Arisia 2016 Program Participant Bios
Arisia 2016 Program Participant Bios
Generated: Fri Jan 15 14:08:15 2016
Hanna Lee Rubin Abramowitz, or H-chan for short, is what you might call a Jack-of-all-things-geeky. She is an avid reader of YA fantasy, a video game player, a sci-fi TV show fan, a costumer and crafter and most of all an artist. Her dream is to one day become a published writer and cartoonist but right now is happy with writing fan-fics, working on her online manga and being your not so average house-wife who works part time at a tea-shop. At conventions you can find her in costume wandering the halls, sitting in panels that interest her, participating in panels that she has knowledge in or in the artist alley oggling things she would like to buy. So if you see her say a friendly "How do you do?" I promise she does not bite.
Yitzy Abramowitz comes from a family that is four-fifths nerd and married into a family that is two-thirds nerd. He is the kind of person who will watch a show or read a manga obsessively until the bitter end, even if it begins to turn sour coughHEROEScough. He is currently hooked on The Walking Dead, My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, Sword Art Online, and Doctor Who, among other things. Yitzy dreams of one day becoming an airplane. His brother has a blog where he does a super-mediocre job of reviewing manga at TheMangaConnoisseur.blogspot.com
The Ad-Hoc Waltz & Quadrille Band
Three words that one might use to describe Adri are “generic”, “geek” and “girl”. Sometimes all at once.
Heather Albano is a storyteller. Sometimes she writes traditional fiction and sometimes she makes games, and she finds the line between the two growing fuzzier all the time. If you like steampunk time travel, check out her novels Timepiece and Timekeeper; if you like Victorian gaslight fantasy, Napoleonic naval battles, medieval court intrigues, or zombie apocalypses, check out her Choice of Games titles; if you like James-Bond-style spycraft and/or interactive radio dramas, check out Codename Cygnus. If you want to know what she's doing next, or just follow the random thoughts that wander through her head, check out www.heatheralbano.com.
Dawn Albright is involved in many different areas of fandom. She's a short story writer, editor of anthologies (New Altars and Vision Quest), a dollmaker and costumer. Her most recent project is a web journal called Polu Texni which can be found at http://www.polutexni.com. Her dollmaking site is www.dollmaking.org.
Ken Altabef is a SFWA member whose short fiction has appeared several times in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction as well as Interzone, Abyss & Apex, BuzzyMag, Perihelion, Ominous Realities and others. His first short story collection Fortune's Fantasy was published in 2014. His novels include The Calling, Secrets, Shadows, The Tundra Shall Burn! and The Shadow of Everything Existing as part of Alaana's Way, his 5-part epic fantasy series published by Cat's Cradle Press. You can preview this work and others at www.KenAltabef.com
Mark L Amidon first read Isaac Asimov's "Nightfall" in 1971 and has been heavily involved in science fiction ever since. He has been attending Arisia since 1991, and with his wife since 1992. He lives in the future, right now. Both of his daughters read genre fiction. His cats remain aloof.
Erik Amundsen—Always Chaotic Evil.
Andrew Anselmo has been creating and folding origami for over 20 years, and has been a street performer for over 10 years at Waterfire (Providence, RI) as well as at Faneuil Hall, Boston Common, and many other venues. He also has taught origami at local libraries and museums throughout New England. www.flappingbird.com. He is a member of Artisan's Asylum, a large maker space in Somerville, MA.
Inanna Arthen is an artist, speaker and author of The Vampires of New England Series (http://vampiresofnewengland.com): Mortal Touch (2007), The Longer the Fall (2010) and All the Shadows of the Rainbow (2013). Inanna is a lifelong scholar of vampire folklore, fiction and fact, and runs By Light Unseen Media (http://bylightunseenmedia.com), an independent press dedicated to publishing vampire fiction and nonfiction. She is a member of Broad Universe, New England Horror Writers, Horror Writers Association, Independent Book Publishers Association (IBPA) and Independent Publishers of New England (IPNE). She holds an M.Div degree from Harvard and is an outspoken advocate for the Pagan and LGBTQI communities. She is the minister of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Winchendon, MA.
Lisa A Ashton is a Master-level costumer from Maryland. She has won Best In Show in the Arisia Masquerade in the past with "Home Improvement", "The Standing Stone" (with Diane Seiler), and "Mary Gothins--Perfectly Evil", "Victorian Lady's Hunting Costume--An American Tradition", and "Victorian Tiki Calypso", which almost caused her to fall over upon wining Best In Show. She enjoys costuming, beads, and hunting, and has been an Emergency PA for over 25 years. Passionate interests include Victorian photo graphs and extant clothing of the period, as well as vintage beadwork, for "Miss Lizzy's Traveling Historical Fashion Show", now a non profit. She is a contributor to "The Virtual Costumer" with articles about Victorian clothing research. Buy her a cup of coffee and talk about quilts and costumes and Victorian fashion and she'll love you for it!
Athena School of Arms is a Boston-based Modern School of Historical Fencing and Martial Arts. We have two primary programs: the Longsword tradition of Johannes Lichtenauer, and 18th Century Scottish Broadsword, Saber and Smallsword. Athena School of Arms also works to reconstruct the Dagger, Sword & Buckler, and Grappling arts. Training includes free play, drills, test cutting, and physical fitness; together, these elements help students to understand and recreate combat on the battlefield, the list, and in personal defense
Stephen R Balzac is the author of "The 36-Hour Course in Organizational Development," and "Organizational Psychology for Managers." He has also been published in numerous magazines, including Analog Science Fiction. When he's not writing, Steve is a management consultant, speaker, and psychology professor. He is the president of 7 Steps Ahead (www.7stepsahead.com) and the founder of the MIT Assassins' Guild and SIL West. He uses LARPs as a tool for training business leaders in negotiation and leadership skills. He is currently conducting a research study exploring how LARPs influence non-game social awareness in the areas of leadership, decision making, and working with a group.
Beth Baniszewski cannot resist killing muppets. They're so cuddly! Beth is the proud owner of many mupper-skin garments, including muppet skin socks, a muppet skin bathrobe, a muppet lined coat, and a muppet scarf. She is also aware of the wonders of muppet pelt blankets. Beth's previous game writing credits include a number of games which ran at Intercon, including Two Hours in London, Crisis at Castle Candy, and Megaman: Apocalypse. She is currently the Game Director of the Witchwood boffer campaign, and she has also run a number of games with the MIT Assassins' Guild.
E. J. Barnes is a cartoonist and comic-book artist, having seen publication in Fortean Times, Funny Times, and The Journal of Irreproducible Results. Her comics have been published in anthologies Colonial Comics: New England, 1620-1750, The Greatest of All Time Comics Anthology, Hellbound, SubCultures, and Nix Comics Quarterly. She exhibits at independent comic-book conventions, and her comic books (self-published under Drowned Town Press) are sold across the country.
Reuben Baron—Writer/director of the short film "The Making of a Superhero Musical," featuring Neil Gaiman. Freelance writer for MyAnimeList (username: HoyvinGlavin64). Former editor of the-LFB.com and contributor to the Brattle FilmNotes blog.
Howard G Beatman has been interested in comic books since 1959, science fiction since 1966, and has been going to conventions since 1974. He has attended all the Arisias, brought two friends, and brought his nephew to Arisia for four consecutive years--the next generation of nerds is well in hand!
Mark Bernstein has been active in fandom and filk since the 70s. He writes and performs songs, poems, and stories, both silly and serious. He runs Music programming for ConFusion in his home state of Michigan, and ran the same track for Detcon 1, the 2014 NASFiC. He's a fervent believer that everyone who wants to sing should get the chance, and works to reinforce that principle with workshops, panels, and circles designed for those with little experience or training. He's here to have fun, and hopes everyone else does, too.
Cameron Betts—I've been LARPing since the early '90s, and writing LARPs for almost as long. I love most styles of LARP I have encountered - my primary styles are Interactive Fiction and Theater, but I also do Live Combat, Adventure, and Freeform. My favorite kind of games are modern day 360 immersion games that skirt on ARG territory. I have attended and run LARPs on four continents, am a long time Intercon (about 20 years) and GenCon (about 10 years) attendee, and I ran the New England LARP Conference last year. I also have experience teaching LARP at the undergrad level through Tufts University and Macalester College.
Elizabeth Birdsall is a longtime fan and occasional author, as well as a queer lady and a lover of a wide variety of random subjects. She has had short stories published here and there, most notably in the "Women Destroy Science Fiction!" special issue of Lightspeed Magazine. She lives in the Boston area with two excellently geeky housemates and two extremely inept cats.
A native of Phoenix, AZ who long ago decided he preferred living somewhere with actual seasons (namely Boston), W. "Ian" Blanton has been spending the last decade or so focusing on homeschooling his daughter while being gainfully employed as a Mac Consultant. His previous life interests include western/eastern martial arts, LARPs, costuming, Gaming (Video & RPG), historical re-enactment, and flinching whenever a "re-imagined" movie/TV show is announced. His current project is mastering his handmade 18' folding sea kayak, and he still hasn't opened that OGRE board game box.
Boston Jedi is a Boston-based lightsaber stage combat club. We create and perform engaging stage combat choreography for audiences, whether that's 3 people in a hallway, a movie premiere, or as pre-game entertainment at a sports stadium. For more info, visit www.BostonJedi.org or find us on Facebook or Meetup.com.
John Bowker has a history of writing things, editing things, and occasionally building things, all of which goes to show a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. His fiction has appeared in various markets including On Spec, Sybil's Garage, Big Pulp, Space and Time, and Lamplight, as well as the "Sex in the System," "Mortis Operandi," and "Spicy Slipstream Stories" anthologies; he has written about geek topics for the Boston Phoenix, the Weekly Dig, and Bull Spec Magazine. He was an associate editor for the online magazine Ideomancer and at present is the managing editor/publisher of the anonymous online anthology/magazine Orthogonal.
Anna R Bradley is a gamer, LARPer, costumer, and volunteering junkie. Anna has played and run LARP for over 20 years. She has been playing and running Garou games for the past 7. This year she is Assistant Conchair, and will be Conchair for Arisia 2017.
David E. Brahm, Ph.D., CFA, is a portfolio manager at Geode Capital Management in Boston. Dr. David Brahm holds an S.B. in physics and math from MIT, and a Ph.D. in theoretical particle physics from U.C. Berkeley. Following six years of postdoctoral physics research at Caltech and Carnegie Mellon, he joined Fidelity Investments in 1996, and became one of the founders of Geode in 2001.
James Bredt was one of two technical founders of Z Corporation, which makes 3D Printers, and holds over 20 issued patents in 3DP technology. His present company, Viridis3D sells industrial 3D printers to the foundry industry. He also occasionally teaches materials science at MIT, and is writing a graphic novel.
Kate Brick is a fan with a fan husband and three fan kids. They all like to costume, do crafts, and read books. In her professional life she is a metaphorical cat herder. In Fast Track that counts for something, right?
Terri Bruce produces fantasy and adventure stories from a haunted house in New England where she lives with her husband and three cats. Her novels include the contemporary fantasy "Afterlife" series (Hereafter (Afterlife #1) and Thereafter (Afterlife #2), with Whereafter (Afterlife #3) releasing in January 2016) and several short stories in various anthologies including "Welcome to OASIS" in the recently released "Dear Robot" anthology. Visit her on the web at www.terribruce.net.
Marc Brunco is an avid cosplayer, con goer, scifi fan, political junkie, and also a longtime admin with the Boston Whovians. He lives in the southernmost part of the Commonwealth Wasteland known as Cape Cod.
Nat Budin plays guitar, cello, and sings with the band Stranger Ways. He has also written and run over a dozen LARPs, has served as con chair of Intercon I in 2009 and the first three Festival of the LARPs conventions at Brandeis University, and writes open source software in the Ruby on Rails community. Basically, Nat does all the things.
Constance Burris is a nerd, a writer, a mother and a wife. COAL, her first complete novel, is about a human boy living in a world filled with elves, dwarves, giants, and dragons. She blames R.A. Salvatore, Melissa Marr, and Holly Black for her love of the fae. When she's not writing, she's working hard as an environmental engineer in Oklahoma.
Michael A. Burstein, winner of the 1997 Campbell Award for Best New Writer, has earned ten Hugo nominations and four Nebula nominations for his short fiction, collected in I Remember the Future, which has been made into a film. Burstein lives with his wife Nomi and their twin daughters in the town of Brookline, Massachusetts, where he is an elected Town Meeting Member and Library Trustee. When not writing, he edits middle and high school Science textbooks. He has two degrees in Physics and attended the Clarion Workshop. More information on Burstein and his work can be found on his webpage, http://www.mabfan.com.
Liz Cademy is a Professional Polymath, specializing in nothing at all. In a previous life, Liz sat in a small, padded cubicle under a nameplate that read "Financial Analyst". Now, she is designated driver to two teens, runs a web and graphic design business, writes ebooks, designs and sells t-shirts (as Cartesian Bear Industries), sews, knits (and designs patterns for both), makes chain mail, and works at science fiction cons. Sometimes she sleeps. She lives in the New England woods with her kids, a silly lizard and a cat who hasn't chosen itself yet.
Kevin Cafferty is a documentary filmmaker from Massachusetts. His most recent film, "It's a Bash!", was given four stars by The Providence Journal, aired on New England PBS affiliates, and is currently available on DVD from Midway Pictures. He has been nominated for four Emmy awards, can be followed on Twitter at @kcafferty, and writes terrible fan fiction about immersive theater in his spare time.
Mackenzie Cameron is a writer and game developer most notable for some of his recent MegaGame Events under the banner of MegaGames United. If you're interested in massive gaming experiences you can learn more at www.MegaGamesUnited.com
The Carolingian Caliver Company is a rapier-fencing group, part of the Society for Creative Anachronism's (SCA) Boston-area chapter. The group studies and recreates historical swordsmanship techniques from the Renaissance and 17th Century, fighting in one-on-one duels and larger, team-based melees. To learn more about the SCA or join their merry band of swashbucklers, visit http://welcome.sca.org.
Jeanne Cavelos began her professional career as an astrophysicist at NASA. Her love of SF led her to earn her MFA in creative writing and move into publishing. She was a senior editor at Bantam Doubleday Dell, where she ran the SF/F/H programs and won the World Fantasy Award. Jeanne left publishing to write. Her seven books include the best-selling Passing of the Techno-Mages trilogy, The Science of Star Wars, and The Science of the X-Files. Her work has twice been nominated for the Stoker Award. Jeanne is director of the Odyssey Writing Workshops Charitable Trust, which offers a highly regarded summer in-person workshop in NH and winter online classes for writers of SF/F/H. (www.jeannecavelos.com)
Venetia Charles is a Creative's Assistant. After receiving her Master's degree in Folklore (focusing on second generation members in new religious movements with a special emphasis on apocalyptic cults), she moved to the middle of Wisconsin to work for New York Times Bestselling Author Patrick Rothfuss. She was his assistant for 3 years, working on a vast variety of projects and running his charity Worldbuilders. In 2012, she moved to Portland Oregon to work for illustrator and designer Lee Moyer. She shares his interest in pin-ups and is currently cataloging his 35 years of work.
Don Chase—Author, illustrator, picture taker and hopefully one day movie maker.
CHEMAS GroupThe Cambridge Historical European Martial Arts Studies Group translates and interprets extant combat treatises from the medieval, Renaissance, and early modern eras. Its members occasionally present demonstrations based on their work.
B.A. (Barbara) Chepaitis is author of 11 published novels, including the Jaguar Addams "fear" series - The Fear Principle, A Lunatic Fear, The Voice of Fear, and more. Her latest novel, The Amber, explores the strange history of Lithuania, its bee goddess, and a man who sold his soul to the devil.
Bob Chipman is creator, producer and host of Escape to The Movies and The Big Picture on escapistmagazine.com; and The Game OverThinker on screwattack.com
Jon Erik Christianson is a comics journalist, blogger, and critic who loves queer comics and hate reading the comments (but he does it anyway). His writing lives at Panels.net, Honestly Comics, Boston University's The Quad, and the DCWomenKickingAss blog. Way too much of it lives on Twitter at @HonestlyJon.
John Chu is the author of "The Water That Falls on You from Nowhere" (Hugo winner, short story, 2013), originally published at Tor.com and anthologized in Wilde Stories 2014 (Berman, ed.). His other short fiction has appeared in Bloody Fabulous (Sedia, ed.), The Time Traveler's Almanac (VanderMeer and VanderMeer, ed.), Boston Review, Lightspeed, Uncanny, and Tor.com among other places. His most recent publications are the short stories "Hold-Time Violations" at Tor.com and "Finding Your Slot" at Moozvine.com. He has narrated stories for EscapePod, PseudoPod, PodCastle, and Lightspeed and he translates stories from Chinese into English. He attended Viable Paradise X (2006) and the 2010 Clarion Writers Workshop and is currently a member of the BRAWL writers' group.
Vikki Ciaffone is a freelance editor and writer. She has been reading and writing since she was tall enough to see over the coffee table. Now that she can see over the kitchen counters, she still does. She is personally responsible for the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah (she apologizes, but all the gossip was exxagerated, and the populace was obsessed with Pictionary, which Vikki abhors). She then turned her attention to Troy and, once again, engineered its downfall in her quest to burn out the Pictionary Plague. She claims no responsibility for Pompeii or the Fall of Rome, though she might possibly have had something to do with the sun setting on the British Empire. In her spare time, Vikki has been known to shoot craps with the Fates and the Valkyries for shiny trinkets.
Zachary Clemente lives in Boston and writes for and about comics. He's been published at least once and helps run MICE. Office hours are at Diesel Cafe, typically 7AM-10AM Mondays and Thursdays.
John David Cook is an Electrical / Software Engineer by day and small business owner and model builder by night. His business, Madman Lighting, is run my John and his wife to make kits for lighting scale plastic models, like Star Trek and Star Wars models. John has won many awards for his creations at local and national model shows and is respected for the detail and complexity of his creations. He has also been published in several modeling magazines for his articles on how to build lighted scale models. John is also a member of MakeIT Labs in Nashua NH where he has contributed greatly to the refurbishment of the new building.
Deirdre Crimmins is a Boston-based film critic. She is currently a staff writer at AllThingsHorror.com and Cinematic Essential, as well as a contributing writer for BtchFlcks.com, OpenLettersMonthly.com, the Brattle Theater Film Blog, and Rue Morgue Magazine. She has presented academic work at the International Conference for the Fantastic in the Arts and spoken on panels at WorldCons. Though she focuses on contemporary horror film criticism, she is a life-long fan of science fiction and fantasy.
