Arisia 2014 Program Participant Bios
Generated: Tue Jan 14 17:58:46 EST 2014
Replicant 9
Marc Abrahams is the founder of the Ig Nobel Prize ceremony. The prizes, awarded each year since 1991, honor achievements that make people laugh, then think. He is also editor and co-founder of the science humor magazine Annals of Improbable Research, a weekly columnist for The Guardian newspaper, and the author of several books. His web site and blog are at www.improbable.com
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. At cons 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, and Doctor Who among other things. Yitzy doesn't have a blog, but his brother has a pretty swell one where he semi-reviews the first volumes of popular and unpopular manga at themangaconnoisseur.blogspot.com
Heather Albano (www.heatheralbano.com) is the author of the steampunk novels Timepiece and Timekeeper, co-author of five text-based multiple-choice games released by Choice of Games, lead writer for the first mission of the interactive radio drama Codename Cygnus, and creator of assorted short fiction and poetry. She is a member of the Cambridge Science Fiction Workshop, a member of Women in Games (Boston), and a graduate of the Clarion Writers' Workshop. She's particularly interested in artificial intelligence and natural language processing at the moment, and would love to talk to any experts in the field who might be at Arisia!
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.
Alessandra
As a SFWA member, Ken Altabef's short fiction has appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction as well as Interzone, Abyss & Apex, BuzzyMag, Stupefying Stories, Unsettling Wonder and various anthologies. He was an editor on the mixed-genre short story anthology "Drastic Measures" and its sequel "Wash the Spider Out." His novels include "Touching the Mystery", "Discovering the Way" and "The Hidden World" as part of WAY OF THE SHAMAN, his 5-part series of epic fantasy novels published by Blueberry Lane Books. You can preview this work and others at the author's website www.wayoftheshamanONLINE.com
Ameena
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.
Thomas A. Amoroso, MD, MPH is a practicing emergency physician, health policy analyst, and has been a fan of fantasy and science fiction since his junior high librarian pointed him to Harry Harrison after he found Andre Norton on his own. After that, he devoured everything he could find in the limited libraries available in Europe for English language SF. Despite all of that, it took him way too many years to find the rest of organized fandom. He firmly believes in the power of human thinking to get us through crises; he just wishes we'd use some of it to avoid crises instead. He cannot wait for the autodoc so he can stop being a doctor because what he really wants to do is direct. All other aspects of science are just as fascinating, and he's fully prepared to expound on the scientific method, the uses and limits of statistics, and why most people aren't able to adequately judge scientific issues, even though it just isn't that hard.
Taken broadly, Erik Amundsen has had an interesting life; he's been a baker, an itinerant schoolteacher, worked for two governments, and gotten in bar fights overseas. He now lives at the foot of a cemetery in central Connecticut where he writes nasty little stories and poems that shuffle around in the night when he's not looking. Or at least he hopes it's them; something's got to be making those noises and it's not the furnace. A few of them have made it to Weird Tales, Fantasy Magazine, Goblin Fruit, Three Crow Press, and Cabinet des Fees.
Marion Anderson
Sam Anderson
L.J. Andrew
Angelina
Annette
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, 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 LGBTQ communities. She is the minister of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Winchendon, MA.
Steve Asaro
An attorney, editor, linguist, and social justice activist, Dash is the founder and editor-in-chief of Expanded Horizons, an online speculative fiction 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.
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". 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 collecting Victorian photo cards and extant clothing of the period, as well as vintage beadwork, for her new project, "Miss Lizzy's Traveling Historical Fashion Show". She is a contributor to "The Virtual Costumer" with articles about Victorian clothing research. Currently she is engrossed in traditional crazy quilts, and did the best ever with quilts in the Montgomery County Fair last summer.
James Aurthur
Software engineer, maker, and technology enthusiast: at the moment Robert Jack Babb is working on a variety of microcontroller projects and blogging at www.dragonflythingworks.com.
James Bacon is an Irishman living in London who drives trains for a living. A Hugo winner for his Fanzine work, he writes for various fanzines and reviews comics for Forbidden Planet Blog, he also likes helping with conventions, growing a moustache and is an avid reader of Comics, SF Books, Irish Military History and Alternative History.
John Bacon
Badriya
Meguey Baker is a game designer and sex ed teacher living in western MA. Highlights: designed games for teenage girls in Ethiopia with The Girl Effect; published Valiant Girls, PsiRun, and the critically acclaimed 1001 Nights; writes for the award-winning game blog Gaming As Women. Meg's game designs focus on creating compelling stories that fit in small social footprints in terms of time and resources. Her work as a counselor for women navigating postpartum stress and depression contributes to her sense that everyone has a story worth telling and a story worth hearing, and providing a space for people to tell those stories is a progressive act. As a mother of teenage boys, she is increasingly convinced that fact-based and non-judgmental sex education is a key to healthy and self-directed sexual expression. Pretty much everything in Meg's life relates directly to listening and making heard the voices of people and populations often disregarded.
Mike Baker
Stephen R Balzac is the author of "The 36-Hour Course in Organizational Development," published by McGraw-Hill. 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.
Bonnie Barlow has a Master's degree in Counseling and in Experimental Psychology. She is currently doing research psychology in personality and teaching 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 21 years.
E. J. Barnes is a cartoonist and comic-book artist, having seen publication in Fortean Times, Funny Times, The Journal of Irreproducible Results, and Gauntlet. She has been published in several Boston Comics Roundtable-related anthologies. She exhibits at independent comic-book conventions, and her comic books (self-published under Drowned Town Press) are sold across the country. She teaches cartooning at the Cambridge Center for Adult Education.
Baseema
Harley Bean
Howard 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!
Alan F Beck
Jim Belfiore is a leader of pioneers. He is a Certified Innovation Master, a TRIZ Associate and Managing Director of Client Innovation for IHS. Jim's industry expertise includes: medical devices, pharmaceuticals, sustainable and conventional energy, defense, aerospace, commercial space flight, food & beverage, consumer products, supply chain risk analysis, chemicals, chemical process manufacturing, automotive and green technologies. Jim facilitates break-through innovation at many Fortune 500 product R&D centers, and is a featured speaker at innovation conferences around the world. He has been a long-time member of SF fandom (and a former Arisia ConChair) with a special passion for Japanese Tokusatsu. Jim is a published writer (his science and innovation articles have appeared in NASA Tech Briefs and Design News) and dabbles professionally in retro CG artwork. Follow Jim at: http://twitter.com/jsbelfiore
Kevin Benoit
Michael Bergman
Jason Berube
Elizabeth Birdsall is a longtime fan and occasional author. She has had short stories published in the anthology "SteamPowered II: More Lesbian Steampunk Stories" and in Penumbra eZine. She lives in the Boston area with two excellently geeky housemates and two extremely inept cats.
As Misty Pendragon, Gayle Blake is a published writer, editor, and jewelry maker. Currently she writes for the website, www.goodtobeageek.com, Carpe Nocturne Magazine and this is Awesomeness! She has been doing panels at cons for too many years now, and you would find her on pretty much every Joss Whedon panel! Currently she works in the real life as a Tech Support rep for the area's largest cable company. Current favorite quote is, "We have done the impossible, and that makes us mighty," by Joss Whedon.
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 putting the finishing touches on his handmade 18' folding sea kayak, and trying to decide whether or not to actually open his OGRE board game box.
Jon Bonk has been working in the visual arts for over 10 years, performing with such artists as Noisia, Bonobo, and Afrika Bambaataa, and playing massive festivals such as Identity Festival and Burning Man. Originally working with Glitch Crew, whom fellow VJ Zebbler helped curate and make world-known, in 2010, Bonk was invited to tour with world-famous music project Shpongle, on a national tour: Bonk then helped create the ShpongleTron (Preview). Resident VJ (5+ years) at drum & bass night Elements, Bonk also is a Director at Firefly Arts Collective, an annual, regional Burning Man festival in Vermont. This year, Firefly provided $10,000 in grants to artists, so they can create and display their art at the Firefly Festival and across the United States.
Becca Bosworth-Clemens
Aimee Bouchard is a bi, poly, kinky, geeky, hippie, crafty, girly sort of gal.
Angela K Bowen—After the first Arisia I attended, I was hooked. I had so much fun that I had to come back, and I have not missed a year since. I am a costume person; I learned to sew by working a bit in a sweatshop factory in Mississippi, sewing my little heart out. I ran into the SCA in Montana (my home state) and put those sewing skills to work. (Yep, I joined so I would have a place to wear a costume… ) When I moved to the Boston area I took up belly dancing (more costuming with beads) which led to drumming; I play a mid-eastern drum called a Doumbek and a frame drum called a Tar. I have volunteered in many areas at Arisia, a little bit here and there. I have helped with the period dances for a few years and most recently the Friday night drum and dance session.
Bridget Joyce Boyle has held many positions from gopher to div. head at many types of cons. As a transplanted Philadelphian, she makes her home in Merrimack, NH. A mother of 3 geek girls, an Artist and a dreamer, she has instructed Computer Literacy and Graphics Programs for years. She avidly supports sexual orientation equality for all people and firmly believes all citizens deserve equal rights. She enjoys her first Life and Second Life, and SF across the mediascape. This year she returns to servicing the SF community as the Member Services division head in Arisia 2014.
Anna R Bradley is a gamer, LARPer, costumer, and volunteering junkie. This year she is also the DivHead for Ops here at Arisia.
David E. Brahm, Ph.D., CFA, is a portfolio manager at Geode Capital Management in Boston. Dr. 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. He has taught numerous courses at MIT, from freshman chemistry to capstone lab classes in materials science. Presently he works for Viridis3D developing engineering ceramic materials for 3D Printing. He published a cartoon introduction to classical thermodynamics, and he is presently working on a sequel covering introductory quantum mechanics.
Adrianne Brennan stumbled into her love of writing by accident at the age of ten with a creative writing assignment for her science class. The end result was a science fiction comedy featuring numerous puns regarding vegetables. Adrianne's works were previously published through Aphrodite's Apples Press and are now published through Freya's Bower, Love You Divine, Running Press/Constable & Robinson, and Torquere Press. In addition, she is a member of EPIC, Infinite Worlds of Fantasy Authors, the Midnight Seductions Authors group, and an alumnus member of Kappa Gamma Psi, a co-ed national professional performing arts fraternity. The author resides in Boston, Massachusetts with two cats and a car she has aptly named "the TARDIS." She assures her readers that people tell her it looks bigger on the inside.
Linda Brennan
Katherine 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 Fastrack that counts for something, right?
Sarah Brinks
Amanda Britton
Darrell Brown
Mark Brown
Terri Bruce has been making up adventure stories for as long as she can remember and won her first writing award when she was twelve. Like Anne Shirley, she prefers to make people cry rather than laugh, but is happy if she can do either. She produces fantasy and adventure stories from a haunted house in New England where she lives with her husband and three cats. Visit her on the web at www.terribruce.net.
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.
Michael Lee Budlong
Known on the internet as Ryoko-Dono, Beth Burger has been cosplaying since 2001. Inspired by her love of creating costumes, she pursued a B.S. in Fashion Design. Having taken classes in draping, flat pattern and basic garment construction, Beth still enjoys learning new techniques through her different costumes. Cosplay and costuming is just another great way to continue expanding her skill-sets and talents. While not at her job as an Assistant Fashion Designer, Beth also enjoys reading fantasy novels, going to rock concerts and relaxing on the couch with Netflix and her evil cat.
Fiona Burke-Scovill
2nd gen geek born Hoosier, raised Minnesotan, converted Bostonian, Kethry Burke-Scovill is a 19 year old genre lover and SuperWhoLockian in Women and Gender Studies and English at Simmons; who dabbles in acting, cannot stop dancing, and desperately wants more sleep or more hours in the day. Maybe both.
Hanna "Gale" Burnett has been costuming at conventions since 2003. A few years ago she noticed that in all the discussions going on throughout the cosplay community one major topic seemed to be missing: safety. It was then that she created the Cosplay Safety Project (cosplaysafety.tumblr.com/): a series of articles and panels about how to maintain safe habits while creating and wearing costumes and attending conventions. The project covers everything from what to keep in mind when designing a costume (size, scale, comfort, temperature, etc.) to how to avoid becoming the victim of harassment, and many topics in between. When she is not working on costumes, Hanna performs as an actor with local theater companies in her home state of Connecticut, writes and presents for AnimeCons.com/AnimeCons TV, and works as the Director of Guest Relations at the Hartford, CT based pop-culture convention ConnectiCon.
