Balticon, Maryland Regional Science Fiction Convention Web Page

How do I get to be a program participant?

Who's Coming

Notice to and current >Balticon program participants:

This list was last updaed on April 15, 2013. Please click View, Reload on your browser (F5 on most pc's and laptops) to pull down the latest version of this page. Webgoblins are working away, adding to this page as information becomes available. Changes may occur several times a day!

In an effort to provide literary and fan program track participants with fuller schedules, we will be continuing with reduced participant invitations for those tracks in 2013.

Invitations for Balticon 47 have closed. If you were invited and have not submitted your Participant Survey, please be aware that failure to submit the survey may result in our not having any programming for you, since we do not know your availability. We stop accepting survey submissions on April 25, 2103.

If you want to make sure you get an early invitation for Balticon 48 in 2014, please drop a note, including your full name and a brief bio, by the end of September to Literary.

The following is a list of program participants who, as of 4/16/2013, have accepted our invitation to attend Balticon 47 and COMPLETED the Balticon 47 PARTICIPANT SURVEY.

Click the links in the bios for info about program participants.

Abbott, JoAnn W.

Ackley-McPhail, Danielle

Adler-Golden, Lisa

Berman-Gorvine, Martin

Biernesser, Steve and Deja

Bilmes, Joshua

Birt, Danny

Bland, Roxanne

Blumberg, Art

Bowen, Sue

Boyes, Walter H., Jr.

Bridgman, William T. (Tom)

Brio, Alessia

Brown, J. Sherlock, III

Cady, Mildred G.

Chase, Christine

Chase, Robert R.

Cipra, Carl

Cooper, Iver

Crist, Vonnie Winslow

D'Alessio, Charlene Taylor

Davis, Rebecca

Dearborn, Donna

Diaz, Ming

Fleischer, Eric "Dr. Gandalf", aka "Dr. G"

Fleischer, Halla

Fleming, Judi

Frankenfield, Doc

Fratz, D. Douglas

Frey, Nancy C.

Garrott, Lia

Gear, Marty

Giguere, Veronica (V.)

Granoff, Matthew

Greenman, Irina

Grintalis, Damien Walters

Gross, Sonya "Patches"

Hardenbrook, Eric V.

Hoffman, W. Randy

Holloman, Jeannette

Hymowitz, Eric

Hymowitz, Michele

Johnston, Leslie

Kaplan, Amy L.

Kaplan, Bruce

Kaplan, Debra

Kira

Kondo, Dr. Yoji

Kotani, Eric

Krulik, Theodore

La Porta, Alessandro

Lafferty, Mur

Lamplighter, Jagi

Larson, Grig "Punkie"

Lisse, Casey

Livengood, ScienceTim

Love, Andy

Lubs, Steve

Lurie, Perrianne

Lynch, Kristina

MacDicken, Mark

Macrae, Phoebe

Macumber, Justin R.

Madden, Helen "Cynical Woman"

Malfoy, Zophiel

Mayhew, Bill

Neufeld, Matt

Nove, Barry (see Aire, D.H.

Oszko, Lance

Pease, Marianne

Prellwitz, Bethlynne

Prellwitz, Samuel

Prellwitz, Benjamin Ward

Robinson, Ron

Salemi, Carol

Sarfati, Kat

Sarfati, Lee

Schweitzer, Darrell C.

Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA)

Melissa Scott

Shavitz, Eileen

Shuch, H. Paul (Dr. SETI®)

Shvartsman, Alex

Sigler, Scott

Silverman, Hildy

Simpson, Kevin

Smith, Jennifer Zyren

Stewart-Fulton, Matthew

Stratton, Jim

Szkotnicki, Kate

Thorndike Love, Talis

Thorndike, Persis L.

Trondheim, Ingeborg i

Van Name, Mark L.

Vaughan, Robin M.

Ventrella, Michael A.

Ward, Jean Marie

Ward, Joy

Warner, Brent

Waters, Robert E.

Weingarden, Alexa

Weinstein, Diane M.

Wejksnora-Garrott, Ruth

Wilson, Ethan

Wooldridge, Trisha J.

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 Programming mailbox. See the Contact Us page for some email links.

What is expected of program participants?

We ask Balticon program participants to:

If you have already received your Balticon 47 Participant Invitation, you can find information about submitting program suggestions here.

You can look at the official Balticon Participant Membership Policy here if you want to, or the following includes the basic points.

Commit, if possible, to at least 1.5 program hours (a program hour is 50 minutes) per day of convention attendance. (There are, of course exceptions. If you are preparing an extensive workshop, a one-critter lecture, a dance or other event that requires significant amounts of advance preparation, you may not have time or energy for much else that day!);

Let us know — no later than May 1st, please! — if there are technical requirements for your presentation such as a projection screen, DVD player, computer monitor, ELMO, or sound system;

Show up a few minutes early where scheduled to appear, 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?

As a Balticon Program participant, you:

Receive a membership to Balticon exchange for your program participantion;

Can purchase a membership for one SO, life partner/companion for one half the lowest published membership rate for the Balticon to be attended.

Can purchase children's memberships for the your eligible minor children at one half the lowest published children's membership membership rate for the Balticon to be attended, and for your children aged 13 to 25 who are students at one half the lowest published adult membership rate;

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

Are invited to have us schedule a time for you (or someone you designate) to do a reading of your work;

Are invited to have us schedule a time for your autograph session shared with one or 2 other professionals;

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 Parlor 1041;

Acquire fame, adoration and undying devotion from Balticon attendees;

And can filch homemade baked goodies from the volunteer desk.

Participant Biographical Information

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

XYZ

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Abbott, JoAnn W.

"You look great-I can fix that" is the latest motto of JoAnn Abbott, who has had more fun than anyone should creating zombies and horror SFX for local films and tv shows this past 3 years. She competes in the Master class at Masq's in both Sci-Fi and historical divisions, and is known for her unusual outfits, such as the Root Canal Fairy and Grandma GaGa.

Ackley-McPhail, Danielle

Award-winning author Danielle Ackley-McPhail has worked both sides of the publishinge industry for over seventeen years. Currently, she is a project editor and promotions managr for Dark Quest Books.

Her published works include four urban fantasy novels, Yesterday's Dreams, Tomorrow's Memories, and Today's Promiseand "The Eternal Cycle" Serie (The Halfling's Court: A Bad-Ass Faerie Tale and its sequel, The Redcaps' Queen). She is also the author of the non-fiction writers guide, The Literary Handyman and is the senior editor of the "Bad-Ass Faeries" anthology series, Dragons Lure, and In An Iron Cage. Her work is included in numerous other anthologies and collections.

She is a member of the New Jersey Authors Network and Broad Universe, a writer�s organization focusing on promoting the works of women authors in the speculative genres.

Danielle lives 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, badassfaeries, darkquestbooks, lit_handyman), Facebook (Danielle Ackley-McPhail), and Twitter (@DAckley-McPhail). To learn more, follow any of the links in this bio!

Adler-Golden, Lisa

Lisa Adler-Golden has been distracted by many things, but is really a scientist at heart. She is a biologist, costumer, and fan of all things fandom.

Aire, D. H.

D.H. Aire has walked the ramparts of the Old City of Jerusalem and through an escape tunnel out of a Crusader fortress that Richard the Lion Heart called home. He's toured archeological sites that were hundreds, if not thousands of years old… experiences that have found expression in his debut novel Highmage�s Plight, Aire�s short stories this year in the ezine Atomic Avarice, and the anthologies RealLies, Irony of Survival and Flights of Fantasy, Vol. 1.. The author is originally from St. Louis, Missouri and currently resides in the Washington D.C. metropolitan area.

Al-Mohamed, Day

Day Al-Mohamed is co-editor for the upcoming anthology, Trust & Treachery and hosts the multi-author blog Unleaded: Fuel for Writers (www.unleadedwriting.com). Her publications have appeared in Space and Time Magazine, "Comets and Criminals," and "Daily Science Fiction." She is an active member of the Cat Vacuuming Society of Northern Virginia Writing Group, and Women in Film and Video. When not working on fiction, Day is Senior Policy Advisor with the U.S. Department of Labor, and has also worked as a lobbyist and political analyst providing technical expertise to advisory committees and governing bodies, both domestic and international, on critical subjects including: technology law, immigration and detention, privacy, hate crimes, employment, and emergency preparedness and response. Prior to that, she spent part of a year at the United Nations, reporting on activities relating to victims of genocide. Day has published policy-related non-fiction, presenting frequently around the country. She lives in Washington, DC in a house with too many swords, comic books, and political treatises.

Alexander, Leigh

Leigh Alexander has been dancing since the age of three, exploring many styles of dance, but her main focus has always been ballet. As a youth, she studied under Towson's Children's Dance Division with Patty Enoch Bond. In high school, Leigh was accepted into the dance program at Carver Center for the Arts, then went on to receive her Associate of the Arts degree in Dance from CCBC, where she was awarded "Outstanding Dancer of the Year" for two consecutive years. She also received the only scholarships offered in the dance department, both years in attendance. She graduated from Goucher College in 2008, where she earned her BA in Dance Therapy.

Leigh began her teaching career at age 11 as an assistant at Kingsville Recreation Center. After three years she was awarded her own classes. Leigh has taught creative movement, ballet, tap, modern, and lyrical to varying age groups around Maryland and is a current member of the teaching staff at Baltimore Ballet and Maryland School for Ballet and Modern Dance.

Leigh's passion in the field of dance has led her in many directions, including costume design. In 2006 she started designing and crafting dance costumes for herself and received several awards for outstanding craftsmanship at local and national conventions. In 2008 she began designing and constructing costumes for several dance companies. Her most notable projects are Howard County Ballets's Nightingale, Baltimore Ballet's Firebird, and Maryland School for Ballet and Modern Dance's Nutcracker, Adventures Under the Sea (inspired by Finding Nemo), and Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer.

Alexander, Tristan

I am a profesional freelance artist, I live with my husband Don and our 6 cats. You can see my work here and on my website. I have done cover art for Circlet Press and other small press companies and have done work for the SCA.

Andrews, Scott H.

Scott H. Andrews's short fiction has appeared in venues such as Weird Tales and Space and Time and is forthcoming from On Spec. He is Editor-in-Chief and Publisher of the pro-rate fantasy e-zine Beneath Ceaseless Skies, which was Runner-Up for storySouth's Million Writers Award for Best New Online Magazine of 2008. He lives in Virginia with his wife, two cats, nine guitars, a dozen overflowing bookcases, and hundreds of beer bottles from all over the world.

Angelwings, Ami

Ami Angelwings is an avid comics enthusiast, and has been blogging about comics, superheroes and sexism in comic books since 2005. She has written over 300 comic reviews and today runs Escher Girls, a popular blog that showcases and discusses the ways women are sexualized, portrayed, distorted and clothed in illustrated popular media. When she's not in her high-tech power suit, she is a social worker and queer rights advocate living in the Toronto metropolitan area.

Asaro, Catherine A.

Catherine A. Asaro

Catherine Asaro has written over twenty-five science fiction, fantasy, and near future thriller novels. She earned her doctorate in chemical physics and masters in physics, both at Harvard. Her works "The Quantum Rose" and "The Spacetime Pool" won the Nebula� Award. Among her other distinctions, she is a multiple winner of the AnLab from Analog magazine and the RT BOOKClub Award for "Best Science Fiction Novel."

Her most recent books are Carnelians (Baen) and the anthology Aurora in Four Voices (ISFiC Press). She is also the editor of Nebula Awards Showcase 2013. Her novels are all available as audio books. In eBook form, her recent releases are Primary Inversion, "The City of Cries," and "The Spacetime Pool."

When she isn�t writing, Catherine is a teacher. Her students have placed at the top levels of competitions such as the USA Mathematical Olympiad and the USA Mathematical Talent Search (USAMTS). She is also a visiting professor in the Physics Department at the University of Maryland, BC. As a member of SIGMA, a think tank of futurists, she advises the government as to future trends affecting national security.

A former ballet and jazz dancer, Catherine has performed on both coasts and in Ohio. She also has two music CD's out and is working on her third. She appears at cons, clubs, and other venues, including as the Guest of Honor at the Denmark and New Zealand National Science Fiction Conventions.

Ashmead, John

John Ashmead has BA in physics from Harvard, summa cum laude, and a masters in physics from Princeton. He has worked as an assistant editor at Isaac Asimov's SF Magazine, and has been a regular speaker at Balticon and Philcon for many years now.

He works as a computer consultant, making sure you get your bills and commercials on time (no thanks necessary: the work is its own reward).

He is currently working on a web site, www.mapsndata.com, to make combining maps & data (creating mashups) easy & inexpensive. He is also working on a dissertation, "Time and quantum electrodynamics" about the role of time in quantum mechanics. His life's ambition: to create a really practical time machine.

Ashton, Lisa

Lisa Ashton is a master-level costumer who calls Balticon home. Recent costumes include "Mistress of All Hallows", and "The Letter", a Civil War era re-creation historical costume at CC29. She has had articles on historical costumes published in "Virtual Costumer", most recently in Feb. 2012. In mundane life, she works as an Emergency Medicine PA. Besides costuming, she loves beads, quilting, gardening, hunting, being out in the woods, and going to flea markets. Her newest obsession is collecting vintage Victorian photographs. Her dearest wish is to last long enough to use up her fabric stash.

Atkinson, Thomas G.

Thomas has been making costumes since shortly after his birth (his "Baby With Bib and Carrots" was voted "Best Use of Roots and Tubers" at GerberCon '64). He attended his first Con in 1976 and has been a permanent fixture since. His costumes include "The Empire State Building," "Chernobyl Clean-Up Crew," "2010 Pajamas," "Winter's End (Potted Plant)," "Spaceman Spiff," "Lot's Wife," and a score of re-creation outfits, including Star Wars™ and Star Trek™. Here we see him in his Jedi Knight garb.

Thomas is one of the world's greatest Star Wars™ fans. He started collecting Star Wars™ toys and memorabilia when the first movie came out in 1976, and he has not stopped since. His collection forms the basis of The Star Toys Museum, of which Thomas is Curator. In 2007, a portion of his collection was on exhibit for several months at the Geppi Museum in Baltimore.

Thomas has a great affection for the classic tangrams puzzle, and his car is instantly recognizable by the several designs attached to it with magnetic pieces. The designs change with the seasons, including a Christmas tree and Santa Claus. His former car sported a Star Wars™ paint design and was on exhibit in Baltimore's 2007 ArtScape parade. Its brazen theft in 2010 left a lasting sense of loss.

Thomas lives at Meerkat Meade with his spouse, writer Don Sakers.

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Banks, Jason

Jason Banks spent 6 yreas as a soldier with the 1st of the 501st Airborne's Forward Support Company Echo(Easy Company). while in the army he started towards becoming a published author. Since the Army he has started a blog and podcast talking about all things nerdy.

Barrientos, Brick

Brick Barrientos is a quizbowl player, NAC moderator and judge, and host of his own public access TV show, Silver Screen Test. He is "notable" for winning the 1981 College Bowl National Championship. He was among the founders of the Maryland program.

After stopping competitive play, Brick continued to moderate and write for tournaments in the Washington-Baltimore area, especially for tournaments held at the University of Maryland. He reunited with Robert Whaples and Tom Rogers of the 1981 Maryland team for the 2000 Philadelphia Experiment.

Brick serves as a moderator and judge at the Washington, D.C. NAC site. He was also one of the judges at first NAC. Brick has been a judge every year at NAC, but has only worked the Washington, D.C. site since the tournament went to multiple locations in 1995.

Brick hosts Silver Screen Test, a game show on Montgomery County (Maryland) Public Access Television. As the title suggests, the show asks three contestants a series of questions on movies. In many ways it is similar to Jeopardy!, although lower budget and with a narrower focus.

Brick has hosted science fiction trivia contests at Washington-Baltimore area science fiction conventions Unicon, Disclave, and Balticon. He also ran a fantasy trivia contest at the 1994 Mythopoeic Conference at American University and the science fiction trivia contest at the 1998 World Science Fiction Convention in Baltimore.

Berman-Gorvine, Martin

Martin Berman-Gorvine is the author of three science fiction novels: Seven Against Mars (Wildside Press, 2013); 36 (Livingston Press, 2012); and, as Martin Gidron, The Severed Wing (Livingston Press, 2002), which received the 2002 Sidewise Award for Alternate History (Long Form) at the International Science Fiction Convention in Toronto in 2003. His short story "Palestina," set in an alternate history in which Israel lost its war of independence, was published in Interzone magazine's May/June 2006 issue, and was a finalist for the Sidewise Award (Short Form), and his short story "The Tallis" appeared in Jewish Currents magazine, May 2002. He is a professional journalist, currently serving as a reporter for the Bureau of National Affairs newsletter Human Resources Report. His website is www.martinbermangorvine.com, his Facebook page is www.facebook.com/martingorvine, and his musings on politics and life can be found at rebmordechaiofchelm.blogspot.com. He lives in the suburbs of Washington, D.C. with his wife, two children, two orange tabby cats, two shy kittens, and a sort of Muppet dog.

Bilmes, Joshua

Joshua Bilmes is President of JABberwocky Literary Agency, the leading agency for sf/fantasy. His clients include NY Times bestselling authors Charlaine Harris, Brandon Sanderson, Peter V. Brett, John Hemry (aka Jack Campbell), Simon R. Green, and Elizabeth Moon (also a Compton Crook Award winner). Tanya Huff, Mark Hodder, Myke Cole and Joshua Palmatier (aka Benjamin Tate) are other major clients. When he's avoiding work, he might be watching a movie or some tennis.

Birt, Danny

Danny Birt has been a contributing author and editor to several sci-fi, fantasy, and professional magazines, anthologies, and journals. His first children's/YA novel Between a Roc and a Hard Place won The National Parenting Center's 2010 Seal of Approval, Creative Child Magazine's 2010 Seal of Excellence, and was named one of Dr. Toy's Best Picks of 2010. Recently, Dark Quest Books began publishing his fantasy series "The Laurian Pentology."