Morgan Crooks is a life-long fan of science fiction and fantasy literature and now teaches ancient history. Morgan’s stories have appeared on the Daily Science Fiction website, and in anthologies released by Dark Hall Press, Burnt Offerings, and Mystery and Horror LLC. Essays and reviews are also available on his blog (ancientlogic.blogspot.com).
Ctein is a professional photographer and writer. He is the co-author, with John Sandford, of the New York Times bestseller, SATURN RUN. He's also a columnist for The Online Photographer and the author of Digital Restoration from Start to Finish. Artistically, he is best known in the SF community for his photographs of eclipses, aurora, natural and unnatural scenics, and space launches, and for his hand-printed fine art books. His work can be seen at http://ctein.com and photo-repair.com. He's been an industrial consultant on computer displays, a technical writer of computer manuals, has degrees in English and Physics from Caltech, and has engaged in pollution research, astronomy, photocopy research, world designing for Contact, and radical feminist queer activism. If he grows up, he wants to be a dilettante. Ctein lives in Daly City with retired geologist Paula Butler, three demented psittacines, a half dozen more-or-less normal computers, and twenty kilobooks.
Mary Catelynn Cunningham got involved with science fictions conventions in 2004 when her now husband, Mark Richards, dragged her to one kicking and screaming. Having been an avid fan for years she felt right at home. Catelynn is also a member of the alt lifestyle community in NYC where is she is on the Board of a local group. She also helps staff cons when able, sometimes at senior management level.
David D'Antonio—DDA, as he is known, answered an email about something called a ConCom and has been volunteering for Arisia ever since. A lifelong fan of science fiction, he knows how Arisia got its name but has still not finished Stranger in a Strange Land. When not volunteering at cons, he does UI design, fights homonym abuse and creates stylish appetizer trays.
Leo D'Entremont, also known as Mijan in various fandom circles, has been active as a fan writer, costumer, and convention geek since 2003. Primary fandoms include Star Trek, Harry Potter, and Star Wars. As a self-identified queer person, he has a particular interest in GLBTQ issues as they relate to fan activities, particularly issues of gender identity and gender expression in social structures, writing, and fandom itself. Serving seven years in the Army under DADT has given Leo a unique insight into certain aspects of social justice and civil liberties. Despite being a student of world religions and active in a UU congregation, he is a scientist, skeptic, atheist, and social secularist who feels that this is an essential perspective too often ignored in the political arena. In real life (what's real?), Leo is an EMT with a background in biology, a nursing student, and a published author of queer fiction.
Jesa Damora is an arts marketer who helps artists realize their goals, get known, and thrive at what they do. She runs FunnelCake Marketing, an arts marketing and business development consulting firm, out of Somerville’s Artisan’s Asylum. Jesa’s consulting clients include painters, conceptual artists, street artists, metal workers, ceramicists and jewelers. She also provides arts event development and execution (TED talks, Somerville Open Studios). She offers curation services, helps with crowd-sourced funding, develops publicity campaigns, and she gives arts marketing presentations and workshops in Boston and in Brooklyn. She has just co-launched a weekly show on culture and the arts with Somerville Community Access Television. Jesa is also an artist who once made enormous drawings and will shortly be TIG welding copper. A published writer and editor with long experience in architecture, she will also gladly carry on about short-track speedskating and how to make lemon curd.
Gillian Daniels lives in Somerville, MA and is a reviewer of short fiction at Fantastic Stories of the Imagination and a local theater critic with The New England Theatre Geek blog. After attending the 2011 Clarion Writing Workshop, she has had poetry and prose published in Apex Magazine, Strange Horizons, Flash Fiction Online, Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet, and other venues. She blogs and sometimes posts drawings at www.gilliandaniels.com.
Dash—I am the founder and editor-in-chief of Expanded Horizons, an online magazine whose mission is to increase diversity in speculative fiction and to create a venue for the authentic expression of under-represented voices in the genre. I am also an attorney, linguist, and private tutor of many subjects.
Christopher Davis has been reading science fiction for longer than he can remember, and going to conventions for longer than he wants to think about. He's worked as a sysadmin for both the Electronic Frontier Foundation and part of the Human Genome Project, and feels fortunate to have arrived at just the right time for such opportunities. He's given up on looking for technological predictions from SF; too many lunar bases, not enough globe-spanning computer networks. (He's still glad food pills never came along, though.)
An avid gamer (role-playing and miniatures) and reader (Sci-Fi and fantasy, mainly) since early adolescence, T Christopher Davis is now an amateur game designer and writer, as the love for the written word has grabbed hold and taken control of his soul. Now he only hopes to find a buyer for what he loves to write so that he may do much more of it.
A freelance writer and web producer for such entertainment publications as Today.com, Variety, The Los Angeles Times, and Emmy Magazine, Randee Dawn is also a fiction writer, with a volume of speculative fiction, Home for the Holidays. The collection -- which runs the gamut from speculative fiction to memoir -- includes a first-person zombie story originally podcast by "Well-Told Tales." She is also a co-author (with Susan Green) of The Law & Order: SVU Unofficial Companion, which published in September 2009. She has a first novel of urban fantasy recently completed, and renews her offer to write in exchange for sugar-cured bacon.
Susan de Guardiola (http://www.blank.org/susan/) has been active in fandom for more than thirty years as a costumer, masquerade emcee, and all-around fan. She has worked as a book reviewer for Publisher's Weekly and the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Contest and ran the Hugo Awards Ceremony in 2012. Professionally, she is a social dance historian and popular dance teacher who may often be found in musty library stacks researching dance from the 16th to the early 20th century, which she teaches at workshops and dance events across the United States and Russia. In her spare time, she plays high-speed online Scrabble and studies Russian.
Keith R.A. DeCandido has written a ton of things, most recently the Star Trek coffee-table book The Klingon Art of War, the Heroes Reborn novella Save the Cheerleader, Destroy the World, the Sleepy Hollow novel Children of the Revolution, the "Precinct" series of fantasy/mystery novels and short stories, the short story collection Without a License, the Stargate SG-1 novel Kali's Wrath, and short stories in the magazines Buzzy Mag and Story of the Month Club and the anthologies Alternate Sherlocks, The Side of Good/The Side of Evil, Stargate SG-1/Atlantis: Far Horizons, V-Wars: Night Terrors, With Great Power, and The X-Files: Trust No One. He's also a professional editor of many decades' standing, a second-degree black belt in karate, a veteran podcaster, and probably some other stuff, too. Find out less at www.DeCandido.net.
Lori Del Genis is among other things a 2D artist, a dress designer, and a licensed speech-language pathologist. Though Lori still dreams of creating photorealistic pencil portraits on commission, she has 20+ years' sewing experience and for the past 9 years has been the Alpha behind Conscious Elegance, a green business which creates custom-made eco wedding gowns and costumes out of reclaimed vintage silk and sustainable fabrics. Lori lectures publicly on zero-waste business practices and her dresswork has been exhibited in the American Textile History Museum. In her copious spare time, she putters around her overgrown garden and tries to decide when to prune lilacs. She resides in Stoneham with her spoose Jonathan and never wants to live outside of 495 again. Find her at www.consciouselegance.com or on deviantArt (http://weegoddess.deviantart.com/gallery/).
Daniel P. Dern (www.dern.com) is a freelance technology writer, and a very amateur magician. His science fiction stories have appeared in magazines and anthologies including Analog, F&SF, World of If, and New Dimensions. He's also been writing his short/flash-length Dern Grim Bedtime Stories (Few of Which End Well)," and longer,Jewish-themed YA contemporary urban fantasies including "The Tashlich Fish," "A Child's Yom Kippur In Whales," and "And They Built A Crooked Sukkah."
Dan Dez has been a game developer since 2002, shipping titles across PS2, GameCube, XBOX, PS3, XBOX 360, iOS, Android, and Windows/Mac/Linux. A self-taught programmer, he started his professional career as an environment artist that transitioned into technical artist and later into independent game developer. He is currently developing OBEY - a highly asymmetrical multiplayer game where a player in a gigantic mecha death turret tries to get tiny baby bunnies to obey them. (obeygame.com)
Mario "DigiCom" Di Giacomo is a voracious reader, a perspiring writer, and a master of ‘rithmetic (according to his postgraduate degree, anyway). An amateur historian of science fiction, fantasy, and anime, Mario has been waxing pedantic about the topic at conventions for the last quarter-century.
DJ Dirge (Allure, Excess, Haven): DJ Dirge is know for his raucous parties and genre-defying mixing. Dirge is the resident DJ at several dance nights in and around Boston and New England. Dirge's musical selections range from EBM, IDM, Electro, Dubstep, New Wave, Goth, and Rock. Never one to hold back, Dirge infuses energy and excitement into every event. Dirge is New England's only living-dead DJ, playing music to wake the dead.
DJ Xero (Haven, Allure, Attic): DJ Xero has spun regularly in New England's dark alternative goth-industrial dance club scene since 2006. He's another DJ among many... not better or worse than any. Doing it all for the oddball, the weirdo, the outcast, the geek. And happiest seeing them dance when he's not dancing himself! For examples of his work, playlists, and previous or upcoming events, find him online: http://xero.seedarkly.com
Michael "Lawyer Mike" Dlott has been running games for over 20 years and has frequently run White Wolf LARPs and Dungeons and Dragons games at local area cons such as Arisia and Anime Boston. Recently he has started staffing Live Gaming at Arisia. He resides in Quincy, MA with his wife Melissa and 2 cats.
N.S. Dolkart is a fantasy author represented by Evan Gregory of the Ethan Ellenberg Literary Agency. His debut novel, Silent Hall, will be coming out from Angry Robot Books in June of 2016. It's an old-school sword-and-sorcery fantasy in a non-European setting, character driven and reminiscent of '90s fantasy novels such as the Crown of Dalemark. He lives in Waltham with his wife and 2.5 children (the.5 is his inner child).
Debra Doyle was born in Florida and educated in Florida, Texas, Arkansas, and Pennsylvania -- the last at the University of Pennsylvania, where she earned her doctorate in English, concentrating on Old English poetry. While in Philadelphia, she met and married James D. Macdonald, who was then serving in the US Navy, and subsequently traveled with him to Virginia, California, and the Republic of Panama. Doyle and Macdonald left the Navy and Panama in 1988 in order to move to Colebrook, New Hampshire, and write full-time. With Jim Macdonald, she has written the Mageworlds space opera series and the alternate-historical fantasies Land of Mist and Snow and Lincoln's Sword; their most recent publication is the short story "The Devil in the Details" at Tor.com. She is a regular instructor at the Viable Paradise Science Fiction Writer's Workshop each year on Martha's Vineyard; she also does freelance editorial and critique work.
Michelle Driscoll lives in Western MA. She has hosted relationship discussion groups of many sorts in the poly and kink world and has been involved in the leadership of Transcending Boundaries, Inc.
Shirley Dulcey is a geek of all trades who has done many technology-related jobs. She is a long time fan, gamer, virtual world resident, and member of the SCA. Shirley has a long history with Arisia; she collected her "attended 25 Arisias" ribbon in 2014. In 2011 she chose to transition to life as a woman, adopting her current name; the change was done "in place" without leaving her existing home or social circles. She identifies as trans, poly, and kinky, and is still figuring out her sexual orientation.
Dawn-Marie Dunn—Damarie Underhill is a music technologist, tinkerer, caffeine addict, and crafter. Lady Aurora Freyasdottir is the High Priestess of Coven of the Moonlit Merloun and has been a member of the Sacred Order of the Black Forest for over ten years. Overall, the identities are pretty compatible but sometimes all the names get confusing.
Thom Dunn is a writer, musician, and new media artist, as well as a staff writer at Upworthy. He has had plays performed in New York, Boston, Hollywood, and Alaska; comic books published by Grayhaven Comics and Ninth Art Press; essays and criticisms and other vaguely-non-fictional ramblings published by Quirk Books and Tor.com; and poetry published by Asimov's and others. He is a playwriting fellow at the Huntington Theatre Company in Boston, as well as a graduate of the Clarion Writer’s Workshop at UCSD and Emerson College. Thom enjoys Oxford commas, metaphysics, and romantic clichés (especially when they involve whiskey), and firmly believes that Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believing” is the single greatest atrocity ever committed against mankind. thomdunn.net / @thomdunn / facebook.com/thomdunnwrites
Jill Eastlake is a Master Costumer and ICG Lifetime Achievement Award winner. Although she costumes infrequently, she has a penchant for working in winning costuming groups. Jill has been the President of the Northern Lights Costumers' Guild, a chapter of the International Costumers' Guild and other fannish organizations, chaired Arisia '09, Boskone 11 and 15, and a Division Head at many Worldcons. She's well known as a great recruiter, so if you have any spare time, watch out! You won't after Jill and her friends have inspired you.
Nine time Hugo Winner Bob Eggleton has worked on the films: Sphere (1997), Jimmy Neutron Boy Genius (2001), The Ant Bully (2006), and the independent film, The iDol (2007), and designed visual effects for Star Trek in 1996. He is the author or co-author of eight books, the most current of which is If Dinosaurs Lived In My Town with his wife Marianne Plumridge, for Sky Pony Children's Books. He was AGOH at the 2000 World SF Con in Chicago and, was a 1997 AGOH at Arisia, among MANY conventions all over the world. He has done covers to hundreds of books and, does private and personal commissions. His work has hung in The Allentown Art Museum, and The Providence Art Club (Lovecraft show). He is also involved in illustrating HP Lovecraft, and has done covers to Famous Monsters of Filmland, and Godzilla comics for IDW. He has an asteroid named for him—13562bobeggleton by Spacewatch at Kitt Peak.
Gaia Eirich is a Master costumer and has been attending and costuming at conventions for 15 years. For the last 17 years she has been sewing and creating costumes in a wide variety of forms including fantasy, historical, and anime costumes for conventions and commissions, belly dance costumes for a studio, wedding dresses, accessories, and also basic quilt making. She has also worked as a costume manager in a theater and is currently working on belly dance costume alterations for a studio. She loves and greatly enjoys taking part in convention masquerades and recently had the honor of judging the Balticon masquerade. She is also an active member of the Greater Columbia Fantasy Costumer's Guild (GCFCG), the local chapter of the International Costumer's Guild (ICG).
Genevieve Iseult Eldredge balances the romantic with the perilous in real life and in her writing. In real life, she dropped out of med school and dedicated herself to writing LGBT epic fantasy featuring strong female characters. She has an MFA in Writing Popular Fiction, a black belt in karate, and a second-degree brown belt in jiu jitsu. In her writing, GIE tortures her characters with all manner of romantic peril--from desire to unrequited love, to showdowns and epic battles--including the dreaded incarnation of both: fightsex. As Kierstin Cherry, authoress and senior editor for Loose Id, she puts the romance back into necromancy with erotic lesbian vampire stories such as “Graced,” from the Lambda-nominated Women of the Bite from Circlet Press ebooks and her full-length Thorns & Hearts series: Blood Bound & Beautiful and the sequel Absent in Absinthe. Her latest projects include an m/m gladiator erotic romance series called In His Arena under the pseudonym, Nasia Maksima.
Paul Estin (a.k.a. "Happy Fun Paul") is a longtime SF fan with a Ph.D. in cognitive psychology and an affinity for silly music. Musically, Paul can be found in filk circles singing and playing guitar. Among Paul's other interests are (in alphabetical order) '80s music, astronomy, bicycling, books, cats, cognitive science, complexity, dynamism, epiphenomena, epistemology, feedback mechanisms, folk music, freedom, linguistics, liberty, maps, market solutions, modern fairy tales, movies, mu*ing, natural history, Neil Gaiman, non-fiction, nonstandard categories, operational definitions (critiquing them), reading, rock music, RPGs, science, subconscious biases, surreality, Unitarian Universalism, and xenobiology. Ingredients of Happy Fun Paul include an unknown glowing substance which fell to Earth, presumably from outer space. DO NOT TAUNT HAPPY FUN PAUL!!!
etana is an assistive technology specialist, parent advocate for children with disabilities, social justice worker and poet. They like glitter, universal design, sewing (poorly) and cruising around like a blind cyborg in C.A.R., the trusty power chair. First fandom was Buffy (the film), first poetic love was Shel Silverstein, and Ms. Frizzle is still their favorite teacher/inspiration (for everything).
Like Goodgulf the Wizard, this individual has many names: the one on her passport and her scholarly writings on early textiles (Lisa J. Evans); the one on her popular Saturday night "Books So Bad They're Good" diary for Daily Kos (Ellid); and the one on the erotica she's been writing and selling for the last couple of years (Sarah Ellis). Among her accomplishments are founding the Smith College Science Fiction & Fantasy Society, which is still going strong and slaughtering marshmallow peeps 34 years later, writing the first work in English on medieval European patchwork, and acquiring degrees from Smith College and Hartford Seminary. She also owns a photo of Adolf Hitler's bathtub. And no, it's not for the reasons you might think.
Lynn Feingold has nearly 30 years of performance experience as a solo unaccompanied singer specializing in performance of traditional English, Irish and Scottish songs and ballads, particularly as a witty Tavern Wench. She has performed many times for coffeehouses, historical societies, organizations, libraries, museums, house concerts and private parties all over New England. She is the President of The Folk Song Society of Greater Boston and founder of The Old Howard Troupe, an Old English Music Hall group in the Greater Boston area. Lynn and her sister Karen produce an annual Ballad Singing Contest for Students.
Alexander Feinman—Alex hacks hackers for a living: he designs software for use by developers. His hobbies include all but one of the following: audio production, carpentry, glass-blowing, leather-working, painting miniatures, music, role-playing, sociology, and writing science fiction. His novels "Duplicate", "We Were Gods", and "End Game" are available for sale online and at Arisia; he is currently finishing up a YA fantasy novel.
Mr. Ferguson is a math teacher at a school for students with above average intelligence and emotional differences. He is also a youth sword instructor, so please ask him if you want your children to learn the knightly art of the sword. AND he is a storyteller with over 25 years' experience, although some would say the first ten years don't count because he wasn't over 18 yet.
Kristina Finan has been sewing and costuming since 1982, a Doctor Who fan since 1979, and a Science Fiction fan since she saw the first man walk on the moon, live. Now she attempts to write about it. Don't get her wrong, she still sews, keeps a full-time job as a Custom Framer, and a part-time job keeping a husband.
Carl Fink is the Chair of LI-CON, a new convention on Long Island, and President of ICON Science Fiction. Taking Heinlein's comment about specialization to heart, he has in his life worked on a loading dock, managed a store, been a schoolteacher, worked as a technical trainer, managed corporate Information Technology, and is an occasional freelance writer, appearing in Smart Computing and Linux Journal. A member of the James Randi Foundation and the Skeptics Society, Currently enrolled in a Masters program in Learning Technology, Carl is particularly likely to challenge pseudoscience and superstition. He lives and works on Long Island, New York.