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, Polymath Solution, 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 woods with her two 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.
CaitieBird
D. Cameron Calkins has been active in the SF/F community since the early 1980's. He has been creating art in the genre and displaying it at conventions since Noreascon 3. He has won numerous awards, and been published from time to time. His art appeared most recently on the cover of Roberta Rogow's 1800's murder mystries. Cameron speaks on a variety of topics and is frequently in the company of Dagnir, his dragon.
James L. Cambias is a science fiction writer and game designer based in western Massachusetts. His fiction has appeared in F&SF, Shimmer, Nature, and various original anthologies. He has written more than a dozen game books for Steve Jackson Games and HERO Games. In 2004 he became a partner in Zygote Games, a small game company which produces science and nature based card and board games. His novel A Darkling Sea has just come out from Tor Books.
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.
Hugh Casey is a writer, actor, filmmaker, photographer, and event promoter living in King of Prussia, PA. He's the founder of Parents Basement Productions and has produced, directed, written, and performed in short films, which can be found on YouTube.com. Hugh is a longtime fan of science fiction and fantasy, and has been part of fandom for many years. He has been the president and vice-president of the Philadelphia Science Fiction Society (PSFS), as well as on the board of directors. He was chairman of the Society's annual conference, PHILCON, in 2003, and vice-chairman in 2002. He is currently the head of programming for Philcon, as well as head of programming for Storykeeper Events and the director of Dorian's Parlor. He attends, and is often a panelist at, many cons and events, such as Arisia, Balticon, and Wicked Faire. In 2010 he was the "Guest of Awesome" at 5 Pi-Con. You can find him online at http://www.hughcasey.com, or on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/Hugh.A.Casey.
Monica Castillo is a freelance film critic and writer based in Boston. She spends a good portion of her time reviewing films for DigBoston, WBUR, Paste Magazine, Bitch Magazine, Movie Mezzanine, serving as co-host for the "Cinema Fix" podcast, and co-managing the Boston Online Film Critics Association. Monica has traveled to a few film festivals, met a couple of living legends, and has some great stories about hitch-hiking to red carpet premieres. You can usually find her outside any of the area's movie theaters excitedly talking about the film she just saw or on Twitter @mcastimovies.
Catelynn 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.
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)
Aurora Celeste is a costume dabbler with more than 10 years of experience. Her costuming interests are all over, but her passion is reproducing costumes; mostly sci-fi and fantasy movies, tv shows, anime, and manga. She gives panels and enters masquerades all over the country, has won Best in Show at Costume Cons 24 and 30 as well as Chicon and LoneStarCon and is currently serving as Vice President of the International Costumers' Guild Board of Directors. Outside of costuming, Aurora can often be seen running conventions. She has served as staff on many conventions, including DragonCon in Atlanta and a con head at Naka-Kon Anime Convention in Kansas City. Visit her costuming blog at www.dramaticthreads.com.
Parma Chattapadhay
Psyche Corp. is named after a dream manufacture group from a future where widespread neural implants have allowed people to jack their nerve endings directly into the internet and download dreams. Songs deal in dystopian themes as well as the surreal psychological landscapes of sleeping minds. The musical style spans genres; a recent song has mixed tribal singing with classical piano while embedding poliovirus DNA into its percussion. Psyche Chimère (founder of Psyche Corp.) does work in the study of brains.
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
John Chu is a singing, juggling, improvising, translating microprocessor designer. His short fiction has appeared in Bloody Fabulous (Sedia, ed.), Boston Review, Asimov's, and Tor.com and is forthcoming in Apex. His podcast narrations can be heard at Pseudopod, EscapePod and Lightspeed. He also translates fiction from Chinese into English. He is an alumnus of the 2010 Clarion Writers Workshop and a current member of the BRAWL writers' group.
Dr. Amy Chused is a physician at Weill Cornell Medical Center in the Division of Hospital Medicine. She also works in data mining to evaluate efficiency and quality measures for the her division. In her free time, she raises her toddler twins, reads SF & F and fanfic, plays boardgames and computer games, debates medical ethics, and waves vaguely at the Arisia Dealers Room.
Vikki Ciaffone is a senior editor for Spencer Hill Press and the Editor-in-Chief of Spence City. 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 loves both, and now edits as well. She is personally responsible for the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah (she apologizes, but all the salacious gossip was untrue, and the populace was obsessed with Pictionary and Charades, two games 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.
Stephanie Clarkson (smc@stephanieclarkson.com), sometimes called thespian, has been attending Arisia since 1992. Though she has lived in Toronto; Rockville, MD; Arlington, VA; Raleigh, NC; and Atlanta, GA; she always feels compelled to get to Arisia. Fortunately, she now lives in the Boston area. A web developer, puppeteer & creator, journalist/copywriter, writer for JaneX0, and most recently a bartender, she is free to hire or flirt with. http://stephanieclarkson.com
Zachary Clemente is an aspiring comic writer, semi-producing interactive installation maker, and heartfelt devotee to the gravity of narrative. A graduate of Hampshire College, Zach now lives in Boston, MA. You can find him writing the bi-weekly comics column "Cross-Canon" for Multiversity and occasionally the column "Title Bump" for Amazing Stories about film and media culture. He has interviewed some cool folks and enjoys discussing the climate of media on many fronts.
Byron P Connell, a longtime SF and costuming fan, is a historian by training. He likes to help at masquerades rather than entering them—entering once a decade is about right! However, since being part of the Torcon III best-in-show entry, when he does enter, he does so in the Master division. Byron has run masquerades at the 2002 Arisia, several Costume-Cons and Philcons, as well as Anticipation and Chicon 7. He is a member of the Sick Pups (New Jersey-New York Costumers' Guild), the SLUTs (St. Louis Ubiquitous Tailoring Society), and the Armed Costumers' Guild; that makes him an Armed SLUT Puppy! Byron is a past President of the International Costumers' Guild, which honored him with its Lifetime Achievement Award. He likes hard SF, alternate history, alternate worlds, and fantasy (not necessarily in that order). He was one of the founders of the Latham, Albany, Schenectady, Troy Science Fiction Association and one of its former presidents…
Patrick Connelly
Julie Costantino
Tom Courtney
Tich Cownie
Sandy Coyne
Sandy Cronin-Tassi
Paul Crook
A life-long fan of science fiction and fantasy literature, Morgan Crooks writes speculative fiction and teaches ancient history. Morgan has stories appearing in the recently released Dark Hall Press Ghost Anthology, the Daily Science Fiction site, and samples of his work are also available on his blog (ancientlogic.blogspot.com).
Ctein is a professional photographer and writer, 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 a columnist for The Online Photographer and the author of Digital Restoration from Start to Finish. 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 technical writer Paula Butler, four demented psittacines, a half dozen more-or-less normal computers, and twenty kilobooks. He reports that the house seems to be shrinking…
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.
Evie Da Rosa
Garen Daly has been in the dark for more years than acceptable. He is an award winning film programmer. He is a movie commentator for WGBH, NE Cable News, NH Public Radio and several other media outlets. Perhaps he is best known as the producer of The Boston Science Fiction Film Festival, the oldest genre film festival in the world (we think). Now in its 39th year, the sci-fi fest runs Feb. 7–17, 2013 at the Somerville Theatre. It's 9 days of films curated and submitted from around the world. It ends with a 24 hour film marathon on Feb 16. Visit the web site, BostonSci-fi.com for ticket and submission info. Because he's lazy and needs to stay out of bars, Garen is spending his free time making a movie. It's a documentary on the legendary Orson Welles Cinema Complex. For those who don't know, it was indeed famous. The first manager, in his first gig in the business, was some dude named Tommy Lee Jones. If you have an OWC story and want to be in the film, track him down and chat him up.
Loren Damewood has been creating intricate decorative knots in precious metal for over 30 years, and recently retired from a career in the aerospace industry ("Not exactly rocket science… more like rocket tech.") to teach workshops on his methods full time. He taught himself the techniques he uses, by trial and error, and delights in helping others to bypass the painful and tedious stages and go right to the shiny stuff.
Gillian Daniels lives in Somerville, MA and is a local theater critic with The New England Theatre Geek (netheatregeek.com). As a prose and poetry writer, she has work published and upcoming in Electric Velocipede, PodCastle, Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine, Flying Higher: An Anthology of Superhero Poetry, Flash Fiction Online, and, memorably, Kazka Press's Bronies: For the Love of Ponies. She's also a contributor to the entertainment blog, The Analytical Couch Potato (theanalyticalcouchpotato.org), where she writes about novels, movies, and cartoons.
Troy Daniels
Evan Davidson
Christopher K. 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.)
Ken Davis
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.L. Davroe writes both YA and adult speculative fiction. Her City Steam collection and her debut YA paranormal romance novel, FOR YOUR HEART are available on Amazon. By day, she lives in Connecticut her two feline hench-creatures.
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 self-published 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) is best-known for her role as a masquerade emcee at the 1997 and 2004 Worldcons as well as numerous east coast local and regional conventions and recently as director of the 2012 Hugo Award Ceremony. Susan is a social dance historian who may often be found in musty library stacks researching dance from the 16th to the early 20th century, which she teaches at workshops and dance events across the United States and in Russia. Susan also makes costumes and blogs about social dance history (at Capering and Kickery, http://www.kickery.com). In her spare time, she plays high-speed online Scrabble and is teaching herself Russian.
Keith R. A. DeCandido
Chris DeKalb
Lori Del Genis (weegoddess on LJ) spends her time saving the world through creating eco-friendly wedding dresses and teaching injured people to swallow safely again. She runs a business designing custom-made gowns out of hemp and unwanted vintage silk and she can often be found prowling around thrift stores, living the Lifestyle of the Frugal and Adventurous. When she's not designing dresses she works in hospitals and nursing homes, helping patients regain some lost function. In her spare time she turns cartwheels, dances with hula hoops, geeks out about the benefits of chia v flax seeds, and is in perpetual search of a functional time-turner. She currently lives in State College, PA with her spouse Jonathan but insists on lurking around Bostonia for her requisite dose of Normality.
Carol DeLorenzo
Chris Denmead runs a horror-themed radio show on WCUW 91.3 FM called the Dr.Chris Radio of Horror program. He has broadcast over 325 episodes as of Arisia 2013, covering horror and sci-fi films and interviews of various stars of genre fiction. Some of his past guests include Malcolm McDowell, Doug Jones, Dee Wallace Stone, Steve Niles, Doug Bradley, and Adam Green. He just published his first book, a children's Halloween picture book Give Me Something Good to Eat.
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. Having finished his first science fiction novel, Dragons Don't Eat Jesters, which includes a minimum of "one dragon, two princesses, four dogs, a lot of riddles, some explosions, and a lot of really weird stuff," he's written over 60 short/flash stories—Dern Grim Children's Short Bedtime Stories (Few of Which End Well), intended to be Morally Instructive to the Listener and Cathartically Therapeutic for the Reader (www.DernGrim.com) If you have at least 45 seconds to spare, ask to hear one if you see him and he's not otherwise busy! More recently, he's been working on longer Jewish-themed YA urban fantasies and other children's stories, including "The Tashlich Fish" and "A Child's Yom Kippur In Whales."
Mario "DigiCom" Di Giacomo has been studying the weird and the fantastic (or, to use the term he coined, "Memetic Archaeology") for nearly four decades, and enjoys speaking about his studies at conventions across Southern New England.
Alexa Dickman is a blogger who runs the Ladies Making Comics tumblr (http://www.ladiesmakingcomics.com). She is also a member of the Boston Comics Roundtable and an avid comics historian who runs the Women in Comics Wiki (http://womenincomics.wikia.com). She's also a former law student and IP nerd. Her other interests include fanfiction, buying books she has no time to read, making her own tea blends, and Bond villains.
Jack Dietz works in computer security, network and operating system research. His interests include history, science, technology, language, cognition, space, travel and many combinations of those words.
Samantha Dings is assistant Division Head for Events for Arisia 14, past President of Arisia Corporation, fan of Doctor Who, enjoys online Who fandom, and a fan of Star Trek, original and Next Gen, attending her 24th Arisia.