In addition to literary publication, Danny composes classical and filk music, such as his nonstop hour-long piano solo "Piano Petrissage", and the ever-peculiar album "Warped Children's Songs". Danny's comedy music has been featured on national radio and internet programs such as The Dr. Demento Show and The Funny Music Project.

Bland, Roxanne

Roxanne Bland grew up in Washington, D.C., where she discovered strange and wonderful new worlds through her local library and bookstores. These and other life experiences have convinced her that reality is highly overrated. She received her A.B. from Smith College and her J.D. from Tulane University Law School. She currently works as an attorney and lives in the Baltimore, Maryland area, and is the owner of Blackrose Press. She began her writing career in 2001 and her debut novel is a candidate for the 32nd Compton Crook Award in 2014.

Boyes, Walter H., Jr.

By day, Walt Boyes is the not-so-mild-mannered chief editor of an award-winning technology magazine called Control, and a partner in a high-technology consulting firm, Spitzer and Boyes LLC. Ah, but by night, he transforms into the Bananaslug of Baen�s Bar, and begins to write. Walt has written 10 non-fiction books, articles and columns too numerous to count (Bananaslugs have very few fingers anyway) and has published several fiction pieces, including four short stories in the 1632 Universe and some children�s stories. Walt is currently working on two non-fiction books, and a novel (of course -- doesn�t every writer have one stashed somewhere?), and with Joy Ward, is working on The World of 1632. Walt was Associate Editor and Marketing Director for Jim Baen�s Universe magazine, is a member of the Editorial Board of the Grantville Gazette, and is an active member of SFWA.

Bridgman, William T.

Tom Bridgman received his in Ph.D. in Physics & Astronomy at Clemson University in 1994. After graduate school, Dr. Bridgman went to work as a contractor at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in 1995 working with the Compton Gamma-Ray Observatory. He would later move to scientific data visualization of NASA data. His interests in the history of science and pseudo-science issues has become a rather time-consuming hobby outside of his day job.

Brio, Alessia

Alessia Brio is the wicked genius behind the "Coming Together" charity erotica series. She has been blessed with a filthy mind which she uses to write, edit, and publish naughty books. While a large portion of her time and energy are devoted to altruistic endeavors, she is mortal and requires food, clothing, and shelter. Hence, she also publishes via her indie label, Purple Prosaic.

Brown, J. Sherlock, III

J. Sherlock Brown, III is a US Citizen, Water Process Research Designer, Rocket Propulsion Physicist, Fueling Systems Designer, Computer Chip Designer, Micromachine Designer, Large-scale Food Manufacturing Engineer, Machinery Development Engineer, Farmer and Professional Animal Trainer. In 2006 he created joebrownscience.net and in 2012 he completed the site's final update.

Bryski, K.T.

K. T. Bryski is a Toronto-born author, podcaster, and playwright. Early school reports encouraged her "to try activities beyond her preferred pastime of quiet reading." Given that she was scribbling down and acting out stories, this was perhaps not entirely fair. She made her podcasting and publishing debut with her novel Hapax (Dragon Moon Press, 2012): an apocalyptic fantasy available in print, e-book, and podcast forms. Select playwriting credits include "Dracula"" (Northern Secondary School Drama, 2009), various bits of theatre for Black Creek Pioneer Village (2011), and "East o' the Sun and West o' the Moon" (Canadian Children�s Opera Company, 2014). By the time you read this, she will (hopefully) have achieved her Hon. B.A. in History from the University of Toronto. She still lives in Toronto, where she continues to read, write, and act out stories. She is currently at work on her next novel.

Burke, Stephanie "Flash"

Have You Been Flashed?

Stephanie is a multi-published multi-award-winning wife and mother of two whose unparalleled imagination causes her no end of trouble. From sex shifting shape-shifting dragons to under sea worlds, up to sexually confused elemental fey and homo erotic mysteries, all the way to pastel challenged urban sprites, Stephanie has done it all, and hopes to do more.

Stephanie is an Orator on her favorite subject of 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 various sci-fi and writing cons where she can be found leading panel discussions or researching more and varied legends and theories to improve her writing skills.

Stephanie is known for her love of the outrageous, strong female characters, believable worlds, male characters filled with depth, and interracial that make the reader sit up and take notice.

Currently Stephanie writes for Changeling Press, Ellora�s Cave, Loose-Id press, Red Rose, Renaissance E Books, Tease Publishing, Total E Bound, Beautiful Trouble Publishing and hopes to add more to her resume.

Stephanie and links to her many works in process can be found on her Flamekeeper Yahoo! group, as well as on her website and Facebook page.

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 and the Landsat Data Continuity Mission.

She is currently working on the Joint Polar Satellite System. During the summer of 2007, she spent 9 weeks in Beijing, China at the International Space University and has returned as a guest lecturer. She enjoys speaking to the public on space related topics at conventions and science festivals. She tweets about space and science. In addition to her interest in space, she is a long time science fiction and fantasy fan, podcast listener, dancer, board game player, knitter, and an avid book collector. She has had two photo exhibitions at Constellation Books in Reisterstown, MD. Laura is the head of the Parsec Awards Parsec Awards

Steering Committee and has lent her voice to several podcasts.

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Cady, Mildred G.

Mildred is a gamer, geek, actor, costumer, crafter, nerd, fan, and a writer. A lapsed SCAdian and current Steampunk. She's always been interested in how people spent their time in long ago cultures, leading to the development of the Victorian Pastimes panels. She's also an �ber fan of podcast audio fiction, in particular being the Librarian of the Metamor City Podcast.

Campbell, Jack

Jack Campbell (John G. Hemry) is the author of the New York Times best-selling "Lost Fleet" series (Dauntless, Fearless, Courageous, Valiant, Relentless and Victorious). His most recent book is Guardian, the latest in the "Lost Fleet — Beyond the Frontier" series (which also includes Dreadnaught and Invincible). His next book will be Perilous Shield, the sequel to Tarnished Knight in the "Lost Stars" series. He is also the author of the "Stark's War" and "Sinclair/JAG in space" series. His short fiction has appeared in places as varied as the last Chicks in Chainmail anthology and Analog magazine (most recently "The War of the Worlds — Chapter Eighteen" in the January/February 2013 issue). His alternate American Civil War novella The Last Full Measure is being published by Subterranean. He also has stories in the anthologies Breach the Hull, So it Begins, By Other Means and Armor, as well as the essay "Liberating the Future" in Teenagers From the Future (about the Legion of Super Heroes). After retiring from the US Navy and settling in Maryland, John began writing. John lives with his wife (the indomitable S) and three great kids. His children are all on the autistic spectrum.

Chambliss, Renee

Renee Chambliss is an audiobook narrator, writer, and podcaster. Her highly-rated podcast novel Dreaming of Deliverance led to her career as a professional voice over artist. She lives in northern California with her husband and two children.

Chase, Christine M.

Christine Chase, daughter of author Robert R. Chase, has been a fan of anime since the first time she saw Demon City Shinjuku on the Sci-Fi Channel's Saturday Anime, back in the 90's. In fact, when she took Japanese in high school, her "culture project" was on the history of anime and manga. For the past several years, she has worked on the staff of the Balticon Anime Room. She is also intimately familiar with the fun and bizarre world of anime fandom and has, somewhat to her chagrin, personal experience with fanfic writing.

Chase, Robert R.

Robert R. Chase is the author of three published novels including the Compton Cook nominated The Game of Fox and Lion and more than a two dozen shorter works, the most recent being "Pictures at an Exhibition" (Analog, November 2012). Although, his interests range from anime to theological fantasy, he is a staunch proponent of science in science fiction.

Chevalier, Bryan

Bryan Chevalier is a member of Sassafrass, a folk-fantasy a capella group.

Cinii, Ariel "Abby"

Ariel Cinii {pron. "SIN-eye", but you can call her Abby} has babbled about her home planet for more than thirty years in fandom, whether she's filking, drawing, writing or on a panel. She still helps out with Contata; New York's take on the Floating Northeast Filk Con; and her song, "Droozlin' Through the Cosmos" was a 2012 Pegasus Award Nominee! Abby wrote "The Family Forge" and "The Organized Seer" {See: Amazon.com} and you can spot her as Sodyera on LiveJournal.

Cipra, Carl

Carl started reading F&SF in his pre-teen years and has been hooked ever since. He became involved with Fandom back in the 1970s (by way of the SCA in Southern California) and is one of the founding members of Lambda Sci-Fi: DC Area Gaylaxians. He really enjoys moderating discussion panels at conventions and is looking forward to all the fascinating discussions at Balticon this year. Mundanely, Carl is the program manager for instructor-training in a much-maligned, three-letter Government agency.

Clough, Brenda W.

Brenda W. Clough is the author of many science fiction and fantasy novels. She has been a finalist for the Hugo and the Nebula awards. Her electronic novels are available through Book View Cafe.

Cmar, John

John Cmar, MD, has been long enthralled with horrible infections that could spell doom for humankind, as well as sanity and skepticism in the practice of medicine. He is currently an Instructor of Medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, and the Assistant Director of the Division of Infectious Diseases at Sinai Hospital of Baltimore. He is the lead physician in Sinai's Ryan White initiative, which provides medical care and social assistance to patients with HIV infection who are without medical insurance. In his role as Program Director for the Internal Medicine residency program at Sinai, he teaches an annual course series in Evidence-Based Medicine, among many other duties. He also does Infectious Diseases outreach in Baltimore television and print media. John is a science fiction and fantasy fan, avid gamer, and podcast enthusiast. He currently blogs and podcasts on skeptical, medical, and geeky topics on The Secret Lair.

Cole, Myke

Myke Cole is the author of the military fantasy Shadow Ops series from Ace (Penguin). The first novel, Control Point, was published in February 2012. The second novel, Fortress Frontier was published in 2013. and will be followed by Fortress Frontier in 2013.

He is an officer in the reserves, has done 3 tours in Iraq and has responded to domestic disasters including the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill, Hurricane Irene and Hurricane Sandy.

Coleman, Doc

Doc Coleman is a blogger, podcaster, voice actor, and writer. He began in 2010 with his tech review blog The Nifty Tech Blog. He soon started podcasting as a regular on Galley Table, producing his own podcast: The Shrinking Man Project, and as a guest co-host on The Writer's Round Table.

Next, he took on voice acting, with credits from A Midsummer Night's Dream and Treasure Island, Absolution from Scrivener's Circle, the YA novel Ginny Dare, and live performances of Metamor City at Balticon 45 and Stargazers at Balticon 46. He is part of the newly formed League of Extraordinary Vocalists.

His stories have appeared in the Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences' Tales from the Archives, the Way of the Gun anthology, and the "Steampunk Special Edition" of Flagship magazine. He is writing a YA novel, The Bright Lands, and publishing his first novel, The Perils of Prague.

Find out about all of Doc�s projects at Swimming Cat Studios.

When he isn�t juggling projects, making a living, or mainlining podcasts, Doc is a gamer, an avid reader, a motorcyclist, a home brewer and beer lover, a fan of renaissance festivals, and frequently a smart-ass. He lives with his lovely wife and two Maine Coon cats in Germantown, MD.

Cooley, Paul

Paul is a crazed lunatic, possibly homicidal, with a penchant for killing his fans and exploring the furthest reaches of mental illness and delusions for fun. Even the ones he doesn't have. When he's not writing twisted tales of psychological torment, he writes enterprise software and applications for the internet and the iPhone.

Paul's Parsec Award Nominated Fiends collection and Garaaga's Children collection are available for free from Shadowpublications.com and in e-book format from Amazon.com. Paul is also the creator of MyWrite which enables authors to personalize and sign their ebooks using tablets and smart phones. In addition, Paul is a co-host of the venerated "Dead Robots' Society" podcast for writers.

You can find the latest information, stories, essays, rants, and reviews from his site. He welcomes comments and interaction and especially enjoys speaking of himself in the third person.

Cooper, Iver

Iver Cooper has been an active contributor to Eric Flint's "1632" shared universe, with 22 short stories and over 40 articles published so far. Iver's 1632 universe braided story anthology 1636: Seas of Fortune is being published by Baen in January 2014.

Iver is an intellectual property law attorney with Browdy & Neimark, Washington DC. He has received legal writing awards from the American Patent Law Association, the U.S. Trademark Association, and the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers, and is the sole author of Biotechnology and the Law, now in its twenty-something edition. In his spare time, such as may exist, he teaches swing and folk dancing, and participates in local photo club competitions. Iver is married, with a son at George Washington University School of Public Policy, and a daughter working as an advertising agency copywriter.

Crist, Vonnie Winslow

Vonnie Winslow Crist is author-illustrator of an epic fantasy novel, The Enchanted Skean, two collections of speculative fiction: The Greener Forest and Owl Light, two speculative ebooks: For the Good of the Settlement and Blame it on the Trees, a children's book: Leprechaun Cake & Other Tales" and two volumes of myth-based poetry: River of Stars and Essential Fables. Her writing has earned two Honorable Mentions in L. Ron Hubbard's Writers of the Future Contest, a Maryland State Arts Council Award, and a Pushcart Nomination. Her award-winning art has been featured on the covers of Bards and Sages Quarterly, Aoife's Kiss, Scifaikuest, Harford's Heart Magazine, Lower Than The Angels, Through A Glass Darkly, inside Faerie Magazine, and will be exhibited this autumn at Goucher College. Her fiction can be found in many anthologies and magazines including: Dragon's Lure, Zombies for a Cure, Ocean Stories, Dia de los Muertos, Sideshow 2, Tales of the Talisman, Cemetery Moon, and Shelter of Daylight. Vonnie has had a life-long interest in reading, writing, art, folktales, fairy tales, and myths; and she believes the world is still filled with mystery, miracles, and magic.

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D'Ambrosio, Michael Andrew

Michael D'Ambrosio rs a lifelong resident of the Philadelphia area and has been participating in conventions all over the country for nine years now. With eight novels to his credit, Michael is involved in screenwriting and a new sci-fi story called "Princess Pain." When he isn't writing, Michael works as a nuclear controls technician in a nuclear generating station. Visit Mike's website at www.fracturedtime.com for more details on his work and appearances.

Michael graduated Widener University with a B.S. in Technical and Industrial Administrationd. With The Fractured Time Trilogy, Night Creeps and Space Frontiers, look for Michael to expand his fan base overseas in the coming years, particularly in the U.K. where science fiction is more popular than anywhere else in the world.

D'Alessio, Charlene Taylor

Charlene Taylor D'Alessio has been illustrating in the Fantasy and Science Fiction genre for 30 years. She is know for her exquisite painted ties, humorous fantasy paintings of famous hamsters, wizard cats, dragons, owls and small astronomical pieces. She has been published the most recent being by Sunsout with the Magic Cat Puzzle. She is also illustrating a children's book. Look for Charlene's artwork at most SF con art shows.

Davis, Rebecca K.

Becca is an avid steampunk prop maker, and all around fan. She has flirted with indie film (the relationship does not appear serious just yet, but there is hope) and is working in a number of projects that aren't ready to be announced as of this writing.

Current Projects: Live Action Performances with Guardians Performance Group, Production on "Blood / Clan", writing what she hopes will be able to be a Steampunk Indie Film.

Davroe, A. L.

A.L. Davroe writes both YA and adult speculative fiction. She focuses on revisionist tales in paranormal, romance, Steampunk, and fantasy. A number of A.L. Davroe's short stories have been published through small presses and she has completed several novels for publication. A.L. writes erotic literature under Quinn Templeton.

de Guardiola, Susan

Susan de Guardiola has been active in fandom for more than thirty years as a costumer, masquerade emcee, and all-around fan. She is a social dance historian and teacher who may often be found in musty library stacks researching dance from the 16th to the 20th centuries in between teaching workshops across the United States and running dance events. She reviews F&SF, historical and paranormal romance, and historical fiction for Publishers Weekly and is best-known in fandom as a masquerade emcee at the 1997 and 2004 worldcons as well as numerous east coast local and regional conventions. 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 plays high-speed online Scrabble.

Dearborn, Donna

Donna, a BSFS member and long-time recording secretary of BSFS, is the manager of Balticon's Hal Haag Memorial Game Room. She is also the host of Games Club of Maryland's (GCOM's) Alphabet Soup gaming sessions at BSFS headquarters. A retired Nurse Practitioner, Donna believe that interest in games encourages a healthy brain as you age. Not to mention being great just for fun!

Decker, James K.

James K. Decker was born in New Hampshire in 1970, and has lived in the New England area since that time. He developed a love of reading and writing early on, participating in young author competitions as early as grade school, but the later discovery of works by Frank Herbert and Issac Asimov turned that love to an obsession.

He wrote continuously through high school, college and beyond, eventually breaking into the field under the name James Knapp, with the publication of the "Revivors" trilogy (State of Decay, The Silent Army, and Element Zero). State of Decay was a Philip K. Dick award nominee, and won the 2010 Compton Crook Award. The Burn Zone is his debut novel under the name James K. Decker.

He now lives in MA with his wife Kim.

Diaz, Ming "Cookie"

Ming is a costumer, storyteller of minor note, balloon shaper of lesser note, and an avid facepainter who has been sidetracked for the last 41 years with going to play everyday as an electronics tech. His face shows the accumulated years of such suffering; he can't remove the perpetual grin. He wants to eventually grow up and be like Marty Gear.

Dodge, Tim

Tim Dodge is the author of the podcast novels Acts Of Desperation and Purgatory. Purgatory was published in print and ebook formats in 2012. He is also the host of the bi-weekly podcast "The Geek Side Of Life", an exploration of geek culture one podcast at a time. He has appeared as a voice actor in the podcast productions of Abigail Hilton's "The Guild of the Cowry Catchers," P.G. Holyfield's "Murder at Avedon Hill," Chris Lester's "Metamor City Podcast", and the Facebook Podcast Community's production of Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol." A recent convert to tabletop role playing gaming, he holds an unshakable belief that his dice hate him. He lives near Syracuse, New York, where he shovels snow, follows Syracuse University sports, and spoils his German shepherd.

