of Fox and Lion, Shapers, and Crucible), and about 20 shorter works which have been published in Analog and Asimov�s.

Corvidae, Elaine

Elaine Corvidae has been telling stories about faeries, elves, and dragons since she was a small child. Her dark fantasy novels have won numerous awards, including multiple Eppie Awards and Dream Realm Awards for Best Fantasy Novel. When she isn't wandering the worlds of her imagination, she live in Harrisburg, NC with her husband and several cats.

Cotman, Elwin

Elwin Cotman hails from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. In 2005 he graduated the University of Pittsburgh with a degree in English Writing, and since then has done readings across the country. He is known for his dynamic reading style. His work has been published in the Front Weekly, Outsider Ink, The Fairfield Review, the Writers on the Green Line anthology and The Dirty Napkin. In March 2010 he released his first book, The Jack Daniels Sessions EP, a collection of contemporary fantasy. It is currently available through Six Gallery Press.

Cox, Caroline

Caroline Cox is a PhD astronomer, educator, and astronomy education consultant. She was a research assistant professor of astronomy at the University of Virginia, where she studied galaxies and clusters of galaxies and taught introductory astronomy classes. Then she was an astronomy education specialist at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, where she helped develop educational materials for the "Explore the Universe" exhibit. She currently teaches high school physics and astrophysics. She has co-written four science humor articles for the "Annals of Improbable Research".

Crist, Vonnie Winslow

Vonnie Winslow Crist, MS Professional Writing, BS Art-Ed, Towson University, is a contributor to Faerie Magazine and the "Writer's Block", a columnist for Harford's Heart Magazine, an illustrator for The Vegetarian Journal, and editor of The Gunpowder Review. Three of her sf/f eShorts are currently available from Echelon Press. Her writing has either recently been published by or is scheduled to appear in: Tales of the Talisman, Champagne Shivers, Paper Crow, Scifaifuest, Cemetary Moon, Ensorcelled Magazine, EMG-Zine, Aoife's Kiss, Dia de los Muertos, Seastories-2009 Hibernal Issue, The Welter, spacewesterns.com (item #25), and other periodicals. A former creative writing instructor, Vonnie is the author-illustrator of two poetry collections, Essential Fables and River of Stars, and a children's book, Leprechaun Cake & Other Tales. Among her editorial projects are the anthologies Lower Than the Angels and Through a Glass Darkly (Lite Circle Books) and Late Knocking-The Poe Issue. Follow her online at her blog, Whimsical Words.

Critzer, Michael See NexGen Pulp Fiction

Critzer, Scarlett See NexGen Pulp Fiction

D'Alessio, Charlene Taylor

Charlene Taylor D'Alessio has been illustrating the fantasy and science fiction genre for over 25 years. She is known for her exquisite painted ties, humorous fantasy paintings of cats, dragons, owls and hamsters, and miniature astronomical pieces. Her latest published piece is "Merlin's Dilemma", pubished as a 1000-piece puzzle. Currently she is illustrating a children's book in progress. Look for Charlene's artwork at most sci-fi con art shows.


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Day, Marty

Coming out of his home base in Charm City, Marty has been making his name known in nerd circles and geek cliques since 2006. Breaking in with his award nominated webcomics Dead of Summer and Art Fight High School, he's continued to build his internet empire with the celebrated "geek culture" blog Blast-O-Rama.

If that wasn't enough, he also serves as co-host for the super popular live art competition Super Art Fight (www.SuperArtFight.com) and his writing can frequently be found in B, the Baltimore Sun's pop-culture off-shoot paper.

Dee, Sheila

Sheila Dee is an educator, photographer, and podcaster. She has been podcasting since February 2006 originally on Dragon Page With Class. Currently, she takes a beating participates is involved in co-hosts Evo@11.

Sheila strives to learn something new everyday! She writes curriculum for a University and has written three teacher guides for various authors. Sheila holds a Masters degree in Curriculum, Instruction, & Design.

Photography has held her interest since she was small (no jokes about her height). This year she had a photo published in a magazine and will have her first gallery showing. You can see some of her work on her blog, On the Creative Side. She tends to see things from different angles.

de Guardiola, Susan See this bio under the "G" listings.

DeSmedt, Bill

Bill DeSmedt has spent his life living by his wits and his words. In his time, and as the spirit has moved him, he's been: a Kremlinologist and Soviet exchange student, a computer programmer and system designer, a consultant to startups and the Fortune 50, an artificial intelligence researcher, an omnivorous reader with a soft spot for science fiction and science non-fiction, and now, Lord help us, a novelist. Bill's first book, Singularity, won Forward Magazine's Book of the Year Award for Science Fiction and the Independent Pubisher Group's IPPY for Best Science Fiction. The podcast of Singularity, available through Podiobooks, has gone on the be named an SFFaudio Essential, while Bill himself has gone on to writing a sequel, Dualism.

Downing, Patrick

Patrick Downing, a filmmaker/musician from Montreal, Quebec, grew up in Calgary, Alberta where he spent his formative adult years performing rock music with his bands "A Team" and the "Dudes". After being kicked out of university for paying no attention to his studies, he attended and completed the Vancouver Film School's foundation film program. Recording and touring left little time for much in the way of film creation until he finally parted ways (sort of) with loud guitars and moved to Montreal. There, he became the technical director of independent alternative venue Theatre Ste. Catherines, and found himself immersed in the dramatic universe. This led to a partnership with the theatre owner, close-friend and producer Eric Amber, and they threw themselves earnestly into the world of motion pictures. I Heart Doomsday (2009) is Patrick's first dramatic feature. His second feature project will go into production in early spring 2010.

Doyle, Tom

Tom Doyle writes in a spooky turret in Washington, DC. His novelette, The Wizard of Macatawa (Paradox Magazine #11), received the 2008 WSFA Small Press Award. His stories have appeared in Strange Horizons, Futurismic, Aeon, and Ideomancer. He has recently finished a contemporary fantasy novel. The text and audio of many of his stories are available online at TomDoyleWriter.

Drey, Mychalus

Drey is a member of Markland of 30 years, and one of the founding members of the Medieval Horse guild. He is s also a historical reenactor and costumer for many years with a wide range of experience doing various historical, fantasy and science fiction impressions. Has multiple college degrees, with a background in history, anthropology and advanced degrees in intellectual history and education. Currently and for the last 25 years he has worked his day job as a teacher and librarian. In his spare time he reenacts history, runs a farm breeding horses, collects historical arms, and reads voraciously.

Full time teacher, part time knight, and squire of my feudal estate.

Duncan, Allison

Allison Duncan, a.k.a "SVallie",assisted Brand Gamblin with publishing the Calls For Cthulhu web show, produced the C4C Podcast, narrated the podiobook Tumbler [by BrandG], and authored Forest of Manderk [to be podcast shortly]. She is currently working to launch 2 new podcasts: the I Should Be Narrating podcast and the Forest of Manderk podiobook.

She has done voice-work on Paulette Jaxton's podiobook The Empress Sword and in sevaral podcast promotional spots (including J.C. Hutchins), and is a recurring voice on the Quirky Nomads Podcast.

SVallie has been published in the Marine Corps Times, Stars and Stripes Online, Michael Moore's NY Times Best Seller Will They Ever Trust Us Again?, and several other smaller venues and is a NaNoWriMo 2009 Winner, a New Media maven, and a politically minded activist.

To Allison, a United States Air Force veteran, her greatest roles are as a stay at home mom to her daughter; being a partner to Brand Gamblin; and loving on her three wonderful pets.

Durham, James

James Durham, composer and Parsec-award-winning podcaster of FETIDUS (The Foundation for the Ethical Treatment of the Innocently Damned, Undead and Supernatural), lives in the DC area patiently awaiting a major zombie apocalypse. His music has played at venues like the National Cathedral in Washington, DC, to wide acclaim on the radio, in indie-film, video and dance productions. You can find out more about him online at JamesDurham and Fetidus.


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Edelman, Scott

Scott Edelman has published more than 75 short stories in magazines such as Postscripts, The Twilight Zone, Absolute Magnitude, Science Fiction Review and Fantasy Book, and in anthologies such as The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction, Crossroads, MetaHorror, Once Upon a Galaxy, Moon Shots, Mars Probes, and Forbidden Planets. He has been a Stoker Award finalist four times, in the categories of both Short Story and Long Fiction. Additionally, Edelman currently works for the SYFY Channel as the Features Editor for SCI FI Wire. He was the founding editor of Science Fiction Age, which he edited during its entire eight-year run. He has been a four-time Hugo Award finalist for Best Editor. His collection of zombie short fiction, What Will Come After, has just been released by PS Publishing.

Ellis, Christiana

Christiana Ellis is an award-winning writer and podcaster, currently living in Cary, North Carolina. Her podcast novel, Nina Kimberly the Merciless was both an inaugural nominee for the 2006 Parsec Award for Best Speculative Fiction: Long Form, as well as a finalist for a 2006 Podcast Peer Award. On May 15th, 2009, Nina Kimberly the Merciless is coming to print from Dragon Moon Press.

Christiana is also the writer, producer and star of Space Casey, a 10-part audiodrama miniseries which won the Gold Mark Time Award for Best Science Fiction Audio Production by the American Society for Science Fiction Audio and the 2008 Parsec Award for Best Science Fiction Audio Drama.

In between major projects, Christiana is also the creator and talent of many other podcast productions including Talking About Survivor, Hey, Want to Watch a Movie? and Christiana's Shallow Thoughts. She has also recently become a new co-host of sketch-comedy podcast Requiem of the Outcast.

Epsilon, Shoshana

Shoshana Epsilon is primarily a photographer in Second Life, an on-line community. She concentrates on "portrait photography" within Second Life, that is, pictures of people's avatars. She plays with various techniques within the environment, including focus, object occlusion, lighting, posing, backgrounds, sky and sun settings. Of course, there is always expression and eye contact, too, to be considered in a photograph.

Sue (Who?) Schroeder lives with her family and 2 cats in an old Victorian house that needs too much work.


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Fischer, Barb (Studio Unseen)

Studio Unseen is made up of two carbon-based creatures: Chris Impink and Barb Fischer. They recently premiered their new project, Sledgebunny: a sports-anime-inspired comic that takes place in the fast-paced world of flat track roller derby. On December 30, 2009, they closed the book on Fragile Gravity, a strip that featured independent comics, conventions, and (in an earlier arc) an invasionary force of penguins. Oh, and an extra-bitter stoat.

Barb Fischer does the writing as well as merchandise assembly and convention spotting; when not plotting out the nuts and bolts of Sledgebunny, she takes care of her nine-year-old son which gives her just enough time in the day to take one or two breaths before plunging back into the fray. At some point, she's hoping to find the time to use up the boxes and boxes of fabric she owns.