Sara Dion
DJ Dirge (AEther, Allure, Excess, Eclipse): DJ DIRGE is know for his raucous parties and genre-defying mixing. He has worked in the goth/fetish scene throughout New England, and is the resident DJ at several popular nights in Boston. DIRGE's musical selections range from EBM, IDM, electro, and dubstep to 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.
Sean Dixon-Gumm is a former-current-quasi professional historian with a penchant for homebrew, Irish music, punk rock, and living history. If it goes boom in the night, or if it was commonplace over 100 years ago, chances are he either knows about it, wants to know about it, or has tried to make it work. Oh, and he likes sewing things.
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 write full-time. Since then they have lived in Colebrook, New Hampshire, where they write science fiction and fantasy for children, teenagers, and adults.
Dawn-Marie Dunn
Matthew Ebel is a piano rocker from the Boston area who has been playing geek conventions of all sorts for nearly a decade. He draws his influence from all over the spectrum: the offbeat comedy of Jonathan Coulton, the rock edge of the Foo Fighters, the cerebral quirkiness of Ben Folds—yet his sound is undeniably unique. His songs walk the fine line between raw emotional content and fantastical escapism. On stage he takes on the role of a starship captain traveling from planet to planet and bringing his piano rock show to the locals wherever he lands… or crashes. With robot shipmates, alien antagonists, and a ship perpetually on the brink of flying apart, Ebel keeps audiences entertained while he keeps his crew from being blown to space dust. Ebel's been writing and performing music his entire life, earning a degree in Music from Whitworth University and playing stages like the Grand Ole Opry and Boston's own Roxy theater. He's also produced sci-fi music shows like the High Orbit podcast and Live at the Coffee Bunker, and has recently voiced the Phoenix Conspiracy audiobooks by sci-fi author Richard L. Sanders. You can hear Ebel's music and even download a free album at www.matthewebel.com
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 13 years. For the last 16 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 used to keep her fantasies to herself until they grew wings (and swords, spears, and other medieval weaponry) and broke free. Now, she balances the romantic with the perilous in real life and in her writing. In real life, she dropped out of med school, married the girl of her dreams, and dedicated herself to writing epic fantasy. She has a BA in English Lit, an MFA in Writing Popular Fiction, and a black belt in karate. 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, she puts the romance back into necromancy with erotic vampire stories such as "Graced," from the Lambda-nominated Women of the Bite from Circlet Press ebooks and in print from Alyson Books. Her first full-length erotic romance, Blood Bound & Beautiful, was released last November from Loose Id.
Harrison Elton
Anna Erishkigal is an attorney who writes fantasy fiction under a pen-name so her colleagues don't question whether her legal pleadings are fantasy fiction as well. Much of law, it turns out, -is- fantasy fiction. Lawyers just prefer to call it 'zealously representing your client.' Seeing the dark underbelly of life makes for some interesting fictional characters. The kind you either want to incarcerate, or run home and write about. In fiction, you can fudge facts without worrying too much about the truth. In legal pleadings, if your client lies to you, you look stupid in front of the judge. At least in fiction, if a character becomes troublesome, you can always kill them off. Anna is creator of the 'Divorce Bootcamp' legal self-help lecture series and book under her -real- name, which Shalt-Not-Be-Named lest the judge question whether that colorful legal pleading is the manuscript for her latest fantasy novel. She is also founder of Seraphim Press.
Paul Erlik
Deb Eskie is a resident of Massachusetts and has an M.Ed in creative arts education. With a background in women's studies, her focus as a writer is to expose the woman's experience through unsettling tales that highlight the dilemma of sexual repression and oppression. By combining the genres of feminist and horror fiction she aims to not only disturb readers, but deliver a message that is informative and thought provoking. In 2005 Deb's play, Tell Me About Love, was featured in the Provincetown Playwright Festival. She has been featured in various online magazines such as Deadman's Tome, Bad Moon Rising, and 69 Flavors of Paranoia. Deb has a number of short stories published by Pill Hill Press, Post Mortem Press, Cruentus Libri Press, and other publishers.
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. Becoming a filker was inevitable—he sings and plays guitar and other instruments; sometimes solo and sometimes in the bands "Dr. Snark" and "Don't Fret the Small Stuff". Among Paul's other interests (in alphabetical order) are 80's music, Andrew Sullivan, astronomy, bicycling, books, cats, cognitive science, comics, complexity, dynamism, folk music, freedom, maps, market solutions, modern fairy tales, movies, mu*ing, natural history, Neil Gaiman, non-fiction, nonstandard categories, reading, rock music, RPGs, science, 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!!!
Like Goodgulf the Wizard, this individual has many names: the one on her passport and her scholarly writings on early textiles (Lisa 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.
Isaac Everett equally serious about his faith, his music, and his nerdery. He is the Minister for Liturgical Arts at The Crossing, an emergent church in downtown Boston, and is the author of The Emergent Psalter, a musical translation and commentary on the book of Psalms. He has been published in Psalms for All Seasons (Brazos Press, 2012), Worship and Song for United Methodists (Abingdon Press, 2011), Music by Heart: Paperless Songs for Evening Worship (Church Publishing, 2008), Rising From the Ashes: Rethinking Church (Seabury Books, 2007), and Liturgy: the Journal of the Liturgical Conference (2011 and 2012). Additionally, he is an avid gamer, being especially committed to the World of Darkness (both new and classic versions), Dungeons and Dragons, EVE online, and the Civilization series. He hosts a monthly vampire LARP in the Boston Cathedral, and is known to get unreasonably upset by liturgical mistakes and historical inaccuracies when watching films and TV shows.
Dr. Alexander Feinman hacks hackers for a living: he designs software that helps other programmers develop, build, and test MATLAB. 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 novel "Duplicate" is available for sale online and at Arisia; he is currently finishing up "We Were Gods", his next science fiction novel.
Stuart 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 20 years' experience, although some would say the first ten years don't count because he wasn't over 18 yet.
Ruth Ferrick
Allison Fin is a scarred veteran of many a decade of con running, An avid film and media collector specializing in Asian and British science fiction and horror. When not in meatspace, preparing for the oncoming necro-apocalypse, she is often found in Second Life, role-playing and DJing.
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 brand new convention that will be held March 29 and 30, 2014 on Long Island. 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, Carl is particularly likely to challenge pseudoscience and superstition. He lives and works on Long Island, New York.
Doug Fitzgerald
Ginger Fitzsimmons
Dina Ellen Flockhart
Kate Fractal is an analytically geek, with a day job teaching mathematics and computer science. By night, she hosts song circles filled with weird music, plays board games and LARPs, dabbles in game design, and tries to understand dynamic systems.
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.
Katherine Freedman
William Freedman, author of Land That I Love, Mighty Mighty and the screenplay Errant Order, is a satirist who uses science fiction, fantasy and horror tropes. His novelette "Forever and Ever, Amen" appeared in the 2006 Spirit House chapbook and he spent two years as a slush editor for Abyss & Apex. He is also the editor of the Age of Certainty anthology, in which 10 speculative fiction authors (including James Morrow) present God as their stories' speculative element. Bill holds degrees in journalism and international business and his non-fiction work has appeared in Investor's Business Daily, Euromoney Books, Global Finance magazine, Treasury & Risk Management magazine, and many other business and financial news outlets both in print and online.
David J. Friedman is a practicing attorney and freelance co-author of multiple Thompson Reuters/WestLaw publications discussing intellectual property, cyberspace, free speech, and privacy law issues. David's experience includes a wide range of transactional and litigation work, including helping artists and entrepreneurs resolve business and intellectual property law challenges, internships at the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office, and pro bono work with the Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts. Outside the legal field, David has over a decade of professional experience teaching art and working as a performing and visual artist at festivals, corporate events, and on broadcast media. David is proud to argue, play with toys, and throw things for a living. He plans to dedicate his life to helping people mind their own businesses.
Adam Fromm is a musician, writer, crossword constructor, and a man with insufficient control over his hair's daily activities. He has recently returned to the Boston area after a year abroad (where "abroad" = "in rural New Hampshire"), and is currently pursuing songwriting and music performance, partly in pursuit of a lifelong passion for music and partly as a dodge from having to edit that damn novel. Can be bribed with Thai food.
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. His short story "Familiar Places" appears in the anthology Bites of Passion and his latest book is The Viscountess Investigates being published by Circlet Press under his pen name Cameron Quintain. He is a performer and director at King Richard's Faire in Carver, MA.
Shana Fuqua has a BA in music. She is an twelve-year veteran of King Richard's Faire where she spent one year as assistant apprentice music director and four years as an administrative assistant to the apprentice program. She has been involved in the BDSM scene for roughly twenty years. 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. This year she joins the Arisia staff.
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, 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. 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 2014. He is also the Programming Division Head this year.
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.
Michael Gibson
Jonathan Gilbert
Greer Gilman's latest novella Cry Murder! In a Small Voice is a Jacobean noir detective story. Someone is murdering boy players; Ben Jonson investigates. 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.
Laura Anne Gilman is the author of ten Cosa Nostradamus novels, including (most recently) Dragon Justice and the Nebula award-nominated Vineart War fantasy trilogy, which concluded with The Shattered Vine. Her new fantasy duology, HEART OF BRIAR and SOUL OF FIRE, will be out Fall/Winter 2013. She also writes mysteries as L.A. Kornetsky. A member of the online writers' consortium BookVew Cafe, she writes the "Practical Meerkat" advice-to-writers column on their blog. Learn more at www.lauraanegilman.net or follow her on Twitter: @LAGilman.
Max Gladstone's first novel, THREE PARTS DEAD, was named a Massachusetts Must Read Book of 2012. He was shortlisted for the 2013 John W. Campbell Best New Writer Award, and longlisted for the 2008 Writers of the Future award. TWO SERPENTS RISE, the second book in the series, was published in October 2013, and a third, FULL FATHOM FIVE, is forthcoming in July 2014.
Hayley "Shenanigans" Goldstein is a recent high school graduate hailing from Newton, MA. Ms. Shenanigans is passionate beyond belief about Doctor Who, Sherlock, the works of Neil Gaiman, fanfiction, cosplay, filking, steampunk, various nerdy TV and film series, and collecting books. At Arisia you will most likely be able to find her cosplaying as a Doctor Who character or as her steampunk alter ego, Dahlia Larke. (Filker Paul Estin taught her history during her freshman year of high school and introduced her to the wonders of conventions and filk.) You can find her online at stuff-and-shenanigans.tumblr.com or on Fanfiction.net under the pen name "The Impossible Slashtronaut."
Timothy O. 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.
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 founded and directed 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. She can be seen in "Spirit of Salem," now showing in Salem, MA, in "Stand Back" on YouTube and has a small role in the upcoming 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.
Lauren Gray
Justine Graykin is a freelance philosopher sustained by her deep and abiding faith in Science and Humanity (well, Science, anyway) and the belief that humor is the best anti-gravity device. Her new novel, Archimedes Nesselrode (Double Dragon Publishing, 2013) was written for adults who are weary of adult books. She produces the BroadPod podcast for Broad Universe, and disappears into the mountains occasionally with a backpack. Find her at justinegraykin.com.
Megan Gregory is an expert on comics from the Golden Age to present, and an expert on the history and literature of the industry. She worked at the Comic Store from 2000–2003 and she has worked at Collectibles Unlimited in Concord, NH since 2007. She is the Executive Director of the Comic Archives Project, a nonprofit dedicated to preserving comics for future fans and scholars. She is Staff for Boston Comic Con and has handled VIPs like Scott Synder, Jim Lee and Joe Kubert. She has a MEd in Heritage Studies & Historic Preservation and in her secret identity, she works as a high school teacher.
After traveling around the country, Melina M. Gunnett has temporarily settled in Portland, Oregon where she is currently holding down a day job as a Mad Scientist. When she is not plotting to take over the world you can find her at http://melinagunnett.wordpress.com/.
Dr. Abby Hafer was born at Cape Canaveral, where her father was part of the U.S. space program. She grew up living lots of places in the U.S. She graduated in biology at Swarthmore College and got a D.Phil. in zoology from Oxford University. She briefly worked for the National Marine Fisheries Service on a Japanese fishing ship in the Bering Sea. While on board, she won a push-ups contest with the ship's officers. Since Oxford, she has done research on sleep, circadian rhythms, and respiratory physiology. She now works at Curry College where she teaches Human Anatomy & Physiology. She enjoys outdoor sports and has traveled widely, including recent trips to Transylvania, Alaska, China, and the Grand Canyon. In her spare time, she gives public lectures that debunk Intelligent Design and Creationism, and has written a book on that subject which will be published sometime in the next year. She is married, has two children, and lives in Bedford, Massachusetts.