Greg R. Fishbone is the founder of the Class of 2k7, a longtime SCBWI Assistant Regional Advisor, and author of the Galaxy Games series of books about Earth's first-ever team in the greatest sporting event in the Milky Way. More info at gfishbone.com
William Frank, aka "scifantasy," is a geek and lawyer, in roughly that order. Professionally, he specializes in intellectual property law, has interned for the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the Creative Commons, and was a computer programmer before he turned to evil--err, law. Fannishly, he has interests in pretty much everything. Will is also Vice-Administrator of the 2016 Hugo Awards. This is Will's sixth Arisia, his fourth as a panelist.
Terry Franklin is a writer of science fiction and fact. Living in Western Mass, he also gets himself caught up in Libertarian politics from time to time.
Ed Fuqua is a Young Adult Librarian as well as being a writer, poet and swordsman. He has spent many years running comic book stores and has qualified for the National Poetry Slam Championships four times. He writes under the pen name Cameron Quintain. His novella "Familiar Places" won second place in the Passionate Plume Awards from the Romance Writers of America and his book The Viscountess Investigates is available from Circlet Press in print and ebook. He is also a performer and director at King Richard's Faire in Carver, MA.
Shana Fuqua has a BA in music. She is an fourteen-year veteran of King Richard's Faire where she spent one year as assistant apprentice music director, five years as an administrative assistant and two years as assistant director to the villager program. She has been involved in the BDSM scene for over twenty years and works with the programming team for the NELA fetish flea. She is also a member of the programming team for Arisia. She is an experienced gamer, both video games and tabletop RPGs. Her many skills include knitting, crocheting, spinning, candlemaking, and balancing a stick on her head.
Ken Gale's writing career started with sales to DC Comics and Warren Publishing in the 70's. He's editor and co-publisher of Dangerous Times and New Frontiers for Evolution Comics, wrote for Defiant Comics, and is a producer and host for two radio shows on WBAI-FM in NYC; one on the environment and one on comic books. He does miscellaneous arts and public affairs shows at many different time slots. He is a member of the Board of the Celtic League American Branch and a former math textbook writer. He wrote an environmental horror comic book story for Psychosis! #2 and is a long-time environmental activist. Since last Arisia, the guy with a face for radio has become a regular for Environment TV. www.comicbookradioshow.com
Craig Shaw Gardner is the author of a bunch of books and short stories, many of which are now being released as e-books. His latest novel, Temporary Monsters, features an unemployment agency that secretly controls the world.
Jaime Garmendia is a member of the Boston Comics Roundtable where he writes, produces, publicizes, and markets independent comics of all genres. His first published game, the Wuxing Empire expansion for Your Move Games' Battleground, is scheduled for release in late 2014. He was the Arisia Programming Division Head for 2013-14, and Exhibits Division Head in 2015.
Lila Garrott is a founding member of the a cappella group Sassafrass, and a staff reviewer at Strange Horizons. She has published short fiction, criticism, and poetry, and been nominated for the BSFA and the Rhysling. Her hair is blue.
Dr Pamela L. Gay is an astronomer, writer, and podcaster focused on using new media to engage people in science. Her best-known project may be Astronomy Cast, a podcast she co-hosts with Fraser Cain (publisher of Universe Today). This show takes listeners on a facts-based journey thru the cosmos that explores not just what we know, but how we know it. Beyond Astronomy Cast, she is also director of the CosmoQuest virtual research facility, which engages people in learning and doing science through a combination of educational materials and citizen science projects. Dr. Gay also works to communicate astronomy to the public through her blogging, public talks, and popular science articles. She is the host of numerous web series, including the Google Lunar XPRIZE Team Hangouts. Her writing has appeared in Astronomy, Sky and Telescope, Lightspeed, and Mothership Zeta magazines. She has appeared in shows ranging from the History Channel's The Universe to National Geographic's Top Secrets.
Greer Gilman's first metaphysical noir mystery, Cry Murder! In a Small Voice, won the 2013 Shirley Jackson Award. Ben Jonson investigates again in Exit, Pursued by a Bear. Her Cloud & Ashes: Three Winter's Tales won the 2010 Tiptree Award. Like her earlier novel Moonwise, it's set in a Northern mythscape, in a world where women turn the sky. Her Cloudish tales have also won a World Fantasy Award, a Crawford Award, and have been shortlisted for the Nebula and Mythopoeic Fantasy awards. Besides her two books, she has published other short work, poetry, and criticism. Her essay on "The Languages of the Fantastic" appears in The Cambridge Companion to Fantasy Literature. She likes to say she does everything James Joyce ever did, only backward and in high heels.
Glenn Given—Co-founder of Games by Play Date and designer of analog games like Slash: Romance Without Boundaries, Bad Habit and Hearts Blazing.
Max Gladstone has been thrown from a horse in Mongolia and twice nominated for the John W Campbell Best New Writer Award. Tor Books published LAST FIRST SNOW, the fourth novel in Max's Craft Sequence (preceded by THREE PARTS DEAD, TWO SERPENTS RISE, and FULL FATHOM FIVE) in July 2015. Max's game CHOICE OF THE DEATHLESS was nominated for the XYZZY Award, and his short fiction has appeared on Tor.com and in Uncanny Magazine. His next novel, FOUR ROADS CROSS, debuts in July 2016.
Mehitabel Mehitbel Glenhaber is an independent comic artist, currently studying brains and history of technology at MIT. She writes comics about squid in space striking up unlikely friendships with the Great Cthulhu, fairytales as Alan Turing would have told them to his children, improbable but nonetheless true stories about Unitarian Universalism summer camp, and the zombie apocalypse and 14th century theology. She has also written a research paper in comic book form on the history of comics censorship in the 1950s. She also talks about history, philosophy and science, and strange connections between those topics as one of the hosts of There and Back Again on WMBR. You can follow her comics shenanigans at topquarkintown.tumblr.com.
Timothy Goyette was raised in and is a resident of New Hampshire. He is the editor at Quantum Muse, a webzine and online writing group that has been around since 1999. In this capacity he has worked with many aspiring authors to help them develop their talents. He has authored a number of short stories and one novel, Lockdown which came out in 2013. In 2014 a collection of short stories was published, titled: The Light, the Dark, and the Quick.
Lee C. Hillman is a contributing editor and author in the Bad-Ass Faeries series (Dark Quest Books), as well as the anthology, TV Gods (Fortress Publishing). As Gwendolyn Grace, she is also a singer-songwriter, an avid fanfiction author, and a conference planner. In her third alter-ego, Lee Carter Browne, she is a theatrical and radio (voice) actor. She is the President of HPEF, Inc., an organization that produced Harry Potter conventions between 2003 and 2012. She is also a member of the Society for Creative Anachronism. Since September, 2008, she was a player-author and moderator in the journal-based role-playing game, HP Alternity, on Dreamwidth.org, which reached its planned conclusion in September, 2015. Although she is seeking more gainful employment, she looks forward to getting back major amounts of time which can be used for other projects, like the CD she has been promising herself to produce, or more likely endlessly playing BushWhacker2.
Anabel Graetz began performing as a teenager in Omaha, NE. She is half of the Victorian duo, The Proper Ladies; the creator and director of The Festival of Light & Song; and was founder and director of the all-woman ensemble Laduvane in the 70's. She has appeared off-off Broadway in The Drunkard and on several Boston stages; studied vocal folk styles extensively; was a Fulbright Scholar in 1987-88; developed and taught the perennially popular course "Song for Non-Singers" at the Cambridge Center for Adult Education. Anabel currently teaches at the Lau Lapides Studio in Wellesley, MA. FIlm and TV credits include The Hunting Game, soon to be released online; the Web Series S(her)lock, release date TBD; and Mrs. Merriman in the award-winning HBO mini-series based on "Olive Kitteridge," the novel by Elizabeth Strout, a must read!
April Grant lives in Boston. She has published poetry in Strange Horizons and Mythic Delirium. Her resume includes work as a public historian, librarian's assistant, used-clothes salesperson, and bus driver. She enjoys singing and reciting poetry and telling ghost stories.
Geek, teacher, dad, scientist, gamer, SMOF, crafter, comics and media fan, collector of nice hats. If you wish, you may refer to me by my full title, the Right Reverend Professor Doctor Brian Gray, Father of the Cutest 5 Year Old On The Planet. All of that's true, especially the last part.
Breeze Grigas is the original creator of A.E.G.I.S. A man of many talents, his primary roles are game design, illustration and graphic design, as well as steering the overall direction of Zephyr Workshop. Holds a Bachelor’s in Media Design from Becker College and brings years of professional game design, user experience design and art skills to the company. He has become one with Adobe and Excel. He likes robot cartoons, RPGs and bad punk rock.
Melina M. Gunnett—I started out life as a cat, until I pounced on the wrong experiment. (At least that's what I tell the kids). Such is the life off a Mad Scientist... But hey, I get to wear cat ears for a living. When I'm not stirring up trouble in the lab I am a writer, artisan, otaku, costumer and play auntie to a little white dog that thinks he's Bolt (sonnic bark and all)
Dr. Abby Hafer is a biologist, writer and speaker on the topics of evolution, Intelligent Design and Creationism who believes that humor is often the best way to puncture a bad argument. She has written a book titled "The Not-So-Intelligent Designer" and has been interviewed on NPR and other radio outlets. She grew up living lots of places which convinced her at an early age that what is considered "normal" changes with both time and distance. She has B.A. in biology from Swarthmore and a D.Phil. in zoology from Oxford University. She worked for the National Marine Fisheries Service on a Japanese fishing ship in the Bering Sea where she won a push-ups contest with the ship's officers. She has done research on sleep, circadian rhythms, and respiratory physiology. She teaches Human Anatomy & Physiology at Curry College. She enjoys outdoor sports and thinks that geeks should do more of them, and has traveled widely, often to places that many people can't find on a map.
James Hailer—Is a science fiction writer, comic book artist, a teacher in Thailand and opponent of the Oxford comma. People in Japan think he's cool.
A member of the CERN team that developed the original specifications for the World Wide Web, Phillip Hallam-Baker predicts the future the old way, by inventing it. With numerous patents and contributions to IETF, W3C and OASIS standards, Hallam-Baker is a recognized authority on Internet security, cryptography and Internet Crime. Active in the replica prop building community for the past five years, the full scale dalek he built (which visited Arisia in 2012) uses the same materials and techniques as the original prop. He is currently working on a TARDIS and Han in carbonite, both full scale.
Elektra Hammond emulates her multi-sided idol Buckaroo Banzai by going in several directions at once. She's been involved in the copyediting and proofreading end of publishing since the 1990s for presses small and large and nowadays concocts anthologies, writes the occasional short story, and is a freelance editor and movie reviewer. Her latest story “Salamander Bites” appears in the anthology Temporally Out of Order. Elektra lives in Delaware with her husband, Mike, and the cat herd of BlueBlaze/Benegesserit catteries. When not freelancing or appearing at science fiction conventions she travels world-wide judging cat shows. Find Elektra on Facebook (Elektra Hammond), Twitter (elektraUM), LiveJournal (elektra_h), g+ (Elektra Hammond), and building her website at http://www.untilmidnight.com.
Forest Handford is a fire artist from Berlin, MA. Forest works as the Games Evangelist at Affectiva. While not at work, he's bringing his family to corn mazes, conventions, and Burning Man events. His website is EastCoastGames.com where he publishes video and writing about various topics. He recently founded VoteSquared.org, the site for rating politicians.
For more than 10 years, Matt Harmony has been a member of a created polyamorous family called Harmony House, located in upstate New York. Depending on who's counting, there are roughly a dozen members. Five are children, of differing biological parentage, but being raised together as siblings. He makes his living as a media professional. He is also a writer, semi-professional musician, movie geek, SCAdian, scotch drinker, and grad student. For his Master's capstone, he is currently working on an online magazine focusing on alternative parenting and alternative families.
Buzz Harris is a former Arisia conchair, and, in his real life, was the Executive Director of the Ida B. Wells Center for Investigative Journalism. He recently retired to take up life as a professional mosaic artist (and sometime troublemaker).
Harry Potter NYC MeetupHP-NYC is part of a larger fan organization: The Group That Shall Not Be Named, Inc. This NYC based non-profit is dedicated to spreading the Harry Potter fandom by providing its members opportunities to express their creativity and passion. Along with the Meetup, TGTSNBN, Inc. is also the parent of the NY Badassilisks, a NYC community Quidditch team, MISTI-Con, a bi-annual Harry Potter convention in New Hampshire and Coal Hill Con, a Doctor Who convention also in NH.
Glenn Hauman has over 25 years of experience in publishing and was a pioneer in ebooks. Mr. Hauman has worked as an author, graphic designer, editor, photo retoucher, CD-ROM producer, story consultant for films, and radio show host. His Star Trek book, "Creative Couplings", got worldwide press coverage for its portrayal of the first Klingon-Jewish wedding. In addition to Star Trek, he's written other licensed tie-in works for X-Men and Farscape, and urban fantasy for Baen Books, and he was the colorist for Mike Grell's Jon Sable Freelance: Ashes Of Eden graphic novel as part of his work for ComicMix (http://www.comicmix.com). His most fun work is with ComicMix Pro Services, where he says "anything that a comic creator doesn't want to deal with, or know how to do... we do. We provide everything you need to make your comics great."
Rose Hayes started reading science fiction and fantasy at the age of 8 and began attending science fiction conventions at the age of 16. Rose came out as queer in the early 1980s. More recently, she began to understand that she was trans and eventually had come out again. Rose is Jewish and is an active member of Sha’ar Zahav, one of the oldest LGBTQ focused synagogues in the country. Rose is active in LGBTQ in rights. She serves on the boards of the Transgender Law Center and the National LGBTQ Task Force. In 2014 she co-led a workshop on developing board service skills at Creating Change, the largest national conference for LGBTQ rights. Rose is an Engineering Director in the Research Organization at Google. Her most recent efforts have been focused on the issues at the intersection of privacy and machine intelligence. Prior effort include leading development of Google’s Knowledge Graph, a knowledge base of several billion facts.
A New England native, Wes Hazard was named as one of “5 Boston Comedians to Watch” by The Boston Globe Magazine. A writer and storyteller as well as comedian, Wes brings wit, energy and honesty to the stage, qualities that have made him a regular performer in Boston venues as well as at The Boston Comedy Festival and The Women in Comedy Festival. Wes is a multiple-time winner on The Moth StorySLAM stage and he’s appeared as a guest on the Comedy Bang! Bang! Live! podcast – based on the critically-acclaimed IFC television show -- with Scott Aukerman & Paul F. Tompkins. Wes is also always down for delivering a multimedia presentation about comic book advertising or the critical role of Matthew Lillard in American horror cinema. He wishes you only the best.
Jeff Hecht is a freelance science and technology writer, a correspondent for the weekly New Scientist and a contributing editor to Laser Focus World. His short fiction has appeared in Analog, Nature Futures, Asimov's, Interzone, Twilight Zone, Daily Science Fiction and several anthologies including Year's Best Horror Stories, Great American Ghost Stories, Extreme Planets, Decopunk, Extreme Planets, and the upcoming Conspiracy!. His non-fiction has appeared in many other magazines, including Optics & Photonics News, Omni, Earth, Analog, Cosmos, and Technology Review. His books include Understanding Fiber Optics (Pearson/Prentice Hall), Understanding Lasers (IEEE Press/Wiley), Beam: the Race to Make the Laser and City of Light: The Story of Fiber Optics (both Oxford University Press). He holds a B.S. in electronic engineering from Caltech.
Lisa Hertel is an artist from a long line of artists (to be continued). She usually works in clay and watercolors, but has been known to work with pencils, glass, paper, metal and more. In her spare time, she helps run literary science fiction conventions, including being the chair of Arisia 2014. Visit her at Western Avenue Studios in Lowell, studio #109, where she offers art classes for children and adults.
Andy Hicks co-wrote 2010: Our Hideous Future six years ago and still won't shut up about it. He's a musician, writer, director, actor, and - professionally - a radio and TV producer for WGBH. As part of his actual job - he's developing a public radio show/podcast best described as "This American Life goes to Arisia." The show will focus on fan culture in an intelligent yet humorous way, with a focus on deeper cultural meaning (where does ___ come from?) and issues of diversity and identity. He regards Doctor Who the same way a Jesuit monk regards the scriptures. Eventually, he will die and be forgotten, and the universe will collapse, slowly but steadily, into heat death. Also, he makes excellent crepes!
Woodrow Hill is one the few male Raqs Sharqi artists--better known as "belly" dancers--in the world, having started over 20 years ago. His day job as a programmer with a focus on security issues gives him a oddly optimistic view of the future, one fueled by his very first memory; watching Star Trek on a black-and-white TV set. This reality-beaten optimism also leaks into his strong political activism, having been invested in Civil Rights, Feminist, and related issues as well as working for politicians as varied as Strom Thurmond and Barack Obama (the latter of which he liked significantly more!). He also looks back into the past as a member of the Society of Creative Anachronism, specializing on researching Medieval Era "belly dance" and 15th Century Ottoman culture, and into the future via interests in broader layperson science activities, focusing on issues around Evolution.
James Hinsey is a lifelong lover of Science Fiction, Fantasy, books, movies, tv-shows, anime, 80's music, women, root beer, chocolate, Hawaii, Japan, and family. He is half-Japanese, a reader, Potterhead, Trekker, Browncoat, Costumer, book-collector, model-maker, videographer, publicator, con-goer, RISFC member, Sci-Fi Journal co-host, Psi Upsilon brother, RPI alum, former naval officer, brother, son, uncle, husband, and father of two girls. He is currently Arisia '15 Masquerade Director. SamuraiX47.
Steven Hirsch has been training swords since 2006 and unarmed martial arts since 1998. First with the Higgins and now teaching at his own school, Athena School of Arms. Since he started playing with swords he has stopped having other hobbies, just variations on playing with swords like making Medieval clothes and armour or researching Medieval Combat. Steven is also a professional strength coach focusing on performance for combat sports and martial artists, his business is Fight with All Your Strength. He is also studying to be a physical therapist--which may be useful given his hobby.
Merav Hoffman is a New York-based singer/songwriter and performer. She is a founding member of the band Lady Mondegreen along with Seanan McGuire and Batya Wittenberg. She also edits books, musicals and poetry, as well as writing her own. In 2013 she was nominated for the Rhysling poetry award in the short form category. She works in publishing and IT, and occasionally produces albums and DVDs for her various musical projects. In whatever time she has left over, she crochets an insane amount and runs local music events.
Anastasia Holt—I have been sewing for 13 years, I have been competing and costuming for about 8 years. I have learned nany techniques from the many mentors and friends I possess. I am constantly learning about different things like armor and beading. I am still honing my skills as a costumer and am always eager to teach others what I know.