Flynn, Billy

Bill Vernon, AKA "the Wonderful Billy Flynn", brings the funny daily and Weekly on Geek Radio Daily! His daytime alter ego is mild-mannered (well, that part is a stretch) on-air talent at Real Media, Inc. Radio Stations in Virginia. He actually gets paid to sit on his butt and run his mouth! His "edumacation" is from UNC-Wilmington and the Columbia School of Broadcasting. When he is not gracing the podcasting airways with his comedic stylings, you can find Billy Flynn on Xbox Live (flynn71), rockin' out on Guitar Hero or Rock Band, watching movies, reading comics, working out, or posting on the forums at Geek Radio Daily (ding!)

Forbes, David

I was born in 1965 and have lived most of my life near Harrisburg, PA. I attended Carnegie Mellon and graduated from Penn State a degree in English. I presently work as the AVP of Marketing for a large credit union.

I've been interested in fantasy and science fiction all of my life, beginning with the original Star Trek television series. Then Star Wars came along when I was eleven and the effect was similar to what you get if you jam a lit M-80 into the middle of a peach. It changed my life.

With HarperCollins I've published three epic fantasy novels in my Osserian Saga sequence: The Amber Wizard, The Words of Making, and The Commanding Stone. My agent is presently shopping around two YA fantasy novels and I'm working on several short stories.

I'm married to a beautiful and loving woman, Kelly, a graphic designer of immense talent who has an odd fetish for print fonts. I have a son and stepson I love very much when I'm not yelling at them or resisting the urge to choke them to death for not listening after I've told them to do something for the ninety-second time.

Fortuner, Kimberly A.

(See Kim the Comic Book Goddess)

Fratz, D. Douglas

Doug Fratz has, for over 35 years, been known in the science fiction and fantasy field as a book reviewer. He currently writes for Sci-Fi Wire, on the SyFy Channel's web site. His work has appeared in Science Fiction Age, Science Fiction Eye, Fantasy Review, The Washington Post. As publisher and editor of Thrust/Quantum (1973-1993), he was nominated for five Hugo Awards. Doug began his fannish career in comics fandom in 1966, and published several well-known comics fanzines in the late 1960s and early 1970's.

In real life, Doug has been an environmental scientist serving as Vice President of Scientific and Technical Affairs for the Consumer Specialty Products Association in Washington, DC for over 30 years. He received his B.S. degree in chemistry from University of Maryland in 1974, and his M.S. degree in Environmental Science from George Washington University in 1983. He lives in Gaithersburg, Maryland, with his wife, and has two children.

Freedman, William

William Freedman is a New York-based writer of science fiction, dark fantasy and horror who injects humor, to greater or lesser degree, into his works. His novelette Forever and Ever, Amen appeared in the 2006 Spirit House chapbook and his short story Intentions is scheduled to be published this year in Ash-Tree Press's Holy Horrors anthology. He is a founding member of the LISciFi critique group and a perennial Literature-track panelist at the I-Con convention on Long Island. He holds degrees in journalism and international business, and his non-fiction work has appeared in Investor's Business Daily, Euromoney Books, Global Finance magazine, Treasury & Risk Management magazine, and many other business and financial news outlets both in print and online. Land That I Love is his first novel.


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Gamblin, Brand

Brand Gamblin worked as a video game programmer for a decade, and was the producer of the web video podcast, Calls for Cthulhu. He has written and podcast a young adult sci-fi story Tumbler and is currently working on a second novel.

Gannon, Charles E.

Dr. Charles E. Gannon is a Distinguished Professor of English (St. Bonaventure U.), a Fulbright Senior Specialist, and a member of the SIGMA SF think-tank. A collaborator on the next Starfire novel, Extremis (Baen), he has forthcoming fiction in shared universe anthologies, had novelettes in Analog, Pournelle's War World series, and the Defending the Future anthologies, and authored and edited extensively for GDW's games Traveller, and 2300 AD. His Rumors of War and Infernal Machines: Technomilitary Agenda-Setting in American and British Speculative Fiction won the 2006 ALA Award for Outstanding Nonfiction Book. With a BA from Brown, an MS from Syracuse, and an MA and a PhD from Fordham, he has been awarded Fulbrights to England, Scotland, the Czech Republic.

Chuck's TV career included writing and producing programs for the U.N., the W.H.O., and The President's Council on Physical Fitness. Now a father of four (and eternally trailing his two oldest in Shotokan Karate), he has a career that mixes full-time writing with occasional consulting (mostly for defense and intelligence entities).

Gay, Dr. Pamela L.

Dr. Pamela L. Gay received a B.S. in Astrophysis from Michigan State University and a Ph.D. in Astronomy from the University of Texas. She currently teaches at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. Focused on using new media to engage people in science and technology, Pamela's Astronomy Cast, is entering its 5th year. A 2005 project, Slacker Astronomy, combined off-beat humor with hard-core science. They produced the first peer-reviewed papers on making a podcast and finding out who is listening. (Astronomy Cast and collaborators have followed up with three more papers.)

Pamela communicates astronomy to the public through StarStryder.com, public talks, popular articles (in Astronomy and Sky and Telescope), and has appeared on The Universe and Nova. She serves on the council of the American Association of Variable Star Astronomers. As part of the Galaxy Zoo collaboration, she works with an amazing team of students helping write software and education content for the Zoo.

Gideon, Thomas "cmdln"

Thomas Gideon is a self-described hacker, eccentric and hacktivist. He produces and hosts The Command Line, a twice weekly podcast that covers the practice and profession of programming drawing on well over a decade of professional experience and a lifetime spent hacking, the intersection of politics and society with technology and anything else clever, elegant or funny that catches his mind as a die hard technology geek. He is also the editor of Open Media Review, a site dedicated to free culture advocacy, and coordinator of the Washington, DC area CopyNight, a monthly group discussion around copyright issues and potential reform.

Gilman, Laura Anne

Laura Anne Gilman started her professional life as a book editor for a major NYC house, fitting her writing into the remaining available hours. In 2004 she switched that around, becoming a full-time writer and freelance editor.

She is the author of the Retrievers and Paranormal Scene Investigations urban fantasy series for Luna, and epic fantasy The Vineart War trilogy from Pocket ( the first book, FLESH AND FIRE, was short-listed as a Best Book of 2009 from Library Journal). She is also a member of the on-line writers' consortium BookVew Café, and continues to write and sell short fiction. She also writes paranormal romances as Anna Leonard.

You can find more information oneline at LauraAneGilman.

Gittlen, Barry M.

Dr. Barry M. Gittlen, listed in Who's Who in Cypriote Archaeology and Who's Who in Biblical Studies and Archaeology, is Professor of Biblical and Archaeological Studies, Towson University and Chairman of the Mid-Atlantic Region of the American Schools of Oriental Research. As Field Archaeologist and Archaeological Coordinator for the Tel Miqne/Ekron Excavations in Israel, he helped recover the fascinating history of that city. Combining Archaeology and Biblical Studies, Dr. Gittlen strives to bring Israel's past to life and reach new understandings of the Israelites that produced Biblical Literature.

He published Sacred Time, Sacred Place: Archaeology and the Religion of Israel and is currently preparing Tel Miqne-Ekron: Report of the 1984-1996 Excavations in Field III and a book of conference papers titled The Archaeology of Worship in Biblical Israel. The recipient of numerous grants and fellowships, Dr. Gittlen has served as consultant to documentary film makers.

Griswold-Ford, Val

Raised in New England, Val Griswold-Ford inherited from her bibliophile parents a love of books and a talent for telling stories. After writing short fiction and her first novel in high school, Val switched to journalism in college. She covered several political beats, wrote a weekly column and rose to associate managing editor of The Daily Campus.

After college she began writing in earnest. She wrote a chapter in The Complete Guide to Writing Fantasy, then co-edited The Complete Guide to Writing Fantasy, Vol 2: the Opus Magnus with Tee Morris and The Complete Guide to Writing Fantasy, Vol 3: the Author's Grimoire with Lai Zhao. Her 2005 first solo novel, Not Your Father's Horseman, was followed by its sequel, Dark Moon Seasons, in 2009. The third book, Last Rites, is due out in 2010. Her ficton includes dark fantasy, horror, paranormal romance and urban fantasy.

She lives with her husband and three kittens in Concord, New Hampshire, and plays in the SCA and Amtgard when she's not writing.

de Guardiola, Susan

Susan de Guardiola is best-known for her role as a masquerade emcee at the 1997 and 2004 worldcons as well as numerous east coast local and regional conventions. She is a social dance historian who may often be found in musty library stacks researching dance from the 16th to the early 20th century, which she teaches at workshops and dance events across the United States. She reviews mass market genre fiction for Publishers Weekly and has been active in fandom for more than twenty-five years. Susan also makes costumes and blogs about both dance history (at Capering and Kickery) and the rest of her life (at Rixosous). In her spare time, she herds students and plays high-speed online Scrabble.


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Harknell

Harknell is the webmaster and tech-guru of the Onezumi Studios fail of websites, but fans know him best for his literary contributions to the Onezumi.com blog and the Harknell.com support community for artists. He occasionally contributes ideas to Onezumi's popular webcomic, and implemented the Harknell.com community. This includes a web-based online drawing program that members of the community use for free. He is currently developing AWSOM (Artist Website Simple One-shot Multi-installer), which will be a free program that sets up an art or comic portfolio website without forcing the artist to learn programming languages. He currently lives near New Brunswick, NJ, where he shares an art studio with Onezumi and a lot of old video games.

Harmon, Kelly A.

Kelly A. Harmon used to be a newspaper reporter. She found reporting to be by turns exciting (covering murder trials) and excruciatingly boring (writing about itty-bitty town council meetings). Most other news managed to fall in between those extremes on a sliding scale of interesting. Eventually, she moved away from full-time reporting and editing. Stories were still interesting, but the rote mechanics of the job became anathema. Nonetheless, she still writes non-fiction... because she can't seem to leave it alone.

When she's not crazed with the need to freelance, she writes fantasy and dark fantasy with the occasional science fiction piece. Her short story, Lies, short-listed for the 2008 Aeon Award and her novella, Blood Soup, won the July 2008 Fantasy Gazetteers Novella Contest. Eternal Press published Blood Soup in print and Ebook in September 2009.

Ms. Harmon's fiction can also be found in Black Dragon, White Dragon, Triangulation: Dark Glass and the upcoming, Bad Ass Fairies 3: In All Their Glory.

Hemry, John (Jack Campbell)

John G. Hemry is the author, under the pen name Jack Campbell, of the New York Times and USA Today national best-selling Lost Fleet series, of which the newest volume Victorious will be released in April, 2010. John will soon begin two new series: The Lost Fleet — Beyond the Frontier and The Phoenix Stars . Under his own name, John is the author of the JAG in Space series and the Stark�s War series. His short fiction has appeared in periodicals and anthologies and his Small Moments in Time was nominated for a Nebula Award. His humorous short story As You Know Bob was selected for Year�s Best SF 13. John's nonfiction has appeared in Analog and in several BenBella books, and in the Teenagers from the Future anthology. John lived on Midway Island during the 1960s. After attending the US Naval Academy, he served in a variety of jobs during his Naval service. After retiring from the US Navy and settling in Maryland, John began writing. He lives with his long-suffering wife (the incomparable S) and three great kids. His daughter and two sons are diagnosed on the autistic spectrum.