David Hahn
Andrea Hairston is author of Redwood and Wildfire, winner of the 2011 Tiptree Award and Mindscape, shortlisted for the Phillip K Dick and Tiptree Awards, and winner of the Carl Brandon Parallax Award. A performer, playwright, and artistic director of Chrysalis Theatre, her plays have been produced at Yale Rep, Rites and Reason, the Kennedy Center, StageWest, and on Public Radio and Television. In her spare time she is the Louise Wolff Kahn 1931 Professor of Theatre and Afro-American Studies at Smith College. She has received the International Association of the Fantastic in the Arts Distinguished Scholarship Award for outstanding contributions to the criticism of the fantastic. She bikes at night year round, meeting bears, multi-legged creatures of light and breath, and the occasional shooting star.
Christine Hajjar
Communities of all kinds are important to Steven Hammond, from the patients at patientslikeme.com, where Steve is the Director of Engineering, to the Town of Holden, where Steve serves on the School Board and volunteers as a space educator in local schools. Steve supports community, open source software development, and patronizes Kobold Quarterly's community game development. Steve has years of game mastering experience and was recently a top 10 finalist in Kobold Quarterly's "King of the Monster" contest.
Forest Handford is a fire artist from Newport, Rhode Island. Forest works as a supervisor at a medical software company. 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 is the Director of Organizational Development for Firefly Arts Collective, Inc. He is also on the board of the Unitarian Universalist Legislative Ministry of Rhode Island.
Kelly Hashway is the author of the Touch of Death series published by Spencer Hill Press, the Birth of the Phoenix series coming in 2014 through Month9Books, and The Monster Within also coming in 2014 through Spencer Hill Press. Kelly loves all things related to paranormal, fantasy, and sci-fi.
Ashley Haslam
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, Asimov's, Interzone, Odyssey, Nature, Twilight Zone, Daily Science Fiction and several anthologies including Year's Best Horror Stories and Great American Ghost Stories. His non-fiction has appeared in many other magazines, including Optics & Photonics News, Omni, Earth, Analog, Cosmos, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 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 the California Institute of Technology.
Kourtney Heintz writes speculative fiction for adults. Her debut novel, The Six Train to Wisconsin, is a 2013 USA Best Book Awards Finalist and 2014 EPIC's EBook Awards Finalist. Kirkus Reviews said it is a "suspenseful, sci-fi–tinged thriller and produces a welcome variation on the classic marriage drama." Kourtney has been featured in the Republican American, on WTNH's CT Style, and Everything Internet on the radio. As K.C. Tansley, she writes YA contemporary fantasy. She resides in Connecticut with her Shih-Tzu Lhasa Apso warrior lapdog, her supportive parents and three quirky golden retrievers. Years of working on Wall Street provided the perfect backdrop for her imagination to run amuck at night, dreaming up a world where out-of-control telepathy and buried secrets collide.
Alec Heller
Shana Heller
An avid reader of science fiction and fantasy since the age of 7 and a rabid gamer since the age of 10, James T Henderson Jr has been a gamer and fan for most of his life. As an adult, Jimmy pursued a career in Mechanical and Structural Engineering, but is dedicated to the upbringing of the next generation of Fan (his daughter). He remains a Wargamer, costumer, modeler, roleplayer, LARPer, and most of all a reader. He attempts to divide his time to enjoy both Parenthood and the insanity called Fandom, and mostly succeeds.
Lisa Hertel is an amateur artist from a long line of artists. She usually works in clay and watercolors. In her spare time, she helps run literary science fiction conventions. Visit her at Western Avenue Studios in Lowell, studio #311.
Andy Hicks is a Boston-based musician, director, actor, and radio producer. He co-wrote and composed the music for 2010: Our Hideous Future—The Musical!, a cyberpunk satire/romantic comedy which recently toured the New England and NYC area, and which you might have seen a couple of years ago at this very con. He's a former WBCN DJ, currently works as a Radio Producer for WGBH radio, and may or may not have recently been seen in a Downton Abbey spot on WGBH 2. Andy's also a theatrical sound designer, and a total and complete Doctor Who geek. Seriously. Old and new series. Ask him anything.
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 SamuraiX47.
Steven Hirsch has been playing swords since 2006 and 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.
Melissa Honig maintains a calendar of sci-fi and fantasy events in New England on her blog, http://nescifievents.org/. She is also the list administrator for the New England Browncoats. She enjoys steampunk, costuming, weird crafts, and watching old TV shows from her childhood via Netflix.
Rachel Howell
Wil Howitt is a doctor of computer science and electrical engineering, specializing in physical acoustics and psychoacoustics. He has worked at MIT and BU, developing human auditory system models and speech recognition systems. He also enjoys drumming, dancing, and playing didjeridu and other rhythmic instruments. He teaches Taoist martial arts, rides a black BMW motorcycle, fences with a German longsword, and looks around a lot.
Crystal Huff spends her time saving the world and chasing down conventioneers. She was convention chair of Arisia 2011, Relaxacon 2011, Readercon 23, Readercon 24, and will be convention chair for Readercon 25 and co-chair of JOFcon I. Crystal's also heavily involved in trying to bring Worldcon to Helsinki in 2017, which will highlight the joys of Finnish fandom to the international community. Alignment: Chaotic Good.
Steve Huff
Following three years in the Canadian Naval Reserve (as a cook), a year studying forestry (although not very hard), a winter hanging around Universal studios (on the set of Operation Petticoat), a degree in Radio and Television Arts, and time spent managing North America's oldest surviving SF&F bookstore (Bakka-Phoenix when it was only Bakka) Tanya Huff moved to rural Ontario with her wife Fiona Patton and began writing science fiction and fantasy full-time—or as full-time as possible around the needs of nine cats, two dogs, and eighty acres of land. Her twenty-seven books range from heroic fantasy (the Quarters books) through humour (the Keeper Chronicles) to military SF (the Torin Kerr Confederation series) and include SCHOLAR OF DECAY a novel set in TSR's Ravenloft universe as well as four short story collections and three e-collections and recent e-reprints of GATE OF DARKNESS, CIRCLE OF LIGHT and THE FIRE'S STONE. Her latest novel was THE SILVERED, a heroic fantasy with werewolves and a Napoleonic tech level (DAW, November 2012) and her next will be, THE FUTURE FALLS, the third in the Gale Girls series. (no release date as yet because it tried to kill her) Her books have been translated into nine languages (ten if you include British English)(which she does) and her five book Blood series, an urban fantasy/vampire/mystery mix which predated the current vampire craze by about fifteen years, was adapted into the 22 episode television series BLOOD TIES—a process she enjoyed every moment of. Not only because it was the first time in twenty-five years she actually got to use her degree. She is the only author who has won both the Constellation Award and the Aurora. She watches baseball but not hockey, loves the Big Bang Theory, prefers David Tennant to Matt Smith although Peter Davidson is her Doctor, and thought Iron Man 3, while not as amazing as Iron Man 1, was better than Iron Man 2. Her tastes in books ranges across the board, depending on mood at the time, but Terry Pratchett and Charles de Lint remain at the top of her favourites list and she still hasn't gotten over the loss of Diana Wynne Jones. When she's not writing, gardening, dealing with the cats, watching TV, or reading, she's learning to play the bagpipes.
Walter 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. Current projects include 1632 novels with Eric Flint, an 18th century alternate history novel, and the forthcoming Elements of Mind from Spencer Hill Press. 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.
Jennifer Hunter, 42, is a professional organizer in Medford, Massachusetts. Once a writer and editor, with four books on NeoPaganism to her credit, she decided to make a career out of what she did for fun on her writing breaks. She specializes in working with unconventional people, helping them learn that creative does not have to mean disorganized. Jen is also a collage artist using found/recycled objects, and has exhibited in several shows (including this year's Arisia Art Show). She lives with her daughter, partner, housemates, and two cats. Her website is at www.jenniferhunter.com.
Ofer Inbar
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 Instructive Tale of the Archeologist and His Wife" 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 recently completed a YA alternate history adventure novel, "Door of Worlds". He lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Alex Jarvis has written for Wired's "Geekdad," is a former editor for The Consumerist, and writes for the Chronicle of Higher Education's "ProfHacker." He is currently the Editor in Chief of Spandexless.com, and the author of several comic books that you can read if you ask him really, really nicely. He wants to write comics and graphic novels professionally one day and hates vowels.
Tenea Johnson was born in Kentucky and fled at the first opportunity. She took with her, the calm of the Ohio River and the swell of honesty (sometimes refreshing, sometimes catastrophic) that afflicts the folks born along its banks. Adoring of ideas, she graduated from the New College of Florida (enroll there now and thank her later) and NYU's Gallatin School, as well as attending Clarion. Writing sustains her; music saves her. As often as possible, she straddles their borders to create compositions/fusions/hyphenated watchamacallit better heard than described. So far the Knitting Factory, Dixon Place, The Public Theater, and others have opened their doors to the form. Tenea's work has appeared in African Voices, Arise, Humanities in the South, Infinite Matrix, Contemporary American Women Poets, Whispers in the Night: Dark Dreams III and Necrologue, among others. She is the author of a poetry/short prose collection, Starting Friction as well as the novels, Smoketown and R/evolution.
Elizabeth Joy
David Jubinski
A recent transplant to the Boston area, Juliet Kahn was doomed to nerdhood from the moment she found her father's Bronze Age Marvel stash. She is particularly interested in shoujo manga, the history of superhero comics, the future of fandom and cosplaying. She writes for Comics Alliance.
Catherine Kane is a professional psychic, published author, Reiki master/teacher, bard, artist, enthusiastic student of the Universe, maker of very bad puns, songwriter and overachiever, amongst other things… She loves empowering people to have their best lives possible. Visit Catherine and her husband, Starwolf, at Foresight on Facebook, www.ForesightYourPsychic.com, and www.ForesightYourCtPsychic.wordpress.com.
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 co-chair for the 2014 Transcending Boundaries Conference and committed to making the fandom community safe and comfortable for anyone who wants to participate.
A longtime GM, participating and running games since 1978, including long-running games, David C Kaplowitz 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.
Faith Karklin was introduced to Arisia five years ago and has found herself returning every year since. Apparently she can't resist a weekend spent dancing and discussing books.
Katrina Meyer has been involved in fandom since her dad started taking her to sci-fi cons while she was still in diapers. She is an artist, a belly dancer, a massage therapist, and the unwitting founder of the geeky belly dance show. And if you stay still too long, she will likely try to engage your interest in any of the above, with gesticulation bordering on interpretive dance.
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 with a mission to discover and launch the careers of talented new authors. www.SpencerHillPress.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 Area Head.
Leigh Perry is Toni L.P. Kelner in disguise, or maybe vice versa. As Leigh, she writes the Family Skeleton mysteries. A Skeleton in the Family, the first, came out in September 2013. As Toni, she's the author of the "Where Are They Now?" mysteries and the Laura Fleming series (all of which are available as ebooks and audiobooks); an Agatha Award winner for short fiction; and the co-editor of New York Times bestselling fantasy/mystery anthologies with Charlaine Harris. Games Creatures Play will be released in April. Leigh/Toni lives just north of Boston, on the Orange Line, with her husband and fellow author Stephen P. Kelner, Jr., their two daughters, and two guinea pigs.
Mikki Kendall is also known as Karnythia or that broad that curses out the internet.
Rachel Kenley is a novelist, workshop leader, and coach on sexual empowerment. She is the multi-published author of several erotic romance novels and anthologies and is currently working on a non-fiction book on embracing your sexual power. When she is not writing she is spending time with her family including homeschooling her sons, and laughing as much as possible. She loves reading, chocolate, her morning cup of coffee and retail therapy. A Jersey Girl no matter where she is living, she can be found on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/pages/Rachel-Kenley/43491347339, on Amazon at www.amazon.com/author/rachelkenley and at her website www.rachelkenley.com
Paul Kenworthy began historic costuming and making armour and swords 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 is also a performer and director of the Commonwealth Vintage Dancers, a performance dance company that specializes in 19th and early 20th century social dance.
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 canning, gardening, soapmaking, and food sculpture. Someday there will be goats.