Sharone Horowit-Hendler is a linguistic anthropology graduate student, currently working on her PhD. She is studying how we create and present our gender identities through our language. In her free time, she is a LARPer, playing in boffer LARPs, Camarilla, and playing, GMing, and writing theater style LARPs. She is an avid reader, board gamer, and table top gamer, who also sings, writes music ( though rarely), and makes adorable jewelry and pins out of sculpy. She is also a member of the Teseracte Players of Boston and looks forward to performing for you this Arisia.
Crystal Huff spends her time saving the world and chasing down conventioneers. This is rather similar to saving conventioneers and chasing down the world, it turns out. She was convention chair of Arisia 2011, Relaxacon 2011, Readercon 23, Readercon 24, Readercon 25, and co-chair of JOFcon I. Crystal is now excited to be a co-chair of Worldcon 75, the 2017 Worldcon in Helsinki, Finland. It's possible Crystal enjoys volunteering for conventions.;)
Walter H. Hunt has been writing for most of his life and was Arisia Author GOH in 2009. His first four Dark Wing novels were published by Tor Books and are now available from Baen as e-books. His novel A Song In Stone deals with Rosslyn Chapel and the Templars. His latest novel Elements of Mind from Spencer Hill Press was published in July 2014, and his 1632 novel 1636: The Cardinal Virtues appeared in 2015. He has a background in history, with a Bachelor of Arts degree from Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine, and he speaks two other languages (German and Spanish). A member of the Masonic Fraternity, Walter H. Hunt has served as Master of two different Lodges in Massachusetts. He is a devoted baseball fan and board gamer; his first published game was published in 2011 by Rio Grande Games. He has been married for more than half of his life, and he and his wife have one daughter who is a product of their affection and unusual joint sense of humor.
Elaine Isaak is the author of The Singer's Crown (Eos, 2005), and its sequels, as well as the "Tales of Bladesend" epic novella series. As E. C. Ambrose, she also writes "The Dark Apostle" series of dark historical fantasy novels about medieval medicine. The Dark Apostle started with Elisha Barber (DAW, 2013), described in a starred Library Journal review as, "painfully elegant". Elaine lives in New Hampshire with her family where she works part-time as an adventure guide. In addition to writing and teaching, Elaine enjoys taiko drumming, kayaking, rock climbing, and all manner of fiber arts. www.thedarkapostle.com
Felicitas Ivey is the pen name of a very frazzled helpdesk drone at a Boston area University. She's an eternal student even with a BA in Anthropology, Classical Studies and History, since free classes are part of the benefits. Felicitas writes Urban Fantasy and Horror of a Lovecraftian nature--monsters beyond space and time that think humans are the tastiest things in the multiverse--that is passing as MalexMale Romance. She divides her free time between writing and slowly working her way through her yarn stash, even as she adds more to it periodically.
The Comiku Girls, Akiko Meigetsu and Li Izumi, has had a pencil (or brush) in their hand since they could hold one, and have been telling stories since they could talk. At conventions, they are artists, cosplayers, and Japanese cultural panelists. In 2004, we debuted our popular Japanese Tea Ceremony Panel, and have continued to create unique panel options in the decade since. Akiko is an artist, working in both digital and traditional media (watercolor and Asian Brushpainting). Li has studied Japanese language and culture for over a decade, including a semester in Akita, Japan.
Alexander Jablokov's most recent published novel is Brain Thief, a fast-paced AI-hunting adventure, now out in paperback. His most recent story, "The Return of Black Murray" will appear in Asimov's. He is the author of five other novels, including Carve the Sky, Nimbus, and Deepdrive, and a number of short stories. He lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
RM Sean B Jaffe—Nerdy City is the East Coasts' premier LARP company for Eschaton Media's Chronos Universal Live Role Playing system. Famous for their continuing ExArcana urban fantasy campaign at New York City's incredible Lovecraft Bar and their legendary "Pacific Rim" fan LARP, Nerdy City has made a name for themselves as expert storytellers with top-notch production values. Nerdy City strives to excel in terms of drama, entertainment, and immersion.
Victoria Janssen reviews for Publishers Weekly; she blogs about romance at Heroes & Heartbreakers and mysteries at The Criminal Element. Her novel-length erotica includes The Duke and the Pirate Queen; The Duchess, Her Maid, The Groom and Their Lover. The Moonlight Mistress is set during her favorite historical time period, World War One; its electronic-only sequel is titled "Under Her Uniform." Her erotic short stories, many of them historical or speculative, are available in numerous anthologies and as e-books. Find out more at http://victoriajanssen.com.
Alex Jarvis is a Meat Popsicle.
Frederic Jennings is an attorney at Tor Ekeland, PC, where he defends hacktivists, challenges the DMCA's oppressive effect on researchers, and litigates on issues including copyright, trademark, digital privacy, and corporate formation. Prior to joining Tor Ekeland, PC, he was Lead Researcher and Development Coordinator at the International Legal Foundation, where he consulted and researched indigent defense systems in Afghanistan and the West Bank. His prior speaking engagements include: National Lawyers Guild DisOrientation: Alternative Legal Careers Panel (2013, 2014, 2015), Know Your Rites: A Discussion on Magic and the Law (2014), Public Defense on the Front Lines: Criminal Legal Aid Provision in Post-Conflict and Transitional Nations (2013) and The Rights of the Bedouin: Land Disputes, Water Deprivation, and Village Demolition (2012). When not lawyering, he can be found writing, reading, or building improbable machines capable of excessive velocities.
Rachel Kadel-Garcia is a bookbinder and librarian living in Medford, MA. She holds an MS in Library Science from. Simmons and an MA in Conservation Studies from the University of Sussex.
Juliet Kahn has been covering comics, games, and other media professionally for two years. She has written for Comics Alliance, Publishers Weekly, Kotaku, Boing Boing, Fresh Romance, and a number of other outlets.
Deborah Kaminski is Professor Emerita of Mechanical Engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. She is the author of over 80 peer-reviewed articles in technical journals, an invited article in the New York Times, a featured article in Science, with associated podcast, and an engineering textbook published by John Wiley & Sons. Her research specialty is thermal and fluid processes, including solar energy, computational fluid dynamics, and artificial intelligence. Kaminski's debut novel, Damian’s Workshop, is a tale of adventure and discovery where a graduate student is cast back in time to the Fourth Crusade. Kaminski lives with her family in Schenectady, NY.
Witch, Shaman, Professional Psychic, Metaphysical Engineer, Rune Valder Master, and Reiki Master, Sean Kane (Starwolf) posseses a vast, ecclectic store of knowledge, both Esoteric and Exoteric.
Melissa Kaplan is a longtime attendee of cons, gamer, watcher and reader of sci-fi/fantasy, and general geek. Past endeavors include two blogathons, one nanowrimo, and participating in panels at Pi-con and Arisia. She spends far too much of her disposable income on costume pieces, wirework jewelry, and books. She freely admits that her qualifications as a panelist are restricted to love of sci-fi/fantasy and her ability to ramble semi-intelligently about geeky topics on command. Melissa is a feminist and activist committed to making the fandom community safe and comfortable for anyone who wants to participate.
Faith Karklin was introduced to Arisia in 2008 and has found herself returning every year since. Apparently she can't resist a weekend spent dancing and discussing books. She's a member of a local meet-up group called New England Asexuals. She irregularly updates a blog called "I'm Ace, Ask Me How!" to share some of her thoughts and respond to questions posed by that friends, family, and acquaintances.
Kate Kaynak was born in New Jersey but was able to escape. Her degree from Yale says she was a psych major, but her true senior project was a bawdy songbook for the Marching Band. After serving a 5-year sentence in graduate school, she started teaching psychology around the world for the University of Maryland. While in Turkey, she started up a conversation with a handsome stranger in an airport--and ended up marrying him. Kaynak now lives in New Hampshire, where she enjoys reading, writing, and fighting crime with her amazing superpowers. Her YA paranormal series--the Ganzfield books--start with Minder and tell the story of Maddie, a 16-year-old telepath training at a secret facility. She is one of the founders of Spencer Hill Press, a publishing house created with a mission to discover and launch the careers of talented new authors. www.KateKaynak.com
Jeff Keller is a Boston-area song session leader and occasional filker. He's run the Arisia chantey sing from its inception and various one-off sessions. He's also a vintage dancer, the founder of the local vintage dance band (the Ad Hoc Waltz and Quadrille Band), and a sometime member of the Arisia technical crew and Music Track Manager.
Diane Kenealy—D. L. Carter was decanted from her incubation pod in the outback of Australia many decades ago. This terrifying event was closely followed by shrieks of "there, there it goes. Hit it with a brick!" These valiant attempts to correct the existence of D.L. were, unfortunately, unsuccessful and she now resides in New Jersey, US., in a box with her toys, two human beings and three cats.
A Jersey Girl currently trapped without good diners or boardwalks in New England, Rachel Kenley (www.rachelkenley.net) is a novelist, workshop leader, radio host, and co-founder of the Writers Business School (www.writersbusinessschool.com). She is the best-selling author of five erotic romance novels and editor/contributor to nine anthologies. When she is not writing she is homeschooling her sons, trying unsuccessfully to keep up with laundry, and laughing as much as possible. Her radio show, The O Spot, is new every Wednesday at 10 pm EST on www.omtimes.com and encores several times during the week. She can also be found (perhaps a little too much) on Facebook (www.facebook.com/authorrachelkenley) She is the Vice President of Broad Universe and a member of Romance Writers of America and the International Women’s Writers Guild. She loves reading, chocolate, her morning cup of coffee, and retail therapy. Let's have coffee and shop!
Paul Kenworthy began historic costuming and making armour and swords back in 1974 while he was getting his bachelor's degree in history and working part-time as a shipsmith at Mystic Seaport. He is an avid re-enactor and belongs to a number of groups that recreate various periods. He is the commanding officer of the New England Brigade, an umbrella organization for Union re-enactors in New England, Captain of the Salem Trayned Band, a group that recreates the first militia company in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and a member of the Company of the Wolfe Argent, a group that recreates a Burgundian ordinance company of the 1470s. He is one of the co-founders of the Higgins Armory Sword Guild, a group based in Worcester that studies and interprets Renaissance fencing manuals. He has recently expanded his costuming and prop making into cosplaying anime and video game characters.
Angela Kessler's longstanding interests include morris dance, Kalevala, cheesemaking, singing and other enjoyment of trad music, sewing (esp. historical and wedding gowns), crochet, and learning about how the world works. Passing whims include knitting, needle felting, and shoemaking. Someday there will be goats.
Jeremy H. Kessler lives in Greater Boston where he is an instigator. He is also a singer, morris dancer, musician, cheesemaker, drinker, and co-developer of the only known kosher boar's head anywhere. As a singer, he has been deeply involved in local sings of various traditional sorts, including chantey sings and pub sings. As a morris dancer, he dances with the Newtowne Morris Men, is the musician for Pipe Dream Morris, and is the squire of the only Greater Boston morris team to dance the AntiMorris. He has danced the AntiMorris for Terry Pratchett himself, and is quite proud that said author described it--in Wintersmith's author's note--as "a bit creepy".
Daniel M Kimmel is a Hugo-nominated film critic and author of Jar Jar Binks Must Die. His reviews and essays can be found at NorthShoreMovies.net and Space and Time Magazine. His most recent book is his first novel Shh! It's a Secret: a novel about Aliens, Hollywood and the Bartender's Guide which launched at Arisia 2013 and was a finalist for the Compton Crook Award for best first novel. In September 2014 he became editor of The Jewish Advocate, the nation's oldest English language Jewish newspaper.
Born in 1967, Catt Kingsgrave-Ernstein has not yet managed to shuffle off the mortal coil, though not for want of trying, apparently. She writes (fiction, music, poetry, recipes, and the occasional political rant), draws, paints, sings, dances, cooks, builds and repairs houses, and occasionally makes an outright fool of herself when confronted with her intellectual heroes. She also has Opinions. No, wait! Don't run!
Ken Kingsgrave-Ernstein is absolutely not the superhero Common Sense Man. He does not spend his days saving various portions of Corporate America from itself. He also does not recover data structures in need. He does, however, enjoy reading Science Fiction and the occasional foray into Fantasy. He also enjoys speculating on how to survive the Zombie Apocalypse with skills he learned surviving the Cold War. He also spends spare time (ha, what's that?) with his camera and playing with rope, often at the same time.
Amber P. Knight is the hostess of Black Chick Watching podcast. She has been a featured storyteller with MassMouth and has done Stand-up comedy in the Naked Comedy Showcase. To date she has produced and performed four one-woman theater shows, presented workshops on improving body image using the performing arts, and performed in a number of theatrical productions. As a speaker with NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness), she talks candidly about living with bipolar disorder.
Rachel Kory has been with Scovil Galen Ghosh Literary Agency, Inc. since 2011. She is a graduate of Mount Holyoke College, where she studied Classics. As a literary agent and digital strategist, Rachel is interested in all things new media; she works to integrate authors into an increasingly electronic world. As a lover of genre fiction and media, she is fascinated by the blurring of lines between fan and professional. She is a homebrewer, costumer, plays roller derby, does muay thai, and is a member of the 501st Legion and Rebel Legion Star Wars costuming organizations.
Ellen Kranzer has been attending science fiction conventions for over 30 years and making music even longer. Filk lets her mix the two hobbies. Ellen is a founding member of M.A.S.S. F.I.L.C. and the club's current treasurer. She has been involved in planning numerous conventions both in and out of fandom.
Matthew Kressel is a multiple Nebula Award-nominated author and World Fantasy Award-nominated editor. His debut novel King of Shards was published in October 2015. His short fiction has appeared in such venues as Lightspeed, Clarkesworld, Nightmare, io9.com, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Interzone, Apex Magazine, and the anthologies, After, Naked City, The People of the Book, and other markets. From 2003 to 2010 he published Sybil's Garage, a speculative fiction magazine. And he also published the World Fantasy Award-winning Paper Cities. Ho co-hosts the Fantastic Fiction at KGB series with Ellen Datlow in Manhattan, and is a member of the Altered Fluid writers group. He studies Yiddish in his spare time and is a programmer by trade. Find him online at www.matthewkressel.net and @mattkressel on Twitter.
Bob Kuhn is a professional voiceover artist. Speculative fiction and science credits include audiobook titles by Mike Resnick, Carl Sagan, YA author William Sleator, Jeff Carver, and Thomas Burnett Swann. (Plus audiobooks of history and historical fiction, true crime and mystery.) Bob has also provided fantasy MMORP NPC game voices for Dungeons and Dragons Online, the ill-starred 38 Studios, and a dark fantasy out of Singapore. As an expatriate Australian, Bob has done readings at North American Cons for antipodean authors unable to attend. He is the co-inventor of both serious (Master of Disaster) and fun (ChronoCollisions, Artifactual) games and gameshows, many of which he has hosted at various world and regional cons. Visit bkvoice.com for more information. He is also a higher education I.T. management consultant.
Bettina M. Kurkoski, is the creator/writer/artist of My Cat Loki—volumes 1 & 2 now available from TOKYOPOP—is Bettina's first professionally published series. She has also contributed the Star Trek 40th Anniversary Convention exclusive cover for Star Trek: TOS Manga Vol. 1, cover and story art for Star Trek: TOS Manga Vol. 2, story art for Star Trek: The Next Generation Vol. 1, story and art for the Princess Ai/My Cat Loki crossover story in Princess Ai: Encounters, and cover and story art for Warriors: Rise of Scourge and Seekers manga series based on the best-selling novel series; all available from TOKYOPOP and Harper Collins. She has 20+ years of experience teaching comic art to all ages through various events. She is currently working on the webcomic, RomeoXJulien (justyaoi.com) with co-creator, Mary Dumas, and has developed and launched websites for Nauticon, Worldcon, Ohayocon, Just Yaoi & Dreamworld Studio. You can see more of her artwork at www.dreamworldstudio.net.
Alisa Kwitney is the multi-published author of adult and YA novels, graphic novels and non-fiction, including the Eisner-nominated mini-series Destiny, the top-selling Batgirl Convergence issues, and the newly re-released Children's Crusade hardcover, written with Neil Gaiman. She also writes SF/fantasy as Alisa Sheckley. A former editor at Vertigo/DC Comics, Alisa has an MFA in Fiction Writing from Columbia and has taught graphic novel writing at Fordham University. You can visit her website at www.alisakwitney.com.
Marnen Laibow-Koser is a composer, multi-instrumentalist, software developer, and linguistics nerd. He is currently trying to figure out how to make a master's degree in music profitable.
David Larochelle is a PhD student at the Annenberg School of Communication at the University of Pennsylvania who works at the intersection of computer science and social science. He's worked extensively in information security and is the co-author of Splint, an Open Source tool for detecting security vulnerabilities in C programs. However, more recently he's focused on understanding and building the Internet rather than attacking and defending it. He grew up in the D.C. area but lived in Cambridge over over a decade before moving to Philadelphia where he currently resides. His involvement with fandom began when he joined the William & Mary Science Fiction and Fantasy Club (SKIFFY). He served as Vice President and was named Senator for Life upon gradation.
Cassandra Lease is a lifelong resident of Boston, a second-generation SF fan, a writer and a veteran GM. As a neo-pagan trans lesbian feminist, she's an outspoken advocate for religious tolerance, LGBT rights, and social equality. As Amazon Pink, she is involved in the Power Rangers cosplay scene, in addition to portraying assorted other characters. She currently writes as Themiscyra on Archive Of Our Own and as LoreleiLaCroix on FanFiction.net, and is hard at work on her first original novel, a queer supernatural romance entitled Fall. Her fandoms include Power Rangers, Star Trek, Avatar: The Last Airbender, Disney's Gargoyles, Wonder Woman, Ms. Marvel, Image Comics, and virtually anything by Seanan McGuire.
Scott Lefton makes and sells artwork in media including metal, wood, glass, and Photoshop, is occasionally serious about photography, and works as a freelance mechanical design consultant and patent agent. He lives in a big old Victorian house in Melrose, MA with his wife Rachel, whichever of their 3 kids happen to be in residence, and a cat.
Jet Levy is a a poly, pan/bi sexual, kinky artist and business lady. She is a feminist, an activist, a community member and leader. Art is not an activity of leisure but a passionate demand that our world have a better, brighter tomorrow. Her work can be found splashing across the stage, perched upon the page, blasted through comic books, woven in the fiber arts, breathing new life into up-cycled sustainable art installations, punctuating pop up funnies and clarifying educational notation in morphologically descriptive diagrams.