Henderson, C. J.

C.J. Henderson is the creator of the Piers Knight Supernatural Investigator series, as well as the current author on Kolchak: the Knightstalker. The author of some 70 books, he has also written several hundred short stories and comics as well as thousands of non-fiction pieces. His day is usually filled with helping to solve world hunger, dispensing timelessly prescient advice, and searching the sidewalks of his native Brooklyn for pennies (hey, his family has to eat, too, you know). For more information on this incredibly unique individual, check out CJHenderson online for more bio information, free short stories, and well, of course, a store.

Hodges, Larry

Larry Hodges, of Germantown, MD, is an active member of SFWA with 37 short story sales (circa March 2010), over half of them since summer 2008. He's a graduate of the six-week 2006 Odyssey Writers' Workshop, the 2007 Orson Scott Card Literary Boot Camp, and the 2008 Taos Toolbox Writers' Workshop. He's a full-time writer three books and over 1200 published articles in over 100 different publications. His best work is often humorous, including his recently completed novel, Campaign 2100: Rise of the Moderates, a political satire that is now making the rounds at agents on its way to great glory and/or utter obscurity. He is a member of the USA Table Tennis Hall of Fame (Google it!), and once beat someone using an ice cube as a racket. Click his name above to visit his website.

Holodak, Kris

Kris Holodak has been drawn to image making ever since she was a child, begged her dad to let her hold the family camera while on vacation and then snuck a picture after being explicitly told not to touch any of the buttons. She has spent most of her career creating educational videos, most recently about the arts for the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. While she truly believes in the mission of making the arts accessible and understandable to the general public, it doesn't quite use up all of her creative juices. Her films have screened at festivals across the country.

Holtz, Dr. Thomas

Balticon 44's Science Guest of Honor, Dr. Thomas R. Holtz, Jr., is a dinosaur paleontologist specializing in the origin, evolution, adaptations, and paleobiology of carnivorous dinosaurs (especially Tyrannosaurus and its kin). He is a senior lecturer in the Department of Geology at the University of Maryland, College Park. Recent works include several chapters in University of Californi Press' The Dinosauria, Second Edition (the bible of dinosaur research) and Tyrannosaurus rex, The Tyrant King. In addition to his technical publications, Dr. Holtz has written several books for children, most recently Dinosaurs: The Most Up-To-Date Encyclopedia for Dinosaur Lovers of all Ages (Random House). He has been a Winner of the National Science Teachers Association Outstanding Science Trade Books for Students K-12: 2008 Award; Winner of the Parent's Choice 2008 Award Recommendation For Non-Fiction; and Finalist in the AAAS/Subaru Science Books and Films Prize for Excellence in Science Books, Young Adult Science Books division.

Dr. Holtz has been a consultant and featured speaking head on numerous TV documentaries including: BBC/Discovery Channel's Walking with Dinosaurs; the History Channel's Jurassic Fight Club; and The Discovery Channel's Clash of the Dinosaurs, Monsters Resurrected, and Prehistoric. Additionally, he has contributed to several museum exhibits: check out the dinosaur hall of at the Maryland Science Center in the Baltimore Inner Harbor.

From 1999 through 2010 Dr. Holtz was the Faculty Director of the College Park Scholars - Earth, Life and Time Program, a two-year residential honors program for students interested in Natural History. Starting in Fall 2009 he started a new College Park Scholars program, Science & Global Change. He lives in southern P.G. County, Maryland, with his wife (fan costumer Sue Shambaugh), a trio of cats, and Emilio Lizardo the bearded dragon.

Holyfield, P. G.

P.G Holyfield's love of comparative religion, mythology, mystery, and role-playing games led him to create the fantasy setting called The Land of Caern. It is a world where gods choose to be born and live mortal lives, in order to directly affect events in the world. Murder at Avedon Hill, released by Dragon Moon Press just in time for Balticon 44, is the first work of fiction set in this fantasy setting.

The podcast version of Murder at Avedon Hill began in May of 2007 and quickly transitioned from a straight read into an audio drama, with over 30 podcasters and writers adding their voices to the podcast. MaAH has been featured in the iTunes Literature store for over two years, was a finalist for Best Podcast Novel and Best Podcast Production at the Fall 2008 Podcast Peer Awards, and for the Best Audio Drama category at the 2009 Parsec Awards.

After the podcast for Murder at Avedon Hill ended in May of 2009, P.G. started a collaborative podcast called Tales of the Children. It is a short story podcast set in The Land of Caern, with contributions from authors such as Philippa Ballantine, Jack Mangan, and writer/editor Gabrielle Harbowy.

Huchton, Starla

Starla Huchton lives in Monterey, California with her husband and three children and is pursuing a degree in Graphic Design. Her part time job consists of live shows over streaming internet radio, where she sings jazz standards and modern tunes for venues in the virtual world of Second Life. She has done voice work for Chris Lester's Metamor City podcast, Jim Ryan's Every World News and contributed a story to Philippa Ballantine's Erotica a la Carte podcast.

Previously, Starla was enlisted in the United States Navy as a printer. She lived in Keflavik, Iceland for four years (where she discovered a passion for design), and Sasebo, Japan for two, where she was employed as a marketing assistant. After returning to the U.S.A., she settled near Seattle, Washington where she completed The Dreamer's Thread in late 2008. The full cast audio production podcast of the book launched in August 2009 and completed in January 2010.

Huff, Tanya

Following three years in the Canadian Naval Reserve, a year studying forestry, a winter hanging around Universal studios, a degree in Radio and Television Arts, and time spent managing North America's oldest surviving SF&F bookstore (Bakka-Phoenix back when it was only Bakka) Tanya Huff moved to rural Ontario with her partner Fiona Patton and began writing science fiction and fantasy full-time — or as full-time as possible around the needs of nine cats and eighty acres of land. Her twenty-five books range from heroic fantasy (the Quarters books) through humour (the Keeper Chronicles) to military SF (the Torin Kerr Confederation series) and include SCHOLAR OF DECAY, a novel set in TSR's Ravenloft universe as well as four short story collections. Her most recent novel is THE TRUTH OF VALOR (DAW, September 2010)

Her books have been translated into seven languages (eight if you include British English) and her five book Blood series, an urban fantasy/vampire/mystery mix which predated the current vampire craze by about fifteen years, was adapted into the 22 episode television series BLOOD TIES -- a process she enjoyed every moment of. And not only because it was the first time in twenty-five years she actually got to use her degree. The three book Smoke series has now also been optioned for television so we'll see where that goes.

She tends to watch more action than drama — Supernatural, Castle, Bones, Fringe, NCIS — loves Guy Ritchie movies, and thought Trek reboot rocked. Her tastes in books ranges across the board depending on mood at the time. When she's not writing, or gardening, or dealing with the cats, or watching TV, or reading, she practices the guitar and spends far too much time connecting with the world one hundred and forty characters at a time.


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Impink, Christopher

Studio Unseen is made up of two carbon-based creatures: Chris Impink and Barb Fischer. They recently premiered their new project, Sledgebunny, a sports-anime-inspired comic taking place in the fast-paced world of flat track roller derby. On December 30, 2009, they closed the book on Fragile Gravity, a strip that featured independent comics, conventions, and (earlier) an invasionary force of penguins. Oh, and an extra-bitter stoat.

Chris does the artwork and web design; he has been featured in Antarctic Press and did much of the graphic work for The Babylon Project role-playing game. His work has been featured at various conventions (Katsucon, Technicon, and Rising Star) and he is mildly notorious for co-founding Katsucon, though his team of spin doctors has kept that under wraps for many years. In his rare moments of free time, Chris works with the crew from Super Art Fight, running the Wheel of Death and notching up wins on the championship belt.


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Jaxton, Paulette

Paulette Jaxton was born in Washington, DC and moved to Annapolis, Maryland, where she still lives, when she was four. She began writing prose and poetry in high school, but was encouraged to focus on math and science instead by well meaning teachers. A world famous poet once praised a verse she wrote about butterflies, until the women noticed a spelling error and pronounced the poem "a piece of crap".

After that Paulette kept her writings to herself until 2008 when she produced Form Letter Rejection Theatre, a podcast anthology of her short speculative fiction stories. Her first fantasy novel, The Empress Sword, debuted as a podcast in January. Paulette is also the Associate Producer of the Metamor City Podcast among others.


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Katz, Robert I.

Robert I. Kratz is professor of clinical anesthesiology and vice-chairman for administration of the Department of Anesthesiology at State University in New York at Stony Brook. The author of over 50 scientific publications, Dr. Katz is the author of the award-winning Edward Maret: A Novel of the Future, as well as the Kurtz and Barent mystery series (Surgical Risk, The Anatomy Lesson, and Seizure).

Kim the Comic Book Goddess is a musician and podcaster from near Scranton PA. Geek Pantheon and Your Moment of Kim, was a 2009 Parsec finalist for Best Speculative Fiction Comedy or Parody Podcast. She started in Podcasting on Four Color Heroines, the podcast for Girl-Wonder.Org, a site for feminist comic book fans. She's contributed to When Fangirls Attack, a link-blog once described as "Ground Zero for the controversy over the treatment of women in comics." She's worked on the 9th Heroescast and has read, acted or composed and recorded music for over 15 other podcasts. She's also a multi-instrumentalist who has worked on projects ranging from opera to heavy meta to middle-eastern inspired avant garde. She's learned many neat things: songs in several languages, how to sing harmony with oneself, that playing in a metal band can lead to managing an electronics store and how to fake a role in a one act opera. You can also visit her online at ComicBookGoddess.

Kimball, Eric

Bio pending

Kondo, Dr. Beatrice

Beatrice Kondo, Ph.D. is an evolytionary biologist, specializing in the evolution of complex behaviors (such as migration), and a member of Biology faculty at Johns Hopkins University. Two of her publications focus on Maryland's state bird, the Baltimore Oriole.

A cast member of the Arbiter Chronicles (Prometheus Radio Theatre), as well as the Usual Suspects, Beatrice's work with a chainsaw is second to none (see "Have Browncoat, Will Travel".) She has trained her Mustang pony to ride and drive, but has not succeeded in teaching her cats anything.

Koscienski, Brian

Fortress Publishing, Inc. presents the unholy dichotomy between the blistering writing style of Brian Koscienski, who resembles Sasquatch with mange, and the dynamic gothic world of Chris Pisano, the last know Cro Magnon man. When angry villages wielding torches and pitchforks aren't chasing them, Brian and Chris make the world a better place through comics, stories, articles, novels and even bawdy haiku. They once plagued the internet under the guise of "The Drunken Comic Book Monkeys", a column that allowed them to break the confines of reality and spread their unique views of the world through articles, essays, rants, and reviews. With books, comics, magazines, original art, t-shirts, and shot glasses and teddy bears wearing cattle skull adorned t-shirts, there's something for everyone to show that Fortress Publishing, Inc. is the coffee stain on the tapestry of life.