David Kessler—Co-Producer and Stage Manger of the Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony. Writer, Logistician, and professional Generalist, studying odd ideas and skills, from calligraphy to juggling, sailing to fire eating, Taichi to Lewis Carroll, and whisky to singing. (www.ouphrontis.com)
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".
Maury Kestenbaum
Andrew Kilgore
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, the Jewish Advocate, the Sci-Fi Movie Page, Clarkesworld 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.
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 Super Hero 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.
Kitty
Mindy Klenoff
Lisa Koch
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.
Stefan Krzywicki
Bettina M. Kurkoski is the creator/writer/artist of My Cat Loki, published by TOKYOPOP Inc. In 2003 she entered TOKYOPOP's Rising Stars of Manga Vol. 2 competition, placing as a runner-up, her work "Axis Lumen" published in the winners' compilation. 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. You can see more of her artwork and full bio at www.dreamworldstudio.net.
Alisa Kwitney is the multi-published author of adult and YA novels, graphic novels and non-fiction. 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. Her latest novel is The New Avengers: Breakout, based on the Brian Bendis comic series. You can visit her website at www.alisakwitney.com.
Adria Kyne
Marnen Laibow-Koser
Amy Lake
David Larochelle grew up in the D.C. area but moved up to Cambridge in 2004 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. 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 currently works for the Berkman Center for Internet & Society.
Ellen Larson's first published story appeared in Yankee Magazine in 1971. She has sold stories to Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine (Barry Award finalist) and Big Pulp Magazine and is the author of the NJ Mysteries, The Hatch and Brood of Time and Unfold the Evil (to be reprinted by Poisoned Pen Press in 2014). Her current book is In Retrospect, a science-fiction mystery ("Carefully crafted whodunit" -PW starred "A cleverly structured mix of science fiction and mystery" -Booklist). Larson lived and worked as an editor for seventeen years in Egypt, where she developed a love of different cultures. After returning to the US in 2006, she became the editor of the Poisoned Pencil, the YA mystery imprint. She lives in an off-grid cabin in upstate New York, enjoying the solitude.
A dedicated fan of Duran Duran, as seen in the documentary There's Something You Should Know, avid cosplayer, and Neil Gaiman Fangirl, Pam Larson has dedicated what little free time she has from her television directing job to becoming the best fan she can be. Helping out her fellow fans by staffing and volunteering at many cons, she makes sure a good time is had by all. Her Personal Motto is, "All Nite Parties, Cocktail Bars and Smiles… It's more than a lyric, it's a way of life."
Arthur Laurie
Allyssa Laws
Toni Lay is a member of the New Jersey-New York Costumers Guild (aka The Sick Pups) and a Deputy Chatelaine for the Crown Province of Ostgardr in the Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA), which gives her plenty of opportunity to costume. Toni was Program Director for Costume Con 5, a Historical Masquerade Director for Costume Cons 16 and 22, a Historical Judge for Costume Con 28, and a Presentation Judge at Renovation, the Reno Worldcon. Her other fannish interests include Torchwood, Merlin, Star Trek, Doctor Who, Britcoms, alternate history novels, Harry Potter, Dragonriders of Pern, Marcus Didius Falco, and Roma Sub Rosa mysteries. When she is not watching DVDs, reading, or making costumes, Toni is a secretary for the New York City Department of Design and Construction.
Once a mixed class programmer-bard time traveler, Vanessa Layne, MEd, LMHC, tumbled through a portal labeled "grad school" to find herself practicing psychotherapy in a gritty Damon-Affleck vehicle, treating bank robbers and math prodigies. In this continuum, she can be found in Cambridge at Integration by Parts where she makes her livelihood providing culturally sensitive therapy to scientists, technologists, engineers and mathematicians. She has points in 16th century popular music, applied anthropology, the psychology of morality, hand-to-hand politics, Darmok, I didn't know it could be made to do that, dynamically generated code, the history and politics of the DSM, and practical surrealism.
Cassandra Lease is a lifelong resident of Boston and a second-generation fan who was introduced to Star Trek while she was still learning to talk. As a neo-pagan trans lesbian feminist, she's an outspoken advocate for religious tolerance, LGBT rights, and social equality. Prior to her transition, she worked as a freelance writer in the tabletop game industry; more recently, she's gone digital, working for five years testing games for Turbine and Irrational Games before finding a new day job in mobile software. She is still an active GM, an avid reader of comic books and urban fantasy literature, and a massive Power Rangers fan. Cassandra is currently hard at work on her first novel, a queer supernatural romance entitled Fall, as well as numerous fanfics and small-scale indie games.
Gregory Lee is a practicing lawyer focusing on family law matters. He is also the proprietor of his own miniscule press (smaller than a small press), Greylock Publishing Lines. He has written three novels in The Laughing Lip series, published through his imprint, proving that he is ambitious, impatient, and clueless about finding a decent agent. The novels themselves prove that he is a lousy proofreader. For the last year, he has let himself be sidetracked into working on aspects of Marc Miller's Traveller5, and the extended sourcebook "Cirque." He has an agreement to novelize this as well. On a more positive note, he is serious about some things, including the need for mankind to alter its ways. Note: Whenever the supposedly dead monster turns up less dead, he remembers his father's words: "That'll teach the smartasses."
Jacob Lefton is an artist blacksmith currently living in Amherst, Massachusetts. He studied creative writing, art, and education at Hampshire College. Following brief adventures with the circus, he spent six months in Europe as a journeyman blacksmith. Since then he has been supporting himself with artisan metalwork. Visit www.jacoblefton.com to see more of his work.
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.
PJ Letersky has been cosplaying for decades and has been a fixture at the FUNimation booths in New York and Boston for the past 5 years. He is both a professional actor and musician, having been the music instructor on the first season of Fox TV's "Fringe", and acting in numerous television shows and movies. Being based out of Connecticut makes it very easy to get to all the location shoots across New York and New England. With the wealth of tv and filming in the area, he is more than willing to give out the information he has learned over the years to folks who want to get into acting and cosplaying. His "alter-ego" is Nauticon's "Jack" who he has been portraying and corrupting innocent con-goers for the past 2 years in the process. (Soon to be a 3rd year this May!) He has also been stage managing off-Broadway shows as well as designing and running lights and sound for those productions.
Benjamin Levy has been a science fiction fan for most of his life. He went to his first science fiction convention when he was 10 years old. He has been involved with Arisia since its inception. In the past he has worked for Arisia as a gopher, Dealers Liaison, Fixed Functions (Exhibits) Division Head, and Assistant Con Chair. Currently, he is the Arisia Corporate Treasurer and an Assistant Con Chair for A14.
Emily Lewis is a Latin Teacher with lots of art history, archaeology, and singing experience. She's also a history geek, especially for ancient history. She loves anything education and is very, very interested in gaming and education. In her copious spare time, she works with a group called The Pericles Group (www.practomime.com) to develop a game called Operation LAPIS. The game objectives are the same as the learning objectives, and students have had lots of success with it. When she is not teaching or helping build Operation LAPIS, she is a singer, specifically with the group Sassafrass, a dancer of all styles, and an ice hockey player. Her musical background, as well as her history background, also allows her to find fantastic historical songs to use with her students.
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 first 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.
Suford Lewis is a longtime fan and a longer-time reader. She has been a member of LASFS and MITSFS, and a founding member of NESFA and Regency fandom. She is a Master Costumer; an inveterate con com member, having been part of the committees of all the Boston worldcons, many Boskones, two Costumecons, a few others, and even an Arisia or so; and in 2008 was given the Big Heart Award. She also finds time to play a little Dominion, see some anime, and, with luck, even filk a bit. Mostly retired from software system building, she still occasionally helps some people out with computers. She is the Bujold editor for NESFA Press, having completed nine books. She is married to Tony Lewis, is owned currently by 2 cats, and is the proud mother of Alice.
Derek D Lichter is a wonderful husband, father, friend, and FNP who was too busy to write his own bio so his spouse abused her privileges to write it for him.
Sue Lindsay
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 young adult books. 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 with his wife, daughter, and two moderately psychotic felines.
Shira Lipkin has managed to convince Apex Magazine, Stone Telling, Clockwork Phoenix 4, Interfictions 2, Mythic Delirium, and other otherwise-sensible magazines and anthologies to publish her work; two of her stories have been recognized as Million Writers Award Notable Stories, and she has won the Rhysling Award for best short poem. She credits luck, glitter eyeliner, and tenacity. She lives in Boston with her family and the requisite cats, most of whom also write. She also fights crime with the Boston Area Rape Crisis Center, does six impossible things before breakfast, and would like a nap now.
Arielle Lipshaw
Lizabee—English unaccompanied folk singer who picked up many a gem during her time living in Oxford and studying British folk and traditional Music at Newcastle University. Expect thinly veiled C17th sauce from sources including Bodlien Library manuscripts and The Oxford Waits, amongst a variety of other songs passed on through the aural tradition. Montessori Directress and real life British Nanny with 12 years professional Childcare experience, I also have a son who is 20 months old. Together we are known as a pair of friendly happy faces, and look forward to welcoming other families to Geeky Play dates over the weekend.
Lubov is a Russian-born fine art artist who does not paint commercially. Her works, generally in oils, show a pre-Raphaelite influence. She paints landscapes, fantasies, and horror equally as the mood moves her, generally on large canvases with fine details and luminous colors.
Adam Luca
Catherine Lundoff is the award-winning author of Silver Moon: A Women of Wolf's Point Novel (Lethe Press, 2012) as well as the short story collections Night's Kiss (Lethe Press, 2009), Crave (Lethe Press, 2007) and A Day at the Inn, A Night at the Palace and Other Stories (Lethe Press, 2011). She is the editor of Haunted Hearths and Sapphic Shades: Lesbian Ghost Stories (Lethe Press, 2008) and the co-editor, with JoSelle Vanderhooft, of the anthology Hellebore and Rue: Tales of Queer Women and Magic (Lethe Press, 2011). Website: www.catherinelundoff.com
Alan M is a poly activist who has run the Polyamory in the News site for the last eight years, reporting on more than 1,500 media treatments of the subject. He has given keynote speeches at Loving More's Poly Living and Atlanta Poly Weekend conventions, spoken at Poly Pride in NYC and Transcending Boundaries, and is a founding member of the Polyamory Leadership Network. His goal is to make the world aware that polyamory can be an ethical, happy option for some people. Alan has lived happily in both poly and mono relationships for long stretches of his life since 1968.
Amy Maccabre
James Douglas Macdonald was born in White Plains, New York, the second of three children of W. Douglas Macdonald, a chemical engineer, and Margaret E. Macdonald, a professional artist. 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 blogs at Absolute Write.com and Making Light.
Glenn MacWilliams—Business Director for the past 18 plus years of The Teseracte Players of Boston, New England's Premier Traveling Shadowcast, performing The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog and others. Webpage: teseracte.com. Teseracte is always available for charity and fund raising events, and is the General Manager of Magic Dragon Comics in Arlington MA, THE place for new comics.
Rose Mambert occasionally teaches Italian and is Editor-in-Chief of Pink Narcissus Press. She has co-edited various anthologies such as "Elf Love", "Queer Fish", and "WTF?!". She is also the author of the rock-and-roll vampire novel "The Muses: The Blood Tour" (2012, Damnation Books.).
James Mandeville is EMT, Founder and Chairman of Operation Hammond. He has spent the past 5 years as an EMT in the UK and USA. He is an avid safety advocate for the convention, pop culture and fan community. He founded Operation Hammond, the only non-profit organization dedicated to the unique medical and safety needs of pop culture conventions and events. Over the past 10 years he has been a frequent staff member of many anime and pop culture conventions around the world, and has fulfilled many roles ranging from security, medical care, operations and public relations. To date he has staffed over 60 conventions in the UK, Japan and USA. He has been an operations, emergency management and safety adviser to many other pop culture conventions in the UK and USA.
As an artist herself, Nicole L. Mann, Esq. places a high value on client education as to their rights when it comes to federal Copyright and Trademark law, as well as the business of making a client's art more than a private passion. She is an advocate for encouraging artists to making that great next step into commerce, including content licensing and the incorporation of small business ventures.
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
Derek Marchetti
Nikki Marie
Daniel 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 costuming, Medieval combat, and Victorian costuming. 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.