Megan Lewis is a librarian at a research library and archives located in a museum, dealing with researchers from all over the world and all levels of education. She has a great fondness for biographical dictionaries. Megan's attended Arisia for over a decade and has previously worked Art Show. This is her second year doing a panel (but is still working Art Show - come buy some art!). She possesses interests in a diverse number including modern architecture preservation, crocheting and genealogists.
Brian Liberge is a father of one, living on the North Shore, MA. As a freelancer he's worked with Kobold Press, Raging Swan Press, Gygax Magazine and the Gamer Assembly. He loves home-brewed ideas, is honest to a fault, and loves converting content between systems. Additionally he has backgrounds in Theatre Arts and Technology which often comes up in the way he works and his writing. Currently he's the owner and Creative Director of Beer Star Games, the makes of Pulp! the RPG and BEARD! the Card Game.
Gordon Linzner is founder and editor emeritus of Space and Time Magazine; author of several novels and scores of short stories; freelance editor; licensed New York City tour guide; and front man for Saboteur Tiger blues band.
Adam Lipkin is a reviewer for Publishers Weekly, covering science fiction, fantasy, horror, and romance books (with past forays into general fiction, biography, and young adult). He has written reviews for a number of publications, including The Green Man Review and Rambles. He wrote the horror column, "Fear Factor," for Bookslut, and was also the animation columnist for SMRT-TV.com. He has published hundreds of horror movie reviews at his own blog, http://yendi.livejournal.com, and has also published essays in Salem Press's Critical Survey of Graphic Novels. By day, he works as an Associate Director of Academic Technology at a top-35 university. Adam lives in the suburbs of Boston. He does not have enough bio space to discuss his dog and his cats.
Shira Lipkin has managed to convince Strange Horizons, Apex Magazine, Stone Telling, Clockwork Phoenix 4, and other otherwise-sensible magazines and anthologies to publish their work; two of their stories have been recognized as Million Writers Award Notable Stories, and they have won the Rhysling Award for best short poem. Their nonfiction has appeared at Salon. They credit luck, glitter eyeliner, and tenacity. They co-edit Liminality, a magazine of speculative poetry, with Mattie Joiner. They live in Boston and, in their spare time, fight crime with the Boston Area Rape Crisis Center. Their cats are bigger than their dog.
Ken Liu (http://kenliu.name) is an author and translator of speculative fiction, as well as a lawyer and programmer. A winner of the Nebula, Hugo, and World Fantasy Awards, he has been published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Asimov’s, Analog, Clarkesworld, Lightspeed, and Strange Horizons, among other places. He also translated the Hugo-winning novel, The Three-Body Problem, by Liu Cixin, which is the first translated novel to win that award. Ken’s debut novel, The Grace of Kings, the first in a silkpunk epic fantasy series, was published by Saga Press in April 2015. Saga will also publish a collection of his short stories, The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories, in March 2016. He lives with his family near Boston, Massachusetts.
Eric Love is an award-winning visual and performing artist who founded and directs LARP Adventure Program - New England's premiere youth LARP provider. In addition to his work in harnessing LARP as a powerful tool for personal development and enrichment among youth, he has designed many games for adults including the popular survival horror campaign, FAROS: Infection. For more information on Eric and LARP Adventure Program, check out our website at Www.larpadventureprogram.com!
Catherine Lundoff is an award-winning author and editor from Minneapolis, where she lives with her fabulous wife and cats. She toils in IT by day and writes all the things by night, including a series for SF Signal on LGBT science fiction and fantasy, an article on the history of LGBT Horror for Nightmare Magazine and lots of tales about things going bump in the night. Her recent stories have or will appear in Tales of the Unanticipated, The Mammoth Book of Jack the Ripper Tales and The Mammoth Book of Professor Moriarty Adventures. Her novel Medusa’s Touch (written as Emily L. Byrne) is forthcoming from Queen of Swords Press. Website: www.catherinelundoff.com
Mike Luoma writes and publishes science fiction, comics, the weekly "Glow-in-the-Dark Radio" podcast, and hosts middays on "The Point", Vermont's Independent Radio Network, where he's the Music Director. His first novel, 2005's Vatican Assassin - science fiction during an interplanetary Western/Muslim war - introduced "BC", a killer for the New catholic Church in 2109. The ebook of the novel is available free everywhere! BC's story continues in Vatican Ambassador and Vatican Abdicator. Mike currently writes The Adventures of Alibi Jones – beginning in the novel Alibi Jones, continued in Alibi Jones and The Sunrise of Hur, Alibi Jones and the Time War of The Devrizium, the comic The Adventures of Alibi Jones and the brand-new novel Alibi Jones and The Hornet's Nest. Hear Mike read his work free each week – look for "Mike Luoma" on iTunes for his "Glow-in-the-Dark Radio" podcast and free, downloadable audio books through Podiobooks.com. Find out more at http://glowinthedarkradio.com.
Miss M.—Performer, storyteller, costumer, a woman of few words.
James Douglas Macdonald was born in White Plains, New York. After leaving the University of Rochester, where he majored in Medieval Studies, he served in the U. S. Navy. Macdonald left the Navy in 1988 in order to pursue writing full-time. Since then he has lived with his wife and co-author, Debra Doyle, in a big 19th-Century house in Colebrook, New Hampshire, where they write science fiction and fantasy for children, teenagers, and adults. From 1991 through 1993, as Yog Sysop, he ran the Science Fiction and Fantasy RoundTable on the GEnie computer network; after the death of GEnie, he was the managing sysop for SFF-Net. These days, when not writing novels or running as an EMT with the local ambulance squad, he performs stage magic.
Tegan Mannino—Librarian, techie, blogger, bookworm, and all around geek.
Peter Maranci is founder and editor of the Interregnum RPG APA (RIP). Winner of several amateur video prizes at Arisia. Publisher of "Pete's RuneQuest & Roleplaying!" (www.runequest.org/rq.htm), one of the oldest RPG sites online. Longtime Arisia panelist. Sold a story to a semi-pro mag long ago, but it folded before publishing it (or paying for it, unfortunately). Once boasted that he could do a panel on ear wax and make it interesting. Luckily Arisia hasn't tested that. :D
Dan Marsh is a member of the Society of Creative Anarchism (as Grim the Skald); even his wife calls him "Grim," so there's that. He considers himself knowledgeable in the following things, in order of how much he knows: Norse Poetry, Norse Culture, Alliterative Poetry in general (particularly Old English and 14th Century), Medieval (particularly English) poetry in general, Medieval costuming, and Medieval/Renaissance combat. Seriously, if you want to know about alliterative poetry, he'll talk your ear off. He also has been gaming off and on since his parents gave him something called "Dungeons and Dragons" in a bright red-pink-purple box when he was ten. He's also been a fan of anime since he saw something called "Akira" at a Lunacon in 1990 or so...
Shelley Marsh—Rocket scientist by day; cook, knitter, spinner, seamstress, actress, model, singer, and weaver by night. Yes, she sleeps; she just has a messy house.
Max Martelli is a freelance artist and illustrator working in the Boston area. Specializing in both oil and digital painting he has worked on various book and album covers nationally. He is also a professional framer and is currently acting art director for Pell'art Games, a Boston based gaming company in development of their first brand.
B. Diane Martin began reading science fiction at age nine, and later that same year she asked for her first telescope. She has a law degree, is a founder of several companies, and has advised start-ups in software, gaming, holography, and other technology areas. Diane is extremely honored to be a World Fantasy finalist (Special Award--Non-Professional) for her work with Readercon. Diane (a/k/a She Who Must Be Obeyed) lives with her husband, David G. Shaw, and their son Miles (He Who Will Not Be Ignored) in a Somerville, MA, Victorian home filled with books, games, music, anime, and cookware.
Donna Martinez is a freelance artist originally from New Mexico and has been a resident of Boston for 15 years. Donna is also a member of the Boston Comics Roundtable, contributing stories to Inbound, Hellbound, The Greatest Comics Anthology of All Time, and issues #1 and #3 of In A Single Bound. She is presently happily married to fellow Round Table writer/cartoonist Joey Peters.
Milo Martinez is a semi-professional costumer living in Cambridge. His interests include leather working, costuming technology, craftwork (armor, casting, etc), and villainy. An avid maker since childhood, he uses mixed medias and unconventional approaches to solve costuming challenges.
Cody Mattes is a gender non-binary, polyamorous, bisexual, mentally ill, compulsive event planner who uses the pronouns e/em/eir/eirs. E has been on staff for Arisia and the Transcending Boundaries Conference for years, was a founder of the Five College Queer Gender and Sexuality Conference at Hampshire College in Amherst, MA, volunteers for DevOpsDays Boston, and most recently has co-found the Boston Area Trans Tech Enthusiasts Meetup. In eir professional life, e is a Site Reliability Engineer. Most importantly, e has three cats: Ramona, who doesn't know how to play; Linus, a fluffy orange curmudgeon with a derpy eye; and CiCi, a polydactyl bread thief.
Elizabeth McCoy has been an editor and writer for Steve Jackson Games, and has recently branched out into original fiction -- mostly self-published. Her most recent work is "Blackest Before the Dawn," a story about First Contact between alien races, in the What Happens Next anthology published by Furplanet Productions. She has also written a fantasy duology with a romance plot, Herb-Witch and Herb-Wife, and the science fiction Queen of Roses, reviewed in Analog (Sep. 2014). She is working with a layout person for her science fiction. She still lives in the Frozen Wastelands of NH, with a spouse, a kid, and various cats.
Dennis McCunney is a longtime SF fan, and has been helping to run cons like Arisia since the 1970's. For the twelve years he was been a member of Arisia's Hotel Liaison Staff, and for six of those years he edited and designed the Arisia Souvenir Book. He's been involved on one level or another with Arisia, Capclave, Lunacon, Philcon, WorldCon, and World Fantasy, and in the process has come to know a lot of the folks working professionally in SF. When he isn't working on cons he has variously been a graphic designer, iron worker, museum exhibit builder, alternative energy analyst, jr. financial analyst, system/network/telecom administrator, and web journalist and moderator. He currently spends too much time on Google+.
John G. McDaid's fiction has appeared in Asimov's and F&SF. He attended Clarion in 1993 and sold his first story, the Sturgeon Award-winning "Jigoku no mokushiroku," in 1995. A webmaster by day, he lives in Portsmouth, RI where he juggles writing, work, and citizen journalism. For downloads and blog visit http://harddeadlines.com.
Craig R McDonough—Associated with running/helping F/SF conventions in the Boston area for [mumble] years, I've learned the only way to ensure you can actually see the program items you are interested in is to get scheduled onto them. Especially since I seem constitutionally unable to attend a con without volunteering. Professionally a Computing Dinosaur (read: primarily a mainframe developer) for almost as long as I've been working on cons, and lay worship leader in the Episcopal Church (like the Roman Catholic church, but without the incense, and only about 10% of the guilt).
Meg McGinley is a professional geek, in that order. By day, she dons business suits, fights for under privileged children and is an adjunct professor. By night she makes games with her business partners at Games by Play Date that focus on fun and social justice. One of her hobbies is high-fiving strangers. Help a nerd out!
James Meickle's professional life has been almost as weird as him: working on state-level criminal justice and drug policy, studying academic political psychology, building a presidential campaign website, providing web performance expertise to top companies, and most recently improving the reliability of brain scan processing. He currently lives in a poly, kinky, queer home in Somerville where he indulges in hobbies including cooking, event organizing, and crushingly difficult indie roguelikes.
The Comiku Girls, Akiko Meigetsu and Li Izumi, are celebrating their 10-year anniversary attending the convention circuit along the eastern seaboard and beyond. Each has had a pencil (or brush) in their hand since they could hold one, and have been telling stories since they could talk. At conventions, they are artists, cosplayers, and Japanese cultural panelists. In 2004, they debuted their popular Japanese Tea Ceremony Panel, and have continued to create unique panel options in the decade since. Akiko is an artist, working in both digital and traditional media (watercolor and Asian Brushpainting). Li has studied Japanese language and culture for over a decade, including a semester in Akita, Japan. She has a B.A. in East Asian Studies and a Master's degree in Classical Japanese Language and Literature from University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
Michael Meissner—Professionally, I am a computer programmer and I work on enhancing the Gnu compiler collection. As a hobby, I am into digital photography, and I've been the official photographer for some of the small renaissance faires in the area. Around 2010 I started thinking about how to disguise my cameras when at faire. Around the same time, I discovered steampunk, and I have made many variations of steampunk and dieselpunk cameras, incorporating my current digital cameras into my various props.
Daniel Miller is a local attorney, gamer, comics aficionado, and SF/F fan (not necessarily in that order) who keeps coming back to Arisia because he enjoys it. He has been “living this lifestyle” since high school, and lives it in eastern Massachusetts. He has had several articles and op-eds printed in the local Jewish newspaper, some of them even having a bit to do with science fiction, and some of them even getting him paid. He continues to like alternate histories, humorous SF/F, and rollicking good adventures with good worldbuilding, and he continues to follow intellectual property issues in the law, because he actually finds them fun to consider. He once tickled a man in Reno just to watch him laugh, turned the tap dance into his crusade, and is always looking to proselytize the uninitiated into the worlds of assorted geekery. (Or, at least get them to come to a team trivia event. Either way.)
Mark J. Millman is a member of the Salem Zouaves/Salem Trayned Band military re-enactment unit, which portrays citizen militias of the 1630s and the early 1860s, and of the Commonwealth Vintage Dancers, New England's premier vintage-dance company, which performs the social dances of the Federal, Civil War, Gilded Age, Ragtime, and Roaring Twenties eras. Both groups' members make their own historically accurate clothing and study and perform period movement disciplines. He is also the former demonstration co-ordinator and head of historical-combat instruction at the Higgins Armory Museum, and the Steward and a founding member of the Higgins Armory Sword Guild. In addition, he is an experienced fight choreographer, both for the theater and for historical martial-arts demonstrations, and a long-time modern fencer and practitioner of Asian martial arts.
Troy Minkowsky is a published comicbook writer, stand up comedian, and director. The pilot for his webseries "Superlife" can be viewed on Youtube. He is currently working on the short film "The Garden"
Don Mitchell is an avid video game and tabletop game player. While his day job is programming websites and iOS apps, at night he designs tabletop games as part of the tabletop game company he also runs (Eye4Games). Additionally, he currently runs the Game Makers Guild and assists with running MegaGames United. At other times, you can find him performing improv as part of an indie team.
I'm a frequent writer for Anime Maru, aka "The Onion, but Anime" or "That Crappy Anime Satire Site That Constantly Makes Me Feel Bad About My Choice in Waifu". I feel like this should be longer but I really don't have much more to say. Was this even suppose to be in first person? I guess it's too late now. If you want to keep up with my hipster anime jokes, head over to Anime Maru and check out my twitter @TheMorlock where I hardly post anything. Or you can head over to my small YouTube Channel, Japanophile, which I use slightly more than my twitter.
Sarah "Tashari" Morrison is an aspiring fantasy and children's book illustrator, currently building up her portfolio. In her "spare time" she sews gowns with hoop skirts. Find her work at Tashari.Org.
Portrait of Lee Moyer in 4 decades - 1: Starving Artist 2: Smithsonian Museum of Natural History 3: Art Director for EA, Hasbro, Sony, Fox 4: Illustrator for Stephens King & Sondheim, George RR Martin, Tori Amos, Iain M Banks, et al. The Call of Cthulhu, Spiderman 2, 13th Age and The Doom That Came to Atlantic City, a Trio of Literary Pin-Up Calendars. There's a cunning plan forming, so if you’d like to see more Literary Pin-Ups, please let him know. www.leemoyer.com @lccmoyer
Murder Ballads consists of longtime musicians Catt Kingsgrave and Adam Fromm. The duo released its first album, Pretty in Scarlet, in 2014 following a successful crowdfunding campaign and repeated three-hour commute between their homes, and recently appeared as the Music Guests of Honor at Philcon 2015.
Maddy Myers is an Editor at The Mary Sue. She previously has worked for Paste Magazine and the Boston Phoenix. Her writing has also appeared in Offworld, iMore, Kill Screen, re/Action, Gameranx, The Border House, Slice of MIT and MIT Technology Review. She plays the keytar and sings in a nerdcore pop rock band called the Robot Knights.
Thomas Nackid—I am a graphic designer and illustrator who lives in Bethel, Connecticut. Over the years I have created illustrations and layout design for various publishers including Terrific Science Press, Scholastic Books, Sumner Communications, Firewheel Editions, Cynterpubs Information Resources and the cover art for the Mundania Press's re-release of the best-selling Bad-Ass Fairies anthology series. Now I am the owner and operator of Geeks Bearing Gifts (http://GeeksBearingGiftsTNA.etsy.com) a shop that specializes in artistic, high quality, handmade jewelry and artwork for geeks, nerds, braniacs and those who love them! (Stop by the booth in the dealers room.)
Emily Nagoski is the author of New York Times bestseller (Simon & Schuster, 2015). She has a Ph.D. in Health Behavior with a doctoral concentration in human sexuality from Indiana University (IU), and a Master’s degree (also from IU) in Counseling, with a clinical internship at the Kinsey Institute Sexual Health Clinic. She also has a B.A. in Psychology, with minors in cognitive science and philosophy, from the University of Delaware. While at IU, Emily taught graduate and undergraduate classes in human sexuality, relationships and communication, stress management, and sex education. A sex nerd among sex nerds, Emily has the lowest Erdős number of any sex educator in the world. She lives in western Massachusetts with two dogs, two cats, and a cartoonist.
Resa Nelson is the author of the Dragonslayer series, a 4-book epic fantasy series with a female hero. The Dragonslayer's Sword (Book 1) was Nominated for the Nebula Award and was an EPPIE Award Finalist for Best Fantasy Novel. She is currently at work on the 4-book Dragonfly series, a follow-up to the Dragonslayer series. The first two Dragonfly books are in print, and the third has an anticipated publication date in March. Nelson's standalone novels are Our Lady of the Absolute and All Of Us Were Sophie. Her short fiction has been published in Fantasy Magazine, Paradox, Brutarian Quarterly, Science Fiction Age, Aboriginal SF, and many anthologies. Nelson is a graduate of the Clarion Workshop. She has also sold over 200 magazine articles. She was the TV/movie columnist for Realms of Fantasy for 13 years. Get a free ebook at her website at http://www.resanelson.com and follow her on Twitter @ResaNelson..
Kate Nepveu (pronounced "NEHV-you", the "p" is silent) is a reader, fan, and reviewer. She was born in South Korea, grew up in Massachusetts, and now lives in upstate New York. There, she practices law and is raising a family; in her copious free time, she writes (for her blog, kate-nepveu.dreamwidth.org, her booklog, steelypips.org/weblog/, and Tor.com, where she recently re-read Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell) and runs Con or Bust, which helps fans of color/non-white fans attend SFF cons. She's got an overdeveloped sense of responsibility; it's going to get her into trouble some day.