Doyle, Tom

Tom Doyle has entered a three-book deal with Tor this past year for a contemporary fantasy series with military and espionage elements. He is a winner of the WSFA Small Press Award and the Writers of the Future Award. Paper Golem Press has published a collection of his short fiction, The Wizard of Macatawa and Other Stories. His fiction has appeared in Strange Horizons, Futurismic, and Paradox, among other publications. His story "Pythian Games" will be appearing in Daily Science Fiction later this year.

Tom is a graduate of Clarion, and currently writes fantasy and science fiction in a spooky turret in Washington, DC. To read or listen to his stories, please go to his website, www.tomdoylewriter.com or check out his news on Twitter.

Dr. SETI®

Dr. SETI® is the stage name of the blatant exhibitionist who inhabits the body of noted author and educator Dr. H. Paul Shuch (rhymes with luck). A cross between Tom Lehrer and Carl Sagan, it is said that Dr. SETI sings like Sagan and lectures like Lehrer. Armed with a laptop computer and an acoustical guitar, Dr. SETI travels the world making the search for life in space accessible to audiences as diverse as humanity itself.

Since the formation of the nonprofit, membership-supported SETI League in 1994, H. Paul Shuch has served as its Executive Director (now emeritus), coordinating its science mission and delivering hundreds of Dr. SETI® presentations to thousands of enthusiasts, in dozens of countries on six continents. At college campuses, science centers, public lecture halls, and on television and radio, Dr. SETI's unique mix of science and song seeks to educate as well as entertain. He compels the listener to contemplate a fundamental question, which has haunted humankind since first we realized that the points of light in the night sky are other suns: Are We Alone?

Durham, Valerie

Valerie Durham, MFA, is a Kennedy Center Teaching Artist, dancer, and choreographer specializing in the work of mother of modern dance, Isadora Duncan. She brings organic movement to thematic explorations of nature, music, mythology and personal expression. Valerie is the Executive Director of the Isadora Duncan School for Creative Movement and Dance, and the Artistic Director of Persephone's Circle. Her work has been performed nationally and internationally.

Durham, James

James Durham, writer/producer/composer, is the undead-loving creator of the award-winning FETIDUS (The Foundation for the Ethical Treatment of the Innocently Damned, Undead and Supernatural) and one of the time-twisted minds behind the new sci-fi indie film 95ers (which is having its Maryland premier at Balticon on Sunday morning!). This strapping young lad produces music by day and writes stories by night. He works in film, new media and sound production while simultaneously singing, dancing, and doing amazing feats of acrobatics. That last part is false. Visit jamesdurham.com for more information.

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Earl, Collin

A native of Washington State, Collin grew up NOT liking school or reading stories. He nonetheless graduated from Moses Lake High School, then journeyed forth towards Boise State in Idaho where he received a B.A. in Social Science. His dream was to practice law with his father and brother; a dream that he pursued vigorously in his undergraduate education. He did not expect that his father would leave the practice of law and his brother would make plans to head to Costa Rica (No, really I�m serious). Even more unexpected was Collin�s growing interest in writing and story telling. After reading a book a week for almost a year, he developed a story idea and started to write.

Podcast novels and writing in general were much like his move to South Dakota; random and totally unexpected. Collin spent a year writing a story with a Roman Gods theme, then came to a terrible realization � Fantasy fans are absolutely brutal! If they like you, they REALLY like you. If they don�t�well� Collin spent many hours reworking The House of Grey into a story that Fantasy fans will enjoy, gleaning ideas from many independent literary sources from Indian folklore to Japanese anime. After graduating from the University of South Dakota Law School, Collin, his smoldering wife, and two beautiful daughters moved down the street from Chris in good ol� Colorado. Collin passed the Bar and is currently working as an attorney and vigorously writing fantastical stories for his fans.

Ehrlich, Gary

Gary Ehrlich stalks the hallways of Northeast conventions and assorted filk conventions. In mundania he is a mild-mannered structural engineer for a major trade association, representing them on material design standards committees and at building code hearings. At cons he can be found on a stage or in the filk room, offering songs of space flight, lunar colonies and hyperspace hotels. Gary also chaired two incarnations of NEFilk, the Floating Northeast Filk Con -- Conterpoint 2004 and 2010 -- has served as Programming Head for several cons in the series, among other positions, and is Balticon's Track Head for Filk and Other Musical Mayhem.

Gary appears on four collections of convention recordings: How Many of them Can We Make Die? from Conterpoint 1996, The Filk Was Great... from Conterpoint 2000, Millennium Pandemonium, Volume 1 from the Millennium Philcon, and Triskaidekafilkia from FilKONtario 13.

Eirich, Gaia

A costumer and masquerade participant for the last eleven years, Gaia has been doing custom costume work and design for conventions and clients. She started sewing 17 years ago and continues her work on a daily basis including wedding garments, dance costumes, accessories, and convention wear.

Evans, Chris

Chris Evans is the author of the "Iron Elves" fantasy series published by Simon & Schuster. Chris is also an acquisitions editor, starting his career at Del Rey/Ballantine Books at Random House. In his spare time he conducts battlefield tours in Europe and consults on television documentaries. He's earned Bachelors degrees in English, Political Science, and a Masters in History. Chris' next book, a military fantasy entitled The Tree Line, will be published in 2014 by Simon & Schuster.

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Fleischer, Eric "Dr. Gandalf"

Along with his wife Halla (Balticon 35�s Artist Guest of Honor), Dr G. has been attending Balticon well over 25 years. After winning first place master costumer at Balticon 16 in 1982, he decided to quit costuming while he was ahead and moved into other aspects of the convention. He has been the art show auctioneer for many years, and more recently has also been the BSFS Books for Kids auctioneer.

Dr G. also works on the technical side of Balticon, recording the Masquerade, Parody Plays, Guest of Honor speeches and other events in the convention�s main tent, doing the post production on the videos, and creating DVDs of the events. The DVDs are available for purchase. The proceeds from the sales help support Balticon and BSFS.

Fleming, Judi

Judi Fleming is one of the strange folk who both writes and does art work. She is a graduate of Seton Hill Univesity Masters in Writing Popular Fiction program and dabbles with sf/f/ya stories, non-fiction for various magazines, and writes training/instructional design work for the federal government. Judi has been an artist for as long as she can remember, and works in any media/style that suits her fancy from acrylics, pastels, sculptures to mixed media and more. At the moment, she is using most of them on gourds.

Frankenfield, Bill "Doc"

Doc, also known as Raven Stormbringer has provided EFX (Extra Effects) Makeup for commercials, theatre and film for over twenty years.

Some of his major clients include Verizon with James Earl Jones, Mr T for 1-800-COLLECT and old age applications for "NY Lotto Win for Life" as well as many Independent Productions and regional commercials.

Each year the shop takes a break from production and gears up to produce Hollywood caliber costumes and makeup designs and applications for the Halloween fantasies of the average Joe and Josephine.

Raven is also very invloved with Steam punk and LARP of various genres including the K'Erizan Empire (the new Karizan Empire).

Fratz, D. Douglas

Doug Fratz is best known in the science fiction and fantasy field as a book reviewer who currently writes primarily for "SF Site" and New York Review of Science Fiction. He has been reviewing books and writing about science fiction for more than 35 years, with work appearing in Science Fiction Age, Science Fiction Eye, Fantasy Review, The Washington Post, "Science Fiction Weekly" / "SciFi Wire" / "BLASTR" (all on the SciFi Channel�s web site) and elsewhere, including his own literary magazine, Quantum Science Fiction & Fantasy Review (formerly Thrust). He founded Thrust at the University of Maryland, and continued it as semiprofessional magazine. As publisher and editor of Thrust/Quantum (1973-1993), he was nominated for five Hugo Awards.

He has attended SF conventions since 1968, appearing on more than one hundred panels and other program items. In real life, he is an environmental scientist, Vice President of Scientific and Technical Affairs for the Consumer Specialty Products Association in Washington, DC, a trade association representing the formulated consumer products industry, where for more than 30 years he has focused on environmental, health and safety regulations, with a specialty in air quality. He received his B.S. degree in chemistry from the University of Maryland, and his M.S. degree in Environmental Science from the George Washington University. He lives in Gaithersburg, Maryland, with his wife, and has two adult children.

Frey, Nancy C.

Nancy C. Frey has been active in the costuming community for many year. Three of her favorite things are hats, horses and flowers.

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Gaige, Clint

Clint Gaige has been writing and producing video for over 20 years. As co-owner of Growth Media Services, he has produced corporate videos, training videos and commercials for businesses organizations and government agencies.

He is also a successful writer, with four novels and numerous short stories to his credit. His work has appeared in Bullet Magazine, and he was nominated for the Pushcart Prize.

His film work includes the short films Dogmatic Siblings, Brothers and Perspective, the feature length films Making the Mob and Violent Karma and the educational series "Classroom Moments."

Gamblin, Allison

Allison Gamblin is mostly a New Media expert but also an avid reader and fan. She games, enjoys Art and does a lot of graphic design. Her main areas of expertise are site creation, social media, networking, self publishing, podcasting, and blogging. One way she mixes these things together is hosting an online Convention called DragonCant every year.

Gannon, Charles E.

Dr. Charles E. Gannon is a distinguished Professor of English (SBU) and was a Fulbright Senior Specialist (2004-2009). His newest novel is Fire With Fire (Baen), the first book in his hard sf interstellar epic "Tales of the Terran Republic". Also on shelves: 1635: The Papal Stakes (Baen, w/Eric Flint) in the "Ring of Fire" series and Extremis (Baen, w/S. White) in the "Starfire" series. His novellas have been in series/magazines such as: Ring of Fire/1632, War World, Man-Kzin Wars, Analog, and the 20th anniversary anthology of the Honor Harrington universe: Beginnings (Baen, 2014). Visit his worlds at ww.charlesegannon.com.

Dr. Gannon is a member of SIGMA (the "SF think-tank") that advises intelligence and defense agencies (cf. www.sigmaforum.org). He has been featured on Discovery, NPR, Polish National Television, others. He has written/designed games (GDW�s "Traveller,� " "2300 AD," more) and was a scriptwriter/producer in NYC (clients included: United Nations, World Health Organization, more).

Dr. Gannon�s most recent non-fiction book, Rumors of War and Infernal Machines, (now in 2nd ed.) won the 2006 ALA Choice Award for Outstanding Book. Holding degrees from Brown, Syracuse, and Fordham, Dr. Gannon has been a Fulbright Fellow in England, Scotland, and the Czech Republic, and received Fulbright and Embassy Travel grants to these countries as well as Netherlands, Slovakia, England, and Italy.

Garrott, Lia

Lila Garrott is a longtime member of Sassafrass, and a staff reviewer at "Strange Horizons." She has published criticism, poetry, and short fiction in a variety of venues, and has been nominated for the BSFA and the Rhysling. She once read a book every day for a year and wrote a review of each book. Her hair is blue.

Gay, Dr. Pamela L.

Dr. Pamela L. Gay is an astronomer, writer, and podcaster focused on using new media to engage people in science and technology. She is most well known for Astronomy Cast a podcast she co-hosts with Fraser Cain (Producer of "Universe Today"). Each week, Fraser and Pamela work to take their listeners on a facts-based journey through the cosmos that explores not only what we know about the universe, but how we know it. Now entering their eighth year of production, and thanks to the constant new discoveries by the Space Science communities, they have no plans stop recording any time soon.

Not satisfied to just teach people astronomy through Astronomy Cast, Pamela also works to engage people in doing science through the "CosmoQuest Virtual Research Facility," an online portal that invites the public to participate in NASA citizen science projects. Working in partnership with the number of different missions, including the Hubble Space Telescope and Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, she challenges every day people to help us map our solar system.

In addition to podcasting and building "CosmoQuest", she also works to communicate astronomy to the public through and her blog StarStryder.com, through frequent public talks, and through popular articles. Her writing has appeared in Astronomy, Sky and Telescope, and Lightspeed magazines.

A public school kid through and through, she received a B.S. in Astrophysics from Michigan State University in 1996 and a Ph.D. in Astronomy from the University of Texas in 2002. Today, she teaches at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville.

Gear, Marty

Marty Gear is the person who dragged Balticon and other east coast masquerades out of the basement and made them good, reliable, efficiently run, and an important part of S/F conventions. You always knew what you were getting in a "Gear Run" masquerade, and that continuity made all the difference. Wanting to be sure the east coast kept up with California and the rest of the country, he led the effort to bring Costume-Con east for the first time, and founded what would become the first ICG chapter.

And in his spare time, he judges masquerades, is a much sought after MC for masquerades, and still competes on stage now and then.

Gigiere, Veronica R.

Veronica "V." Giguere is a voice artist and author who has appeared in a variety of audio projects and podcasts covering genres such as science fiction, erotica, fantasy, horror, romance, and steampunk. She is a coauthor of the Secret World Chronicles podcast novel series, as well as the narrator and voice for a plethora of heroes and villains therein. She has voiced spoiled supervillains, tempting demons, fierce pirates, anxious technomancers, smart-mouthed shapeshifters, undercover warehouse journalists, Greek goddesses, white foxlings, virus-laden robots, and a young woman facing an odd spider infestation. Her writings range from comics published by IncubatorPress to self-published short stories of the psychological thriller and hero varieties. When she isn't bringing the voices in others' heads to life, V. masquerades as a mild-mannered academic whose specialties include time management, learning strategies, and preparing for the zombie apocalypse.

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.

Giunta, Philip

A Pennsylvania resident, Phil Giunta graduated from Saint Joseph's University in Philadelphia with a Bachelor of Science in Information Systems. His first novel, a paranormal mystery called Testing the Prisoner, debuted in March 2010 from Firebringer Press. His second novel in the same genre, By Your Side, was released in March 2013.

In August 2012, he was among an exclusive group of authors selected to participate in Crazy 8 Press's new venture, "ReDeus", a collection of anthologies and novels depicting the return of all the world's mythological gods. This series was created by veteran authors Bob Greenberger, Aaron Rosenberg, Paul Kupperberg, and Steven Savile. Phil's short story about the Celtic gods, "There Be In Dreams No War", was featured in the premiere anthology, ReDeus: Divine Tales. Two additional anthologies are planned for 2013.

Phil is currently editing a short story collection titled Somewhere in the Middle of Eternity for Firebringer Press. He is also the narrator of an audio version of Testing the Prisoner, which can be heard for free at Podiobooks.com. The audio version of By Your Side is forthcoming on the Prometheus Radio Theatre feed: http://prometheus.libsynpro.com. Visit Phil�s website: philgiunta.com.

Goranson, Alicia

Something wrong reader? You come here prepared to find an author, and instead you found a GOD?! Alicia E. Goranson is the reincarnation of Scheherazade, Sei Shonagon, and all ten muses. She conquered and deconstructed comic books in her novel Supervillainz, a 2006 Lambda Literary Award Finalist, and old time radio in her audio drama "The Mask of Inanna," winner of the 2012 Parsec Award at DragonCon, performed with a cast of over 30 members of The Post-Meridian Radio Players. She differs from the more famous Alicia L. Goranson by being transgendered and diagnosed with Asperger�s syndrome, both of which make her far more awesome and sexy.

Charlie Jane Anders, editor of io9.com, says, "Alicia Goranson's superpowers include searing vision, a powerful voice, and the ability to leap over genre boundaries." Lawrence Raw of Radio Drama Review Online says, "I thoroughly recommend The Mask of Inanna as an original contribution to the ever-expanding canon of serial audio dramas now available online."

Gossard, James L.

Screenwriter and playwright Jim Gossard is the coauthor of the award winning screenplays, "In Mind" and "Mobtown." He received the Individual Artist Award from the Maryland State Arts Council and a Writer's Digest Honorable Mention for his stage play, "September Moon." A journalist, he also writes short stories and novels. He wrote the "Cory McCabe" novels, Grizzly Heart and Murder on Marias Pass. Jim freelances for production companies — writing and editing screenplays. He teaches English and science in the Baltimore area and owns a technical writing company. A Takoma Park, Maryland native, he grew up inspired by the guitar of John Aloysius Fahey. Today, Jim lives with his wife, Ann, in Ellicott City, Maryland. He received his M.A. in Writing from The Johns Hopkins University.

Granade, Stephen

Stephen Granade is a physicist who specializes in quantum mechanics and in sensors for automatically guiding robot vehicles. His current research involves sensors to automatically guide unpiloted helicopters to the loads they need to pick up. This has nothing to do with Skynet, though it is disturbing to see helicopters flying around you without a human at the controls. He worked on a video-based sensor that helped guide the Space Shuttle to the Hubble Space Telescope, and he worked with NASA on the Advanced Video Guidance Sensor (AVGS), which measures the distance from a spacecraft to a target satellite so that the spacecraft can dock gently with the satellite. When AVGS was first tested on orbit as part of the Demonstration of Autonomous Rendezvous Technology mission, the sensor guided the spacecraft right to the satellite, where the two promptly collided. This worried NASA but made the Department of Defense very interested.

His PhD research was on trapping and cooling neutral atoms to nearly absolute zero by using really powerful lasers, vacuum systems, and a fair amount of Mountain Dew. During that research he only set fire to himself once, shocked himself twice, and still has two working eyes. He has won awards for presentations to non-scientist audiences and has provided scientific commentary for FoxNews.com, CBS Marketwatch, and Jalopnik.

In his spare time he is part of the "Disasterpiece Theatre" and "WhatTheCast?" podcasts, writes computer games, and is involved with Dragon*Con TV. He is featured in the interactive fiction documentary "GET LAMP", and he reluctantly admits to being the guy pretending to be Jonathan Coulton in the "Re Your Brains" video.