Rocket scientist by day; cook, knitter, spinner, seamstress, actress, model, singer, runner, and weaver by night. Yes, Shelley Marsh sleeps; she just has a messy house.
David Marshall has been making, researching and teaching comics for more than 20 years. He's been published by Fantagraphics Books, SpiderBaby Graphix, FantaCo Enterprises, The Boston Comics Roundtable and Riverbird Studios. Check out his free web comics on Inky Stories (www.inkystories.com). Short, self-contained stories include wholesome memoir "Six-Year-Old Horse Thief", raunchy comedy "Window of Opportunity", science fiction action "The Null Device", neurotic horror "The Bleeding Mirror" and Boston murder mystery "Zip's Last Day". Art of the Comic Book (www.artofthecomicbook.com) is David's college-level studio workshop for making comics with traditional ink-on-paper media. He frequently participates in 24-Hour Comics Day, Free Comic Book Day, Arisia, Massachusetts Independent Comics Expo and Boston ComicCon.
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 2009 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.
Brennan Martin has painted miniatures since a teen and after a college/life hiatus has jumped back into miniatures even to the extent of even playing a few games with the little things. Also, in the last few years he was a game rep for Z-Man until last Summer when he had less time after the arrival of his daughter (his favorite miniature!). He has kept bees for several years and loves talking about beekeeping to all that will listen.
Gail Z Martin is the author of Ice Forged in The Ascendant Kingdoms Saga and the upcoming Reign of Ash (Orbit Books, 2014), plus The Chronicles of The Necromancer series (The Summoner, The Blood King, Dark Haven & Dark Lady's Chosen) from Solaris Books and The Fallen Kings Cycle (The Sworn and The Dread) from Orbit Books. In 2014, Gail launches a new urban fantasy novel, Deadly Curiosities, from Solaris Books. She is also the author of two series of ebook short stories: The Jonmarc Vahanian Adventures and the Deadly Curiosities Adventures. Gail's work will appear in four new anthologies in 2014: "Clockwork Universe Steampunk vs. Aliens", "Athena's Daughters", the British Fantasy Society's "Unexpected Journeys" and "With Great Power". Find her at www.ChroniclesOfTheNecromancer.com, on Twitter @GailZMartin, on Facebook.com/WinterKingdoms, at DisquietingVisions.com blog and GhostInTheMachinePodcast.com.
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 respectively. Presently she's illustrating a bi-weekly webcomic for SALT by American Student Assistance, an education debt management company based in Boston. Donna is also 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.
Caitlin Mason
Michael McAfee is an actor, writer, director and managing director for the Post Meridian Radio Players. His poetry has appeared in Space and Time Magazine. He has been on panels dealing with a variety of topics at Arisia and other conventions since the mid-1990s. He has been active in all aspects of fandom since 1990, particularly in the SCA, LARPing and filking. Feel free to talk with him about future projects.
Alan McAvinney was born and raised in Cambridge by poly parents. He now lives and works as a computer programer in Somerville with his fiancee and metamour.
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. 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 past twelve years he's 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, system/network/telecom administrator, and web journalist and moderator. He currently spends too much time on Google+.
John McDaid's fiction has appeared in Asimov's and F&SF, where his most recent work, "Umbrella Men," was the January 2012 cover story. 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.
Victoria McManus (Janssen) can frequently be found blogging 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; and The Moonlight Mistress, set during her favorite historical time period, World War One; its electronic-only sequel is titled "Under Her Uniform." Her erotic short stories are available in numerous anthologies and as e-books. She also reviews for Publishers Weekly. Find out more at http://www.victoriajanssen.com.
James Meickle has a degree in political science and psychology, and obtaining it required more electrodes than you might expect. When he wasn't wiring up test subjects, he was involved in Connecticut's criminal justice policy on topics like prisoner reentry and marijuana decriminalization. After graduation, he began a Ph.D. in political psychology and earned the distinction of getting kicked out in record time. A few months later and he was in Boston running the Romney campaign's website (where he had the longest hair). Nowadays, James is the developer evangelist at AppNeta, a local startup focusing on application performance management. In his spare time he makes questionable contributions to the roguelike development community, like coding the Octopode race in Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup.
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.
Little Mel is a feminist, activist, politico, writer, Psychology nerd (she holds a Master's of Science in the subject), and a podcast host. On her Podcast, "No Boundaries," she discusses topics such as; LGBTIQ, BDSM, body image, relationships, sex, self-esteem, rape culture, women's issues, and she interviews some pretty groovy people (Mondays at 9:00pm on ipmNation.com/noboundaries). She is also the author of the sci-fi/YA novella "Absorb," and a non-fiction book of articles and blogs she has written (at the time this is being written, the project is untitled). Aside from all of this, she is a Whovian, hula-hooper, kinkster, and Jelly Belly bean aficionado.
Self acknowledged geek and couch potato Penelope Messier never seems to find enough time in the day for the latter. Between work, hanging with friends, drumming, kite flying, movie going and other various activities, Penny's couch is extremely lonely. In an exclusive interview with said couch, "Arisia bio" found a very disgruntled sofa: she's always gone! She used to spend all day with me but now it's an hour to work and back, and the same to see friends on the weekend, her driver's seat gets more attention then I do! Then she takes time out of work and heads to Arisia while I languish here alone. That's it, the waterbed and I are going on strike. Hi, my name is Penny and I would like to apologize for my couch; it's normally a very nice sofa but lately it gone a bit flat. I think I need to buy some new foam for it. Anyways this is me quirky but fun!!!
Erik J Meyer-Curley is Erik all the time. He is Erik everywhere he goes. Whether or not he is the Erik you are looking for is to be determined. He has been attending cons in Boston environs since about 1980. His interests are varied and his affiliations numerous.
Mijan 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, Mijan 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 Mijan 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, Mijan is a scientist, skeptic, and social secularist who feels that this is an essential perspective too often ignored in the political arena. In real life (what's real?), Mijan is an EMT with a background in biology, and writes queer fiction on the side.
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 recently completed his first manuscript, even if it is utterly unpublishable at the moment, and is working on another one… as soon as his writer's block subsides. He continues to like alternate histories, humorous SF/F, and rollicking good adventures with good worldbuilding. 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 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 Regency, 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. His current project is a web-series "Super Life" for which he is a writer, director, and producer for Rhino Crate productions.
James Mobius is a multimedia artist and multi-instrumental musician. A licensed Tattoo artist and published comic book artist/writer/colourist/inker, he has degrees in music and electronics; so he fixes houses for a living. He plays 6 string bass and Chapman Stick with Mojoceratops, is a former chocolatier, a Luthier, has lived in Japan and currently has 0.2 cats. Oh, he also does theatrical lighting for Rocky Horror and more. If you need a handyman, a tattoo, murals, portraits or progressive music, please visit his site (he made that too, from scratch) mobiusbandwidth.com.
Ken Mondschein
Josephine Monreal
Gann Monroe's varied areas of interest and knowledge include costuming, brewing, special education, and dance. She studied food microbiology and brewing science at Hampshire College, and she is currently seeking special ed teacher certification at Georgia State University. When she's not studying, Gann sews lots of costumes and practices ballet and Irish dance.
Jean Monroe
Liberty Moody
Richard Moore
Dan Morris was born June 3rd, 1982. He grew up in Charlotte, NC on a steady diet of comic books, loud music, and Legend of Zelda games. He earned a degree from Savannah College of Art and Design. It was there that he met his future wife Christa Newman who continues to encourage him to just be him. Today, he continues to enjoy comics, loud music, and Legend of Zelda games. To date he's made several self-published mini comics and continues to make comics in his spare time.
Having barely escaped with her sanity questionably intact after more than 8 years as owner of NERO Mass/Ravenholt, the founding chapter of NERO International LARP, Rachel Morris is finally able to enjoy PCing again. She's been LARPing for 15 years—a natural extension of her theater background—and has been a science fiction fan since childhood, thanks to her father introducing her to Analog at an early age. She makes her living as a productivity consultant, doing data analysis, training, and custom software development. She writes when inspiration strikes and both creates jewelry and teaches silversmithing in her (imagined) spare time.
Sarah B Morrison "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.
Eric Mumpower
John Murphy is a short fiction writer and engineer living in southern New Hampshire. He has a PhD in robotics and currently works in the field of network security. His fiction has appeared in markets including Nature, Crossed Genres, and the Drabblecast.
Erika Musicmaker is a Boston-based event producer, classical vocalist, dancer, and performance artist. Erika sings with a large classical ensemble in Boston, and also performs as a lead vocalist with various smaller jazz and contemporary acts. Erika is currently learning to create electronic music. Erika is a licensed Zumba instructor, and enjoys getting people moving with a signature high-energy, positive, and encouraging style. At Arisia 14, on Friday night, Erika is producing "KINETIC: a nightclub dance" with some of zir favorite local artists. Erika plans to expand Arisia's performing arts offerings in future years: Erika invites all performing artists (dancers, singers, musicians, DJs, VJs, tech crew members, and more) to get in touch: perhaps YOUR vision can be a reality at Arisia next year!
Maddy Myers is a freelance video game critic. She currently writes a biweekly column as well as game reviews for Paste Magazine. She previously worked as a games columnist, features writer, and web producer for the Boston Phoenix, and her writing about video games has also appeared at re/Action, Gameranx.com, the Border House, and Kill Screen. She also plays keytar and sings in a nerdcore pop rock band called the Robot Knights.
Myra
Thomas Nackid—I am a graphic designer and illustrator who lives in Bethel, Connecticut with my fannish wife Terri and my raised-in-fandom children Alex (17) and Emma (14). 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 I recently created cover art for the Mundania Press's re-release of the best-selling Bad-Ass Fairies anthology series. I also recently completed a cover for Dragon Lure, the first book in a new anthology series from Dark Quest Books. I am a regular contributor of artwork to Space and Time Magazine as well. When not working with publishers, I design various marketing and informational materials for businesses and organizations. You can always find me at www.tomnackidart.com or look for me on Facebook.
Thomas Natoli
Lawrence (Larry) Nelson, known as LORDLNYC online, is a long time member of the leather/queer/poly communities as well as a longtime queer/kinky/poly rights activist. He attended his first science fiction convention (Lunacon) in 1984 where he went on to help run gaming from 1991–2003. In 2006 he attended his first Arisia where he put in over 30 hours helping out in the con suite. In 2007 he put his longtime activism to good use and started doing panels at Arisia, Lunacon, and The Eulenspiegel Society (TES) [a major leather group in NYC]. He lives in Queens, NYC where he runs the Queens BDSM group and, when he can, their munch (which he started).
Resa Nelson's newest novel is All Of Us Were Sophie, a science fiction murder mystery. She is the author of the Dragonslayer series, a 4-book series based on two short stories published in Science Fiction Age, the first of which ranked 2nd in that magazine's first Readers Top Ten Poll. The Dragonslayer's Sword (Book 1) was Nominated for the Nebula Award and was an EPPIE Award Finalist for Best Fantasy Novel. Nelson also has a standalone novel about a modern-day society based on ancient Egypt called Our Lady of the Absolute. 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. Visit her website at http://www.resanelson.com and follow her on Twitter @ResaNelson…
Kate Nepveu was born in South Korea and raised in New England. She now lives in upstate New York where she is practicing law, raising a family, and (in her copious free time) writing at her Dreamwidth account (kate_nepveu), a booklog (steelypips.org/weblog), and at Tor.com, where she has returned to re-reading Tolkien one chapter at a time, this time with The Hobbit.
Jamie Nesbitt Golden is a freelance writer, co-founder of Hood Feminism, and co-host of Nerdgasm Noire Network.
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 Babydolls (www.BostonBabydolls.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.
Christa Newman received a Bachelors in Fine Arts for Animation from Savannah College of Art and Design in 2009. Along with her love of animation, she has been a member for the costuming community since 2002 as Sweet-Pea. Completing over 100 costumes for herself and others in her 9 years of participating in the hobby, she has also judged craftsmanship for local conventions in the past few years. After graduation she has become a professional catalog photographer and also branched out into costume photography using her film degree to create images with narrative depth.
Joshua A.C. Newman
Neylan
James Nicoll was born in Canada, learned English in the UK, learned English again in Canada and aside from various trips abroad have spent most of my adult life in Kitchener, Ontario. I ran a hobby shop for 17 years and now am a free-lance book reviewer and game editor, occupations that have taught me how to budget.