The legendary Alex Newman was raised on a parallel Earth where his plane crashed in the Himalayas -- er, the parallel Himalayas. Not ours. There he was taught the secret of clouding men's minds by monks. Parallel monks. Stop laughing. He fought crime for many years until a group of his arch enemies (can you have a "group" of arch enemies?) banded together in a sinister plot to bounce him into a parallel universe. That is, parallel to that one, which they thought of as the real universe but which you think of as a parallel universe. Unless you're also from there, in which case you think of this one as the parallel... Oh, screw it. Alex Newman is the founder of The Boston BeauTease (www.BostonBeauTease.com), a former comic book writer and capo comico of i Sebastiani (the Greatest commedia dell'arte troupe on Earth), gamer and LARP author (he was one of the play-testers for Advanced Dungeons and Dragons). He has been involved in Arisia in various aspects for many years.
Benjamin Newman has been filking since his college friends dragged him to his first convention his freshman year at Swarthmore. Since then, he has written over 200 songs on a wide range of topics, including SF and fantasy, science, computers, and religion, both singly and in various whimsical juxtapositions. Ben has also organized filk programming for Philcon, ConCertino, and Pi-con.
Joshua Newman A.C. Newman is the publisher of the literary SF roleplaying games, Shock:Social Science Fiction and Shock:Human Contact, as well as Mobile Frame Zero, the tabletop wargame of tiny giant LEGO robots. He is an avid proponent of independent media, and produces his own Patreon-funded speculative fiction on his blog, 'xenoglyph', visible at glyphpress.com.
Essentially self-taught artist making mostly relief block prints, primarily self-published author writing mostly juvenile mostly fantasy, former middle school teacher still making classroom guest visits whenever possible, current stay-at-home mother, and negligent housekeeper, Anne Nydam has been creating fantasy worlds since childhood and continues to bring wide-ranging curiosity to the work of art, writing, teaching, and mothering.
Elizabeth O'Malley is part of FanCons.com/AnimeCons.com, the leading web site dedicated to news and information about conventions, contributing to both their website and weekly podcast, AnimeCons TV. She is also the past Vice President of the Northern Lights chapter of the International Costumers Guild.
A.J. Odasso's poetry has appeared in a number of strange and wonderful publications, including Sybil’s Garage, Mythic Delirium, Jabberwocky, Cabinet des Fées, Midnight Echo, Not One of Us, Dreams & Nightmares, Goblin Fruit, Strange Horizons, Stone Telling, Farrago’s Wainscot, Through the Gate, Liminality, inkscrawl, and Battersea Review (just to name a few). Her début collection, Lost Books (Flipped Eye Publishing, 2010), was nominated for the 2010 London New Poetry Award and for the 2011 Forward Prize, and was also a finalist for the 2011 People’s Book Prize. Her second collection with Flipped Eye, The Dishonesty of Dreams, was released in August of 2014. Her two chapbooks, Devil’s Road Down and Wanderlust, are available from Maverick Duck Press. She holds degrees from Wellesley College and the University of York (UK), and she is currently a 2015 – 2016 Creative Writing MFA (Poetry) candidate at Boston University. She also serves as Senior Poetry Co-Editor at Strange Horizons magazine.
Jennifer Old-d'Entremont is an hobbyist costumer with a taste for recreating both sci-fi/fantasy characters as well as historical and ethnic dress. While work as a medical lab technologist pays the bills, she finds that it's the fannish endeavors that make life interesting. She's never read the instruction manual that came with the sewing machine and can't make herself follow the instructions of a pattern to save her life. Her soap box is empowering creative expression through costuming regardless of perceived limitations, as well as making the hobby accessible to all. She is a chronic organizer and often finds herself involved with conventions in roles ranging from walk-on volunteer to sector director and most stages in between. She is on her third year of managing the costuming track here at Arisia. Jennifer lives in Kansas City with her spousal unit and an assortment of furry, four-legged children.
Daniel José Older is the author of the Bone Street Rumba urban fantasy series from Penguin’s Roc Books and the Young Adult novel Shadowshaper (Scholastic’s Arthur A. Levine Books, 2015), which was nominated for the Kirkus Prize in Young Readers’ Literature. Publishers Weekly hailed him as a “rising star of the genre” after the publication of his debut ghost noir collection, Salsa Nocturna. He co-edited the Locus and World Fantasy nominated anthology Long Hidden: Speculative Fiction from the Margins of History. His short stories and essays have appeared in the Guardian, NPR, Tor.com, Salon, BuzzFeed, Fireside Fiction, the New Haven Review, PANK, Apex and Strange Horizons and the anthologies Subversion and Mothership: Tales Of Afrofuturism And Beyond. Daniel has been a teaching artist for more than ten years. You can find his thoughts on writing, read dispatches from his decade-long career as an NYC paramedic and hear his music at ghoststar.net/, on youtube and @djolder on twitter.
David Olsen is an all-around geek who will happily talk your ear off about stories and games. As such, he fell in love with RPGs upon receiving the Dungeons & Dragons red box for Christmas at the age of nine. Since then, he's campaigned in dozens of worlds and systems, including GMing a few LARPs over the past 15 years. He's done game testing for various independent companies, including Firehose Games and Choice Of Games and even voice acting work for Reactive Studios. You can catch him as a background actor in various feature films or as the fourth season winner of "Beauty and the Geek."
Ken Olum is a research professor in the Tufts Institute of Cosmology, where he studies cosmic strings, the possibility of time travel in general relativity, and philosophical issues in cosmology. He lives in Sharon, MA with his partners, Valerie White and Judy Anderson, and his children, Jocelyn and Perry.
What if you could re-live the experience of reading a book or watching a show for the first time? Mark Oshiro provides just such a thing on a daily basis on Mark Reads and Mark Watches, where he chronicles his unspoiled journey through various series. Since 2009, Mark has been subjecting himself to the emotional journey that one takes when they enter a fictional world for the first time. He mixes textual analysis, confessional blogging, and humor to analyze fiction. All of this earned Mark a Hugo nomination in the Fan Writer category in 2013 and 2014, and he has no plans on stopping. Somehow, he's written the first book in a YA trilogy set in a pre-dystopian world, and he's still determined to fulfill a lifelong goal in the process: to pet every dog ever.
Jim Paradis is a Certified Picture Framer and owner of Baldwin Hill Art & Framing in Natick, MA. His wife, Tamu, is an artist who has exhibited at many conventions including Arisia and Boskone; Jim did most of the framing for those shows. After working the art show for Noreascon 4, he decided that he would like to make picture framing a career. He has since framed a wide variety of art and objects including sports jerseys, archaelogical artifacts, surgical instruments, and Vise-Grips just to name a few. His gallery is also the current representative of the fine art works of Richard M. Powers.
Jennifer Pelland is a Boston-area bellydancer and occasional radio theater performer, and a former science fiction writer. She dances at venues as varied as the Athenian Corner Restaurant, the Watch City Steampunk Festival, and this convention. As a writer, she was a a two-time Nebula finalist for her short fiction, and her collection Unwelcome Bodies and novel Machine were published by Apex Publications. She has also written essays for the Hugo nominated books Chicks Unravel Time and Queers Dig Time Lords. You can find her online at www.jenniferpelland.com and www.tassellations.com/zia
Kris Pelletier is a mechanical engineer who got into college with an essay about how she wanted to be B'Elanna Torres growing up and now designs military equipment - not quite a starship, but we're working on it. Her fandom experience spans the gamut from skulking around on Livejournal, attending/volunteering at cons, and being a lead staff member and editor for a multi-fandom podcast. She loves to work with kids, especially when it comes to fostering an appreciation for the STEM disciplines (which is convenient, since she's the A'16 Division Head for Youth Services).
As Misty Pendragon, Gayle Blake is a published writer, editor, and jewelry maker. Currently she writes for the website, www.goodtobeageek, and runs a horror podcast, Scream Sisters women who lovehorror.https://m.facebook.com/screamsisterspodcast. She has been doing panels at cons for too many years now, and you would find her on pretty much every Joss Whedon Favorite quote is, "We have done the impossible, and that makes us mighty," by Joss Whedon.
A longtime GM, participating and running games since 1978, including long-running games, Percival has worked with many table-top and LARP systems over the years. On the cutting edge of computer research, he has been involved with the development of computers from the old Mainframe days through the micro-embedded systems of today. He is also a longtime presenter and kinkster; practicing for almost 40 years and teaching for almost a quarter century, both nationally and internationally. He is involved in the local BDSM group NELA (http://www.nelaonline.org) as Program and Education Director. Want to learn more? Ask him.
A Disney obsessed, Harry Potter loving, sassy feminist, Melissa Perreira-Andrews hails from the North Shore where is she a cog in the corporate machine. She is a member of the Teseracte Players of Boston (her found family), playing multiple roles in a variety of productions. In addition to shadow casting, Melissa volunteers for a leadership conference for high school girls where she teaches a week long course on feminism and the portrayal of women in various forms of media. Catch her craft fails, cooking triumphs, and feminist musings at http://cupcakesandcrossbows.blogspot.com
Israel Peskowitz (Izzy) is a professional photographer, proficient plumber, a novice community activist, and amateur fan.
Joey Peters is a writer, cartoonist and beauty contest champion from Boston. His work has appeared in "In a Single Bound", the Boston Phoenix, Leftovers of the Living Dead, Inbound: Comics from Boston and all across the internet. Visit his website at tacolicious.net
Julia Pilowsky—Jules is an evolutionary biologist, speculative fiction reader and writer, and purveyor of bizarre fanfictions. Her favorite books include The Dispossessed, His Dark Materials, and Animorphs.
Winner of the 2015 Literature out of Space Award for Comedic Fantasy, KT not only writes about vampyres, mutants, witches, merfolk, werebeasts, deities, courtesans, criminals, and pop stars (sometimes all in the same story), but she also writes a blog called KT Pinto's Naughty Thoughts, is an editor for cPf Publishing, and is a reviewer/reporter for Nth Degree Magazine. For more information and some Naughty Thoughts, go to www.ktpinto.com
Summer Plum—Cooks a good meal, chronic illness & pain advocate, professional patient, lover of stories & soft critters, strong minded redhead.
Dr. James Prego is a naturopathic doctor from Long Island, NY. Dr. Prego is a past recipient of the NYANP's Physician of the Year award. He is an adjunct professor of Biology at Molly College and Touro College School of Health Sciences. Dr. Prego is a longtime fan of science fiction and enjoys discussing xenobiology, health in space, life extension, fusions of biology and technology, how natural ways of healing fit in a sci-fi/high-tech world, and many other topics both science related and non-science related. He is the New York Delegate to the American Association of Naturopathic Physicians, and spent 6 years as a board member of the New York Association of Naturopathic Physicians. Dr. Prego has given talks, written articles, and been a guest on radio and television shows, discussing naturopathic medicine, children's health, detoxification, and other health-related topics. He also has interests in acting/shadowcasting, EMT volunteering, gaming, and more.
Antonia Pugliese is a girl of many talents. She once went for 125 days of school wearing a different costume each day and never repeating. She has costumed several productions for the Harvard-Radcliffe Gilbert & Sullivan Players and other theater groups, demonstrates 18th smallsword with the Higgins Museum Sword Guild, and teaches vintage dance and performs with the Commonwealth Vintage Dancers.
Barbara M Pugliese is a historian of both clothing and dance. She is Artistic Director of the Commonwealth Vintage Dancers. She teaches historical dance in the Boston area and has been invited to teach in England, Austria and Denmark.
Julia Pugliese is a part-time superhero and a part-time magical girl.
Most commonly known in fandom and elsewhere as Dr. Karen, Karen Purcell DVM has been active in veterinary medicine since her early teens. Sometime during her unending college years, she went to her first convention and her spare time became non-existent. Busy in past years with Masquerade, Costuming, and the Art Show. Despite only a few months in Raleigh, NC, she has already met the local Honor Harrington fan club and attended their convention, as well as helping out with Balticon. This year she is helping out in programming. Despite moving 'far foreign', she will be back helping out the Arisia Masquerade this year.
Tori Queeno is the founder and President of the Boston Whovians, a Boston-based Doctor Who fangroup boasting over 1,600 members that hosts meetups and photoshoots around the New England area. Tori is a recently-college-graduated "real adult" aspiring to write and costume for a living. In the meantime, Tori sells books and works frantically to make the Boston Whovians an entity of somewhat-organized chaos with love and support from a Tenth Doctor/Boyfriend and cats.
Richard Ralston has been a fan of science fiction and anime since the late 60's. Rick has been staffing conventions the past 15 years on the local and regional level. Rick is also the organizer of the local anime group in Albany, NY. Rick brings a unique point of view to the fandom community.
Nalin A. Ratnayake is a former NASA propulsion engineer turned science teacher and fiction writer. He holds a B.S.E. and M.S. in Aerospace Engineering and has published 11 peer-reviewed papers on supersonic airbreathing propulsion, environmentally responsible aviation technologies, and advanced access-to-space systems. Nalin also holds an M.Ed. and currently teaches Physics at an urban public high school in Boston. He is triple-licensed as an educator: in Physics, English as a Second Language / Sheltered English Immersion, and Teaching Students with Moderate Learning Disabilities. Nalin writes fiction as N.A. Ratnayake. His stories have appeared in Crossed Genres Magazine as well as the post-colonial SF anthology We See A Different Frontier. His new sci-fi political thriller, RED SOIL THROUGH OUR FINGERS, explores wealth disparity and worker exploitation in a future of corporate-controlled space colonization.
Victor Raymond PhD is a longtime SF&F reader and fan, and currently serves as a board member of the Carl Brandon Society and the Tekumel Foundation. In the past, he has served as President of the Interstitial Arts Foundation, Chair of WisCon 28, Co-Chair of WisCon 33, and Executive Committee member of Minicon 28 and 33. A professional sociologist, he is a member of the Arts & Sciences faculty of Madison College in Madison, Wisconsin.
Suzanne Reynolds-Alpert writes science fiction, dark fantasy, horror, and the occasional poem from her little corner of Massachusetts. Her poetry has been published in Tales of the Zombie War, Strong Verse, The Wayfarer: A journal of Contemplative Literature and Eternal Haunted Summer. Her short fiction has appeared in Luna Station Quarterly and the anthology The Deep Dark Woods (2015). Suzanne's first chapbook of poetry, Interview with the Faerie (Part One): and Other Poems of Darkness and Light was published in 2013. A life-long scifi and science geek with degrees in communication and sociology, Suzanne is currently writing a dark fantasy novel, and has several short stories at various stages of completeness. She's blessed with a tolerant husband, two mischievous black cats, and two amazing kids. Find her online: http://suzannereynoldsalpert.com/.
Mark W. Richards—A fan, sometime smof, and kinkster, I got started early, reading SF and fantasy as soon as I could reach the bookshelf (which admittedly wasn't very high). I started going to cons as soon as I was able to after hearing of them (1978), and way too soon I found myself working on them as well. Some years later (early 90s), I discovered kinkdom, both by itself and where it crossed over with fandom. I've been on committees and worked for both conventions and kink events, as well as served on the boards of organizations in both milieus. My latest project is chairing Lunacon later this year. I'm equally comfortable discussing literary science fiction and fantasy, the classics of the field, fanzines, kink activism, and sexual politics... preferably over a couple of pints or some good single malt. Doing it in front of an audience, starting at Arisia 2014, has been an interesting experience which I'm looking forward to repeating.
Julia Rios is a writer, editor, podcaster, and narrator. She was a fiction editor at Strange Horizons from 2012-2015 and is co-editor with Alisa Krasnostein of Kaleidoscope: Diverse YA Science Fiction and Fantasy Stories and the Year's Best YA Speculative Fiction series. Her fiction, articles, interviews, and poems have appeared in Daily Science Fiction, Apex Magazine, Stone Telling, Goblin Fruit, and several other places. She's half-Mexican, but her (fairly dreadful) French is better than her Spanish.
Santiago Rivas is currently celebrating over 30 years as a sci-fi enthusiast, ever since his exposure to works like Tron, Empire Strikes Back, and Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. However, it was his time at MIT that he became an avid film, theatre, and gamer geek. He has been involved with the Theatre@First acting troupe for over ten years and the Heinlein Society Naughty Nurses for six years. In his copious spare time, when he's not blogging, acting, writing short stories, writing one-act plays involving lightsabers, spending time with his Fabulous Redheaded wife, raising their advanced male prototype, and going out with hot Goths, he takes every opportunity to indulge in RPGs, Steve Jackson/Rio Grande games, and anything related to Star Wars, Star Trek, Doctor Who or Final Fantasy.
Phoebe Roberts is the theater artist and dramatic writer who created the Mrs. Hawking shows, a dramatic series of steampunk superhero stories that answer the question, "What if Sherlock Holmes were a lady Batman?" More information can be found on the project website, www.mrshawking.com. Roberts's other work in theater and writing can be found at her personal site, www.phoeberoberts.com.
Nicole Robinson has been awarded the title of Mega Awesome Super Mom by a group of local burners. While mothering three fabulous young people, she provides incredible massage therapy services, bakes and cooks divinely, preserves the local harvest, dances, hula hoops, sings like an angel, sews, reads an abundant amount of sci-fi, fantasy, and cooking books, and has even won a fake beard contest. Nicole is happily married to the equally awesome Forest Handford, winner of the Mr. BeardFly contest and in the running for the Best Dad Ever award.
Noel Rosenberg has been running conventions for more years than not. He has worked on several major regionals, including Philcon and Balticon, as well as Gaylaxicon, several gaming conventions, and a couple of Worldcons. Arisia is his home convention. Proving he has no friends, he has worked on every Arisia since '91, filled almost every division head position at least once, held several officer positions in Arisia Corporate, and in a past life was the Conchair. He has also chaired the Corporate Hotel Search Committee, and has negotiated hotel contracts for a few conventions.
A Joseph Ross has been in fandom since the 1960's. In 1964, he founded the University of Massachusetts (Amherst) Science Fiction Society, then later became a member of MITSFS and NESFA, serving as Vice President of NESFA from 1970-72. He edited Volume I of the NESFA Hymnal in the late 1970's. He was Clerk of Arisia, Incorporated from 1990-92 and President from 1992-94. He is a practicing attorney and figures that if he practices long enough, he may get good at it.
Lauren M. Roy started out as an independent bookseller, moved on to work for a publisher (where she sells books to independent bookstores), and is completing her bookselling hat trick as an author. She is also a freelance writer for tabletop role-playing games. Lauren lives in southeastern Massachusetts with her husband, their cats, and the ghosts of houseplants she forgets to water. She is a graduate of Viable Paradise, the science fiction and fantasy writers’ workshop. She's the author of the NIGHT OWLS urban fantasy series and the YA fantasy THE FIRE CHILDREN.