Granoff, Matthew

Matt is a member of Sassafrass!

Greenberger, Bob

Bob Greenberger began his professional career at Starlog Press creating Comics Scene. He began as assistant editor at DC Comics, rising to the role of Manager-Editorial Operations. Bob left DC for a job as Producer at Gist Communications, then returned to comics in 2001 as Marvel Comics' Director-Publishing Operations. He went back to DC Comics as a Senior Editor, then joined Weekly World News as Managing Editor.

Since 2007, he has been a fulltime freelance writer and editor. He is the co-founder of Crazy8Press, a digital publishing hub.

Bob has written Star Trek® novels and short fiction, short SF and fantasy, and the award-winning novelization of Hellboy II: The Golden Army. His nonfiction includes The Essential Batman Encyclopedia and coauthoring Stan Lee's How to Write Comics.

Coming in 2013 from Random House are tie-ins to the film "After Earth," two solo works followed by A Perfect Beast (with Peter David and Michael Jan Friedman). In June, his Colonial Ranger Survival Manual will be released by Insight Editions.

Grintalis, Damien Walters

Damien Walters Grintalis lives in Maryland with her husband and two rescued pit bulls. She is also an Associate Editor of the Hugo Award-winning magazine, Electric Velocipede and a staff writer with BooklifeNow. Her short fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Strange Horizons, Interzone, Lightspeed, Shimmer, Apex Magazine, Daily Science Fiction, Shock Totem, and others. Her debut novel, Ink, was released in December 2012 by Samhain Horror.

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Hammond, Elektra

Elektra Hammond emulates her multi-sided idol Buckaroo Banzai by going in several directions at once. She's been involved in the copy-editing and proofreading end of publishing since the 1990s for presses small and large and nowadays concocts anthologies, is an editor and movie reviewer at buzzymag.com, and is acquisitions editor for Sparkito Press. Her steampunk story �The Case of the Duchess�s Dog� appears in the anthology In An Iron Cage: The Magic of Steampunk.

Elektra lives in Delaware with her husband, Mike, and the cat herd of BlueBlaze/Benegesserit catteries. Find Elektra on Facebook (Elektra Hammond), Twitter (elektraUM), LiveJournal (elektra_h), and building her website at http://www.untilmidnight.com.

Hardenbrook, Eric V.

Eric freely admits that he creates because it is cheaper and more effective than therapy, or shock treatment. He resides in central Pennsylvania with his wife and daughter, but was born and raised in New England.

Eric served in the U.S. Army in the early 90s and is currently a project manager for an architectural firm. He is a fan, author and artist — usually in that order. He has been part of the team running Watch The Skies science fiction and fantasy group and publishing the Watch The Skies fanzine for the past decade. When not working on a project he enjoys the occasional video game, board games and is an old school role player.

Haring,P.C.

Award winning author and podcaster P.C. Haring made his debut on 01/01/10 with Cybrosis. This Cyberpunk adventure propelled to number four on the Podiobooks.com top ten list when it was re-launched there that October. He has written for several short story anthologies including "Hamzah Haring" (The Crypt: Book 1 � The Crew, edited by Scott Sigler), "The First Day" (Chronicles of the Order edited by Philippa Ballantine), and "The Seven" (Tales from the Archives co-edited by Tee Morris and Philippa Ballantine) the latter of which earned him the 2012 Parsec award in the best large cast category. When he�s not writing, podcasting, driving himself mad with CPA studies, or preparing for the day his robot army takes over the world, P.C. puts his Degree in Accounting and his MBA to good use as an accountant for a company in suburban Chicago. He also works as both the Accountant and Publisher for Escape Artists Incorporated where he helps to oversee the weekly podcast publications of Escape Pod, as well as its sister magazines Pseudopod and Pod Castle.

Harris, Lauren

Lauren "Scribe" Harris is a fantasy writer, voice actress, and the co-creator of 2012 Parsec Finalist podcast for aspiring writers of genere fiction, Pendragon Variety. She writes a bi-monthly fantasy book review column for Orson Scott Card's "Intergalactic Medicine Show" and blogs about her writing discoveries at Ink-Stained Scribe. Her voice acting can be heard on podcasts such as "EscapePod," The Dunesteef Audio Fiction Magazine, The Drabblecast B-Sides, and Guild of the Cowry Catchers.

Hartlove, Katie

Katie Hartlove (MS Professional Writing) has been actively involved in many aspects of the writing and publication process. Her poems and short stories have appeared magazines and anthologies; most recently, they've appeared in The Gunpowder Review and Dia de los Muertos. She has been editing for about seven years, including co-editing the 2011 release, Potters Field 4. In 2009, she began Book Mark It Promotions and provides marketing solutions to authors around the country. In 2010, she opened Cold Moon Press, which released Vonnie Winslow Crist's short story collection, The Greener Forest in 2011. Cold Moon Press is still accepting short story submissions, including submissions for their anthology.

Hemry, John G.

John G. Hemry is the author, under the pen name Jack Campbell, of the New York Times national best-selling "Lost Fleet" series (Dauntless, Fearless, Courageous, Valiant, Relentless and Victorious). His most recent book is Guardian, the latest in the "Lost Fleet — Beyond the Frontier" series (which also includes Dreadnaught and Invincible). His next book will be Perilous Shield, the sequel to Tarnished Knight in the "Lost Stars" series. He is also the author of the "Stark's War" and "Sinclair/JAG in space" series. His short fiction has appeared in places as varied as the last Chicks in Chainmail anthology and Analog magazine (most recently "The War of the Worlds — Chapter Eighteen" in the January/February 2013 issue). His alternate American Civil War novella The Last Full Measure is being published by Subterranean. He also has stories in the anthologies Breach the Hull, So it Begins, By Other Means and Armor, as well as the essay "Liberating the Future" in Teenagers From the Future (about the Legion of Super Heroes). After retiring from the US Navy and settling in Maryland, John began writing. John lives with his wife (the indomitable S) and three great kids. His children are all on the autistic spectrum.

Heyer,Inge

Inge Heyer was born and raised in Berlin, Germany. She completed her secondary education there, after which she accepted a scholarship to attend Tenri University in Tenri, Japan. Following a life-long dream she studied martial arts and the Japanese language, as well as traveled extensively in this fascinating country. After two years she decided to follow her interest in astronomy (fueled by watching way too much Star Trek™), and came to the US to pursue an undergraduate degree at Smith College in Massachusetts.

With a BA in physics and astronomy Inge then attended the University of Hawaii at Manoa, where she obtained a master's degree in astronomy, and pursued many years of research, which often took her to the observatories atop beautiful Mauna Kea. From 1992 to 2005 Inge was a senior data analyst working on images obtained by the Hubble Space Telescope.

In 2006 Inge moved back to Hawaii to lead the science education and outreach efforts for the Joint Astronomy Centre in Hilo. After five years there she moved to Wyoming and obtained her doctoral degree in Science Education in 2012. Since August of 2012 she is a visiting assistant professor in the Physics Department of Loyola University Maryland teaching astronomy and physics. Inge is involved in Shore Leave and, since 2012, she is also a guest science blogger on StarTrek.com.

And in case you were wondering how the Hubble images got into episodes of Babylon-5 and Star Trek™, you're looking at the trouble-maker who instigated that...

Hoffman, W. Randy

Partners in K'RHyme is the duo of W. Randy Hoffman and Kira. Randy has been writing and performing filk since shortly after dragging his college buddies Rand Bellavia and Adam English (from the band Ookla the Mok) into the scene in 1993. Kira has been performing (and sometimes writing) filk since joining the cast of the first production of the Confluence filk travesty "Dune: The Soft Rock Musical" in the early 1990s. They've been singing together for more than four years, with concert performances at conventions throughout North America.

Hoffman, Merav

Merav Hoffman is a founding member of the band Lady Mondegreen, as well as half of the musical duo The Funny Things. She has twice been the con chair of Contata and was recently filk track head for Lunacon. She is just back from California where she was featured as an Interfilk guest at Consonance. In her spare time she writes, edits, produces albums and DVDs, costumes, crochets, games, cooks, brews, and holds down a full time job. Merav has recently been nominated for the short form of the Rhysling Award for poetry.

Holloman, Jeannette

Jeannette Holloman is a part of the Greater Columbia Fantasy Costuming Guild, and is part of the "Ron and Jeannette" costuming team. Both she and Ron Robinson are master costumers in both Historical and Fantasy costuming. Over the years they have participated in several WorldCon and CostumeCon winning costumes. They have been costuming for over 30 years.

Holtz, Dr. Thomas

Balticon 45'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 faculty member of the Department of Geology at the University of Maryland, College Park. Recent works include several chapters in University of California Press' The Dinosauria, Second Edition (the bible of dinosaur research) and the second edition of The Complete Dinosaur (Indiana University Press). In addition to his technical publications, Dr. Holtz has written several books for children and the general public (most notably the multiple award-winning Dinosaurs: The Most Up-To-Date Encyclopedia for Dinosaur Lovers of all Ages (Random House)), and has been a consultant on numerous TV documentaries and museum exhibits.

Dr. Holtz was the Faculty Director of the College Park Scholars — Earth, Life and Time Program, a living-learning program for freshmen and sophomores interested in Natural History. In Fall 2009 he started a new College Park Scholars program, Science and Global Change (Note: the SGC website is not good in Firefox. Use IE to check it out. —B47 webmaster.) He lives in Upper Marlboro with his wife (long-time Baticon costumer Sue Shambaugh) and a couple of cats.

Hooper, Heidi

Heidi Hooper is the Dryer Lint Lady — believe it of Not. Her dryer lint work has been seen in galleries around the country and has been featured in Ripley's museums and books. Consumer Reports calls her "The Andy Warhol of Dryer Lint". Her BA in Sculpture is from Virginia Commonwealth University and her Master's is from the Massachusetts College of Art. She has competed in Costume Cons and has been a costuming judge at Worldcon, Ravencon, and Philcon. Heidi is also one of the founders of modern American fantasy LARPs and is co-owner of Alliance LARP.

Huchton, Starla

Starla Huchton released her first novel, The Dreamer�s Thread, as a full cast production beginning in August 2009. Her first foray into podcasting went on to become a finalist for the 2010 Parsec Awards. Since her debut, Starla�s voice has appeared in other podcasts including "The Drabblecast", The Dunesteef Audio Magazine, "The Guild of the Cowry Catchers", and "Space Casey 2". She is also a voice talent for DarkFire Productions, and narrates several of their projects, including "The Emperor�s Edge" series. Her writing has appeared in the "Erotica a la Carte" podcast, the Farrago Anthology, a short story for "The Gearheart" and an episode of the "Tales from the Archives" podcast, which garnered her a second finalist badge from the 2012 Parsec Awards. Her second novel, a Steampunk adventure titled Antigone's Wrath, won first place in the Fantasy/Science Fiction category of the Crested Butte Writers annual contest, The Sandy. She has also been commissioned to write a companion novella to the "Galactic Football League" series by NYT Bestselling author Scott Sigler, slated for release in 2013.

After completing her degree in Graphic Arts at Monterey Peninsula College, Starla opened up shop as a freelance graphic designer focusing on creating beautiful book covers for independent authors and publishers, including books for Entangled Publishing, which are now being distributed by Macmillan and St. Martin's Press.

Hurvitz, Kara

Kara Hurvitz is an advocate, social worker, and performer who hails from the Boston area. By day, Kara advocates for folks with disabilities and substance abuse issues within the Massachusetts criminal justice system. By night, Kara is the musical director for the Boston chapter of Sassafrass, a folk fantasy vocal group that likes to sing about Norse guys. In her spare time, Kara likes pina coladas and getting caught in the rain. She's not too into yoga, though.

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Impink, Christopher

Studio Unseen is made up of two carbon-based creatures: Chris Impink and Barb Fischer. They recently celebrated one year of their newest 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.

Chris Impink 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. Additionally, his work has been featured at various conventions such as Katsucon, Intervention, and Rising Star. He is also 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.

Izenberg, Noam

Noam Izenberg has been a planetary scientist with the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics lab for 16 years. He's been instrument scientist and science team member on several NASA missions, including NEAR Shoemaker and the ongoing MESSENGER mission to Mercury. He also dabbles in tabletop sci-fi wargaming and starship combat game and universe design.

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Jeffrey, Mark

Mark Jeffrey is an author and serial technology entrepreneur. He has written four novels and co-founded five internet companies.

His first novel in the "Max Quick" series, Max Quick: The Pocket and The Pendant was initially podcast as a series of episodic mp3's and received over 2.5 million downloads. He is currently working on the fourth, Max Quick: The Bane of the Bondsman.

Most recently, Mark co-founded Glossi.com, a new site where anyone can easily create digital magazines suitable for tablets and other devices. Many authors are now using Glossi.com to publish rich media samplers of their books including Margaret Atwood, Douglas Rushkoff, Pip Ballantine and Tee Morris.

Previous to Glossi, Mark co-founded ZeroDegrees, SuperSig and ThePalace.com, Inc. and web television network ThisWeekIn.com.

Mark has been named one of "50 to Watch" by Variety magazine, a "Hero of Multimedia" by Entertainment Weekly and was a featured speaker at the very first Harvard Conference on The Internet and Society. Mark Jeffrey holds a BS in Computer Science from the University of New Hampshire.

Johnston, Leslie

Leslie Johnston has been competing as a costumer since 1979, winning awards at regional and national events including Baycon, Balticon, Westercon, CostumeCon, and WorldCon. She loves transforming items from one function into another, and is just as happy working with beads and feathers as with wires and hardware.

Jordan, Paula S.

Paula�s work usually tends toward the hard-SF end of the spectrum, as witness two stories in Analog, most recently "Two Look at Two" in April 2011. Blame it on the physics degree and the 13 years and 30+ science and weather missions as an orbit analyst with NASA and NOAA. Still, she does love to stray off into fantasy, frequently as a reader and every now and then with a story of her own. Blame that on the history and drama degrees and too many years writing advertising! Now retired, she�s at work on more stories and an SF novel set in Southern Appalachia. She blogs regularly on SF, fantasy, history, and other curiosities at http://darkcargo.com.

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Kalirai, Jason

Dr. Jason Kalirai is a research astronomer at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, MD. He obtained his PhD in astrophysics in 2004 from the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, BC, Canada. His research interests include studying the formation and evolution of stars and nearby galaxies using both ground and space based telescopes. Dr. Kalirai is also the Deputy Project Scientist for the James Webb Space Telescope. Follow Jason on twitter at @JasonKalirai.

Katz, Robert I.

Robert I. Kratz is Clinical Professor of Anesthesiology, University of Florida and Chief, Anesthesiology Service, North Florida/South Georgia Veterans Health System. In addition to more than 40 scientific publications, Dr. Katz is the author of the award-winning Edward Maret: A Novel of the Future, plus the author of the Kurtz and Barent mystery series (Surgical Risk, The Anatomy Lesson, and Seizure). He is currently at work on his next novel.

Kennedy, William

In his professional life, William Kennedy is a Social Worker with the Department of Children and Families in Weymouth, MA. By night he is a costume designer and works for several professional Haunted Attractions creating costumes and sets to terrify. William is currently employed by Haunted Overload located in Lee NH. Haunted Overload was recently voted in the top 5 Halloween Haunts by the Weather Channel 2012 as well as Top Haunts Magazine Top 13 in the World. His altereago Tickles the Klown can be found on Facebook under Tickles for President in 2016. William is currently a Craftsman level costumer and has won several awards for workmanship and presentation at the Balticon, Luncan and Arisia masquerades.

Knapp, James

New England native James Knapp is the author of the "Revivors" series which include Philip K Dick Award nominee and Compton Crook Award winner State of Decay, followed by The Silent Army and Element Zero. He currently lives in Massachusetts with his wife Kim where he has just published his next book The Burn Zone, the first in a new series, written under the pseudonym James K. Decker.

Knight, Jonah

Jonah Knight has been playing creepy songs and supernatural steampunk at conventions for some years now. He recently released his 6th album (a collection of creepy Christmas music), is a three time musical guest of honor, and is the co-host of the Pros and Cons podcast (a show about geek music and convention culture).

His story "The Arkham Book" is being published by Dark Quest Books in the Ministry of Extraordinary Weaponry steampunk anthology. Come by the Dark Quest launch party to see his excitement.

Kondo, Dr. Beatrice

Beatrice Kondo, Ph.D. is an evolutionary 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.

Kondo, Dr. Yoji

Yoji Kondo holds a PhD in astronomy and astrophysics from the University of Pennsylvania. He has taught astronomy, astrophysics, and space sciences at the University of Oklahoma, George Mason University, University of Pennsylvania, and Catholic University, and in the Futures Program at the University of Houston.

Dr. Kondo was coinvestigator of the UV astronomy experiment on Skylab and headed the astrophysics laboratory during the Apollo and Skylab Missions at Johnson Space Center. He served as director of the IUE geosynchronous satellite observatory for 15 years at Goddard Space Flight Center and was a NASA project scientist for the EUVE satellite observatory. He was co-investigator on the 2009 Kepler Mission to detect habitable planets.

Yoji Kondo has taught judo and aikido for over three decades. He holds a 6th degree black belt in judo and a 7th degree black belt in aikido. Dr. Kondo has received the NASA Scientific Achievement Award and the Isaac Asimov Memorial Award. He has been a judge for the Writers of the Future contest for almost 2 decades.

Koscienski, Brian

Brian Koscienski developed his love of writing from countless hours of reading comic books, losing himself in the different worlds and adventures within the colorful pages. He had minor successes early in his career by getting a few short stories published in independent 'zines, but found more success in partnering with Chris Pisano, with whom he formed Fortress Publishing, Inc.. As a writing team, they have had stories, articles, graphic novels, and poetry published, and most recently their debut novel, The Shattered Visage LiesM, by Post Mortem Press.