Krulik, Theodore

Theodore Krulik's concordance of the late Roger Zelazny's Amber novels, THE COMPLETE AMBER SOURCEBOOK, published by Avon Books, is still the most exhaustive reference work on that revered series. Through his literary biography, ROGER ZELAZNY, Mr. Krulik made accessible to the enthusiast the personal concerns of Roger Zelazny. For the first time, aficionados discovered the sources in Zelazny's own life that inspired his writing.

A longtime member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America and the Science Fiction Research Association, Mr. Krulik is currently compiling his personal interviews with Zelazny for a new work to be entitled ROGER ZELAZNY: IN HIS OWN WORDS.


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Lafferty, Mur

Mur Lafferty is an author, freelance writer and new media pioneer. She distributes her novels, essays and articles via free pdf, podcasts, blogs, and other methods to a wide audience. Her first print novel, Playing For Keeps, was released in summer of 2008. She is the producer and host of the award-winning podcast I Should Be Writing and is currently working on season five of her popular Heaven podiobook series.

Larson, Grig

Grig "Punkie" Larson started in science fiction fandom in 1980mumble and it's been his second home ever since. Known comedy writer, he has written and acted in improv theater and "The Prune Bran Players." Grig is the author of The Saga of Punk Walrus, We Three Gatekeepers, and various independent movie scripts, tech reviews, and various game supplements. He has been writing in and about gaming, fandom, computers, and the Open Source movement for almost two decades. Currently he acts as an Emcee and head staff for several anime conventions, a technical adviser for TV shows, and is a bouncer for the DC Rollergirls. He lives in Fairfax, Virginia, with Christine, his wife of 21 years whom he met AT Balticon 22, and his son, born during Castlecon 3. He's so fannish, it oozes out of his hair follicles. You may follow and mock him at his panels, or the Intertubes.

Leider, R. Allen

Film reviewer/screenwriter R. Allen Leider's career began in 1970 as copy boy for The Walter Cronkite News. In 1973, he became features writer for The Monster Times and went on to work at Show, Celebrity and Glitter magazines. His photojournalistic work has been syndicated worldwide. He lives in Manhattan with wife Barbara, a professional photographer. In 1984, he created the original story and screenplay for The Oracle, and hosted his own radio show Cinemascene on WWFM.

He writes and edits the online magazine Black Cat Review. His current project is the Wicca Girl Quadrilogy, a magical fantasy action-adventure series following Druscilla Marie d'Lambert from her Medieval childhood thru her transformation to Witch Queen and her modern day assignments as a supernatual MI-6 agent. Together with her BFF Satan's teenage daughter Cheralyn Rose Moscowitz, Druscilla fights the evil supernatural crime syndicate UMBRA run by her medieval nemeses Jocelyn and Maximillian Von Hagen.

Leider also edits the Wicca Girl companion anthology trilogy The Hellfire Lounge. You can find the Wicca Girl Fan site on Facebook.

Lester, Chris

Chris is the creator, producer and head author of The Metamor City Podcast, a sci-fi/fantasy anthology podcast series. A self-proclaimed "mad scientist in training", he has been telling stories for about as long as he can remember, and credits a writing contest in elementary school for introducing him to his muse. Trained as a biologist at the University of California-Santa Cruz, he received his master's degree in 2004 and promptly went out to try to start a career in the middle of the worst job market the American scientific community had seen in half a century. After three soul-sucking years in corporate America, he is now working as a science teacher at a charter school in Oakland, CA. When he isn't writing or planning lessons, he enjoys role-playing games, playing piano and guitar, sketching and digital painting. He misses his family's three Shiloh shepherds terribly.

Levin, Neal

Neal Levin is a game designer, author, and publisher. His work in game design includes credits with: Ambient Games, Bastion Press, Dark Quest Games, EN Publishing, Mystic Eye Games and Top Fashion Games. He is a member of the Garden State Horror Writers, EPIC, and SFWA. He also is the publisher of Dark Quest Books. As a short story author he has work in anthologies from many publishers. His known 2010 list includes: Bad Ass Faeries 3, Barbarians at the Jumpgate, Cat Dreamspell, Dreams & Screams, New Blood, Vampire Dreamspell, Wolfology, and Zombonauts.

Lilly, N.E.

Nathan E. Lilly is an unimportant web developer and editor of three online magazines of little consequence. SpaceWesterns publishes short stories weekly for a dead-end sub-genre of a genre that is itself dying. Everyday Weirdness publishes weird flash fiction daily in an obscure corner of the Internet. Thaumatrope is the oldest and longest running twitter fiction magazine, and it publishes fiction shorter than this bio on a daily basis. He'll give $5 to the first person who tells him that they read his bio in BSFAN. In his spare time it's rumored that he builds websites for SF/F/H professionals via GreenTentacles.

I swear, it's only a rumor.

Lively, Kathryn

Kathryn Lively is an award-winning writer and editor, and executive editor of Phaze Books. She is an EPIC Award nominee and has edited EPIC Award nominated titles for Phaze Books, Whiskey Creek Press, and FrancisIsidore ePress. She also maintains a pen name, Leigh Ellwood, for her romance work.

Kathryn assists businesses with Virginia Beach social media services, and also works as a freelance writer.

When Kathryn isn't busy writing or editing other authors, she maintains a blog of chocolate reviews called Odd Chocolates, blogs random thoughts on http://leighwantsfood.blogspot.com and tweets at http://twitter.com/LeighEllwood.

Livengood, ScienceTim

Tim Livengood caught the science bug as a child, in the traditional way — by reading about dinosaurs. Eventually, he was swayed towards space science by the coolness of Apollo and the Viking unmanned missions combined with limited aptitude for geology and biology. Since then, he has fallen into the one thing he was sure he wouldn't be doing as a scientist: spectroscopy of planetary atmospheres. He now works with the National Center for Earth and Space Science Education, adding to his scientific research activities with education and public outreach work, currently as Deputy EPO Lead for NASA's EPOXI mission. He lives in Maryland with his wife, two kids, and a surfeit of pets (particularly cats). You can find where he spends entirely too much time on-line by searching for his pseudonym ScienceTim. In addition to his main pursuits in scientific research and education, Tim also performs occasionally as a professional storyteller and has been known to tell stories as a way to illustrate central truths from the world of science and exploration.

Lowell, Nathan

Nathan Lowell is the creator of the Golden Age of the Solar Clipper Since 2007 he's written seven novels and collected a dedicated following for his podiobooks. He has produced over 100 episodes which have been downloaded over a million times in total. He recently signed a contract to begin releasing his books in text format.

He doesn't plan to quit his day job.

Lunetta, Julia

Julia Lunette is a professional geek and an amateur actress, musician, comedian and human. She arrived in Massachusetts many years ago for college, and repeatedly failing to escape Boston's non-Euclidean roads, made her home there. She can be heard voicing the characters of Arkahn and the Winged Herald in the popular fantasy podcast Second Shift, as well as assorted funny-voiced roles in Red Shift: Interplanetary Do-Gooder.

Lurie, Perrianne

Perrianne Lurie is a physician with the Division of Infectious Disease Epidemiology at the Pennsylvania Department of Health. She has been active in fandom for over 30 year in SF clubs, cons, filking, writing con reviews, etc. She was a member of the Baltimore in 1998 bid committee. She served as deputy division director for programming at BucCONeer, assistant to the director of the Millennium Philcon Hugo Awards Ceremony, and director of the Torcon 3 Hugo Awards Ceremony. She is also active in the Central Pennsylvania (European boardgame) Game Club. She has run the Balticon Green Room for WAY too many years and is a life member of BSFS.


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Maberry, Jonathan

Jonathan Maberry is a multiple Bram Stoker Award-winning author, magazine feature writer, playwright, content creator and writing teacher/lecturer. He writes a variety of projects for Marvel Comics, is the co-creator of On The Slab, a 'blog correspondent' on web show Woke Up Dead, and a recurring character on It's Todd's Show. He also writes under the pen name of Shane MacDougall.

Jonathan's Big Scary Blog focuses on the publishing industry and he is a Contributing Editor for The Big Thrill. A member of SFWA, MWA, SCBWI, SFWA and HWA, a founding member of The Liars Club, and host of the Writers Coffeehouse in Willow Grove, Pennsylvania, he is a frequent guest at genre cons and writers conferences. Jonathan teaches a highly regarded series of classes and workshops for adults and teens.

In 2004 Jonathan was inducted into the International Martial Arts Hall of Fame largely because of his extensive writings in that field. You can find him on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and MySpace.

Madden, Helen E. H.

Helen E. H. Madden is a writer and graphic artist who quit her lucrative day job years ago to tell dirty stories for fun and profit. Her published works include Future Perfect: A Collection of Fantastic Erotica (published by Logical-Lust.com) and Demon By Day (published by Mojocastle Press). Her stories have appeared in various anthologies, including Wired Hard 4" from Circlet Press, Cream: The Best of the Erotica Readers and Writers Association and the charity anthology Coming Together: With Pride. Helen writes and produces the Heat Flash Erotic Podcast, a weekly podcast of erotic speculative fiction. She also draws The Adventures of Cynical Woman, a web comic about life as a stay-at-home mom and erotica writer.

When she's not writing or drawing, Helen thinks about sex. A lot.

MAinPA

MAinPA has been podcasting for three years, first with her show Better Late Than Never, and now with her new podcast The Modern Domestic Geek. She has appeared in several podcast audio dramas such as Morevi Remastered, Metamor City and Murder at Avedon Hill, as well as narrating for Escape Pod and Psudeopod. She lives in Philadelphia with her husband and son, and is currently trying to manage her household in the geekiest way possible.

Martin, Cindy Marie

With a BA in Communication Arts, emphasis in Theatre and Broadcasting and Journalism, Cindy runs Ningen Manga Productions with her husband, Lonnie, focusing on producing and marketing. Besides acting in Women's Studies, Ningen Manga's first feature (being released on DVD June 15th 2010), and several other short films in the area, she's worked with various DC area theatres including INKwell, Venus, and Landless. By day, you can find her doing industrial or voice-over work. By night, she's internet horror hostess Helena, Hussy of Horror, finding herself in various situations straight out of classic horror films and interacting with beloved horror characters. Often naieve, sometimes raunchy, and always light hearted, Helena's the girl next door with a heart of gold who just happens to dress like a hooker. She gets her inspiration from Elvira, her fashion sense from Betty Page, and suffice it to say, she gets a little political.

Martin, Gail Z.

Gail Z. Martin, author of The Chronicles of The Necromancer series, discovered her passion for science fiction, fantasy and ghost stories in elementary school and, at age 14, decided to become a writer. The first story she wrote — at age five — was about a vampire. A new series, The Fallen Kings Cycle, set in her world of The Winter Kingdoms, debuts from Orbit Books in 2011 with Book One: The Sworn. For book updates, tour information and contact details, visit the Chronicles of the Necromancer website.

Gail is the host of the Ghost in the Machine Fantasy Podcast, and you can find her on MySpace, Facebook, GoodReads, BookTour, BookMarketing.ning, Shelfari and Twitter. Her latest in a series on book marketing, The Thrifty Author's Guide to Launching Your Book comes out in early 2010.