Beth Runnerwolf is a Methodist Shaman, Conrunner, Filker, Communications Educator, Systemic Constellations facilitator, Gamer (paper and dice), and Educator.
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, brought ghosts to life, and beaten the "Cold Equations" scenario. In 2009, Don took up the position of book reviewer for Analog Science Fiction & Fact, where he writes the "Reference Library" column in every issue.
Kiini Ibura Salaam is an award-winning writer, painter, and traveler from New Orleans, Louisiana. Kiini's work is rooted in eroticism, speculative events, and women's perspectives. Her short story collection Ancient, Ancient was co-winner of the 2012 James Tiptree Jr. Award. Her sensual tales of the fantastic, the dark, and the magical have been anthologized in such collections as Dark Matter, Mojo: Conjure Stories, and Dark Eros. Her nonfiction has been published in Ms. Magazine, Essence magazine, and Utne Reader. She's the author of three ebooks (The Notes from the Trenches series) that chronicle the ups and downs of the writing life. Her second collection of short stories--When the World Wounds--is forthcoming from Third Man Books in 2016. You can learn more about her at www.kiiniibura.com.
Liz Salazar is Managing Director of the Post-Meridian Radio Players (www.pmrp.org), a community theater company that performs live audio dramas in Somerville, MA. She has acted with PMRP at Arisia in the last few years, most recently as Khan in the 2015 gender-swapped Star Trek performance of "Space Seed". Liz also talks too much about geeky things as 1/4 of the the "Foxes in the Hen House" podcast (www.soundcloud.com/foxesinthehenhouse). She indulges her geeky and creative urges in a thousand other ways, including writing, roleplaying games, and chainmail.
The Salem Light Infantry, an elite militia company from Salem, Massachusetts, adopted Zouave dress and drill, following the example of Elmer Ellsworth's U.S. Zouave Cadets, in April, 1861. Like the original unit, the reconstructed Salem Zouaves specialize in historically accurate Civil War-era precision manual-of-arms drill and the use of the bayonet, and add military swordplay to their repertoire. They wear historically accurate reproduction uniforms, made mostly by the individual unit members. Their other incarnation is as the Salem Trayned Band.
Carol Salemi costumes at the Master level and has been involved in all aspects of costuming for over 36 years, trying her hand at everything from creating, teaching 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/cosplay and Native American clothing, her most recent work can be seen on "My Big Fat American Gypsy Wedding". Carol has enjoyed working as a medical massage therapist for over 29 years, also working part time for Regal Cinemas, and Sondra Celli Designs with seasonal jobs in the Haunt Industry. She likes creating Steampunk accessories and fashion...so check out her jewelry in the art show!
Caelyn Sandel is an author and narrative designer born and raised in the DC area who now lives in Malden in spite of the weather and drivers. She has been writing interactive literature for almost two decades, but only joined the industry professionally four and a half years ago. She is a strident intersectional feminist and social justice warrior, and strongly advocates using video games to raise awareness of societal issues. She recently ran the Ruin Jam game jam to celebrate the destruction of all good video games forever, and launched her video game website, inurashii.xyz.
John Scalzi is the author of many books, including the Old Man’s War series and Redshirts. When he is not busy writing books, he was a Creative Consultant for the Stargate: Universe television series. Writer for the video game Midnight Star, by Industrial Toys. Former president (7/10 – 6/13) of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SWFA). Executive Producer and Consultant for Redshirts, Ghost Brigades and Lock In, all currently in development for television. His website is http://whatever.scalzi.com/.
Isabel Schechter has been a fan since childhood and active in fandom for 20 years. Isabel has more than 10 years conrunning experience, and is co-chair for the San Juan in 2017 bid for the North American Science Fiction Convention. Isabel’s essays on fandom as well as race and representation and religion in SF have been included in WisCon Chronicles and Invisible 2: Personal Essays on Representation in SF/F. For her day job, Isabel has worked as an event manager for nearly 20 years. Isabel has a master's degree in Divinity from the University of Chicago Divinity School. She is Latina by birth, Jewish by choice, vegetarian by conscience, and uppity by necessity.
Dori Schendell—I’ve been telling stories to anyone who would listen since I started to talk. As years have gone on my stories have changed. Now I tell stories in two main ways. I write and post adult fiction as a hobby, and I write Nexus Elements for people to interact with and enjoy. The world of Nexus Elements has been one in my head since I was in high school cough years ago. Now I get to see that world come to life in the LARPs that I run!
Kevin Schendell—I've been attending Arisia for the last six years, and have been taking part in LARPing at Arisia for most of that time. This year, because of difficulties we had, I came to Arisia as the representative of the LARPs in the New England Area, and will continue representing LARP at Arisia as the LARP Area Head.
Micah Schneider joined the Programming Staff for Arisia six years ago. This is his first year as the Programming Division Head. He was previously a co-chair for Transcending Boundaries 2014, a regional GLBTQ conference. Micah completed his Masters degree in history and public history from UMass Amherst in 2011, and works as a middle school math tutor. In his free time, Micah enjoys running, highpointing, all kinds of gaming, and being polyamorous as often as possible. He lives in Western Massachusetts with his family of choice and a small coterie of animal companions. If you enjoyed the panel programming this weekend, Micah thanks you on behalf of the entire staff. If you didn't, it was probably someone else's fault.
Kenneth ("Ken") Schneyer received a Nebula nomination for his story, "Selected Program Notes from the Retrospective Exhibition of Theresa Rosenberg Latimer." In 2014, Stillpoint Digital Press released his first collection, The Law & the Heart. His stories, which often employ weird narrative devices, appear in Lightspeed, Analog, Strange Horizons, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Uncanny, Clockwork Phoenix 3 & 4, Daily Science Fiction, all three of the Escape Artists podcasts, and elsewhere. By day, he teaches legal studies and science fiction literature to college students, and has published articles on the constitutive rhetoric of legal texts. Born in Detroit, he now lives in Rhode Island with one spouse, two children, and something with fangs. You can find him on Twitter, on Facebook, and at http://ken-schneyer.livejournal.com.
Lawrence M. Schoen has been nominated for the Campbell, Hugo, and Nebula awards. He holds a Ph.D. in cognitive psychology and psycholinguistics, is a world authority on the Klingon language, operates the small press Paper Golem, is a certified hypnotherapist specializing in authors’ issues, and writes science fiction and fantasy about life, death, and the continua between the two. His latest book ( just released at the end of 2015) is BARSK: THE ELEPHANTS' GRAVEYARD, an anthropomorphic SF novel about Prophecy, Friendship, Intolerance, Conspiracy, Loyalty, and A Drug for Speaking to the Dead. Also Elephants, in Space.
Meredith Schwartz's short fiction appeared in Strange Horizons, Reflection's Edge, and Sleeping Beauty, Indeed. She edited Alleys & Doorways, an anthology of homoerotic urban fantasy. She has committed both screen writing and conrunning, but she is much better now. In her day job she edits a magazine about libraries, but she is here speaking only for herself.
Jude Shabry (aka peacefrog) found Arisia in 1994 and hasn't been able to stay away since. She has attended as an artist, vendor, party host, techie, panelist, yoga teacher, climbing guide, bride, mama, and more.
David G. Shaw was a World Fantasy Award finalist (Special Award--Non-Professional) for 2009, for his two decades of work with Readercon. In his non-Readercon life he has managed to change careers from research biochemist, to founder of Belm Design (a graphic and web design company), to CTO of Blopboard, a social media startup. Somehow he found the time to marry She Who Must Be Obeyed (B. Diane Martin) and have a son, He Who Will Not Be Ignored (Miles). His scientific research has been published in various academic journals, while his articles about interactive gaming have appeared in The Whole Earth Review and the proceedings of the Computer Game Developer's Conference. In his spare time he cooks and blogs (blog.belm.com) about cooking. He lives and works in Somerville, MA.
Nicholas "phi" Shectman has twice each chaired Arisia and Somerville Open Studios, whose 400 participating artists make it one of the largest single weekend Open Studios events in the country.
Christopher Sheldon-Dante—I'm a huge fan of tabletop and digital games and I am the co-creator of the upcoming video game Descendants: Voidborne. I have played hundreds of video games, dozens of board games, watched dozens of TV series, read dozens of books and I'm opinionated about everything. I'm always up for a good discussion and I'm particularly interested in: game design, cognition, education, artificial intelligence, physics, math and food. Some things I've enjoyed; A Deepness within the Sky, Ender's Game, Cryptonomicon, Star Trek TNG, Stargate SG1, Dominion, Master of Magic, Master of Orion II and Portal.
Cynthia A Shettle-Meleedy—My favorite shows currently airing are Galavant, Once Upon a Time, and Heroes Reborn. Past favorites include The Misfits of Science, Highlander, Angel, and Heroes. While I enjoy roleplaying, I have not been in a group for a while. I also read, mostly comics, though I listen to science fiction and fantasy audiobooks.
Hildy Silverman is the publisher of Space and Time, a nearly 50-year-old magazine featuring fantasy, horror, and science fiction. She is also the author of several works of short fiction, including "The Vampire Escalator of the Passaic Promenade" (2010, New Blood, Thomas, ed.), "The Darren" (2009, Witch Way to the Mall?, Friesner, ed), "Sappy Meals" (2010, Fangs for the Mammaries, Friesner, ed), "Black Market Magic" (2012, Apocalypse 13, Raetz, ed.), and "The Bionic Mermaid Returns (2014, With Great Power, French, ed.). In 2013, she was a finalist for the WSFA Small Press Award for her story, "The Six Million Dollar Mermaid" (Mermaids 13, French, ed). In the "real" world, she is a Digital Marketing Communications Specialist at Sivantos, Inc.
Emily Simon is thrilled to be returning to Arisia which was her first ever convention in 2014! Since joining the northeast convention circuit, she has won 9 awards for cosplay, been featured in cosplay articles, and led children's events at multiple conventions. When not in princess attire, Emily teaches drama for 8th grade students in Newton. She also specializes with young kids Pre-K through 2nd grade. She is thrilled to be bringing back her "Princess Play Date" event for all the young people at Arisia and is excited for an incredible weekend of learning, shadow casts, events, and films.
Hannah Simpson—Unabashed nerd, Red Sox fan, engineering grad, swing dancer, medical student, marathoner, and generally bubbly young Jewish girl who speaks out transgender issues. She lived here in Boston for eight years attending BU and working for Brandeis, before starting medical school. You may have caught her as a guest panelist discussing life as a transgender woman on MSNBC's Melissa Harris-Perry show or Fox's Good Day New York. Her writing has appeared on Refinery29, the Advocate, and MarieClaire.com, among others.
Jamila Sisco is an award-winning costumer with a specialization in anime, video game, and original costumes. She has worked on costumes for over 9 years, usually working on making the big and elaborate come to life. Currently, she is the President of the Northern Lights chapter of the International Costumers' Guild.
Rebecca Slitt is the author of Psy High and an editor for Choice of Games, LLC, a company that produces text-based interactive fiction. Before that, she was a professor of medieval history. She's played D&D for almost 25 years, LARPed for almost 20, read mountains of SF and fantasy books, and written Call of Cthulhu games that may or may not suggest that there's a Deep One living near her college dorm.
Sarah Smith's first YA, The Other Side of Dark (ghosts, interracial romance, and a secret from slavery times) won the Agatha (for best mystery) and the Massachusetts Book Award. She has also written Chasing Shakespeares, The Vanished Child and The Knowledge of Water (both New York Times Notable Books), A Citizen of the Country, and horror, SF, and hypertext short stories. "The Boys Go Fishing" appears in NY Times best-selling Death's Excellent Vacation (ed. Charlaine Harris and Toni Kelner). Two of her books are being made into plays. She Finally Finished the F*'ing Titanic book, and all the Reisden/Perdita books are now going to be published as ebooks as well (about time).
Kris “Nchanter” Snyder stumbled sideways into fandom in her early 20’s for lack of anything else to keep her out of trouble. With a background in theater, the visual arts, and a love for SF/F books and media fostered by her father from a young age, it soon became obvious that this was where she, and her colorful curls, belonged. Nchanter now helps make fandom go by working on convention-related activities and is the Convention Chair for Arisia 2016!
Danielle Souza is a Boston native who started her costuming education at Fisher College and continued on to Academy of Art University in San Francisco, CA. Danielle currently works as a costumer in the film industry and has worked on films such as The Devils Carnival, Harbinger Down, and The Devils Carnival: Alleluia!
Michael Sprague is the Assistant Division Head of Staff Services for Arisia 2016. He has been in senior leadership roles at Arisia for he past several years, including being Con Chair for Arisia 2015. That was fun. He's been reading SF/F since he was the size of a Jawa and has been involved with Arisia since before he could purchase alcohol legally. In addition to running conventions you can also find him performing in productions for the Post-Meridian Radio Players. Despite being a local to the Boston area, his driving really isn't that bad. He likes long walks on the beach, Norse mythology, and gaming.
Gabriel Squailia is a novelist and DJ from Rochester, New York. With the Friends World Program, a college emphasizing experiential education and social change, he studied storytelling and literature in India, Europe, and the Middle East. He settled in the Berkshires of western Massachusetts, where he lives with his wife and daughter. His first novel, Dead Boys, was published by Talos Press in 2015.
Lizzie Stark is a freelance journalist who has written for the Washington Post, io9.com, the Daily Beast, and elsewhere. She is the author of two books: Leaving Mundania, a narrative nonfiction account of larp--live action roleplay--and Pandora's DNA, about the history and science of the breast cancer genes. She's edited two books of games, Larps from the Factory, a collection of Norwegian larp scripts, and #Feminisim, an international collection of feminist nano-games due out this spring. In her spare time, Lizzie designs American freeform games and blogs about larp and game theory at LeavingMundania.com.
Lisa J. Steele is an attorney in Massachusetts and Connecticut. She is a member of the Supreme Judicial Court's Standing Committee on Eyewitness Identification and of the Connecticut Judiciary Committee's Eyewitness Identification Task Force. She has spoken at numerous forensics and attorney conferences about forensics issues. She is also a contributor to Evil Hat's BubbleGumShoe (forthcoming 2016), Fate Core: Worlds in Shadow (2013), and author of GURPS Mysteries (2008) and GURPS Cops (2002).
Stranger Ways formed in 2010 as a backing band for a party and accidentally continued to this day, releasing two albums along the way. Currently, the group consists of Nat Budin, Kara Hurvitz, Jon Sagotsky, Brad Smith, and Alexandria Wilkie. Stranger Ways is currently in the process of completing its epic folk-rock opera Iron & Rust.
Ian Randal Strock is the publisher and owner of Fantastic Books (www.FantasticBooks.biz), which publishes new and reprint SF in both print and electronic editions. Random House published his first book, The Presidential Book of Lists, in 2008, and his short fiction has appeared in Nature and Analog (from which he won two AnLabs). Previous publishing positions have included stints at Analog, Asimov's, Science Fiction Chronicle, Baen Books, The Daily Free Press, and more. Outside of SF, he's been a tour guide at Niagara Falls, worked on Wall Street and at several start-up companies, and started four businesses himself. His name is unique on the internet.
Dr. Kit Stubbs is a queer/pansexual roboticist, maker, and entrepreneur who's more interested in people than in technology. Kit earned their Ph.D. in Robotics from Carnegie Mellon University in 2008. They blog about technological empowerment for sexuality and pleasure, including her their experiences and creations, at toymakerproject.com. Kit also organizes teasecraft-boston, a local meetup group for sex/kink-positive makers (teasecraft.com). Kit is the founder of the Effing Foundation for Sex-Positivity (effing.org), a nonprofit whose mission is to reduce sexual shame by fostering sex-positive artists, activists, educators, and entrepreneurs.
Swords of Chivalry is a safe place for your child or teen to study the martial art of medieval swordsmanship. All safety gear, including foam swords and fencing masks, is provided. In addition to learning discipline and improving fitness, students are assigned quests. Frequent quests have included improving grades, raising money for charity, or achieving a personal fitness goal.
Sonya Taaffe's short fiction and poetry can be found in the collections Ghost Signs (Aqueduct Press), A Mayse-Bikhl (Papaveria Press), Postcards from the Province of Hyphens (Prime Books), and Singing Innocence and Experience (Prime Books), and in various anthologies including The Humanity of Monsters, Genius Loci: Tales of the Spirit of Place, and Dreams from the Witch House: Female Voices of Lovecraftian Horror. She is currently senior poetry editor at Strange Horizons; she holds master's degrees in Classics from Brandeis and Yale and once named a Kuiper belt object. She lives in Somerville with her husband and two cats.
Cecilia Tan is "science fiction's premiere pornographer," according to Walter Jon Williams, and "one of the most important writers, editors, and innovators in contemporary American erotic literature" according to Susie Bright. Her novel Slow Surrender won several major awards in romance in 2014. She is the author of many books that combine the erotic with the fantastic, including the novels of the Magic University series, Mind Games, and The Velderet, the collections of short stories Edge Plays, White Flames, Black Feathers, and Telepaths Don't Need Safewords, and the web serial The Prince's Boy. She is the founder and editor of Circlet Press, erotic science fiction and fantasy, and has edited anthologies for numerous publishers. Her short stories have appeared everywhere from Asimov's and Strange Horizons to Ms. Magazine. Follow her on Twitter, Facebook, or http://blog.ceciliatan.com.
Never one to say no to a road trip, K.C. Tansley has climbed the Great Wall twice, hopped on the Sound of Music tour in Salzburg, and danced the night away in the dunes of Cape Hatteras. She loves the ocean and hates the sun, which makes for interesting beach days. Years of working on Wall Street provided the perfect backdrop for her imagination to run amuck at night, imagining a world of ghosts, time travel, curses, and spells at an isolated castle in Connecticut. She lives with her warrior lapdog, Emerson, and three quirky golden retrievers in Connecticut. K.C. Tansley is an Amazon Bestselling author. As Kourtney Heintz, she writes award-winning cross-genre fiction and has been featured in the Republican American and on CT Style.
An eclectic ensemble, The Teseracte Players of Boston have been wowing audiences and time warping around New England for 20 years. What started with Rocky Horror has expanded to a dynamic repertoire of shadow cast entertainment spanning TV shows and movies. Catch them at Arisia 2016 performing Rocky Horror, Dr. Horrible’s SIngALong Blog, Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Once More with Feeling, and their latest project The Princess Bride. Check out www.teseracte.com or like them on Facebook for a listing of upcoming shows.