Kovacs, A B

A B Kovacs is co-owner and Director of D��m at Dark �verlord Media, blogger at Skepchick.org and a founding partner at Audacity Events, a management company that builds community events like the San Diego Science Festival and plots tours and fan fests for the likes of George Hrab and Scott Sigler. Prior to all of this, A was a clinical research chemist focused on "lifestyle" drugs to treat things-that-won't-kill-you such as hayfever and erectile dysfunction. A is a rabid movie geek, "Doctor Who" fan, skeptic and science nerd. She volunteers in several women-forward and science-oriented organizations in San Diego where she lives, and doesn't like chocolate all that much.

Kovalcin, Laura E.

At birth, Laura was cursed by her Costuming Fairy Godmothers with a love of sewing, glitter, and fandom. She was doomed from the start! Now she spends her time making art and costuming at science fiction and anime conventions alike.

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, the personal and literary concerns of the late author had been made accessible to the SF enthusiast. For the first time, aficionados discovered the sources in Zelazny's own life that inspired his writing.

Mr. Krulik, a former high school English teacher in New York City, is currently working on short stories with an eye on writing an autobiographical novel.

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La Porta, Alessandro

I am currently a graduate student at the Harvard Graduate School of Education studying uses of new media and new technologies in education and the effects of said technologies, especially video games (and more generally, other forms of play), on the development and learning of human beings of all ages and walks of life.

Lafferty, Mur

Mur LaffertyMur Lafferty is a podcaster and author. Her award-winning show, "I Should Be Writing," has been helping new writers since 2005. Her book, The Shambling Guide to New York City, will premier at Balticon 47.

Lamplighter, Jagi

L. Jagi Lamplighter is the author of Prospero Lost, Prospero In Hell and Prospero Regained. She is also one of the editors of the "Bad Ass Faeries Anthology" series. When not writing, she reverts to her secret identity as an at-home mother in Centreville, Virginia, where she lives with her husband, author John C. Wright, and their four children, Orville, Ping-Ping, Roland Wilbur, and Justinian Oberon.

Larson, Grig "Punkie"

Grig "Punkie" Larson (1968-present) was born in Cyprus on British soil, the only son of a pair of Swedish-American descendants. He grew up in Northern Virginia, finding fandom through D&D, FanTek, and Rocky Horror. A systems administrator by day, by night he's an author, open source advocate, runs Katsucon, narrates the Balitcon Podcast, and works for the DC Rollergirls. A staple in VA/DC/MD science fiction and anime fandom since the 1980s, he's been a panelist, moderator, emcee, actor, sketch writer, convention adviser, narrator, and the kind of sub-fame that keeps people from asking, "Hey, how'd HE get in here?" He's done everything from chair a convention to being the guy who vacuums the staff suite. In no particular order.

In 1993, his first book, The Saga of Punk Walrus, became a cult classic. Since then he's been published in Gateways, several short story anthologies, and written several sketches and spoofs for various acting venues. You can often see him at Balticon, Katsucon, Anime Mid Atlantic, and DC Rollergirl home bouts. He is a Redditor and also seen posting on the "Ars Technica forums."

Trolley was his first published steampunk/horror novel in 2011. He is currently on his second book, a dark and violent sci-fi comedy.

Lawrence, Marcus

Marcus Lawrence has been playing music and acting in the DC Metro area for more than 10 years. Known as the "Indie King of the Southeast" to many who know him, his resume includes multiple professional theater productions, commercials, films and TV productions.

He started his theater career in avant garde theater productions such as the often controversial Cherry Red Productions Kenneth, What Is the Frequency? and Cinema Verite and even appeared nude in their popular event Day Old Plays.

He then moved into more classic American Theater, appearing in Arsenic and Old Lace, and Harvey, as well as stretching his range with VpStart Crow Productions ranging from Steinbeck and Dickens to August Strindberg's The Ghost Sonata. He would go on to do Greek theatrein Richmond and Fredericksburg and, most notably, played Dionysus in The Bacchae at The Capitol Fringe Fest.

Amid all of his theater work, Marcus also built his film resume. A frequent collaborator with Clint Gaige of Growth Media Services (they celebrate the east coast premiere of their pilot film Shotgun Mythos at Balticon 47.), Marcus starred in and produced crime noir films as well as numerous short films and commercials. He has shown a more comedic side in Old Virginia Film's Lily's Thorn, appearing as Lily's buffoonish ex-husband, and then as a French bank robber in Old Dominion's TV Show From the Files of Interpol for the Discovery Channel.

Leacock, Dina

Writing under the name Diane Arrelle, Dina A. Leacock has had almost 200 short stories published and has 2 published books, Just A Drop In The Cup, a collection of short-short stories, and Elements Of The Short Story: How to Write a Selling Story. She lives on the edge of the Pine Barrens (home of the Jersey Devil) in Southern New Jersey with her husband, sometimes her sons and of course her obligatory cat. She's proud to be one of the founding members, as well as the second president, of the Garden State Horror Writers and also the past president of the Philadelphia Writers� Conference.

Growing up extremely rural and listening nightly to the ghostly tales her older siblings forced upon her, Dina naturally turned to horror, since she is basically afraid of everything. To support her writing habit over the decades, she has held a wide variety of jobs including Teacher, School Bus Driver, Mystery Shopper, Newspaper Correspondent, Municipal Senior Citizen Center Director and was even that annoying person who stood around in department stores burning vanilla tinged milk and cooking tasteless crepes to sell nonstick pots and pans.

Leider, R. Allen

Film reviewer/screenwriter R. Allen Leider began his career in 1970 at CBS news as copy boy for The CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite. In 1973, he became features writer for The Monster Times and went on to work at Show, Celebrity and Glitter magazines and other international publications. 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 (1985), and hosted his own radio show Cinemascene on WWFM, for five years. Presently, he writes and edits the online Black Cat Review magazine. His newest projects are the Wicca Girl Trilogy, a magical fantasy action-adventure following 18 year old Druscilla Marie d'Lambert from her Medieval childhood thru her transformation to Witch Queen to her modern day assignments as a supernatural MI-6 agent. He also edits and co-publishes the "Hellfire Lounge" anthology series.

Levin, Neal

Author, Editor, Game Designer, Publisher. It would seem that his head grows with each successive hat he must learn to wear, but the hats are really to cover the horns. Born and bred in the wilds of New Jersey, Neal Levin hasn't quite learned to escape its denizens. As a short story author he has work in anthologies from many publishers, but most suggest he shouldn't hold his breath waiting on a response. Sympathy for those with a lack of breath may be a reason he started writing about mer people, zombies, and vampires. He is the current vice-president of the Garden State Speculative Fiction Writers.

Lewis, Emily

Emily is a Classicist with quite a bit of teaching experience, as well as lots of art and archaeology experience. She's also a history geek, especially for ancient history. She loves anything education and is very, very interested in gaming and education. In her copious spare time, she works with a group called The Pericles Group (www.practomime.com) to develop a game called "Operation LAPIS." The game objectives are the same as the learning objectives, and students have had lots of success with it. When she is not teaching or helping build "Operation LAPIS," she is a singer, specifically with the group Sassafrass, a dancer of all styles, and an ice hockey player. Her musical background, as well as her history background, also allows her to find fantastic historical songs to use with her students.

Lisse, Carey

Dr. Carey M. Lisse, is a Senior Research Scientist Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory. He was a member of the Science Team for the Deep Impact Discovery Mission. Previously he spent 1985-1995 as an Astrophysicist at NASA/Goddard Spaceflight Center, 1995-1997 as a Research Associate, 1997-1999 as an Associate Research Scientist, and 2001-2004 as a Senior Research Scientist at the University of Maryland. During 1990-2001, he was a Hubble Space Telescope Instrument Scientist at the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI). He was a member of the NASA/IRTF D/Shoemaker-Levy 9 Observing Team, 1994; the NASA/IRTF C/Hyakutake Science Team, 1996; and the Constellation-X Facility Science Team, 1998-present. Dr. Lisse received a STScI Science Merit Award in 2000, a Space Foundation Space Achievement Award from STScI in 2001, the JPL Stardust Flight Team Achievement Award in 2005, a Cambridge Isaac Newton Institute Visiting Fellowship in 2009, JHU/APL Special Achievement Awards in 2006 and 2010, and an EPOXI Flight Team Group Achievement Award in 2009. Asteroid 12226 Caseylisse was named in his honor in 2001 and he was elected an AAAS Fellow in 2004.

Livengood, Tim

Tim Livengood is a planetary scientist who studies atmospheres using infrared and ultraviolet light, but these days he counts neutrons from the Moon with the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter mission, to investigate where water ice may be hidden. He was a co-investigator with NASA�s EPOXI mission, and was the education and public outreach team deputy leader.

Tim graduated from Towson Senior High School in 1980. He completed undergraduate studies at Washington University in St. Louis in 1984, majoring in physics, minoring in mathematics, and dabbling in classics and archaeology. He spent idyllic college summers in an underground office that used to be a bathroom, killing rats and various cell cultures using a linear accelerator, to Make America Safe. He received a PhD from The Johns Hopkins University, in Baltimore, in 1992, for a dissertation on the ultraviolet aurorae of Jupiter. Tim is a professional storyteller, using his life in science as inspiration for stories. He is an occasional writer, photographer, and silent actor in astronomy-themed music videos. Tim does not recommend drinking antifreeze, which can kill you -- slowly.

Love, Andy

Andrew Love is an engineer and fan. In 2001, he won the Webs of Wonder award for his website encouraging the use of science fiction in the classroom, and has been giving science talks at Balticon since 2000. He�s married to the children�s author, Pamela Love (author of A Loon Alon and several other books) and they have a 14-year old son. When Andy�s not reading or working, you�ll often find him juggling or discussing physics.

Thorndike Love, Talis

Veteran costumer and tech, artisto, con-attendee and DJ, homeschooled Talis Thorndike Love is glad to be using her many skillz in running the Balticon Teen Dance again this year. Talis has been attending conventions since birth (well, 20 days), and is happiest when at a con with her friends.

Lubs, Steve

Steve Lubs has been leading the Balticon Writers' Workshop for twenty-three (23) years, and the BSFS Writers' Workshop from 1985-1991. Steve has been writing fiction since 1972, was published in Analog(once), on websites and in small literary magazines. Steve has published short non-fiction articles in technical magazines.

Lurie, Perrianne

Perrianne Lurie is a long time fan and life member of BSFS. She's run the Balticon Green Room for way too long, and has worked on numerous other conventions. She ran the Hugo Ceremony at Torcon, was Deputy Program Department Head for Buccconeer, and was the e-mail liaison and newsletter editor for the Baltimore in 1998 Worldcon bid.

She watches way too much television and lots of movies. She's an active "European" boardgamer, and has been a game master at Congress of Gamers and Euroquest. For her day job, she's a public health physician and infectious disease epidemiologist with the Pennyslvania Department of Health in Harrisburg.

Lynch, Kristina

Kristina Lynch has been an avid board gamer and all things Zombie lover for years.

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MacDicken, Mark

Professional entertainer for over 30 years, Mark MacDicken performs comedy magic as the eccentric wizardFlabbergas. As well as being an accomplished actor and comedy magician, Mark is also a top-notch puppeteer and balloon sculptor. Often seen as Spiffy the Clown, he has performed at hundreds of birthday parties, as well as theme parks, fairs and festivals, company picnics, summer recreation programs, mall events, and on local television.

When he's not dressing up in costumes and playing with his toys, Mark is a special education teacher at an elementary school. He has a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Drama from the University of Southern California, and a Master of Education degree in Special Education from George Mason University. Mark lives with his wife, son, daughter, and cat in Northern Virginia.

Macrae, Phoebe

Dr Phoebe Macrae is a post-doctoral fellow at Johns Hopkins University. She is originally from New Zealand, and has been in the USA for 1 year. Her area of research is swallowing and swallowing disorders. She worked as a speech and language therapist before returning to complete her PhD. She worked with patients with swallowing disorders caused by stroke, neurodegenerative diseases, traumatic brain injury, and other acquired neurogenic disorders.

Macumber, Justin

Justin Macumber is a writer and podcaster. He is the author of Haywire from Gryphonwood Press and A Minor Magic, a YA urban fantasy from Crescent Moon Press. His podcast is the Dead Robots' Society podcast, which has been broadcasting for over six years and has three times been a Parsec Award Finalist. He lives with his wife Krista in north Texas.

Madden, Helen E. H.

Helen E. H. Madden is an artist and writer who quit her lucrative day job years ago to draw webcomics, produce weird podcasts, battle zombies, and civilize small children. She has been somewhat successful at 3 of these endeavors. Helen writes and draws The Adventures of Cynical Woman, a webcomic about life as a geek mom. She is currently working on a new webcomic called Bitchcraft," which is all about the evils of yarn. When she's not working for profit, Helen likes to make things with tentacles. You have been warned.

Malfoy, Zophiel (Z)

Christine Chase (aka Zophiel (Z) Malfoy) has been a consummate fan-girl since she was five years old and fell in love with Mr. Spock (it was the pointy ears). This obsession was fanned to new heights when she discovered anime in high school — and in college the addictive nature of fan-fiction. She has enjoyed watching the anime scene in America explode over he past decade and a half, and has a habit of analyzing anime through various philosophical and theological lenses. Her personal studies of Japanese history and culture are fueling her faltering efforts at writing her own original work, in an attempt to follow in the footsteps of her author-father, Robert R. Chase.

Marks Delaney, Betsy

Betsy Marks Delaney is a DC-Metro area resident, theatrical impresario, writer, costumer, director, web designer, Unitarian Universalist and long-time (mostly) armchair activist (not necessarily in that order, subject to change without notice). When not attending classes, publishing articles or catching up on the news, Betsy works part-time as the General Manager of the Greenbelt Arts Center, where she has been known to design costumes, sets and sound, direct, photograph and otherwise live the starving theatre artist life. She is a recipient of the first Costume-Con Founder's Award, the International Costumers' Guild Lifetime Achievement Award and competition awards in costume presentation and workmanship since her first Balticon competition in 1985. Betsy is a member of the Silicon Web Costumers' Guild and the Tuesday Night Costumers, and a friend of the Greater Columbia Fantasy Costumers' Guild, among others. Follow Betsy on Facebook for the rest of the story.

Martin, Gail Z.

Gail Z. Martin's newest series, "The Ascendant Kingdoms Saga" (Orbit Books) begins with Ice Forged in 2013. In addition to Ice Forged, she is the author of "The Chronicles of The Necromancer" series (The Summoner, The Blood King, Dark Haven and Dark Ladys Chosen) from Solaris Books and "The Fallen Kings Cycle" from Orbit Books (Book One: The Sworn and Book Two: The Dread). For book updates, tour information and contact details, visit www.AscendantKingdoms.com.

Gail is the host of the "Ghost in the Machine Fantasy Podcast", blogs at Disquieting Visions and you can find her on Facebook (The Winter Kingdoms), GoodReads, Pinterest, Shelfari and Twitter @GailZMartin. Gail's short fiction has been featured in anthologies including: Rum and Runestones and Spells and Swashbucklers from Dragon Moon Press, The Bitten Word from New Con Press (UK), Magic from Solaris Books (UK) and Women's Mammoth Book of Ghost Stores (UK)..

You can find Gail�s books in bookstores worldwide, as well as on Amazon.com, BarnesandNoble.com, Indigo.ca, Waterstones.com and everywhere books are sold.

Mayhew, Bill

I am a teller, not a writer. I tell stories from this planet, mostly, mostly from the past.

McCarthy, T. C.

T.C. McCarthy is a critically acclaimed and award winning southern author whose short fiction has appeared in Per Contra: The International Journal of the Arts, Literature and Ideas, in Story Quarterly and in Nature. His debut novel, Germline, its sequel, Exogene and the final book of the trilogy, Chimera, are available worldwide. In addition to being an author, T.C. is a PhD scientist, a Fulbright Fellow, a Howard Hughes Biomedical Research Scholar, and a winner of the prestigious University of Virginia Award for Undergraduate Research.

McLean, Joe

Joe McClean Writer/Director/Producer, studied at Southern Utah University. His Shakespeare performance scholarship only lasted a year, and when the money dried up Joe moved to NJ where his Uncle told him it was "time to stop playing around and learn a real trade." He worked as a carpenter for 8 years while finding his way into the NJ and NYC theater scene, then was chosen to study at the Royal National Theater studio program in London, England. Upon return to the States, McClean spent two years on the road, acting and crewing four U.S. national touring theater productions. He was a road manager/actor for The National Theater of the Performing Arts, and an assistant stage manager/actor for Theatreworks USA.

Joe's love for movies brought him to LA in 2005 where he started Red and Tan Productions with Sarju Patel, and premiered his first feature film That Fall (written, produced, and starring McClean) in 2006 as part of the Dances With Films Film Festival. Red and Tan�s award-winning, stylized-comedy, Money Please! about the fall of the American economy, written and directed by McClean, played a dozen film festivals in 2009, and most recently appeared in place of a theatrical trailer for the film The Company Men at Cinebarre Theaters in 5 U.S. cities. Red and Tan's short film Travesty (written and produced by McClean) garnered film festival nominations for Best Dramatic Short Film and Best Actor in a Short Film. Other shorts written and directed by Joe McClean are Coffee Connection, Another Day, Switcharoo, Just Another Joe, Boy Talk, and How To Make A David Lynch Film.

Red and Tan�s film Life Tracker, written and directed by Joe McClean, is premiering at Balticon on Friday night in the Garden room.

McPhail, Mike

Story-engineer and graphic artist Mike McPhail is best known as the editor of the award-winning Defending The Future (DTF) series of military science fiction anthologies. Currently he is the administrator for the Dark Quest Books' imprint DTF Publications, which includes the DTF series and related works, such as David Sherman's "DemonTech" and "Issue In Doubt", Phoebe Wray's Jemma, and James Daniel Ross' Radiation Angels.