She enjoys attending science fiction/fantasy conventions, Renaissance fairs and living history sites. She is married and has three children, a Himalayan cat and a golden retriever. Pre-order upcoming books with bonus gifts at The Winter kingdoms website.

Martin, Lonnie

Lonnie holds a B.A. in Theatre Arts from Davis and Elkins College. He has written and directed three acclaimed short films, First Session, Under the Bed, and Posi+ive (screening this Sunday at Balticon), as well as the feature length film, Women's Studies being released on DVD June 15th 2010. As a writer, his screenplay Strangling Desdemona was selected as the 2000 best screenplay by the Santa Fe Writer's Project after he developed and independently published it as a comic book in 1999. His one-act play, Eight O' Clock Curfew, was produced in 2001 as part of the Source Theatre Festival in DC. Small Still Voice, the film on which he served as co-writer for Red Fox P Productions, was selected as "Best of Baltimore" in the 2005 48 Hour Film Project. More on his work can be found at his Lonnie Martin website and the Ningen Manga Productions website.

Massey, Misty

Misty Massey dabbled with short stories for years, even publishing a few in small press magazines, until she found and joined a writing critique group, and tried her hand at writing novels. Her novel, Mad Kestrel, was born from her fascination with pirates and her love of fantasy. She's currently completing the second volume of Kestrel's adventures and plotting a weird western she hopes to write over the summer. Misty runs the circulation desk in a middle school library, which allows her to keep up with current releases and new authors. When she's not writing, Misty enjoys reading, belly dancing and playing an Elizabethan seadog at the Carolina Renaissance Faire. She also participates Magical Words: Writing tips and publishing advice for aspiring novelists .

McLean, Patrick E.

Patrick is the creator of the good words (right order) method of professional writing instruction.

He is also the author of the Parsec-Award Winning, How to Succeed in Evil.

And he writes and produces the Seanachai Podcast

In the morning he writes a thousand words. In the afternoon, he does ad work or teaches professionals how to improve their writing. And this life is working out surprisingly well. After taking some hard hits in the advertising business throughout his career (whaddya want, it's a full-contact kind of industry) he's finally found a way to have a few really good clients, have some fun at work and not stress so much about it.

As the saying goes, "Living well is the best revenge".

Melko, Paul

Paul Melko's first novel, Singularity's Ring, postulates a future of group-conscious humans, telling the tale of one such quintet learning to be a starship pilot. It won both the Compton Crook and Locus Awards for Best First Novel in 2009. His second novel, The Walls of the Universe, is an expansion of his Hugo-, Nebula-, and Sturgeon-Award nominated novella of the same name. In it, a teenager from Ohio is tricked out of his life by his doppleganger from another universe.

Paul lives in Ohio with his beautiful wife and four children.

Morningstar, Arioch

Arioch was introduced to podcasts when his brother gave him a sampler CD of some random 'casts. At first he didn't really see the point. It simply didn't click that you could sign up for just about any type of content and have commercial free audio automatically download into iTunes on a regular basis. In October of 2006, he discovered Podiobooks.com. He immediately fell in love with the concept that Evo Terra has created there.

Arioch found Scott Sigler's work that same month. Ancestor was the third book he listened to on Podiobooks.com. It remains one of his favorite novels to this day. In the Fall of 2007, Arioch wrote to Scott to see if he could help get the Bloodcast or The Rookie onto Podiobooks.com. Since that initial contact, Arioch has continued to work with Scott and Podiobooks.com. He has produced Bloodcast Seasons 1 and 2, Infected, and worked in conjunction with Peter Yake to get The Rookie onto Podiobooks.com.

Arioch produced the 2008 Parsec submissions. Scott had eight eligible stories. Five of them survived the gauntlet and emerged as finalists. Arioch continues to assist Team Sigler with audio production and plans to do so for the foreseeable future.

Morris, Tee

Tee Morris has been appearing at Balticon since 2002 when his fantasy epic MOREVI premiered in print. His other titles includes Legacy of Morevi, The Billibub Baddings Mysteries books. His non-fiction articles have appeared across three volumes of Dragon Moon Press' Complete Guide to Writing Fantasy, and Ben Bella's Smart Pop series.

In 2005 Tee took MOREVI into podcasting where it became the world's first "podiobook" and a finalist for the 2006 Parsec Award for Best Podcast Novel. That production also led to the founding of Podiobooks.com, the writing of Podcasting for Dummies (with Chuck Tomasi and Evo Terra), and the writing of Expert Podcasting Practices for Dummies (with Evo Terra and Ryan Williams). In 2009, he released two Social Media-related titles, All a Twitter and Sams Teach Yourself Twitter in 10 Minutes. Tee continues to explore the application of blogging, podcasting, and Twitter at Imagine That! Studios and has spoken around the world on Social Media for Book Expo America, The New Media Expo, CREATE South, NOAA, Te Papa, and LIANZA.


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NexGen Pulp Fiction

NexGen Pulp is a free digital pulp fiction magazine in the spirit of the golden age of pulp mags, from the 20s to the 40s, but in a modern context. They provide the best in new sci-fi, detective, horror, and adventure from new and up and coming authors. Each issue also features a tantalizing pinup spread in the spirit of the damsels in distress and dangerous dames that graced the covers of the classic pulps.

Editor, Michael Critzer, is an MA student in literature at Villanova University and has written and published fiction and non fiction on topics ranging from Edgar Allan Poe to comic book superheroes.

Scarlett Critzer, the photography director, has been a professional photographer for 5 years, and has become known for her famous NexGen Pulp pinup spreads, including models such as Heather Scheeler and Irene Jericho.

NexGen Pulp is growing rapidly and is the topic of an increasing buzz in the new media and genre fiction communities.


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Onezumi

Onezumi "Oni" Hartstein was born in New York City but raised in Pittsburgh, PA. where she experienced the positive effects of art on young people. After moving to New Jersey, she worked professionally in animation for The Disney Channel before leaving to start Onezumi Studios, LLC.

"I wanted to do this myself because I believe that art saves lives... It is important to me to put forth a positive voice and to motivate people to discover their own power." -- Onezumi

See Onezumi's rather unconventional Lovecraftian horror comic at Onezumi.com, her "cute and scary" art portfolio and media blog at Onezumiverse and her helpful art tutorials at Drawpocalypse. She has a fiercely loyal online fan base, a vocal off-line following, and has been a guest speaker at XM Satellite Radio and many conventions.

Onezumi has a B.A. in Sociology/Psychology specializing in Gender Studies, and studied classical art in a University for over 6 years on two merit-based full scholarships for intensive art courses prior to her freshman year in college. She lives in New Jersey with her husband and a lot of coffee beans.


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Peltier, Allyson E.

Ally E. Peltier is an editor, writer, and publishing consultant with a decade of experience working for individuals and publishers such as Simon & Schuster, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Sterling/Hearst Books, Kaplan Publishing, Chronicle Books, Rodale Inc., and more. Ally formerly acquired and edited books for Touchstone Fireside/Simon & Schuster. She speaks regularly for conferences, organizations, and as an adjunct instructor at both Anne Arundel and Howard County Community Colleges. Learn more online at Ambitious Enterprises.

Petrini, Catherine M.

Catherine M. Petrini is the published author of 28 books, both fiction and nonfiction, mostly for children or young adults. They include 20 books for "Sweet Valley High" and other teen series, including A Date With A Werewolf, Return of the Evil Twin, and A Stranger In the House, all written under pseudonyms. Her nonfiction books are written under her own name; titles include Dragons and Stonehenge. She is a member of the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America, the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators, and the National Federation of Press Women. In her spare time, she enjoys reading, drawing, photography, traveling, volunteering at her son's school, and picking up Legos from under the couch. She has a Master's Degree in Creative Writing from Johns Hopkins University and lives in Alexandria, Virginia.

Pisano, Chris

Brian Koscienski & Chris Pisano reside in south, central Pennsylvania where Brian is often chased by angry villagers wielding pitchforks and torches due to his uncanny resemblance to Sasquatch while Chris can often be found in newspapers and magazines under the headline "Cro-Magnon Man Found." Their obsession with writing is pretty thorough; their compositions range from stories to articles to comic books to novels and even haiku. They even went so far as to start their own small press publishing company called Fortress Publishing, Inc.

Potter, Alexander B.

Born and raised in the wilds of Vermont, Alexander B. Potter chose to never leave. Instead, he graduated from Marlboro College in Marlboro, VT, with a degree in the history of sexuality, specifically prostitution in the Progressive Era, and started writing fantasy stories. He currently writes and publishes both fiction and nonfiction, dabbles in oil painting... literally (fingers instead of brushes), and obsesses about the workings of the human brain. Alex is also an HIV Prevention Specialist with the AIDS Project of Southern Vermont. His published fiction is primarily in science fiction/fantasy and has appeared in a wide range of anthologies, including ten from DAW Books, the publisher of his most recent work. He has edited three anthologies for DAW Books, including the award-winning Sirius: The Dog Star.

Prego, Dr. James

Dr. James Prego, ND is a practicing Naturopathic Doctor on Long Island, NY. and is the current recipient of the NYANP's Physician of the Year award. He has been voted Best Alternative Doctor of 2009 and 2010 by the Long Island Press. He is an adjunct professor of Biology at Molly College. A long-time fan of science fiction. Dr. Jim has been a guest at many conventions, where he has been on panels discussing xenobiology, health in space, life extension, fusions of biology and technology, and how natural ways of healing fit in a sci-fi/high-tech world. He also been on various fan-related and culture panels. He is the co-director of Z.E.N., Long Island's REPO! Shadowcast, in which he also plays the part of GraveRobber. He is assistant director of the Unconventional Conventionalists. Dr. Prego has given talks, written articles, and been a guest on radio and television shows, discussing naturopathic medicine, children's health, detoxification, and other health-related topics. To learn more about Dr. Prego, and what naturopathic medicine is, visit his website or read his Long Island Naturopathic blog.

Price, Stella

The older half of the Urban Fantasy and Paranormal romance writing team Stella and Audra Price, Stella is in her 30's and lives in upstate New York. She is the co author of over 18 books, one of which is a ground breaking series about Weresnakes. Aside from writing, Shes an Art Director for Tease Publishing and works as a cover artist for several publishers including Sourcebooks and Mundania Press.

Prindiville, Bryan

Brian Prindiville digitally publishes his creator-owned project Frances and Friends for iPod and home computer through the online distributor, Clickwheel. Clickwheel is proud to present Prindiville's work exclusively alongside other Clickwheel offerings such as 2000AD and Judge Dredd.


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Reed, Nobilis

A few years ago Nobilis Reed decided to start sharing the naughty little stories he scribbled out in hidden notebooks. To his surprise, people actually liked them! Now, he can't stop. The poor man is addicted. His wife, teenage children, and even the cats just look on this wretch of a man, hunched over his computer keyboard, and shake their heads. Clearly, there is no hope for him. The best that can be hoped for is to just make him as comfortable as his condition will allow. You can follow the progrees of his demise on Nobilis Erotica.

Reisse, Mary Alice

(See MAinPA)

Reitz, Sr., Daniel J.