Abby Noyce is a cognitive neuroscientist, a knitter, and a theatre geek.
David Nurenberg, Ph.D. just does too much stuff. He's a freelance writer for White Wolf, a self-published novelist, a high school English teacher and an occasional adjunct professor. That explains all the twitching. He's been a GM for 24 years, which explains the severe twitching. He has traveled to over 30 countries and runs two international exchange programs, which explains how he can twitch in several languages. Do not stare directly at David, as contents are under pressure and may detonate, causing minor to moderate injuries. But David comes in peace, really—at least, that's what he'll insist in court.
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 Vice President of the Northern Lights chapter of the International Costumers Guild.
Adrienne J. Odasso's poetry has appeared in a wide variety 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, and Stone Telling. Her début collection, Lost Books (Flipped Eye Publishing, 2010), was nominated for the 2010 LNPA Best New Poet Award and for the 2011 Forward Prize, and was also a finalist for the 2011 People's Book Prize. Her two chapbooks, Devil's Road Down and Wanderlust, are available from Maverick Duck Press. She attended Wellesley College as an undergraduate, the University of York (UK) as a postgraduate, and currently lives in Boston, Massachusetts, where she works for Harvard University. You can find her online at ajodasso.livejournal.com (and on Twitter under the same name). She is an editor in the Poetry Department at Strange Horizons (www.strangehorizons.com).
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. A medical technologist by day, it's the fannish endeavors that make life more fun. She's never read the instruction manual that came with the sewing machine and can't make herself follow a the instructions of a pattern or recipe to save her life. There's also a very unhealthy obsession with puff paint, but we don't talk about that. Jennifer lives in Kansas City with her spousal unit and furry, four-legged children.
Daniel José Older is a Brooklyn-based writer, editor and composer. Following the release of his ghost noir collection, Salsa Nocturna, Publisher's Weekly declared Daniel a rising star of the genre. He has facilitated workshops on storytelling, music and anti-oppression organizing at public schools, religious houses, universities, and prisons. His short stories and essays have appeared in The New Haven Review, TOR.com, PANK, Strange Horizons, and Crossed Genres among other publications. He's co-editing the anthology, Long Hidden: Speculative Fiction From The Margins Of History and his forthcoming urban fantasy novel The Half Resurrection Blues, the first of a trilogy, will be released by Penguin's Ace imprint. You can find his thoughts on writing, read his ridiculous ambulance adventures and hear his music at ghoststar.net/ and @djolder.
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."
Tom Olson
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.
Lee Orlando has been involved in organized fandom for almost 40 years. Most recently, she is one of the founders and Administrators for TheHob.org, one of the largest fansites sanctioned by Lionsgate Films for The Hunger Games trilogy. Prior to TheHob.org, she was the Technical Media Representative for TwilightMoms.org, one of the largest Twilight related sites in the world, supporting Red Carpet events, large media events, media relations, and website / forum activities on a daily basis. She has run small and large Media related conventions, and has supported WorldCon as Deputy Director of the MagiCon masquerade. She was one of the original team of fans called TechnoFandom, and she's sure she can find someone who remembers back that far :)
Bethany S. Padron has fostered a love of dressing up with a degree in Costume Technology from UNCSA and is currently the Costume Studio Manager for the University of South Dakota.
Chris Palagi
Suzanne Palmer is an SF/F author whose work has appeared in Asimov's and Interzone, and an artist of occasional, impractically large sculpture.
Jim Paradis
Richard E Parker—I am a 15+ year Arisia dweller living near Boston, MA. Back in the Park Plaza era, I used to help out in the Security department. I fell in love with the Drum Circle, so when it was in risk of dying, 2 friends and I took it over, we've been growing ever since :)
Jennifer Pelland is a Boston-area science fiction writer, bellydancer, and occasional radio theater performer. She's a two-time Nebula finalist for her short fiction, and her collection Unwelcome Bodies and novel Machine are available from Apex Publications. To learn more about her writing: www.jenniferpelland.com, and keep track of her bellydance performances at www.facebook.com/ziadances.
Lissa Perriera
Israel Peskowitz (Izzy) is a professional photographer, dabbling plumber, 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
Jonathan Pfeffer
Marlie Philiossaint (Twisting Star) has been a voracious reader since before she can actively remember. She relies on a constant stream of fantasy, science fiction, and comic books of all kinds to keep herself sane. With that said, she has exactly zero connections to the professional side of fandom, but she babbles with the best of them. She came to her first Arisia when she was far too small, and the hotel far too large.
Jessa Phillips is Editor-in-Chief of Goodtobeageek.com, a website which indulges in all manner of geek. Articles penned by Ms. Phillips have been featured on Rocket Llama, Game Tyrant, Geek Girls Network, Action Flick Chick, Hour 42 and SciFi Mafia. In addition to her editorial duties, Ms. Phillips is also a producer with a number of podcasts to her credit, including Good To Be A Gamer, a video game news show which she also co-hosts. She has also been a guest on many other podcasts, including The Earth Station One podcast and RevolutionSF RevCast. Ms. Phillips has also appeared on panels at other science fiction and gaming conventions, lending her expertise in a myriad of topics from B movies to video games to web entertainment.
Julia Pilowsky
Winner of the 2013 Dare to be Different award, KT Pinto writes about vampyres, mutants, witches, merfolk, werebeasts, deities, courtesans, criminals, and pop stars… sometimes all in the same story. For more information, go to http://www.ktpinto.com/
Matthew Pompei
Steve E Popkes, his wife, son, dog and cat breed turtles on two acres in Massachusetts.
Dr. James Prego, ND practices on L. I., NY. Dr. Prego is a recipient of the NYANP's Physician of the Year award. He is also a professor of Biology at Molly College and Touro College School of Health Sciences. Dr. Prego is a longtime fan of science fiction and has been a guest at various conventions, where he has been on panels discussing xenobiology, health in space, life extension, fusions of biology and technology, and how natural ways of healing fit in a sci-fi/high-tech world. Dr. Prego has also been on various fan-related and culture panels. He is the New York Delegate to the American Association of Naturopathic Physicians, and spent 6 years as a board member of the NY 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. To learn more about Dr. Prego and naturopathic medicine, visit www.doctorprego.com
Jennifer Allis Provost
Robare Pruyn
Julia Pugliese is a college sophomore who sews and blogs. Her costumes range from geeky to elegant. She was part of the Birds of Prey group that won best presentation in last year's Arisia Masquerade.
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, she's now back leading the Masquerade for her last year with Arisia. Unfortunately, in future years she will be back to minimal volunteering, as her household moves to North Carolina.
J Chris Quint
Michael Rafferty is is running his first Arisia Masquerade this year. He has previously run masquerades at Philcon and Lunacon. He was Tech Director of Balticon for two years. He was also Tech Director for Philcon 2012 and has worked tech at several NorthEast conventions and the last three Worldcons.
Esther Rahel
Richard Ralston has been a fan of science fiction and anime since the late 60's. Rick has been staffing conventions the past 10 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.
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.
Deirdre Rees
Di'Ahna Restry
Suzanne Reynolds-Alpert writes speculative fiction from her little corner of Massachusetts. Her poetry has been published in The Wayfarer: A Journal of Contemplative Literature, Tales of the Zombie War, Strong Verse, Eternal Haunted Summer and Pagan Edge. Her first published short story "Essie" appeared in Luna Station Quarterly, and her chapbook of poetry will be published in November 2013. Her current WIP is a novel about the teenage embodiment of the Goddess Kwan Yin. She's the Program Coordinator for Open Spirit, a multi-faith healing center. Suzanne is blessed with a tolerant husband, two mischievous black cats, and two amazing kids. She has degrees in Communication and Sociology, and is a lifelong scifi fan and science geek. Find her online: http://suzannereynoldsalpert.blogspot.com/
A triple threat (at least to himself), as a fan, sometime smof, and kinkster, Mark W. Richards got started early, reading SF and fantasy as soon as he could reach the bookshelf (which admittedly wasn't very high). He started going to cons as soon as he was able (1978), after hearing of them, and way too soon found himself working on them as well. Some years later (early 90s), he discovered kinkdom, both by itself and where it crossed over with fandom. He's been on the committees for both conventions and kink events, as well as served on the boards of organizations in both milieus. He's 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 will be a new and interesting experience, which he's looking forward to.
Julia Rios writes all sorts of things, hosts the Outer Alliance Podcast (celebrating QUILTBAG speculative fiction), and is one of the three fiction editors at Strange Horizons. Her fiction, articles, interviews, and essays have appeared in Daily Science Fiction, Apex Magazine, Stone Telling, Queers Dig Time Lords, and several other places. She's half-Mexican, but her (fairly dreadful) French is better than her Spanish.
Clarence "Sparr" Risher is at Arisia in order to feed his girlfriends' mad scientist fetish.
Santiago Rivas is currently celebrating 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 seven years and the Heinlein Society Naughty Nurses for five 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 or Final Fantasy.
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.
Roberta Rogow
Margaret Ronald is the author of Spiral Hunt, Wild Hunt, and Soul Hunt, as well as a number of short stories. Originally from rural Indiana, she now lives outside Boston.
Gena Rose
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.
Dan Rossetti
Robert J. Rossi
Roy Rossi
Rob Rudin
Runtt
Janet Ryan
Saille
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. Co-winner of the 2012 James Tiptree Jr. Award, her book Ancient, Ancient collects sensual tales of the fantastic, the dark, and the magical. Her short fiction has 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 two ebooks ("On the Psychology of Writing" and "On the Struggle to Self-Promote") that chronicle the ups and downs of the writing life. You can learn more about her at www.kiiniibura.com.
Elizabeth Salazar
Carol Salemi costumes at the Master level and has been involved in all aspects of costuming for over 30 years, trying her hand at everything from teaching, creating, and competing to judging and masquerade directing. Each competition costume usually involves some new, fun, or challenging technique that keeps it fresh. While best known for Media recreations and Native American clothing, her most recent work can be seen on "My Big Fat American Gypsy Wedding". Carol has enjoyed working as a medical massage therapist for 24 years, works part time for Regal Cinemas, Disney/Mosaic and Sondra Celli Designs with seasonal jobs in the Haunt Industry. She now has a growing interest in Steampunk accessories and fashion…so check out her jewelry in the art show!
In real life Samara Martin is a tribal fusion bellydancer, living statue and consummate theatre geek (primarily acting, directing, and costuming), and is currently pursuing a Master's Degree in Theatre Education. Her "geek cred" includes ten years of tabletop gaming (mainly Dungeons and Dragons), five years of LARPing including two and counting on staff at the New Hampshire chapter of Alliance, minor obsessions with Doctor Who and Neil Gaiman and a blossoming interest in steampunk under the alter ago Abigail Mycroft of the Wandering Legion of the Thomas Tew. For more information, find her online at http://www.facebook.com/samara.dancing.frozen/.
Karen Sarao
Ruth Savitizky
Writer and screenwriter, Steve Sawicki's short fiction has been featured in Future Washington, Transversions, and Electric Velocipide, and a novella in Absolute Magnitude. Reviewer of books, movies, and small press, and the Creator of the Damn Aliens, Steve currently has two screenplays under option and negotiating a reality television series with production companies. His reviews appear in SFRevu and Gumshoe.
Sharon Sbarsky
Isabel Schechter has been active in fandom, including WisCon, Think Galacticon, and Capricon, for more than a decade. As an event planner, Isabel specializes in sustainable events for non-profits working on environmental and social justice issues, as well as local and food justice issues. Isabel has a master's degree in Divinity from the University of Chicago Divinity School. She is Latina by birth, Jewish by choice, and uppity by necessity.
Ian Keville Schleifer is a systems integration engineer at Rethink Robotics and a space geek. His professional experience has involved a broad range of technologies and sciences. He is a bachelor of the sciences with a major in computer science and a minor in mathematics. Ian has a passion for figuring out how things work and he loves to share it.
Rachel Schlow
Micah Schneider (Micah) joined the Programming Staff for Arisia six years ago. This is his second year as the Assistant Programming Division Head. He is also one of the co-chairs 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 yoga, 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.