As a member of the Military Writers Society of America, he is dedicated to helping his fellow service members (and deserving civilians) in their efforts to become authors, as well as supporting related organization in their efforts to help those quot;who have given their all for us."

Mireau, John

John Mierau John Mierau writes stories about worlds and comfort zones being set on their head, filled with the realest people he can make and set loose in science fiction and fantasy.

From there on, it's like a science experiment. Action (plot) and reaction (what characters do). When both work right, when all the elements come together, the story is done... and it's time to write the next one.

John is an author, narrator and podcaster who believes in the power of social media, crowdfunding and the internet to create art, connect with fans and interact with fellow creatives.

He lives in Canada near the shores of Lake Ontario, a comfortable distance between Toronto and the US border.

Mojzes, Bernie

Bernie Mojzes writes under the name "Bernie Mojzes," which confuses some people, though it really shouldn't. His stories have appeared in numerous markets, online and in print; a full listing can be found at www.kappamaki.com. In his copious free time, he co-edits the Journal of Unlikely Entomology and its unlikely spawn.

Morgen, Shelby

Shelby must be insane. What else would have led her to start an online publishing company? Shelby shares her belief in electronic publishing with her long-time friend and business partner, Bill, her husband of 30 plus years. Perhaps the insanity is contagious.

Shelby loves writing off-beat tales that defy as many rules as possible. She likes chocolate with her peanut butter, suspense with her romance, and kink with her sex. She's always had a hard time keeping science fiction, fantasy, and paranormal from mixing with her kink. Fortunately for Shelby, electronic publishing has opened many new doors for cross-genre authors and artists.

Visit Shelby's website ShelbyMorgen.com for her latest releases. For a head's up on new stuff, you�re welcome to join her ShelbyMorgen yahoo! group. You can Email Shelby at ShelbyMorgen {AT} yahoo [DOT] com, blog with her at shelby-morgen on blogspot.

Find more of Shelby's Changeling titles at changelingpress.com

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Nelson, Nate

Former professional wrestler, video gamer and avid comic book collector, Nate Nelson plays King of the Welsh Fey, Gryson, in the web seried Shotgun Mythos. A well-rounded geek, Nate graduated from the Illinois Center for Broadcasting and was hired as the producer for "Mackay in the Morning" show at a suburban Chicago radio station. While in radio, he found a passion for voice acting and audio production, occasionally taking on the role of Assistant Production Director at the station. In 2009, Nate moved to Baltimore and stepped in front of the camera as the co-host of the Baltimore based TV show Godamus Game Review. Since moving to Baltimore, Nate has been expanding his resume to include audio dramas, commercials, films and two other web series: Hamilton Street and Rebels and Rejects.

Neufeld, Matt

Matt Neufeld is a local journalist, actor, writer, critic and magician who has written, acted, critiqued and performed magic throughout the Baltimore and D.C. areas for many years. Among the many venues Matt has performed magic at are: the Baltimore Ravens Spring Fan Fest, the Orioles Fan Fest, the Fells Point Fun Festival, the Howard County Fair, the Preakness Hot Air Balloon Festival and the Catonsville Arts and Crafts Festival! Matt is also a local film actor, and he has appeared in more than 70 films of all types. Matt is currently the News Editor for Carroll Publishing in Bethesda.

Norrtis, Christine

Christine Norris is the author of several works for tweens and teens, including the "Library of Athena" series and the "Zandria" duology. When she�s not out saving the world one story at a time, she is disguised as a mild mannered school librarian, mother, and wife. She cares for her family of one husband-creature, a son-animal, and two felines who function as Guardian of the Bathtub and Official Lap Warmer, respectively. She currently resides somewhere in southern New Jersey and is represented by Terrie Wolf of AKA Literary. You can find her on her website as well as on Twitter and Facebook.

Nove, Barry

See Aire, D. H.

Nuchtchas, Nutty

Artist by day, blogger and podcaster by night, Nuchtchas (Artist, blogger, podcaster, gamer, roleplayer, and self professed "Geek Queen") is the host/produce of the Nutty Bites Podcast and a co-host on Specficmedia.com Presents, Beyond the Wall: A Game of Thrones Podcast. She runs the website nimlas.org / NIMLAS Studios. A New Yorker at heart, she currently resides in New Brunswick, Canada with her spouse and Dragon (the inspiration for her upcoming children's book, Rory goes to the Dentist.)

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O'Donnell, Hugh J.

Hugh J. O'Donnell is a writer and podcaster living in Western New York. He is the host and editor of the Way of the Buffalo podcast, which features short fiction and interviews with writers, artists, and podcasters. His short fiction has appeared in Flagship Magazine, Every Photo Tells, and others.

Okorafor, Nnedi

Nnedi Okorafor was born in the United States to two Igbo (Nigerian) immigrant parents. She holds a PhD in English and is a professor at Chicago State University. She resides in the suburbs of Chicago with her daughter Anyaugo.

Though American-born, Nnedi's muse is Nigeria. Her parents began taking her and her siblings to visit relatives there when she was very young. Because Nigeria is her muse, this is where many of her stories take place, either literally or figuratively.

Because she grew up wanting to be an entomologist and even after becoming a writer maintained that love of insects and nature, her work is always filled with startlingly vivid flora and fauna. And because Octavia Butler, Stephen King, Philip Pullman, Tove Jansson, Hayao Miyazaki, and Ngugi wa Thiong'o are her greatest influences, her work tends to be...on the creative side.

Her first novel, Zahrah the Windseeker was the winner of the Wole Soyinka Prize for Literature, shortlisted for the Parallax Award and Kindred Award, a finalist for the Golden Duck and Garden State Teen Choice awards and nominated for a Locus Award (Best First Novel).

Her second novel, The Shadow Speaker won the CBS Parallax Award, was a Booksense Pick for Winter 2007/08 and a finalist for the Essence Magazine Literary Award and the Andre Norton Award. It is also an NAACP Image Award nominee, a Tiptree Honor Book and a Locus Magazine Recommended Book.

Nnedi was awarded the 2007/08 Macmillan Writer's Prize for Africa for her [then] unpublished children's book, Long Juju Man, a story about a girl's encounters with an irritating crafty ghost. Her young adult novel, Akata Witch, is about a teenage albino Nigerian girl who learns that she is part of a secret magical society.

Her adult novel, Who Fears Death won the 2011 World Fantasy Award for Best Novel and was a Nebula and Locus Award nominee. The Washington Post said that Who Fears Death is "Both wondrously magical and terribly realistic."

In addition to her award winning novels, Nnedi has had several win or rank as a finalists for awards.

Nnedi earned her BA in Rhetoric from the University of Illinois, C-U; Her MA in journalism from Michigan State University; and her MA and PhD in English at the University of Illinois, Chicago. She is also a graduate of the Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers' Workshop (2001).

Otis, Kat

Kat Otis lives a peripatetic life with a pair of cats who enjoy riding in the car as long as there's no country music involved. Her fiction has appeared in Orson Scott Card's Intergalactic Medicine Show, Daily Science Fiction and Marion Zimmer Bradley's Sword & Sorceress XXVI. She can be found online at katotis.com or on Twitter as @kat_otis.

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Palmer, Ada

Ada Palmer is the primary composer and director of Sassafrass. Her current project, "Sundown: Whispers of Ragnarok" is a musical story cycle depicting the rise and fall of the Norse cosmos, focusing on the death of Baldur and the strife between Odin and Loki. She has been working on the music for eight years, basing her versions of the stories on medieval sources, especially the Poetic Edda and the Prose Edda of Snorri Sturlson. Ada's interest in Norse Mythology stems from stories her parents read to her when she was young. Ada has studied violin, piano, guitar, and various medieval instruments, but her compositions are primarily vocal. By day, she is an Assistant Professor in the history department at Texas A&M University. She teaches European history, focusing on the Italian Renaissance and on the long-term history of ideas, especially Machavelli, and the relationship between religion, science, heresy, atheism and the classics. Ada enjoys many sci-fi, fantasy and gaming activities, especially LARPing and costuming. She also works on the history of anime and manga, primarily on the "God of Manga" Osamu Tezuka. She runs TezukaInEnglish.com, has published scholarly articles on Tezuka, and has served as a consultant for several anime and manga companies, writing historical notes for series releases including "Blackjack", "Hetalia Axis Powers" and "Mythical Detective Loki Ragnarok". She is active in the anime fan community, running cosplay and gameshow events like Cosplay Human Chess, primarily at Anime Boston, and at Harvard�s Vericon.

Pease, Marianne

Marianne Pease is a master craftsman costumer and all around geek. She wavers between doing fantasy and historical costumes, and occasionally mashes the two together when the mood strikes.

Perkins, TJ

TJ Perkins is a gifted and well-respected author in the mystery/suspense genre. A member of the Maryland Writers Association and Sisters In Crime, her short stories for young readers have appeared in the Ohio State 6th Grade Proficiency Test Preparation Book, Kids Highway Magazine, and Webzine New Works Review with illustrations provided by Dennis Anfuso, just to name a few. She's placed four times in the CNW/FFWA chapter book competition.

Art of the Ninja: Earth is the first installment of a 5 book series, "Shadow Legacy", by publisher Silver Leaf Books, May 2011. Previously self-published, her achievements have been greatly recognized and Perkins is also conducting speaking engagements at colleges and libraries, offering advice to others. "Shadow Legacy" will be her first Silver Leaf Books series.

Pinkert, Marvin

Marvin Pinkert was made Executive Director of the Jewish Museum of Maryland in June 2012. The Museum is both an interactive learning center and one of Baltimore's most important historic sites — it includes the third oldest synagogue in the US. The Museum is currently the host of "Zap!,Pow!Bam! The Superheros." Prior to joining JMM, Marvin was the founding director of the National Archives Experience in Washington DC, producer of award-winning projects like the Public Vaults and Docs Teach. In the 1990s, Marvin was Vice President for Programs at Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry.

Pinsker, Sarah

Sarah Pinsker is a Baltimore-based writer and singer/songwriter. She has three albums on various indie labels and a fourth forthcoming. Her short stories have been published in Daily Science Fiction and Stupefying Stories, among others, and she has a story upcoming in Strange Horizons.

Pinto, KT

KT Pinto – 2013's Dare to be Different winner – writes about vampyres, mutants, witches, merfolk, werebeasts, zombies, deities, courtesans, criminals, and pop stars... sometimes all in the same story. For more information, you can also find her on Facebook/KTPinto and Goodreads/4079000.KT_Pinto.

Pisano, Chris

Chris Pisano was discouraged by his tenth grade English teacher from reading H. P. Lovecraft. Being naturally disobedient, Chris has been a fan ever since. He had minor successes early in his career by getting a few poems published, but found more success in partnering with Brian Koscienski. As a writing team, they have had stories, articles, graphic novels, and poetry published, and most recently their debut novel, The Shattered Visage Lies, by Post Mortem Press.

Povey, Jennifer R.

Jennifer R. Povey is in her late thirties, and lives in Northern Virginia with her husband. She writes a variety of speculative fiction, whilst following current affairs and occasionally indulging in horse riding and role playing games. She has sold fiction to a number of markets including Analog, Digital Science Fiction, and Cosmos. Her first novel, Transpecial, is scheduled to be published by Musa Publishing in April, 2013.

Prellwitz, Benjamin W.

Prellwitz, Bethlynne

I've been coming to Science Fiction Conventions with my family for a number of years. I have a Master's in English and I do part time editing for Double Dragon, the company that publishes Pete's e-books. We've raised five geeky sons. In fact, one of our geeky sons introduced us to "Doctor Who" and the other guided us to "The Walking Dead."

Prellwitz, Pete

Peter Prellwitz is the IT Director for a precious metals refining company located in Philadelphia. Peter has been writing stories, plays and skits since the fifth grade. As a child and young adult, Peter saw limited publication/production of three plays and two series of childrens puppet skits.

Presently, Pete has a total of nine novels published in trade paperback and ebook, all by Double Dragon Publishing (DDP). His novel Horizons was selected by Mike Resnick as Best Science Fiction and awarded DDPs 2003 Draco Award. Four of his short stories appear in the anthology Twisted Tails (DDP), which won the 2006 Dream Realms Award. Peter also has short stories in By Other Means (Dark Quest, LLC) and Best Laid Plans (Dark Quest, LLC) and Twisted Tails VI (DDP). He continues writing novels and short stories, as well as dabbling in web comics.

Together with more than three dozen short stories located on his site, Peter's novels help weave a tapestry of mankind's exploration and settling of the galaxy over the next two and half millennia.

A native Arizonan, Peter has also lived in Wisconsin, California, Hawaii, New York, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania, where he now lives with his wife, Bethlynne, and four of their five sons. In addition to writing, Peter enjoys history, backpacking, and languages.

Prellwitz, Samuel

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Reclusado, Larry

Larry Reclusado is a local Director, Actor and producer of independent cable access televison shows which include: The Nova Comic Book Show, Blood Clan, The series, & Swags serial showcase.. He also is considered one of the local areas most knowledgeable comic book historians.

Ridenour, Ray

Ray Ridenour, local science fiction "Personality" been an artist for fifty years, and a Balticon participant since 1967.

Outside of fandom, Ray has spent twenty years as a professional artist and community liaison for two Baltimore City housing departments. He has built commercial props for display firms and department stores and done editorial illustrations for the Baltimore Sun.

At Art Shows he has exhibited paintings, drawings and stained glass windows. As an amatuer actor, he has been in fannish plays, and acted in two horror movies, one as a featured player, with actual speaking lines yet.

Moderately funny and marginally charming, he has appeared on many panels on many subjects over the years, unencumbered by expertise or anecdotes germane. He is often called upon to take the moderator's seat on panels.

Riley, Betsy

Betsy A. Rileyis a multi-genre author, artist, and poet who lives in Maryland. She writes under several pen names and has published stories, poems, and illustrations in several magazines and anthologies.

Robinson, Ron

Ron Robinson is a part of the Greater Columbia Fantasy Costuming Guild, and is part of the "Ron and Jeannette" costuming team. Over the years he and Jeanette Holloman have participated in several WorldCon and CostumeCon winning costumes. They have been costuming for over 30 years.

Robison, Dave

Dave Robison has indulged in creative pursuits his entire life, including writing "Curious George" fan-fiction at the age of eight, improv theater at age ten, playing trumpet at age twelve, as well as earning a theater degree, creating magazine cover art, writing audio scripts, designing websites, creating board games, hosting mythological roundtables and generally savoring the sweet drought of expression in all its forms.

Dave is the founder and co-host (with Brion Humphrey) of The Roundtable Podcast (www.roundablepodcast.com) where writers present story ideas to be workshopped by established authors and editors. He hosts the newly launched Literary Alchemy Podcast (www.literarygold.com) about the UN-solitary writer, exploring shared worlds, collaborative writing, online writing communities, and anything where writers support each other creatively.

Dave is also a skilled vocal performer, having narrated stories for such audio fiction podcasts as Escape Pod, Podcastle, Pseudopod, The Drabblecast, and more! He narrates audio books for Tantor Media and has recently launched The League of Extraordinary Vocalists (www.leagueofextraordinaryvocalists.com), a community of vocal performers who attend Fantasy/SciFi Conventions and lend a hand performing "stunt readings" for any authors who don't feel up to reading their work in public!

Ross, James Daniel

A new author who is continuing to gain steam all the time, James Daniel Ross' credits include anthologies next some of the biggest names in the industry, as well as his own novels: The Radiation Angels, The Legacy of Fox Crow, The Last Dragoon, as well as other novels and novellas. A mercenary artist at heart, he is willing to take on any paying job, no matter how outlandish, in order to bring it to fruition. He shares a Dream Realm Award with the other authors appearing in Breach the Hull, and an EPPIE award with the others appearing in Bad Ass Faeries 2.

Rovik, Ben

Ben Rovik is an author and a local boy, born in DC and educated up in Baltimore. His "Mechanized Wizardry" series is full of filthy wizards, oil-fired knights, and steampunk engineers on a mission to combine magic and technology. The first two titles, The Wizard That Wasn't and The Mask and The Master, are just a down payment on a series packed with humor and action.

Ben is also a published, award-winning playwright, and spent many years as an actor before finally deciding to settle down into a sensible career: steampunk novelist. He's one of ten people who graduated from Johns Hopkins University with no intention of being a doctor. He lives in Maryland with his wife, two cats, and a great deal of wine.

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Sakers, Don

Don Sakers was launched the same month as Sputnik One, so it was perhaps inevitable that he should become a science fiction writer. A Navy brat by birth, he spent his childhood in such far-off lands as Japan, Scotland, Hawaii, and California. In California, rather like a latter-day Mowgli, he was raised by dogs.

As a writer and editor, he has explored the thoughts of sapient trees (The Leaves of October, Baen 1988), brought ghosts to life (Carmen Miranda's Ghost is Haunting Space Station Three, Baen 1989), and beaten the "Cold Equations" scenario ("The Cold Solution," Analog 7/91, voted best short story of the year.)

Sakers is a member of the CoastLine SF Writers Group. He has taught sf-writing through Howard Community College.M

In 2009, Don took up the position of book reviewer for Analog Science Ficiton and Fact, where he writes the "Reference Library" column in every issue.

In his day job, Don works for the Anne Arundel County Public Library. His actual job title — "Library Associate" — makes it sound like he gives lots of money to the Library, but in fact it's the other way around.

Don lives at Meerkat Meade with his spouse, costumer Thomas Atkinson.