Daniel J. Reitz, Sr. is the President and Publisher of Mundania Press LLC and its imprints, Mundania Press, Awe-Struck Publishing, Phaze Books, New Classics Press, and Hard Shell Word Factory. Mundania currently has close to 500 authors and over 2,000 books published. Dan won the 2005 EPIC Award as Editor of the Best Anthology Beyond the Mundane: Unravelings. He has been Master of Ceremonies at EPICon for two years and has appeared as a speaker at numerous writers conferences.

Render, Angela

Anegela Render has designed and maintained web sites since 1994 and is the founder and owner of Thunderpaw Web Development. She has published a historical fiction novel, a short story in an anthology, and her marketing workbook for writes was released in January 2009. She has a column in Writers' Journal called "Computer Business" and her work can also be found on Smithsonian Magazine's website. Current projects include a YA novel about renegade elephants, a fantasy adventure, and more adult science fiction and fantasy.

Angela teaches at The Writers' Center in Bethesda, Maryland, and through the Howard County Arts Council. She teaches at-risk middle-school girls through Passion For Learning's GRRLTech and has been a guest speaker at the Maryland Writers' Association's meetings and annual conference, Balticon, and the Bay to Ocean Writers Conference.

She enjoys being girls with her daughter, traveling, working out, cooking, sewing, and gardening. Find her online at her website and at Song of the Lost Clan, on Facebook/Angela-Render and on Twitter/arender.

Ridenour, Ray

Ray Ridenour, local science fiction "Personality" has been stalking the halls and scaring the horses since 1966.

A professional artist, although not in the SF field as of yet, he produces computer graphics, large acrylic inkblots, and stained glass windows as well as work in other media.

An amateur actor, he has appeared in two low-budget horror films, as well as many fannish and non-fannish stage productions. His two severed heads from his first movie have gone on to illustrious film careers in Japan.

Moderately funny and marginally charming, he has appeared on many panels on many subjects over the years, unencumbered by expertise or anecdotes germane.

Rogow, Roberta

Roberta Rogow is a long-time Fan, best known as a Filker, who also writes mystery novels and short stories. She recently retired after 37 years as a Children's Librarian in New Jersey.

Ross, James Daniel

A native of Cincinnati, Ohio, James Daniel Ross has been an actor, computer tech support operator, historic infotainment tour guide, armed self defense retailer, automotive petrol attendant, youth entertainment stock replacement specialist, mass market Italian chef, low priority courier, monthly printed media retailer, automotive industry miscellaneous task facilitator, and ditch digger. The Radiation Angels: The Chimerium Gambit is his first novel and is followed by The "Radiation Angels: The Key to Damocles".

James Daniel Ross shares a Dream Realm Award with the other others in Breach the Hull, and an EPPIE award with the others appearing in Bad Ass Faeries 2. Most people are begging him to go back to ditch digging.

Rosscott

Rosscott is kinda famous on the Internet. Between podcasting, blogging, and writing bios about himself in the third person, he finds time to write the always amazing webcomic The System, a daily comic-strip style mess starring iconography and graphics most notable from street and wayfinding signage. Having been written about in Fleen, Comic Book Resources, and onward through the blogosphere (which surprisingly does not set off my spell check), The System and its growing fans (known as Systemics) are sneaking up behind you and hoping that you join their ranks, for which you may receive a cookie*. While he often travels, he maintains his humble apartment in Washington, DC (which is in need of a fair amount of tidying). *Cookie currently unavailable.

Rossi, Phil

Phil Rossi -- writer, a musician, and an embracer of "new media" -- has a passion for story-telling matched only by the pleasure he derives from keeping his fans awake at night. Crescent, Rossi's debut novel, was originally released as a podcast in 2007 and has since lured 20,000 listeners into a dark, twisted world of nightmares and things that go bump in the night. Phil Rossi's writing has been paralleled to Stephen King, Philip K. Dick, and HP Lovecraft. He has a flair for vivid and often chilling imagery that lends itself to engrossing narratives and an undertone of inescapable, creeping dread. Phil Rossi is a professional singer-songwriter in the Washington DC metropolitan area. His unique brand of Alt-Country/Rock and Roll, combines influences from 80's New Wave to Blue Grass. In 2003, he was nominated by the Washington Area Music Association for Best New Artist. Phil lives in outside of Washington, DC in Virginia with his wife, daughter, and menagerie of rescued animals. He believes the need for sleep is a myth.

Roy, Kevin

Realizing that they were getting far too much sleep, Connecticut natives Kevin Roy and Blondie created Caf-Fiends, a lovely tale of a boy and his dog. Well...not really. Our story takes place in the City of Hades where pool boys can become super heros, mad scientists wear business casual, ancient Elder Gods fall in love with giant robot girls and giant monster fights have become a spectator sport. At least it's not boring.


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Sawyer, J. Daniel

J. Daniel Sawyer is a hat-wearing, audiophillic writer attempting to podcast his way out of the looney bin. The author of Sculpting God, Down From Ten, and The Antithesis Progression (which earned him a spot as a 2009 Parsec Finalist), he's garnered a reputation as a bit of a nutcase, producing his podcast fiction with full casts, soundscaping, and original music by composer Danny Schade. Lacking in personal qualities things that make for respectable character (such as the ability to sit still and shut up), he's forced to channel his lack of decorum into the fields of photography, a/v production, and writing for publications like LinuxJournal and Dragon Moon Press's new anthology "No Subscription Necessary: Dark, Light, and Twisted Tales from the Podosphere." When not working on his new secret steampunk fantasy adventure or getting into other mischief, he can be heard hosting the skeptical salon The Polyschizmatic Reprobates Hour, and as the narrator of Free Will, book two of The Antithesis Progression, both available through his website.

Schoen, Lawrence M.

Lawrence M. Schoenholds a Ph.D. in cognitive psychology, with a special focus in psycholinguistics. He spent ten years as a college professor, and has done extensive research in the areas of human memory and language. He currently works as the director of research and chief compliance officer for a series of mental health and addiction treatment facilities. He's also one of the world's foremost authorities on the Klingon language, having championed the exploration of this constructed tongue and lectured on this unique topic throughout the world. In addition, he's the publisher behind Paper Golem, a speculative fiction small press.

In 2007, he was nominated for the John W. Campbell Award for best new writer. He's published more than 50 stories in more than a dozen languages. His first novel, Buffalito Destiny debuted at last year's Balticon, and he'll be launching a new short story collection this year. He lives near Philadelphia with his wife, Valerie, who is neither a psychologist nor a Klingon speaker.

Schubert, Chooch

Chooch is an IT Manager for 'The Man' by day. Musician, writer, and technology geek the rest of the time. He lives in the Washington DC area with his wife. Combined they have 3 sons, and a golden retriever. On most social networks he goes by "Choochus", so trying that on any of your favorite sites is a good bet. or you can check out Random Acts of Chooch.

Schulman, Eric

Eric Schulman is a PhD astronomer, author, and science humorist. He's on the editorial board of the Annals of Improbable Research and has written many articles for the science humor magazine. Some of these articles have been written in collaboration with his wife Caroline Cox and his daughter Emily Schulman. His science humor has also appeared in Null Hypothesis and the Science Creative Quarterly. One of his AIR articles, "The History of the Universe in 200 Words or Less", has been translated into more than 30 languages and provided the inspiration for his 1999 humorous popular science book, A Briefer History of Time: From the Big Bang to the Big Mac(R). He was the Armchair Astrophysics columnist for Mercury Magazine for two years and contributed astronomy and physics articles to the 2008 popular science book, Defining Moments in Science: Over a Century of the Greatest Discoveries, Experiments, Inventions, People, Publications, and Events that Rocked the World.

Sergi, Joe

Joe lives outside of Washington, DC with his wife, Yee, and daughter, Elizabeth. He has published short prose stories, comics and articles in the romance, horror, science fiction, and super hero genres. His first novel, Sky Girl: Rebirth was released in March, 2010. Joe works as an editor and runs the Cup of Geek website. When not writing, Joe works for an unnamed government agency.

Sherman, David

David Sherman is probably best known as co-author (with Dan Cragg) of the Starfist military SF series and its spinoff, Starfist: Force Recon. On his own, he has written the DemonTech series and a stand-alone vampire novel, The Hunt. He began his literary career writing about US Marines in Vietnam, a topic he knows from personal experience. Of his nine published VN novels, only one is in print. He has come all the way from sunny South Florida to be here this weekend. Please return the favor by visiting his Novelier website.

Sherman, Norm

Norm Sherman is the chief editor and charismatic host of the podcast phenomenon The Drabblecast, a weekly speculative fiction podcast featuring "Strange Stories for Strange Listeners", as well as the co-host of the science fiction podcast Escapepod. His eponymous CD, featuring bluegrass folk songs of whale milking, chupacabres, Jesus cloning and mob torture gone awry debuted in 2007 and earned Mr. Sherman 3rd Place in the Indie International Song Writing Competition, won CDbaby.com's "Editor's Choice Award", and is still frequently requested and played on the Dr. Demento show. Mr. Sherman lives in Baltimore, Maryland where he performs regularly with his 2 piece bluegrass-comedy duo "The Skidmarx".

Sherrod, Kate

Kate Sherrod is the author of Suppertime Sonnets, an ongoing experiment in writing and publishing a geektastic, pseudo-Shakespearean sonnet at least once a day by suppertime. A life-long fan of science and science fiction, these two interests surface in her poetry. She is also the author of Pepito Mojito: The Interstellar Feller, which she is releasing in two forms: a sonnet-by-sonnet serial published every Friday on the Suppertime Sonnets blog, and a mock-epic farce in ottava rima, which she will begin podcasting sometime this summer. Another big project is in the works, but that is still a secret.

Kate also occasionally podcasts her Suppertime Sonnets and Saturday Sestinas at the Kate of Mind podcast.

When she's not writing she enjoys cycling, very amateur entomology, and chatting up a storm on Twitter, where you can find her as @KateSherrod.

Kate lives and writes in Cheyenne, WY, where she has a very interesting day gig she is not really allowed to write about.

Sigfrit, Podcasting's Rich

I enjoy podcasting and new media and can claim credits including mentions in newspapers, Podcasting for Dummies, and Advanced Podcasting Tricks. I have been called an innovator, created the first Star Wars podcast (RotO), Halo: Hardwired, and distributed the first comicbook available via podcast feed, Podcast 9. I was the force behind the official Troma Podcast and a host/editor of the official podcast of the 501st Stormtrooper Legion. I co-wrote, with Davey Beauchamp, the Amazing Pulp Adventures Radio Show starring Mister Adventure Script book, with its second volume debuting soon. Davey and I have been doing Mister Adventure via podcast and live on stage for the past 5 years. I have done commercial voice work and MC'd events at cons, and am a host for Wise Entertainment. Between podcasts, voice work, and being a father of 3, I have worked in various projects ChronoRadio, Star Wars and Beyond, SwitchedOn Show, the Geeklabel Podcast and Dragon Pages' Wingin' It syndicated show, plus countless guest appearances on other shows.