Tikva (raycho) is attending her bazillionth Arisia, but only her third as a panelist. She's a public health professional, disability activist, baseball addict, and member of a poly family/household. She hosts Geek Love, a weekly radio show on Boston Free Radio, which is kind of like Arisia except all year 'round. You may recognize her via her trusty guide dog, the Poodle of Destiny, who is kind of large print. Please do not pet either her or the dog without a whole lot of permission.
Dan Toland is a writer and podcaster with Earth-2.net, specializing in comics (Grumpy Old Fans, Earth-2-In-One), genre television (Bigger on the Inside, The Edge of Forever), and classic SF literature (Books Without Pictures). His strength is as the strength of ten, because his heart is pure; knows he is the World's Greatest Whovian because he has a mug that says so; and understands that mid-1960s Tales of Suspense was the pinnacle of Western civilization, and will fight any man who disagrees. He once watched the first season of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. without bursting into flame, and probably owns more comics than you do. (He's not bragging; his family would really like the living room back.) If your name is misspelled in this very book, it is his fault. He lives in Boston with a woman of limitless patience, a dog who tries REALLY HARD you guys, and also there is a cat.
Michael Toole caught an episode of Battle of the Planets at the age of four, and has spent an altogether unreasonable amount of time since then in pursuit of Japanese animation. He's been an entertainment critic since 1994 and has written for over a dozen publications. Currently, he's a columnist and occasional onscreen personality for Anime News Network, and a regular contributor to the geek humor blog Therobotsvoice.com. You can hear his guided commentary on the brand new DVD release of Wicked City, as well as many other DVD and Blu-Ray releases from Discotek Media.
Thomas Traina is a former lawyer turned computer forensics consultant and legal technology specialist. Academically, he focuses on civil liberties, constitutional law, speculative bioethics, and comparative law and government in science fiction. Tom Traina got into science fiction through Star Wars, then Star Trek TNG, and snowballed from there. He is also an avid roleplayer and theatre-style LARP writer. When he can afford it, he also enjoys wargames.
Bonnie Barlow Turner has a master's degree in counseling, a cognate in college teaching and is a doctoral candidate in psychology with a specialty in personality. She is currently researching psychology in the area of personality, and she teaches psychology. Bonnie has worked in biotech and tutored ESOL students. She is a certified high school biology teacher. She met James Turner at Arisia 1 and has been married to him for 23 years.
Born in a log cabin he built with his own hands, Carsten Turner expects to have it finished any day now; certainly by the time he's finished reinventing himself (again). In 2004, he chaired Arisia, and then went on to serve as president. He has been, and remains, an EMT, teacher, artist, hacker, and student.
James "Coder Brony" Turner, contributing editor for oreilly.com, is a freelance journalist who has written for publications as diverse as the Christian Science Monitor, IEEE Spectrum and WIRED Magazine. In addition to his shorter writing, he has also written three books on Software Development Developing Enterprise iOS Applications, (MySQL & JSP Web Applications and Struts: Kick Start). In addition, he has spent more than 30 years as a software engineer, and currently works as the Mobile Architect for a company in the Boston area. He lives in a 200-year-old Colonial farmhouse in Derry, NH along with his wife and son. As Coder Brony, he is the President and Chairman of the Board of the Brony Thank You Fund, the only 501(c)(3) public Brony charity. He also organizes and published the annual Brony Herd Census. He is an open water diver and instrument-rated private pilot.
Heather Urbanski holds a Master of Arts in Writing and a Ph.D. in English, specializing in Composition and Rhetoric. Her first book, Plagues, Apocalypses, and Bug-Eyed Monsters: How Speculative Fiction Shows Us Our Nightmares (McFarland 2007), a bibliographic survey of the genre, combines her passion for SF as a fan with her academic career. Her second book, the edited collection Writing and the Digital Generation: Essays on New Media Rhetoric (McFarland 2010), focuses on the intersections of rhetoric, popular culture, fandom, and digital media. Her third book, The Science Fiction Reboot, a narrative analysis of reimagined works such as Star Trek and Battlestar Galactica, was released in early 2013. She is currently an Assistant Professor of English Studies at Fitchburg State University. Her next projects are two edited collections, this time on social memory and popular culture.
Calandra Usher is the author of the Urban Paranormal Fantasy Romance series, The Gospels of Cal'eia. Originally trained as a fine artist focusing in painting and sculpture, Cali has recently discovered an even more satisfying and versatile medium, words. Even after publishing four books, she still laughs when someone asks her is she's an author. Cali is a member of a local writing group in Charlotte NC, Broad Universe, and the WNBA. Besides being a writer, she is an ordained reverend specializing in same sex and mixed religious ceremonies, a returned Peace Corps Volunteer (Ghana, West Africa) a massage therapist, a wife, a mother of two, and a zookeeper.
Mercy E Van Vlack has been a comics pro since 1980, including working as a writer for Richie Rich; an artist on Green Ghost & Lotus (set in Boston), creator of Miranda for Leg Show and Puritan magazines; inker for DC, Malibu, and others; illustrator for numerous fanzines, APAs, anthropomorphics, and SF cons; and artist of many Celtic Calendars and the Celtic Coloring Book. She also draws for private collections, bakes Gluten-Free cookies and cakes that taste good, and makes Celtic jewelry. Birdwatcher, beekeeper and singer of bawdy songs.
Drew Van Zandt is an engineer, maker, and general geek. He's also on the Board of Directors at the Artisan's Asylum, a hacker/makerspace in Somerville, MA, and also on the Board of Directors of the Firefly Arts Collective. Drew is happiest when he's teaching you to make something or making things himself.
JoSelle Vanderhooft is a poet, author, and editor of several anthologies of fantasy stories--most of them having to do with lesbians. These include the well-received Steam-Powered series (lesbian steampunk) as well as Bitten by Moonlight, Sleeping Beauty, Indeed, (with Catherine Lundoff) Hellebore & Rue, and (with Steve Berman) Heiresses of Russ I, a collection of the best lesbian spec fic published in 2010. Her second novel, Ebenezer, a lesbian re-telling of A Christmas Carol, was released from Zumaya Publications in 2013. She lives in South Florida with her partner and a lovely orange tabby. She is a full-time freelance editor.
Carolyn VanEseltine reads voraciously, pursues a kaleidoscopic variety of hobbies, and (most pertinently for this bio) played too much Colossal Cave Adventure in her formative years, which explains why she's now a professional game developer specializing in narrative design and interactive fiction. Her core philosophy (recently outlined in a talk at Google): "Artistic expression is a basic human right. Game dev is a form of art. We're moving into an era where anyone can make video games, and that's a GOOD thing." If you want to make games, but don't know where to start, check out her blog at www.sibylmoon.com or ping her on Twitter @mossdogmusic.
Pablo M.A Vazquez III considers himself many things, including performer, poet, wild fanboy, sometimes scholar/always student, agitator, bard-magus, and whatever else he comes up with. A true lover of Freedom and Passion, he champions love and unity, liberty and danger, creativity and aesthetics. He's a cinephile, DC Comics enthusiast, voracious reader, and avid gamer (tabletop/video). Born alongside the Panama Canal, he strangely does not like extreme heat and views his perfect weather to be something akin to Fimbulwinter, but he definitely is a child of the Caribbean, with all of its mystic glory, tropical paradises and delicious culinary trappings. Pablo spends his time traversing various underground and subcultural communities, ranging from magical lodges and mystic circles, unsanctioned parties and kink events to Underground Rap and radical bookstores to, of course, Science-Fiction and Fantasy fandom.
Jon Voisey graduated with a degree in Astronomy from the University of Kansas in 2008. During his time there, Kansas was involved in its "great evolution wars". Shortly after Jon began at KU, the Kansas State Board of Education, in effort to push pseudoscience into science classrooms, redefined science, removing the requirement that explanations be testable. Attempting to understand and correct such public misunderstanding of science, Jon moved towards a focus on science outreach and education. Jon maintains the blog The Angry Astronomer, writing about his experiences with astronomical research, skepticism, and other issues that interest him. He has also been a contributor to the astronomy news website Universe Today. His writings there have been picked up by numerous other science news outlets including physorg and Astrobiology Magazine. Jon holds high school and middle school teaching certifications but currently works in the jewelry and antiques business.
Mark "Justin du Coeur" Waks is a rapidly moving particle. If one pins down his position enough (and doesn't worry about his velocity), one finds him focusing on programming, SCA, fandom, LARP, and Freemasonry. He is currently working on building Querki, a new system for Keeping Track of Your Stuff, and is likely to burble at you about it if you give him even the slightest opening -- be warned.
William C. Walker III is an inveterate gamer in multiple media, lover of sci-fi and fantasy, and veteran gm/dm/storyteller with over twenty years of experience running at least one game, and as many as three concurrently. He is a PhD candidate in Law and Public Policy at Northeastern University, with a focus in renewable energy policy. He has worked as a researcher in nanotechnology and engineering education.
JeffWarner is: a professor of autodidactism, a not-recently-published writer, an associate of first fandom, a 7th level ninja-smof with a lawful/good alignment, a co-founder of a hat trick of SF conventions and a utility infielder for many others, a freelance blurb-meister, and a philosophical entertainer. "Geek, Nerd, AND Dork? I'm a Triple Threat!"
Tanya Washburn (Selkiechick) has been lurking around the edges of fandom and the SCA for just over 20 years, dabbling in costuming and cooking and fanfiction, among many other things. She is also an active advocate for better access services at conventions, and has worked on access at Arisia, Readercon and Worldcon.
A longtime fan of SF/F, John C. Watson was infected with the anime and manga bug in the early 1990s, and remains a virulent carrier of all three.
Kat Weiler—I sing! I dance! I read lots of books! Sometimes I do all three simultaneously (though that never ends well)! Come sing with me!
Susan Weiner has been writing and running LARPs for 13 years, primarily as part of Alleged Entertainment. On the side, she teaches physiology, studies social insect behavior, plays the violin and viola da gamba, cooks weird, overly complicated meals, and does a variety of other things in not nearly enough time.
Syd Weinstein was a mentor at the American Film Institute Digital Content Lab and is video designer for Arisia and many Worldcons. He has more than 15 years' experience teaching television production techniques to both children and adults. He has directed countless productions and produced several documentaries. He has been part of Techno-Fandom since 2001. He has been involved in Costuming since 2004 and is a presentation judge and ICG member.
Sarah Weintraub is a student of Library and Information Science and she blogs about women who write science fiction and fantasy at galaxygirlsladyknights.tumblr.com. In addition to sf/f, she loves the MCU, especially the lady superheroes.
Morven Westfield is a fiction writer, technical writer, and occasional podcaster who lives west of Boston. The author of a two-book series in which a coven of witches investigate supernatural evil in the form of vampires, she regularly contributes non-fiction articles on folklore and the supernatural to The Witches Almanac. Her short fiction is highly influenced by The Twlight Zone, while her novels are more influenced by distant memories of Dark Shadows. She loves folklore, the supernatural, kittehs, and occasional travel. Like many writers, she keeps a messy office and drinks way too much coffee. www.morvenwestfield.com
Alan Wexelblat is a poly parent, an amateur photographer, a long-time tabletop RPG and online MMO gamer, and a writer on intellectual property issues.
If Michelle Wexelblat began her life with the date she started going to conventions, she'd be old enough to vote and drink. Given that she started attending them when she was old enough to drive.... Besides attending cons, Michelle is a mother, wife, friend, extrovert, clinical social worker, poi spinner, and has the ability to see any problem from all sides, all at once. Her brain is a very busy place, and she's happy for distractions, so talk to her.
Alan Whitbread is a professional performer in the UK, both singing and playing concertina. He runs the Doom, Gloom, & Despondency contest at Sidmouth Folk Week, upon which ours is based.
Nightwing Whitehead was born in 1958. The Barbie doll was "born" in 1959; so for a year she had nothing to do. Since then, she's been making up for lost time by dressing anyone and anything that comes within her reach. She's worked for several theaters, dressed some stars, done some teaching, and has her own business designing and creating costumes for life.
Penny Wilhelm is a professional musician and music teacher, a lay Emergent Church leader at The Crossing, former camp counselor, an accidental political activist, and an intentional life-long sci-fi fan. She majored in composition at Berklee College of Music, and toured for years with the instrumental rock band Hypaspace. Penny was instrumental in organizing her church's efforts to help pass transgender civil rights legislation in Massachusetts. She has worked with transgender and gender variant youth as a counselor and activity leader at Camp Aranu'tiq. She has also lead and been a member of several panels speaking to groups of parents, trans kids, and the public about issues faced by trans individuals.
Scott Wilhelm is a licensed biology, physics, and general science teacher with more than 10 years of experience, mostly with high-school-aged learners with learning disabilities and severe behavioral problems. He combines deeply analytical lessons with fun activities to meet high expectations with no tears for a very wide range of ages and abilities.
Stephen R. Wilk stepped in from a Parallel Dimension and now can't find his way back -- they all look ALMOST exactly alike. He spends his time dodging people who say "I know someone who looks just like you!", working at a Boston High Tech company, and being an editor for the Optical Society of America. In his copious spare time he writes. His "How the Ray Gun Got Its Zap!" has been published by Oxford University Press, "Alloprene" will be published in Analog this year, and "George Washington and the Dragon" will be in the anthology "Live Free or Dragons" this September.
Connie Wilkins began with Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Fantasy Magazine, several of Bruce Coville’s anthologies for kids, Strange Horizons, and various similar publications. Then she was seduced into writing and editing erotica as her alter-ego Sacchi Green. That resulted in publishing scores of erotic stories, some of them also crossing into science fiction and fantasy, and editing ten anthologies including teo Lambda Literary Award winners Now she’s getting back to her roots by editing Time Well Bent: Queer Alternative Histories, co-editing Heiresses of Russ 2012: the Year’s Best Lesbian Speculative Fiction, both for Lethe Press, writing erotic sf/f for Circlet Press, and combining specfic with erotica in an upcoming fairy tale anthology, The Princess's Bride. Sacchi, meanwhile, is editing Best Lesbian Erotica 2016 from Cleis Press.
W. B. J. Williams, author of The Garden at the Roof of the World, holds advanced degrees in anthropology and archeology and is an avid historian, mystic, poet, and author who manages an information security program at a prominent New England start- up. He is noted for his bad puns, and willingness to argue from any perspective. He is endured by his beloved wife and two daughters, and lives in Sharon Massachusetts. When he is not at home or at his computer, he can often be found haunting the various used bookstores of Boston.
Barbara A Woodward (Bey) is part of the Boston area Poly and Kink communities. She was member of the Heinlein Society Naughty Nurses for 9 years and still encourages everyone eligible to donate blood. Bey is married to gaming book author, Jonathan L. Woodward, and together with their partner Zeph, the three of them are raising their daughter "Roo." Go to her website, TasksAtBey.com, to see what other fun things she does.
Jonathan Woodward is the author or co-author of over a dozen role-playing game books, including the Hellboy RPG, Trinity, and GURPS Banestorm. He has been an Arisia panelist for over 20 years. He lives near Boston with his wife, daughter, girlfriend, and other family.
Trisha J. Wooldridge is the former president of Broad Universe and was a senior editor for Spencer Hill Press for several years. Before that, she started her own freelancing company, A Novel Friend, where she practiced the arcane arts of journalism and freelance editing, both of which she still dabbles in on a fairly regular basis. She’s also a member of New England Horror Writers, the HWA, and SCBWI. Under her full name, she writes grown-up horror short stories that occasionally win awards. She has co-produced the Spencer Hill Press anthologies Unconventional and Doorways to Extra Time. In her child-friendly persona of T.J. Wooldridge, she’s published three novels: The Kelpie, The Earl’s Childe, and Silent Starsong. As if she weren’t busy enough, Trish is also the writing partner for the webcomic Aurelio at www.thevampireaurelio.com. Find out more at www.anovelfriend.com.
Worcester Historical Swordsmanship
Tom Wysmuller forecasted weather at Amsterdam's Royal Dutch Weather Bureau after studying meteorology at NYU and Stanford. Selected for a NASA internship, he worked throughout NASA before, during, and after the moon landings. He worked at Pratt and Whitney and held insurance industry executive positions. The Polynomial Regression mathematics, algorithms, or code he personally produced after leaving NASA is used by almost every climate scientist on the planet for modeling and analysis. He lectures worldwide on the SCIENCE needed to understand Global Warming, and his "Toucan Equations" for predicting Sea-Level rise/fall are still within range. In 2012, Tom (as a Meteorologist, was asked to be among those who) joined the "NASA 49," a group of Astronauts, Scientists, Engineers, and NASA Field Center Directors publicly requesting improvement in NASA's handling of climate pronouncements. His http://www.colderside.com/Colderside/Temp_%26_CO2.html has gone viral.
Rhiannon’s Lark is a solo music project created by Alyssa Yeager (sensual vocals, growly guitar, candy-coated ukulele) to express the reality of life as a geek, goddess, and girl. Alyssa is known for her “magickal, mystical storytelling”. She began touring the festival circuit in 2005 with the band Telling Point, and has shared bills with artists including Frenchy and the Punk, Wendy Rule, Kellianna, and Tuatha Dea. She has released 5 original albums, including a children’s album designed to encourage kids and caretakers to be creative and tell their own stories in song. Alyssa’s background in music therapy motivates her to create songs that connect to the daily experiences in the lives of her listeners. She brings gaming, fantasy, morality, and t-rexes together into a show that will comfort your ears, get you laughing, and possibly even (gasp!) make you think. http://rhiannonslark.com/music.html
Aimee Yermish, PsyD (aimee@davincilearning.org) is a clinical psychologist and educational therapist, providing assessment, consultation, therapy, coaching, remediation, enrichment, and overall strategizing for people of all ages who manifest giftedness and/or disabilities (ADHD, Aspergers, other autism spectrum disorders, learning disabilities, psychological disorders, etc). In her former lives, she was a molecular biologist, a schoolteacher, a black belt, and a Master Assassin. She also loves to sing, read, ride her bike, run, do a great many crafts, and make long lists of things. She is busy raising a husband, two lovely children, and three cats.
A child of the space race, Guillermo Zeballos has always been fascinated by fantastic vehicles and stories of space, real and fictional. He is active in designing and building spaceships out of paper and researching their designs. He is also a great fan of spaceship and futuristic art and illustration, as well as those of the more familiar hero ships of film and television. His professional background is in teaching, computer-human interaction, collaborative systems, and interface design.
Eric Zuckerman is not a real talk show host, but he played one on TV. His fannish semi-improv comedy project, "Eric in the Elevator" has screened at regional West Coast conventions, several WorldCons, Arisia (where he was 2008 Fan Performer GoH), and LunaCon (where he was 2011 Special Guest). Among his many other nerdly pursuits, he's a geocacher, a gamer, an armchair "fanthropologist", and a compulsive ribbon collector/trader.