Salemi, Carole

Carol Salemi costumes at the Master level and has been involved in all aspects of costuming for over 30 years, trying her hand at everything from teaching, creating, and competing to judging and masquerade directing. Each competition costume usually involves some new, fun, or challenging technique that keeps it fresh. While best known for Media recreations and Native American clothing, her most recent headpiece was seen on "My Big Fat American Gypsy Wedding". Carol has enjoyed working as a medical massage therapist for 23 years, works part time for Regal Cinemas, Disney/Mosaic and Sondra Celli Designs with seasonal jobs in the Haunt Industry. She now has a growing interest in Steampunk accessories and fashion… so check out her jewelry in the art show!

Sarfati, Kat A.

An amateur Anime expert, Sci-Fi geek who works in Jesuit Education. In my spare time I write fanfiction and have participated in the Balticon Art Show for a number of years mostly under the monikers of kateye and katmills. I can also be found working Anime USA and Katsucon.

(WebEditor's Note: Kat is Balticon's Anime Room director and Anime Program coordinator.)

Sarfati, Lee

Lee has beeen an anime fan for a looooong time. But his main claim to fame is that he is Kat's husband! (See hwat happens when you don't give us a bio? — The Webmasters]

Satifka, Erica

Erica L. Satifka's short fiction has appeared in such venues as Clarkesworld Magazine, Ideomancer, and PodCastle. She lives in Hampden, Baltimore with her husband Rob and three cats.

Scaffido, Patrick

Patrick Scaffido is a poet, podcaster, author, and musician currently releasing his surrealistic dark fantasy novel, Storyteller Chronicles: The Horde, as a series of musical podcasts through Podiobooks. He has taught history and English literature. He wanted to major in Psychohistory like in the Foundation novels but had to settle for semiotics and the analysis of trends in popular culture. He blames whichever scapegoat happens to be convenient.

Schiller, Lauren

Lauren is one of the founding members of Sassafrass and loves singing. She likes to do a lot of different things, though writing bios is not one of them. She works at the rare books library at Texas A&M University, where she can use the science fiction and fantasy research collection whenever she wants. She has a Masters in Library and Information Science and is still trying to figure out what other degrees she might want to get. Lauren is on the board of the Pride Community Center which tries to support and empower individuals of all sexual orientations, gender identities and expressions and to provide education and outreach leading to greater understanding and respect. She also enjoys anime and has staffed at anime conventions running cosplay and gameshow events.

Schnyder, PJ

Author of sci-fi and paranormal romance, steampunk and urban fantasy, PJ Schnyder spent her childhood pretending to study for the SATs by reading every fantasy and sci-fi novel she could borrow from the local and school libraries. She scored fairly high in the verbal portion.

She was introduced to the wonderful world of romance a decade later by her best friend at an anime convention in Seattle.

She now lives somewhere temperate watching the seasons go by with her two dogs and super stealthy ninja kitty, writing her stories.

You can (try to) keep up with her on her AuthorPJSchnyder account on Facebook or follow @pjschnyder on Twitter.

Schweitzer, Darrell C.

Darrell Schweitzer is the author of the "Living With the Dead" series, the "Sekrenre" series, and the "Shattered Goddess" series (including the 2013 release Echoes of the Goddess: Tales of Terror and Wonder from the End of Time), and The White Isle, plus over 300 short stories (some of them are found in his 15 short-story collections). He is also a reviewer and critic, whose credits range from "Publishers Weekly" to "The Washington Post". He is a regular contributor to "The New York Review Of Science Fiction" and is also a noted interviewer, most recently for "Orson Scott Card's Intergalactic Medicine Show". He recently edited three anthologies, The Secret History Of Vampires, Cthulhu's Reign, and Full Moon City (with Martin H. Greenberg). He was co-editor of "Weird Tales" for 19 years. He has written books about H.P. Lovecraft and Lord Dunsany, edited The Robert E. Howard Reader and The Thomas Ligotti Reader, and rhymed "Cthulhu" in a limerick. After that, he condensed "The Lord Of The Rings" into a limerick. Not to be outdone by himself, he did the same to the "Gormenghast Trilogy". He has been coming to Balticon for a very long time. This is his 39th consecutive Balticon.

Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA)

Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA)is a professional organization for authors of science fiction, fantasy and related genres. Esteemed past and present members include Isaac Asimov, Anne McCaffrey, Ray Bradbury, and Andre Norton.

SFWA informs, supports, promotes, defends and advocates for its members. We host the prestigious Nebula Awards, assist members in legal disputes with publishers, and administer benevolent funds for authors facing medical or legal expenses. Novice authors benefit from our Information Center and the well-known Writer Beware site.

SFWA members look out for each other and provide assistance, mentorship, and camaraderie. Between online discussion forums, private convention suites, and a host of less formal gatherings, SFWA is a source of information, education, support, and fellowship for its authors.

SFWA Membership is open to authors, artists, editors, and other industry professionals who meet our eligibility requirements. Click here to Join SFWA.

Scott, Melissa

Melissa Scott was born and raised in Little Rock, Arkansas, and studied history at Harvard College, where she was involved with the now-defunct college-sanctioned SF 'zine that spawned the Harvard/Radcliffe Science Fiction Association, and was introduced to a new round of media SF, particularly "Dr. Who." She earned her PhD from Brandeis University in the comparative history program with a dissertation titled "The Victory of the Ancients: Tactics, Technology, and the Use of Classical Precedent." She also sold her first novel, The Game Beyond, and quickly became a part-time graduate student and an – almost – full-time writer.

Over the next twenty-eight years, she published thirty original novels and a handful of short stories, most with queer themes and characters. She won the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer in 1986, and won Lambda Literary Awards for Trouble and Her Friends, Shadow Man, and Point of Dreams, the last written with long-time partner and collaborator, the late Lisa A. Barnett. She has also been shortlisted for the Tiptree Award. She won a Spectrum Award for Shadow Man and again in 2010 for the short story "The Rocky Side of the Sky." Her most recent novel, Lost Things, written with Jo Graham, was published in 2012, and its sequel, Steel Blues, will be available for Balticon. Also scheduled to be out in time for Balticon is Death by Silver, a gay Victorian mystery with magic, written with Amy Griswold.

Shuch, H. Paul

Shvartsman, Alex

Alex Shvartsman is a writer, editor, translator, and game designer from Brooklyn NY. His short stories appeared in over two dozen magazines and anthologies. He edited Unidentified Funny Objects an anthology of humorous SF/F released in 2012.

Sigler, Scott

New York Times best-selling novelist Scott Sigler is the author of Nocturnal, Ancestor, Infected, Contagious, and Pandemic, hardcover thrillers from Crown Publishing, and the co-owner of Dark �verlord Media, which publishes his "Galactic Football League" series (The Rookie, The Starter, The All-Pro and The MVP).

Before he was published, Scott built a large online following by giving away his self-recorded audiobooks as free, serialized podcasts. His loyal fans, who named themselves "Junkies," have downloaded over fifteen million individual episodes of his stories and interact daily with Scott and each other in the social media space.

Silverman, Hildy

Hildy Silverman is the publisher of Space and Time Magazine, a 45-year-old magazine of fantasy, horror and science fiction. She is also the author of several works of short fiction, including "The Six Million Dollar Mermaid" (2012, Mermaids 13, French, ed.), "The Vampire Escalator of the Passaic Promenade" (2010, New Blood, Thomas, ed.), and "Sappy Meals" (2010, Fangs for the Mammaries, Friesner, ed.) In the "real" world, she is a Digital Marketing Specialist at Siemens Hearing Instruments, Inc.

Simpson, Kevin

Kevin Simpson fell to Earth in a meteorite and was found as a baby with nothing but a red cape. He was found by a pack of feral twenty sided dice, who adopted him and raised him as their own. They taught him to laugh, to love, and most importantly, to game. These days he mostly spends his time looking for crazy new games and trying to spread as much fun as possible across the world, like some kind of probability obsessed Rainbow Brite. He also greatly enjoys literature, science, and the arts. In his spare time, he dresses up like a goat and hits people with padded sticks.

Smith, Jennifer Zyren

Jennifer Zyren Smith is an author and artist residing in Maryland. Ever since she discovered ElfQuest at the age of twelve, she has been telling stories through comics and has an entire file cabinet filled with character designs and comics from the last twenty years. Her current graphic novel, LaSalle's Legacy is a fantasy story about the adventures of the crew of the Laughing Panda. When she isn't making art, she is playing video games and failing in her duties as cat slave.

Smith-Ready, Jeri

Jeri Smith-Ready has been writing fiction since the night she had her first double espresso. A steady stream of caffeine has resulted in eleven published fantasy novels, including RT Reviewers Choice-winning fantasy ;Eyes of Crow; as well as the PRISM award-winning Wicked Game and Shade.

In 2012, Jeri wrapped up both her adult and teen paranormal series. She's currently writing a contemporary YA novel (due out in Spring 2014) and producing a slew of short fiction for publication in 2013 and 2014.

Jeri lives in the rolling hills of Maryland with her husband and two cats. When not writing, she can be found, well, thinking about writing, or at /jsmithready on Twitter.

Snelgrove, Chris

In 2007, Chris approached Collin Earl with an idea to produce the serialized audio version of a Roman Gods themed novel that Collin had been writing for some time. About a year later, The House of Grey was released and was an instant success on iTunes and Podiobooks.com, holding onto a spot in the Top Ten for more than a year straight.

After the success of The House of Grey, Chris and Collin collaborated to craft "Harmonics" starting with the first season: Rise of the Magician. Each wrote different character's perspective in the story and blended their writing styles to create this unique story.

Chris has lived in a number of places in this great country called the United States, including Utah, Maryland, Florida, California, and Arizona. He eventually ended up in Colorado almost 20 years ago and currently lives just outside Denver with his beautiful wife and four wonderful boys. He graduated the University of Colorado at Denver with a B.A. in Psychology and currently works as a corporate trainer and business systems analyst for a Fortune 100 insurance company.

Snyder, Maria V.

Meteorologist turned New York Times bestselling novelist, Maria V. Snyder's been writing fantasy and science fiction since her son was born. Seventeen years, ten published novels, and a dozen short stories later, Maria's learned a thing or three about writing and she's been happily sharing her knowledge with the MFA students at Seton Hill University [and with fledgling writers at Balticon: Webmaster's note]. She also enjoys creating new worlds where horses and swords rule, 'cause let's face it, they're cool, although she's been known to trap her poor characters in a giant metal cube and let them figure out how to get out.

Sokolov, Tili

Tili, a Sassafrass member since summer 2012, studies English and Women, Gender, and Sexuality as a Harvard undergraduate. She is a board member of the Harvard-Radcliffe Science Fiction Association and of Vericon, Harvard's annual science fiction convention. She loves LARPing, mocking terrible movies, knitting, and reading, especially comics. She has also performed with the Harvard College Madrigal Singers and the Harvard Noteables.

Soskin, Josh

Director Josh Soskin grew up in a small surf town in Central California. He began his directing career in the documentary world where he produced and directed hundreds of short docs for Current TV including a half hour special, Modern Day Pirates that won him national attention. In 2007 he left Current to travel around the world, co-founded Houseblend Media and began directing TV, commercial, and film in earnest.

Josh has directed three short films, Love Stinks (2009), Moving Takahashi (2011) and Milk Run* [*Webmaster's note: screeming in the Balticon Sunday Night Short Film Festival](2013). Takahashi has been broadcast on Virgin Air TV, Indieflix and in France and Switzerland. It was selected for several festivals worldwide including the Santa Barbara Film Festival, won "Short of the Week's" Best Production 2012 award and was also named one of Vimeo's Best 12 of 2012. His first major music video, Amalgam, a short film/musical hybrid won Best Music Video at the 2011 OC Music Awards.

Josh has also stood out as a budding talent in the commercial realm. His web spot for Starbucks, "Journey," became their most viewed web spot ever. He has also taken home three grand prize awards for his spec work. His spot "Detention" took the Grand Prize for Microsoft's competition at Tribeca. "Treasure" took Grand Prize for Vitamin Water's competition at Cannes Lion, and most recently his spot "Zombie Ride" won grand prize at Chevy Volt's Barcelona competition. "Zombie Ride" was also picked up by Chevy to be broadcast internationally throughout Europe.

Josh's commercial clients have included Pepsi Co, Newsday, IBM, Starbucks, Toyota, Nissan and Earthbound Farms. He is now finishing a feature script which he aims to direct in 2013. He currently resides in Venice, California. His Commercial Representation is: for Station Film, Michael Di Girolamo (310.895.7950); for Film and Television, CAA, Craig Brody (424.288.2000).

Spendlove, Janine K.

Janine K. Spendlove is a KC-130 pilot for the United States Marine Corps. Her bestselling first novel, War of the Seasons, Book One: The Human, was published in June 2011 and her next novel, War of the Seasons, Book Two: The Half-blood, was released in June 2012. She�s also had several short stories published in various anthologies.

A graduate of Brigham Young University in 1999 with a BA in History Teaching, she is an avid runner, enjoys knitting, playing Beatles tunes on her guitar, and spending time with her family. She currently resides with her husband and daughter in Washington D.C. She is currently at work on her next novel. Find out more at JanineSpendlove.com

Sprunk, Jon

Jon Sprunk is the author of the "Shadow Saga" fantasy series from Pyr Books. His first book, Shadow's Son, was a finalist for the 2010 Compton Crook Award and a nominee for the David Gemmell Award. He is currently at work on a new epic fantasy series to begin in 2014.

Stewart-Fulton, Matthew

Matthew is a native of Ann Arbor, Michigan, where is still lives, works and plays. He is a social worker with a background in public safety and professional interests in psychotherapy, bullying prevention, crisis management and adventure therapy.

Outside the office he is a long time martial artist with a passion for German long sword traditions of the 14th and 15th centuries. His preferred leisure pursuits consist of consuming podcasts and enjoying science-fiction and fantasy in a variety of formats.

Stormbringer, Raven

Raven, also known as Doc Frankenfield has provided EFX (Extra Effects) Makeup for commercials, theatre and film for over twenty years.

Each year the shop takes a break from production and gears up to produce Hollywood caliber costumes and makeup designs and applications for the Halloween fantasies of the average Joe and Josephine.

Raven is also very invloved with Steam punk and LARP of various genres including the K'Erizan Empire (the new Karizan Empire).

Stratton, Jim

Jim Stratton is a chameleon. By day, he is a mild-mannered government lawyer specializing in the field of child abuse prosecutions, and lives with his wife and children in southern Delaware. But he's been an avid fan of speculative fiction all his life, and began writing genre fiction 20+ years ago.

In recent years he's been forging his dark alter ego of genre fiction author through publication of his tales in venues like Dragons, Knights & Angels magazine, Ennea (published in Athens, Greece) & Nth Degree magazine. The appearance of his first foray into the world of poetry in The Broadkill Review is but another step in his master plan. In 2012, he stepped into the light when his stories appeared in Big Pulp E-zine and the um & Runestones anthology. His appearance as co-editor and co-author in Fantastic Fantasy 13 (to be released at Balticon 47) is yet another step in his master plan. His final reveal, the novels Loki's Gambit and Dokkalfar's Ploy, are under review for publication in 2014.

Strock, Ian Randal

Ian Randal Strock is the owner and publisher of Fantastic Books and the editor of SFScope.com (the news of the speculative fiction fields). When he's not working on other people's writing, he's a writer of short fiction. Most of his stories have appeared in Nature and Analog (from which he won two AnLab Awards) and Random House published his non-fiction work The Presidential Book of Lists in 2008. He also hangs out on the web, writing at LiveJournal about the Presidents and about anything else at his personal journal and on Facebook.

His previous professional incarnations included editorial positions at Analog, Artemis, Asimov's, Baen, the Daily Free Press, and Science Fiction Chronicle. He was a founder of the Artemis Project, and worked for several years on Wall Street.

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Tan, Cecelia

Cecilia Tan is "simply one of the most important writers, editors, and innovators in contemporary American erotic literature," according to Susie Bright, "It was her revolutionary, genre-breaking efforts decades ago that brought science fiction, fantasy, and erotic communities into the same literary room together." In 1992, Tan founded Circlet Press, an independent press that mixes science fiction/fantasy with erotica. Tan is the author of many books, including Mind Games, The Prince's Boy, and the "Magic University" series. Her short stories have appeared in Ms. Magazine, Nerve, Best American Erotica, Asimov's Science Fiction, and tons of other places. She has also edited anthologies for other publishers including Riverdale Avenue Books, Ravenous Romance, Alyson Books, and Thunders Mouth Press. She was inducted into the Saints & Sinners Hall of Fame for GLBT writers in 2010, was a recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Leather Association in 2001, and won the inaugural Rose & Bay Awards for crowdfunded fiction in 2010 for Daron's Guitar Chronicles. She lives in the Boston area with her lifelong partner corwin and three cats.

Terry, Robert E.

Robert E. Terry received the B.S. degree in physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, followed by the M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, in 1968, 1975, and 1978, respectively. He is currently a senior research physicist with Enig Associates of Bethesda, MD.

From 1985 to 2007, Dr. Terry worked with the Radiation Hydrodynamics Branch of the Plasma Physics Division, Naval Research Laboratory (NRL). From 1979 to 1984 he worked with the theoretical physics division of Jaycor, Inc in Alexandria, VA. Joining NRL in 1985, he has worked on plasma radiation source (PRS) dynamics, power flow, plasma flow and reflex triode switches, magnetic interlayer pinches, gyrokinetic flows and microturbulence, RF discharge theory, plasma chemistry, and specialized wire z-pinch models. His current research interests include novel fluid particle models, polywell fusion schemes, in-situ fuel production for Mars, and Mars sample return missions. He is the Principal Investigator on a DARPA sponsored research effort in high altitude heat rejection.

A founding and lifetime member of the Mars Society, he works as the Director of Aerospace Education for the Maryland Wing of the Civil Air Patrol. Dr. Terry maintains a local web discussion list focused on Mars exploration.