Silverman, Hildy

Hildy Silverman is the publisher and editor-in-chief of Space and Time Magazine. She is the author of several works of short fiction, including Picky (Dark Territories; Garden State Horror Writers), The Darren (Witch Way to the Mall?; Baen Books), and Damned Inspiration (Bad-Ass Fairies; Mundania Press). She is also the vice-president of the Garden State Horror Writers.

Slaski, B. Casimir

B. Casimir Slaski is the writer/photographer of the photo webcomic Amu's World, where he brings his sife Amubleu's amigurumi characters to life through comics. He is an unapologetic dork and is made of equal parts human, magic and evil.

Slusher, Dave

Dave Slusher hosted the nationally syndicated science fiction radio talk show Reality Break from 1992 to 1998, with emphasis on the written word in science fiction and fantasy, conductin over 200 interviews with authors, actors, musicians and scholars from the fields of the fantatstic.

With his podcast The Evil Genius Chronicles, launched in 2004, Dave was one of the first dozen podcasters and was the first person to use the term "podcast" inside of one. In 2008, Slusher combined interests when he revived Reality Break in podcast form. The series is a mix of archived (such as Will Eisner, Robert Jordan)and new (such as Tobias Buckell and Mur Lafferty) interviews, bringing back into the world material that would otherwise be locked away on tapes in the basement.

A lifelong science fiction and comic book fan, he published fanzines and frequented BBSs as a teenager in Augusta, GA. From 1993 to 1998, he did a live remote broadcast at every Dragon*Con. Currently, Dave works as a software engineer for a manaed security company in Myrtle Beach, SC and is doing what he can to foment fandom at the beach.

Smith, Brad

Since 2006, Brad Smith has done voice acting and behind-the-scenes work, including directing, recording, post-production, webmastering and web programming, for Second Shift, a popular audio theater production distributed online as a podcast. He has also done voice acting for The Byron Chronicles and Giant Gnome Productions' Doctor Who fan audios. This may sound cool, but really it just means that a lot of the time he has no life outside of post-production and his day job in the training department at Red Hat (which is, admittedly, a pretty sweet gig). When he does have a life, he spends much of his time LARPing in the Boston area. Sad but true.

Smith-Ready, Jeri

Jeri Smith-Ready has been writing fiction since the night she had her first double espresso. A constant stream of caffeine has resulted in seven published novels, including the award-winning Wicked Game and Eyes of Crow.

Jeri had her teen fiction debut in May 2010 with the Simon Pulse release of Shade, an urban fantasy featuring a world of spirits only the young can see. Shade's sequel, Shift, will follow in 2011. The next two years will also see the continuation of Jeri's WVMP Radio urban fantasy series from Pocket Books.

Jeri lives in Maryland with her husband, two cats, and the world's goofiest greyhound. When not writing, she can usually be found—well, thinking about writing, or online at Jeri Smith-Ready, or on JSmithReadyTwitter.

Snyder, J. M.

A self-published author of gay erotic and romantic fiction, J.M. Snyder also works with several e-publishers, most notably Amber Allure Press and eXcessica Publishing. Many of Snyder's short stories have appeared in anthologies by Alyson Books, Cleis Press, and others.

Snyder also writes gay young adult romance as J. Tomas and non-gay fiction and poetry as J.T. Marie. For excerpts, free short stories, monthly contests, and purchasing information, visit jmsnyder online.

Snyder, Maria V.

Maria V. Snyder switched careers from meteorologist to novelist when she began writing the New York Times best-selling Study Series (Poison Study, Magic Study and Fire Study) about a young woman who becomes a poison taster. Born and raised in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Maria dreamed of chasing tornados, but lacked the skills to forecast their location. Writing, however, lets Maria control the weather. Her new Glass Series (Storm Glass, Sea Glass, and Spy Glass, coming 9-10) combines two out of the three things Maria loves, the weather and glass. Her latest release, Inside Out is something new for Maria — a science fiction novel for young adults.

Spence, Michael

When asked his specialty, Michael Spence is likely to reply, "Systematic theology, science fiction, and fantasy." Besides publishing short stories, including One Drink Before You Go and, most recently, "Sceptre of the Ungodly" (the latter co-authored with Elisabeth Waters), Michael has also contributed audio pieces to podcasts by Scott Sigler and J.C. Hutchins, both of whom have called his work "f---ing brilliant." As a voice talent, he portrayed Professor Isaac Wells in "Whispers in the Wood" for The Metamor City Podcast and the Analyst in One Eighteen: Migration. He has also appeared in Jim Perry's Star Wars: Code Name Starkeeper, J. Daniel Sawyer's Predestination and Other Games of Chance, and P.C. Haring's Cybrosis.

In the academic realm, Michael has spoken on subjects such as "Jesus from the First to the 170th Century: Presentations of Jesus of Nazareth in Recent Science Fiction and Fantasy" to the Evangelical Theological Society. His article "Requiem for a Harlequin: Two Perspectives on Time, and a Celebration of Kairos, in Three Stories by Harlan Ellison" appeared in the inaugural issue of Sci Phi: The Journal of Science Fiction and Philosophy, and his was the first doctoral dissertation to analyze Ellison's short stories.

An expatriate Virginian, Michael lives with his wife and their canine guardian in Indiana. His reflections on SFF, faith, and podcasting appear in Brother Osric's Scriptorium.

Stevens, Anthony

I'm an olde pharte technogeek, writer, photographer, leathercrafter, Dom, car nut, SCAdian history freak, costumer, scale modeler and graphics enthusiast. I've gone by the handle Master Anthony Stevens from time to time, or just MAS. In Spanish, that is... MAS que los de mas, MAS de todo o' MAS que nada. I'm a cat lover (seems to be a writer thing, eh?) and live in northern Virginia. Some of my work includes the Shifter Series novels.

My own favorite reading matter is SciFi, Fantasy and of course, Erotica. Favorite authors include, but are not limited to: Robert A. Heinlein, Anne Rice, Jerry Pournelle, Tanya Huff, Larry Niven, Jacqueline Carey, Charles DeLint, Kim Harrison, Spider Robinson, Charlaine Harris, Vernor Vinge, Anne McCaffery, John Scalzi, Stephanie Burke, Ben Bova, Marion Zimmer Bradley. Musical tastes run from Beethoven to Buffett to Jean Luc Ponty. My hobbies include attending SciFi, Fantasy and Fetish conventions, photograpy, cosplay, hot rods and model railroads. Over the years, I've lived in Florida, Mexico, Virginia, New Jersey, Indiana, Texas and California.

Stiles, Elaine

At 12 I knew I wanted to write and edit fanzines, but, too shy to write to strangers, remained puzzled as to how to get involved with them. I borrowed from a friendly couple's SF lending library and from the public library, but had little to do with fandom and contented myself with school literary magazines, the college paper and the radio station.

While working for Westchester County's Department of Social Services and completing a master's degree in communications (journalism), I met Gail Flanagan, the daughter of a previous co-worker, who turned out to be a fan. My editorial course at Fordham required me to spend time with pros. The combination started me going to cons.

While interning at the Sun, Dave Ettlin (fan and Sun fixture) introduced me to Tales From the White Hart Book Shop. I wrote my first byline story for the Sun. I moved to Baltimore and began going to BSFS meetings the following year and met the truefen of both BSFS and WSFA, one of whom was my now-husband Steve. My fannish desires became fulfilled in late '79-early '80, when I began writing for and then editing BSFAN, until I gave it up to pursue adoption and work.

Stiles, Steve

Steve is a cartoonist and writer of the science fiction fandom tradition. His first professional sale in 1961 was a cartoon for Paul Krassner's The Realist. After a stint in the military as an illustrator, he worked in advertising before becoming a freelancer in 1975. He has worked in genres ranging from underground comix to children's books to superhero comics. Most recently he designed a Peace and Humanitarian Achievements medal for the Samaritan community in Israel. The medal's first recipient was Shimon Peres.

His first cartoon for a fanzine appeared in Cry of the Nameless, edited by F. M. Busby and Elinor Busby. His work (art and test) has since appeared in fanzines from the famous (Xervo, Void and Mimosa) to the obscure (Vojo di Vivo). A fanzine interlineation he coined, "Death is Nature's Way of Telling You When to Stop", became a national catch phrase after being reprinted in Pageant Magazine in 1962.

Celebrated for his work for various fanzines, Stiles has won five Fan Activity Achievement (FAAn) Awards for best artist. In 1998 Stiles also won the first Bill Rotsler Award, which was named after prolific fan artist Bill Rostler. Stiles was a Hugo Award nominee as Best Fan Artist in 1967, 1968, and 2003 through 2008.

Stringer, Rick

Rick Stringer is the producer of the Parsec Award winning Variant Frequencies podcast. In January 2006 Rick, along with his wife Anne and their friend Matt Wallace, started Variant Frequencies, a monthly podcast of original fiction. He is also the producer of the acclaimed podiobook, The Failed Cities Monologues by Matt Wallace.

Podcasting isn't the only thing he does. Rick is Vice President of Corbin Design, a nationally recognized environmental graphic design firm located in Traverse City, Michigan, that works with clients around the country to improve the way people access places and information. Established in 1976, the firm has grown to become a national leader in wayfinding and environmental graphic design.

You can also catch him on Twitter.

Surrette, Gayle

I'm infinitely curious. I hardly ever manage to open a dictionary or encyclopedia (paper or online) without spending an inordinate amount of time following links to other things or being diverted by a new shiny idea, philosophy, technique, or whatever to learn about. Despite my disappointment in finding schools were really places where you polished and smoothed the edges on what you already knew, I managed to get a degree in psychology and a job as a computer programmer — thus introducing the concept of human user interfaces to geeks, management, and support staff as I ended up translating techie talk to English.

An avid reader from a very early age, I also love books — the binding, the paper, the typography, writing of, writing about, editing, proofing, copyediting, and talking about... So, when the chance came to work with Ernest Lilley on SFRevu, Gum Shoe Review, and TechRevu — how could a girl resist. Now, with a tremendous pile of books needing to be read and several venues to talk about books, authors, and idea — I'm happily learning and learning and learning...


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Tabor, Dan

Dan Tabor started out in Social Media with podcasting in 2005, on the still running podcast OtakuGeneration. Later looking to broaden his perspective and change things up, he started his own podcast FanboyHell which ran for 2 years. But, like all good things they came to an end and Dan decided to take the experience he had in New/Social Media and start again; applying his knowledge on the site geekadelphia where he serves as Co-Editor. Every day he not only covers fun and geeky things to do in the city of brotherly love, but also does celebrity interviews and movie/convention reviews all year long.

Talbot, Major Thomas

Major Thomas B. Talbot, MD is a medical doctor at the US Army Medial Research Institute of Chemical Defense, where he leads the academic computing program. He is course director for the Hospital Management of CBRNE Incidents course and instructs both the Field and medical Management of Chemical and Biological Casualties course. He served as an assistant editor for the Textbook of Military Medicine. His scientific interests include nerve agents, cyanide, anthrax and virology.