Thomas, Patrick

With over a million words in print, Patrick Thomas keeps busy writing the the popular fantasy humor series "Murphy's Lore" (which includes 8 books: Tales From Bulfinche's Pub, Fools' Day, Through The Drinking Glass, Shadow Of The Wolf, Redemption Road, Bartender Of The Gods, Nightcaps and Empty Graves) as well as the "After Hours" spin offs including Fairy With A Gun, Lore and Dysorder and more. His "Mystic Investigators" series includes Bullets and Brimstone and From The Shadows, both with John L. French, and Once More Upon A Time and the upcoming Partners In Crime, both with Diane Raetz. He has co-edited two anthologies: Hear Them Roar and the vampire-themed New Blood. Patrick's syndicated humorous advice column "Dear Cthulhu" has been collected in Have A Dark Day and Good Advice For Bad People adn Chthulhu Knows Best. A number of his books are part of the set and props department at the CSI television show. He was voted Preditors and Editors favorite author of 2010 and first runner-up in 2011. Laurence Fishburne's production company Cinema Gypsy Productions has taken a film and television option on Patrick's urban fantasy Fairy With A Gun.

As an artist Thomas' work has graced covers for Dark Quest, Padwolf and Marietta, interiors and a cover for Space & Time and Cemetery Moon magazines and comic covers for "Ghostman". A mockumentary about him has recently surfaced on Youtube.

Thorndike, Persis L.

As the mother of a 16-year-old accomplished Novice costumer and filker, I am busy sharing my sewing machines, singing, playing music, cooking good food for my extended family, and homeschooling my child. I am not only raising a costumer, but have a background of sewing, organizing, music, and music publishing and graphics; I collect children's literature; and read avidly. I run non-profit charity auctions for Interfilk (a 501(c)(3) filk fan fund), and have been on the ConCom of the local Boston area gen and filk cons since my child was born, and am currently Tech Mom to Arisia and Balticon. Free time? Overcommitted? Who, me? Don't tell me not to burn the candle at both ends, just tell me where to get more wax! (a Nancy Button in my collection.)

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Van Name, Mark

Mark L. Van Name is a writer, technologist, and spoken word performer. As a science fiction author, he has published five novels (One Jump Ahead, Slanted Jack, Overthrowing Heaven, Children No More, and No Going Back) as well as an omnibus collection of his first two books (Jump Gate Twist); edited or co-edited three anthologies (Intersections: The Sycamore Hill Anthology, Transhuman, and The Wild Side), and written many short stories. Those stories have appeared in a wide variety of books and magazines, including Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, many original anthologies, and The Year's Best Science Fiction.

As a technologist, he is the CEO of a fact-based marketing and technology assessment firm, Principled Technologies, Inc., that is based in the Research Triangle area of North Carolina. He has 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.

As a spoken word artist, he has created and performed three shows: "Science Magic Sex", and "Wake Up Horny, Wake Up Angry", and "Mr Poor Choices". He also frequently leads humor panels at SF conventions.

For more information, visit his Web site, www.marklvanname.com, or follow his blog, markvanname.blogspot.com.

Vaughan, Robin M.

Robin M. Vaughan is a member of the principal professional staff in the Mission Design, Guidance and Control (SEG) Group of the Space Department of the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland. At APL, Robin has served as the attitude control lead engineer for the MESSENGER, Radiation Belts Storm Probes, and now the Solar Probe Plus missions. Prior to joining APL in 2000, Robin spent 13 years navigating interplanetary missions such as Voyager and Mars Pathfinder at JPL in Pasadena, California. Robin has a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering from Tulane University and master's and Phd degrees in aerospace engineering from M.I.T.

Ventrella, Michael A.

Michael A. Ventrella's second fantasy novel "The Axes of Evil" (a sequel to "Arch Enemies") was released in 2010, and his pirate short stories are available in the anthologies "Rum and Runestones" and the forthcoming "Cutlass and Musket, Tales of Piratical Skulduggery".

Michael is editor of "Tales of Fortannis: A Bard's Eye View" — an anthology of short stories which may be released by the time of this convention.

Michael is one of the founders of modern live action fantasy medieval role-playing games in America, having started NERO in 1989. He currently runs the Alliance LARP, which has chapters all over the country. He also founded Animato magazine, wrote for FPS Magazine, and has been quoted as an animation expert in Entertainment Weekly, the Philadelphia Inquirer, and books and webpages. He can be easily found on social networks under his name.

He is married to artist Heidi Hooper. In his spare time, he is a lawyer.

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Ward, Jean Marie

After working more than a decade in government public relations, Jean Marie Ward decided to tell honest lies for a change. Her first novel, With Nine You Get Vanyr (written with the late Teri Smith) finaled in both the Science Fiction and Fantasy, and Humor categories of the 2008 Indie Book Awards. Her short fiction appears in numerous anthologies, ranging from the Eppie- and WSFA Small Press Award-nominated Dragon's Lure to the Rainbow Award-winning Hellebore And Rue to The Modern Fae�s Guide To Surviving Humanity from DAW books. Her nonfiction credits include two art books, eight years editing the popular web magazine quot;Crescent Blues"and video interviews for Buzzy Magazine. She can be found on the web at JeanMarieWard.com.

Ward, Joy

Joy Ward is the author of Haint: A Tale of Extraterrestrial Intervention and Love Across Time and Space and coauthor of Interviews from the Ark. She is also known as the Editor Emeritus of Dogster's "For Love of Dog Blog". When not writing or hanging out with her canine pack in St. Louis, Joy is a consumer psychology consultant.

Warner, Brent

Brent Warner was fascinated by letter forms as a child - though not fascinated enough to develop the graceful cursive hand that was then being taught in schools. After being forced, by the passage of years, to become an adult, he began studying how to write the beautiful letters, that he had enjoyed contemplating. He now enjoys writing in a variety of elegant hands, whenever the time and the opportunity are available. In his mundane identity, he assists in thermal testing of spacecraft.

Waters, Robert E.

Robert E. Waters is a science fiction and fantasy writer. Since 1994, he has worked in the computer and board gaming industry as technical writer, editor, designer, and producer. A member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, his first professional fiction publication came in 2003 with the story "The Assassins Retirement Party", Weird Tales, Issue #332. Since then he has sold stories to Nth Degree, Nth Zine, Black Library Publishing (Games Workshop), Dark Quest Books, Padwolf Publishing, Mundania Press, Dragon Moon Press, Rogue Blades Entertainment, and The Grantville Gazette (for Baen Book's 1632/Ring of Fire alternate history series). Between the years of 1998-2006, he also served as an assistant editor to Weird Tales and is still a frequent contributor to "Tangent Online", a short fiction review site. Robert currently lives in Baltimore, Maryland, with his wife Beth, their son Jason, and their cat Buzz.

Weingarden, Alexa

Alexa Weingarden is an MD/PhD student at the University of Minnesota, currently working on her PhD in Microbiology, Immunology, and Cancer Biology. In addition to singing with Sassafrass, Alexa has recently appeared in Nunsense (Sister Mary Leo), Into the Woods (Cinderella), and Annie (Grace Farrell). Beyond her professional and artistic interests, she also fences, plays far too much Skyrim, and gives lots of pettins and love to her dog Frey.

Weinstein, Diane M.

Diane Weinstein was assistant editor and art director at Weird Tales magazine for 15 years. She was also a jack-of-all trades at Wildside Press for several years and has been the art editor of Space and Time Magazine since 2007. She has attended Balticon since 1980.

Wejksnora-Garrott, Ruth

Ruth Wejksnora-Garrott is a member of Sassafrass, and has sung about Norse mythology and other such things since 2008. When not singing, she's a psychotherapist, specializing in working with fans, gamers, GLBTQIA folks, furries and pagans and all sorts of people who want to talk about their actual problems, rather than their therapist making an issue of the "alternative" parts of their lives. She lives and works in Somerville, Massachusetts.

Weuve, Christopher

Christopher Weuve is a professional naval analyst and wargame designer. He spent the first few years of the 21st century at the Center for Naval Analyses, where he accrued 87 days of sea time on warships (he notes the Combat Information Center of an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer would make an excellent starship bridge), and then spent five years on the research faculty of the US Naval War College, specializing in the use of wargaming as a research tool. Outside the day job, he was the "military expert" for the Discovery Channel's "Curiosity (Alien Invasion)" show, and is (to the best of his knowledge) the only person ever interviewed by the Journal of Foreign Policy about science fiction warships � twice! A member of BuNine, he was an editor for the forthcoming House of Steel: The Honorverse Companion, in which he also co-authored (with David Weber) the "Building a Navy" chapter. An avid science fiction fan since before he was old enough to read, he spends his time pondering the differences between Real-World(tm) naval warfare and how similar subjects are represented in science fiction. He still describes himself as an Iowan, over two decades after he moved east.

Whiplash, Robbie

Robbie Poetzman began making music at the age of 13, learning every instrument that was put in front of him, and teaching himself drums, keyboard, guitar and bass.bHaving belonged to many bands his most successful ventures have been with his current bands "Machines Of Living Death" (Vocals) and "The Recently Deceased" (Drums/Guitar) and "Omnislash" (Drums). Having toured the country and supporting many national acts and making connections in the industry he decided to pursue a hidden passion of his… musically scoring soundtracks.

With songs featured in such films/shows as "Ninjas Vs. Monsters"" and web series ""Rebels and Rejects," Robbie plans to bring on the full effect with "Shotgun Mythos," fusing everything from mechanical industrial sounds to full symphonic scoring — symphonies, machines, choirs, metal/rock giving this already gritty action drama even more edge.

Wilkie, Sandry

Sandry Wilkie is an IT professional, largely because she didn't want to pursue a career as a penniless orchestral flutist. Originally hailing from New York, she's now a stout Boston advocate who spends spare time singing/playing/composing with dark folk band Stranger Ways, singing with a capella group Sassafrass, and making sarcastic commentary.

Wilson, Steven H.

Steven H. Wilson has written for Starlog, DC Comics' Star Trek and Warlord, and, most recently, served as principal writer and director for Prometheus Radio Theatree and publisher of Fire- bringer Press. His original science fiction series, "The Arbiter Chronicles", currently boasting nineteen 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 third novel, Unfriendly Persuasion, was released in 2012. He has contributed stories as well to the first two volumes in Crazy 8 Press's "ReDeus" series of anthologies, and is currently working on anPrometheus Radio Theatre podcast, he has recorded Lester Del Rey�s Badge of Infamy for podiobooks.com, performed multiple roles in J. Daniel Sawyer�s production of Antithesis, and contributed narration to the audio novel Geek Love. Active in science fiction fandom since 1984, he has written, drawn, edited and published fanzines, acted and directed with a comedy troupe, and served as a gopher, a con chair or a guest at roughly a hundred conventions. Wilson, who works as an IT manager, holds degrees from the University of Maryland College of Journalism and the Johns Hopkins University Whiting School of Engineering. He lives in Elkridge, MD with his wife Renee and sons Ethan and Christian. His weekly blog of ramblings on various topics, plus all kinds of information about his work, past, present and future, is available at www.stevenhwilson.com.

Wise, A. C.

A.C. Wise is an author whose short fiction has appeared in print and online in publications such as Clarkesworld, Lightspeed, Apex, and the Best Horror of the Year Vol. 4, among others. She is also the co-editor of the Journal of Unlikely Entomology, an online publication dedicated to fiction and art relating to bugs. You can also find her at Grumps Journal

Wisoker, Leona

Leona Wisoker is the author of the "Children of the Desert" series. Her short stories have been published in ndromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine, Michael Hanson's Sha'daa: Pawns, and the DarkQuest anthology Galactic Creatures, among other places. She teaches writing classes at The Muse Writers Center of Norfolk, VA, writes and edits for the Sleeping Hedgehog, and blogs about living a creative life at The Writing of a Wisoker on the Loose. She also is present on Facebook.

Past and current careers include, in no particular order, filing clerk, CAD jockey, graphic designer, massage therapist, editor, computer teacher, and clothing retail. Current fixations involve a search for the perfect cup of coffee and a hopeless quest to pull her characters out of some very squirrelly corners without breaking the Rules Of Established Reality. She lives in eastern Virginia with her husband and two large dogs, all of whom routinely try-and usually fail-to drag her away from the computer for long, rambling walks.

Wooldridge, Trisha J.

Trisha J. Wooldridge is the current president of Broad Universe, as well as a member of New England Horror Writers, the Horror Writers Association, and the Worcester Writers Collaborative. She is a senior editor at Spencer Hill Press and has co-produced the Spencer Hill Press UnCONventional (January 2012) and Doorways to Extra Time (August 2013) anthologies. Her writing can be found in the EPIC award-winning Bad-Ass Faeries anthologies; Journal of New England Horror Writer's Epitaphs anthology; Corrupts Absolutely? from Damnation Press; Once Upon an Apocalypse anthology; and Poetry Locksmith. She also gets paid to review food, play with horses, and interview chefs, bands and people who make movies. Her first novel, The Kelpie, will be available December 2013 from Spencer Hill Press. She also has a very patient Husband-of-Awesome, a calico horse, a tabby cat, and two Giant Baby Bunnies.

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

Wray, Phoebe

Phoebe Wray's first novel, JEMMA7729, futurist science fiction, was published by EDGE Science Fiction and Fantasy Publishing. She has a piece in All About Eve, an anthology recently released by Wolfsinger Pubications, and a story forthcoming in May in No Man;s Land, Volume 4 of the Defending the Future series. A horror story, Names, is in Backless, Strapless, and Slit to the Throat: A Femme Fatale Anthology, from Inkspotter Press. Shes had short stories in Farthing, Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine, fables, and The Garden. Her poetry has been published in Fiddlehead, Cats Magazine, Chronogram, Snow Monkey and chizine.org. She is the President of Broad Universe, the international non-profit promoting women writers of genre fiction. She lives in an old farmhouse in Massachusetts, and teaches in the Theatre Division of The Boston Conservatory.

Wright, John C.

John C. Wright is a retired attorney, newspaperman and newspaper editor. His works include "The Golden Age Series", "The War Of The Dream Series", "The Orphans Of Chaos" series, ;Null-A Continuum, Count To A Trillion, and The Hermetic Millenium as well as several short stories in Isaac Asimov�s SF Magazine, a number of Year�s Best Anthologies, and the "Night Land's" website/anthology. He lives in fairy-tale-like happiness with his wife, the authoress L. Jagi Lamplighter, and their four children, Orville, Ping-Ping, Roland and Just Wright.

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XYZ

Young, Jeff

Jeff Young is a bookseller first and a writer second — although he wouldn't mind a reversal of fortune.

He received a Writers of the Future award for the short story "Written in Light" which appears in the 26th L. Ron Hubbards Writers of the Future Anthology. He's been published in: Realms, Neuronet, Trail of Indiscretion, Cemetery Moon, Realms Beyond and Carbon14. Jeff has contributed to the anthologies Fantastic Futures 13, By Other Means, Best Laid Plans, In an Iron Cage: The Magic of Steampunk and has stories in the forthcoming Clockwork Chaos, Ministry of Extraordinary Weapons, TV Gods and Gaslight and Grimm. He also serves as an editor for the Fortress Publishing on their "Drunken Comic Book Monkey" line. Jeff has led the "Watch the Skies" SF&F Discussion Group for more than twelve years.

Young-Turner, Cindy

Cindy Young-Turner has been writing for most of her life. At age twelve, she won her first writing contest, a local contest in her small hometown in Massachusetts calling for stories written in the style of Edgar Allan Poe. Thus began her love of stories that are dark and fantastical. She believes genre fiction can be just as well written and valuable as literature. The universal themes of love, hate, revenge, and redemption are present regardless of whether characters live in the distant future, on other planets, or in fantastical realms.

By day she edits and does business development for international development projects. In her free time, she works on inspiring her characters to fight for change and justice in their imaginary worlds. Her published works include the fantasy novel Thief of Hope and a short prequel, Journey to Hope.

Zelkowitz, Marvin

Marvin Zelkowitz is a Professor Emeritus 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 president of the National Capital Area Skeptics, bible studies (who wrote those books and why?), and reading science fiction, which he has been doing since the Golden Age of Science Fiction (i.e. since he was 12). 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.

You can read or download the Balticon Participant Membership Policy here.

Please send us your program ideas, including a brief descriptive paragraph and preferred format (round table or panel discussion, presentation or demonstration, or workshop). For Balticon purposes:

A Panel Discussion is a moderator and 3 or 4 panelists discussing a topic and may or may not include input or Q&A from the audience;
A Roundtable Discussion is a moderator amd 5 to 8 panelists discussing a topic. It may be a little less structured than a panel discussion and is not likely to include audience input;
A Presentation is a lecture, with or without a projected (PowerPoint slides, etc.) or other visual (whiteboard, flipchart) element;
A Demonstration is just that -- a demonstration of a skill or technique; and
A Workshop includes handout literature for the attendees, may use projected or other visual elements, and provides exercises or worksheets for attendees.
A Game includes a host and panelists or audience competitors and may or may not have a prize>
A< Small Press Publisher Presents event may be structured as a presentation, discussion, game or any combination thereof!
A Launch Events celebrate the release of new works. To be held in a common area function space, a Launch Event must celebrate the release of two or more works of 2 or more authors or artists. Solo author/artist Launch Events will be held this year as room parties. We will be happy to include flyers or ivitations for ANY Launch Event in the Balticon registration packets.

You can use the online Program Ideas submission form or you can email your ideas to the program coordinators.Please specify whether you wouild like to be the moderator, presenter, host or panelist for the idea you're suggesting. We will see that your suggestions get to the right track coordinators. While we welcome program suggestions year round, those received after Feb. 28, 2013, are not as likely to find a program slot at Balticon 46. Any suggestions that are not used this year may be carried over to the following year's ideas list.

We are still accepting program participant requests for some program tracks for Balticon 47. Please read our Participant Policy first, then contact our program coordinators, to request an invitation. Mention your areas of interest/expertise so they will know which department to forward your request to. Thank you!

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