Tate, Benjamin

Benjamin Tate was born in North-Central Pennsylvania and is currently a professor living near Endicott, NY, teaching at a local college. He began writing seriously in graduate school, using the fantasy world of Well of Sorrows as an escape from the stress. In addition to writing epic fantasy, he teaches spin classes at the local gym, collects crackle glass, and has a roof garden threatening to take over the roof. His goals in life are to travel Europe, sail the Mediterranean, visit Australia, and preside over a small kingdom from a castle on a hill while occasionally bombarding the villagers below with catapult fire. Well of Sorrows is his first novel.

Tayler, Howard

Howard Tayler's career as a cartoonist began on the day when he informed his wife that he intended to pick up doodling as a hobby. Within 4 months he had formed a 10 year plan to turn his hobby into a career. Over the next 10 years he convinced enough people to come along for the ride that the plan actually worked.

Schlock Mercenary is an online comic space opera told four panels at a time. It updates daily on the web and the first half of that archive is now in print. Howard's cartooning habit is aided and abetted by his wife-and-business-partner, Sandra Tayler. Together with their four kids, they've learned how cottage industry expands to fill most of the cottage. The house holds his and hers offices as well as a storage room full of book inventory. When the time comes to ship out a new book release everyone gets into the act.

Prior to becoming a full-time cartoonist, Howard worked as a corporate product manager. He cast off the shackles of corporate employment in the fall of 2004 and has never regretted the terrifying leap. Since that time, he has learned all about the joys and challenges of freelance work and self-employment. Because Howard's cartooning hobby turned into a career, he needed new hobbies.

The weekly podcast Writing Excuses, which Howard co-hosts with Brandon Sanderson and Dan Wells, fills part of that need. The podcast covers topics of interest to the writers of genre fiction. Each episode is fifteen minutes long because "You're in a hurry, and they're not that smart." The remainder of Howard's hobby time is spent painting little metal monsters and robots. The miniatures come primarily from Privateer Press' Iron Kingdoms line, but he has known to venture into other worlds if they have really cool sculpts. Sometimes Howard takes out his miniature armies to play a game of War Machine. Howard also enjoys old school RPG games where people sit around a table, roll dice, and laugh a lot. This love of gaming is why he was delighted to illustrate XDM: X-treme Dungeon Mastery, the book by Tracy and Curtis Hickman which fixes whatever is wrong with the role playing system you are already using. Howard also loves to attend conventions and meet new people. Be sure to stop by and say hello.

Terra, Evo

Evo Terra is the co-founder of Podiobooks.com and the co-author of Podcasting for Dummies and Expert Podcasting Practices for Dummies. Evo has a rich history of experiences. Over the years, he's been a nationally syndicated radio show host, in charge of $30M in advertising dollars, directed a $250M ecommerce program, author, editor, consultant, coach and mentor. He tends to "live online", so a quick search on Google will reveal his current obsessions.

He understands that "doing business online" requires a well-established online presence. A first-class website is important, but it doesn't end there. As a consultant, he helps entities connect with customers in our growing digital world.

Thomas, Patrick

Patrick Thomas is the author of 150+ short stories and 20 books including 8 books in the popular fantasy humor series Murphy's Lore; Fairy With A Gun; Dead To Rites; 3 books in the Mystic Investigators series — including Bullets & Brimstone co-authored with John L. French and Once More Upon A Time co-authored with Diane Raetz. Patrick also writes the syndicated satirical advice column Dear Cthulhu and the first 2 collections — Have A Dark Day and Good Advice For Bad People — are out now for those searching for the meaning of life or a good laugh. He's also co-edited Hear Them Roar and the New Blood vampire anthology. Drop by his website.


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Van Name, Mark

Mark L. Van Name is a writer and technologist. As a science fiction author, he's published three novels, edited or co-edited two anthologies, and written many short stories. Those stories have appeared in a wide variety of books and magazines, including Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, many original anthologies, and The Year's Best Science Fiction. Books in his Jon & Lobo series include One Jump Ahead, Slanted Jack, Overthrowing Heaven, the omnibus Jump Gate Twist, and the upcoming fourth novel, Children No More. As a technologist, he's the CEO of a technology assessment company, Principled Technologies, Inc., that's based in the Research Triangle area. He's worked with computer technology for his entire professional career and has published over a thousand articles in the computer trade press, as well as a broad assortment of essays and reviews.

Mark was the recipient of the 2008 Compton Crook Award for his first novel One Jump Ahead. You can find him online at the Mark Van Name website and on blogspot.

Vivid Muse

Viv co-hosts the Into the Blender podcast with her husband Chooch, about their lives and parenting a blended family. Their previous project, the CoH Podcast, was about the City Of Heroes MMORPG and was a Finalist in both the 2008 and 2009 Parsec Awards, but sadly came home empty handed both years. Both podcasts began in October of 2007 and led to participation on New Media Panels at Balticon 43 and Dragon*Con 2009. Viv participated in the 2008 and 2009 NaNoWriMo, and won in 2009. She has also lent her voice to other audio projects in the podcasting world. Viv and her husband Chooch live in a blended family with their three sons from previous marriages.


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Waldman, Tyler

Tyler Waldman is a freelance journalist best known as the creator and producer of Rangercast, a Parsec-nominated podcast for the Power Rangers fandom. He is an active member of the local technology and anime fan communities and graduated Towson University this year with a degree in mass communication, with a concentration in journalism and new media. He has blogged about local geek culture and has reported from fan conventions in Washington, Richmond, Chicago and Los Angeles.

Ward, Jean Marie

Jean Marie Ward writes fiction, nonfiction and everything in between. Her first novel, With Nine You Get Vanyr (written with the late Teri Smith), finaled in the SF/Fantasy and Humor categories of the 2008 Indie Book Awards. Her latest art book, Fantasy Art Templates, was released by Barron's Educational Series in March. Her short stories appear in numerous anthologies, including Dragon's Lure, Here Be Dragons: Tales of DragonCon and Strange Pleasures 2 and 3.

Welliver, Heather

Heather Welliver, an accomplished singer and voice actress, co-hosts the media review podcast Grailwolf's Geek Life with her husband Marc Bailey. She is a regular Narrator for podcasts such as Escape Pod and Transmissions from Beyond, and has done guest voices for several podcasts as Chasing The Bard by Philippa Ballantine and Metamor City by Chris Lester and The Empress Sword and Form Letter Rejection Theatre by Paulette Jaxton. She is currently starring as Agent Cyris in the podcast novel Cybrosis by P.C. Haring.

When she recorded with the Shillas, she had no idea how well received her music would be. Their number one hit Faithful is the theme song for Nobilis Erotica and has been featured in several podcasts along with their other hit Don't Even Care. Heather has also done the theme song for the podcast project Pieces.

Heather Looks forward to pursuing both her voice acting and singing careers further and is always looking for a new project. She is rumored to be full of awsome and coated in win.

Williams, David J.

Descended from Australian convicts, David J. Williams nonetheless managed to be born in Hertfordshire, England, and subsequently moved to Washington D.C. Graduating from Yale with a degree in history some time later, he narrowly escaped the life of a graduate student and ended up doing time in Corporate America, which drove him so crazy he started moonlighting on video games and (as he got even crazier) novels. The Machinery of Light completes his acclaimed Autumn Rain trilogy; learn more about the world of the early 22nd century at Autumn Rain 2110.

Williams, John Taylor

John Taylor Williams is a full-time self-employed audio engineer, producer, composer, and sound designer.

He edits and masters The Cory Doctorow Podcast on a weekly basis.

Together with Thomas "cmdln" Gideon, he co-hosts The Living Proof Brewcast.

He has been involved in audio engineering and DIY recording for over twenty years and has learned a few things along the way!

In his free time, he makes beer, jewelry, odd musical instruments and furniture. He likes to meditate, to read and to cook.

Wilson, D.C.

D. C. Wilson's work has appeared in the following anthologies: Bad-Ass Faeries, No Longer Dreams, and Fantastical Visions III. His work has also appeared in the periodical Trails of Indiscretion.

D. C. lives in Harrisburg, PA with his extremely patient and understanding wife, Maria.

Wilson, Steve H.

Steven H. Wilson has interviewed Jonathan Frakes and William Campbell for Starlog, written for DC Comics, and served as principal writer and director for Prometheus Radio Theatre and publisher of Firebringer Press. His original science fiction series, The Arbiter Chronicles, boasting sixteen full-cast audio dramas and the novel Taken Liberty, has won the Mark Time Silver Award and the Parsec Award for Best Audio Drama (long form). His second novel, Peace Lord of the Red Planet and a collection of his short fiction, DHS in Wonderland - Tales of Stolen Innocence, are due out in 2010. Besides hosting the Prometheus Radio Theatre podcast, Steve has recorded Lester Del Rey's Badge of Infamy for podiobooks.com, multiple roles in J. Daniel Sawyer's production of Antithesis, and Nobilis's upcoming presentation of Scouts.

Steve entered SF fandom as a fanzine writer in 1984, and worked on the committees and Shore Leave, Clippercon and OktoberTrek before becoming founding co-chairman of Farpoint. Alongside his wife, Renee, he is currently Farpoint's Director of Fan Relations.

Wisoker, Leona

Leona Wisoker's writing is fueled equally by coffee and conviction. Addicted to eclectic research and reading since childhood, she often chooses reading material alphabetically rather than by subject or author. This has led her to read about aardvarks, birds, child-warriors, dragons, eggs, and many other random subjects.

Leona's first novel, Secrets of the Sands, is set in a world which has known neither King Arthur nor Christianity; a world still struggling through a number of basic moral and developmental issues. The final result leaves room not only for serious questions but moments of laughter, and inevitably involves coffee.

World, J. Andrew

When the fanzine Nth Degree went on hiatus, staff artist J. Andrew World wondered how on earth he would occupy himself. This dilemma was quickly solved, however, as he has since done work for various cons such as RavenCon, Capclave, and ReConStruction(2010 NASFiC), designed album covers for the FuMP, and begun work on a personal project called "The Seen". But he still felt he wasn't running himself ragged enough, so he decided to go back to school full time to earn a masters degree in Art Education. Now with Nth Degree back in the form of Nth Zine, J. Andrew has given up sleep to work on his art so he can actually see his wife and kids from time to time. You can visit him online at www.jandrewworld.com or at


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Zelkowitz, Marvin

Marvin Zelkowitz is a Research Professor of Computer Science at the University of Maryland in College Park. His research interests are in experimental software engineering and technology transfer where he has studied the introduction of new computer technology into organizations such as NASA and the Department of Defense. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Electronic and Electrical Engineers (IEEE), a Golden Core member of the Computer Society, and has published over 160 conference and journal papers on aspects of computer technology (none intentionally science fiction).

His interests include skepticism where he is treasurer of the National Capital Area Skeptics, bible studies (who wrote those books and why?), and reading science fiction, which he has been doing since he was 12 - several centuries ago. As an aging Geek, he used to totally understand how gadgets like the original IBM PC worked, can still set the clock on his home DVD player, but doesn't understand who or why anyone wants an iPhone.

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