Ken Schneyer forgot that he wanted to be writer for twenty-five years, until a six-month home renovation forced him to take desperate measures to save his sanity. His stories, which include both science fiction and fantasy and which often employ weird narrative devices, appear in Analog, Strange Horizons, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Clockwork Phoenix 3 & 4, Daily Science Fiction, Bull Spec, Ideomancer, Escape Pod, Podcastle, 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. He could accurately be described as an actor, lawyer, teacher, archer, fencer, cyclist, amateur astronomer, programmer, project manager, Humanistic Jew, feminist, Democrat, and Pawsox fan. 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.
Danielle Schulman is a storyteller for family audiences. She performs in venues such as libraries, schools, playgrounds, toy stores, and of course, Arisia. She is also a children's librarian. Find her at www.danielletales.com.
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, available from Lethe Press. She has committed both screen writing and conrunning, but she is much better now.
Michelle Scott
Kristin Seibert is from North Carolina but has called contradances all over the country.
Frances Kirk Selkirk has written several published fantasy erotica stories, several unpublished fantasy novels, and rather a lot of fanfic in Robin of Sherwood and Harry Potter fandoms. She enjoys carpentry, cooking, keeping pretty chickens, and climbing walls.
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.
James Shapiro
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.
Nisi Shawl's story collection Filter House won the 2009 James Tiptree, Jr. Award. It was praised by Ursula K. Le Guin as "superbly written" and by Samuel R. Delany as "amazing." She co-edited Strange Matings: Science Fiction, Feminism, African American Voices, and Octavia E. Butler. Her stories have appeared in The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror, Asimov's SF Magazine, and the groundbreaking Dark Matter anthologies, among many other publications. She was WisCon 35's Guest of Honor. Shawl edits reviews for The Cascadia Subduction Zone, a three-year-old literary quarterly. Her own reviews appear there and in the Seattle Times. She is the coauthor of Writing the Other, a guide to developing characters of varying racial, religious, and sexual backgrounds. A founding member of the Carl Brandon Society and an officer of its Steering Committee, Shawl also serves on the Clarion West Writers Workshop Board of Directors.
Nicholas "phi" Shectman has held every executive position, most management positions, and many area positions in Arisia, and also occasionally volunteers for other conventions.
Hillary Sherwood is a filker, harper, knitter, and bookworm. She has been reading Science Fiction and Fantasy for as long as she can remember, and watching it for nearly as long. She currently lives in the western suburbs of Philadelphia.
Cynthia A Shettle-Meleedy plays Kingdom of Loathing daily. Old favorite shows include Heroes, Angel, Highlander, and Misfits of Science. She roleplays with the Western Avenue Irregulars.
Richard A Silva has been involved in small press publishing since his college days. He published and edited Kinships Magazine. Along with his wife Gynn, Rick is a partner in Dandelion Studios (www.dandelionstudios.com), a small press comic book company. Rick co-writes the Dandelion Studios comics Zephyr & Reginald: Minions for Hire, Stone, Kaeli & Rebecca, and Perils of Picorna. He publishes his own 'zine, Caravan, and he was a featured contributor for six years at the fiction webzine The Edge of Propinquity (www.edgeofpropinquity.net). Rick's prose short stories have appeared in the anthologies Close Encounters of the Urban Kind from Apex Books and Space Tramps from Flying Pen Press. Rick Silva grew up in Boston, Massachusetts, attended Cornell University, and currently teaches chemistry at a high school on Cape Cod, where he resides with his wife and son, and three cats.
Hildy Silverman is the publisher of Space and Time, a four-decade-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), and "Black Market Magic" (2012, Apocalypse 13, Raetz, 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 Siemens Hearing Instruments.
Damon Singletary
Jamila Sisco is an award-winning costumer with a specialization in Anime costumes. She has worked on costumes for over 6 years and is a member of the Northern Lights chapter of the International Costumers' Guild.
Skatha
Glenn Slate is currently the managing partner of a multiple attorney firm with offices in Washington and Idaho. He is also licensed in Oregon and Massachusetts. In his twenty year career as an attorney, he has performed civil and criminal trials, and spent several years as in-house counsel for one of Oregon's fastest growing high tech companies. He has also represented almost every type of alternative lifestyle or associated business. Glenn was president and vice president of the UMASS Science Fiction Society in the 1980s at UMASS Amherst. In his free time, he has been a professional psychic, a sworn police officer and business entrepreneur. He was also once bitten by a tiger.
Brad Smith is a professional Linux nerd by day, and does musical theater, voice acting, LARP, drumming, and just about any other kind of performance he can get involved with by night. He currently does vocals and percussion in the folk group Stranger Ways, and has recently performed on stage as Pilate in Jesus Christ Superstar and Jake in Evil Dead: The Musical, both with the MIT Musical Theater Guild. He is the technical producer of and principle voice cast in the online audio theater podcast, Second Shift (http://www.secondshiftpodcast.com). Occasionally, he sleeps.
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 is still working on that Titanic book, and has recently published the nonfictional A New Shakespeare Poem? Visit her at www.sarahsmith.com, Facebook, Twitter, and www.bookviewcafe.com, where a lot of her stories are free for the reading.
SJS Comic Promotions is owned and operated by Promotions Consultant, Susan Soares. Opening its doors officially in 2009, Soares has been working in the comic book industry since 2007 as a part of Jolly Rogue Studios. The purpose of SJS Comic Promotions is to provide support and guidance to comic book creators in the areas of marketing and promotions of their properties. Currently SJS Comic Promotions represents Dandelion Studios, Fallenmage Productions, Big Bone Studios, Mustard Seed Comics, Dark Brain Comics, Jolly Rogue Studios and Three J Productions LLC. Soares is also a novice comic book writer.
Annette Somers
Michael Sprague is the Assistant Con Chair in Charge of Children's Services, Events, Multimedia, Programming, and Tech for Arisia 2014. 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. After having so much fun being Assistant Con Chair for Arisia 2013, he decided to have another go at it for 2014.
After teaching literature, philosophy, history, and religion for more than a decade, Brian Staveley began writing epic fantasy. His first book, "The Emperor's Blades" (forthcoming from Tor on January 14, 2014), is the start of his series, "Chronicle of the Unhewn Throne." He lives on a steep dirt road in the mountains of southern Vermont, where he divides his time between fathering, writing, husbanding, splitting wood, skiing, and adventuring, not necessarily in that order. He can be found on twitter at @brianstaveley, facebook as brianstaveley, and Google+ as Brian Staveley.
Ishmael Stefanov-Wagner
Ian Randal Strock is the editor and publisher of SFScope.com and 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.
Dr. Kristen Stubbs is a queer/pansexual roboticist who's more interested in people than in technology. Kristen earned her Ph.D. in Robotics from Carnegie Mellon University in 2008. Kristen recently launched her first startup, Passionate Produce (passionateproduce.com), a radically inclusive, sex/kink-positive crowdfunding platform. Kristen blogs about technological empowerment for sexuality and pleasure, including her own experiences and creations, at toymakerproject.com. She also co-organizes teasecraft-boston, a local meetup group for sex/kink-positive makers (teasecraft.com).
Tori Sviokla
Sonya Taaffe's short stories and poems have appeared in such venues as Beyond Binary: Genderqueer and Sexually Fluid Speculative Fiction; The Moment of Change: An Anthology of Feminist Speculative Poetry; Here, We Cross: A Collection of Queer and Genderfluid Poetry from Stone Telling; People of the Book: A Decade of Jewish Science Fiction & Fantasy; Last Drink Bird Head; The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror; The Alchemy of Stars: Rhysling Award Winners Showcase; and The Best of Not One of Us. Her work can be found in the collections Postcards from the Province of Hyphens and Singing Innocence and Experience (Prime Books) and A Mayse-Bikhl (Papaveria Press). 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 their potential cat.
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. 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 Alyson Books, Thunder's Mouth Press, Carroll & Graf, Ravenous Romance, Masquerade Books, and others. Her short stories have appeared everywhere from Asimov's to Ms. Magazine. Follow her on Twitter, Facebook, or http://blog.ceciliatan.com.
Rachel Tanenhaus
Kyle Tassi
Timothy J Tero has been attending Arisia cons for about 11 years now. He's a painter and photographer, and has traveled extensively; he have been to Europe about a dozen times and Japan 3 times. He's an assistant organizer for an international arthouse film meetup group in the Boston area. He would say his special interest would be the culture of Japan (old and new)—Japanese Sci-fi/horror films and some anime (especially old Anime). Also, he has a keen interest in European Sci-fi films.
Joye Thaller
Along with being the Managing Editor of the Hugo-nominated Apex Magazine, Michael Damian Thomas co-edited Queers Dig Time Lords (Mad Norwegian Press) with Sigrid Ellis, Flying Higher: An Anthology of Superhero Poetry (Meatball Trouble Productions) with Shira Lipkin, and Glitter & Mayhem (Apex Publications), with John Klima and Lynne M. Thomas. He also has worked as an Associate Editor on numerous books at Mad Norwegian Press, including the Hugo Award-winning Chicks Dig Time Lords (edited by Lynne M. Thomas and Tara O'Shea) and Hugo Award-nominated Chicks Dig Comics (edited by Lynne M. Thomas and Sigrid Ellis).
W. A. (Bill) Thomasson is 77 years old and a biochemist by training. After a fairly varied earlier career, including a stint in science/medical PR, he is currently helping biomedical researchers write their journal articles and grant applications. He's been legally blind–meaning with glasses he can just make out the second line on the eye chart—since 2000. Self-identifying as disabled (an inconvenience, not a handicap) he has become treasurer of Chicago's annual Disability Pride Parade. He's also been part of Accessibility Services at the past 3 Worldcons and is now starting his tenure as Accessibility Services manager for Sasquan, the 2015 Worldcon. He especially loves being on panels that give him a chance to speculate about the future.
Alexandra Thorn is a postdoctoral research associate at UNH, working on a scenario project on land use change in New Hampshire. She received a PhD in Biology from Tufts University in 2012, and she has an informal affiliation with the Harvard Program on Science Technology and Society (STS). Her general interests include civil liberties, agricultural sustainability, urban planning, societal resilience, and how a sense of awe and wonder in shapes our values. She hosts two monthly events at her house: "Reading Nights" where people take turns reading aloud from pieces of their own choosing; and "Big Ideas" gatherings focused on bringing together people interested in discussing a variety of topics including politics, science, communication, and philosophy. She has extensive martial arts experience (most recently Jujitsu), and has some training in survivalism and primitive skills. She has participated in demonstrations by the Higgins Armory Museum.
Dan Toland is a writer and podcaster with Earth-2.net, specializing in comics, genre television, and classic SF literature. 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 Marvel Two-In-One is the pinnacle of Western civilization, and will fight any man who disagrees. An inveterate Tom Baker man, he has had his previously unshakable Bakerism tested by Matt Smith. He once believed that Eric Allan Kramer was the best Thor the world would ever see, and has since repented. He lives in Boston with a woman of near limitless patience, a dog of nigh-infinite derpitude, and also there is a cat.
Rebecca Sue Toltz
Michael Toole writes about anime all the time. He's written for the likes of Anime Insider, Sci-Fi Magazine, Otaku USA, and URB Magazine. Currently, he's a biweekly columnist and occasional onscreen host for Anime News Network, and a regular contributor to geek humor blog Toplessrobot.com.
Trey
Damien Turi
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 project is a second edited collection, this time on social memory and popular culture, that will be accepting proposals until May 2015.
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.
Andrew Van Zandt is an engineer, roboticist, and general geek. He's also the Electronics & Robotics Craft Lead at the Artisan's Asylum, a hacker/makerspace in Somerville, MA. 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 two lovely kitties.
Carolyn VanEseltine has been fascinated by interactive narrative since playing Colossal Cave Adventure at age six, which helps explain why she now works professionally in the video games industry and still finds time to write text adventures on the side. In her spare time, she reads voraciously and pursues a long list of kaleidoscopically changing hobbies.
Maria Velazquez is a doctoral student at the University of Maryland, College Park. Her research interests include constructions of race, class, gender, and sexuality in contemporary media, as well as community-building through technology. She serves on the board of Lifting Voices, a District of Columbia-based nonprofit that helps young people in DC discover the power of creative writing, and blogs for The Hathor Legacy, a feminist pop culture blog. She recently received the Winnemore Dissertation Fellowship from the Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities.
Cecilia Villero
Tom Vitale—Thomas P. Vitale was named SyFy's Executive Vice President of Programming and Original Movies in May 2008. Vitale has been with SyFy since it's first year. A fan of science fiction, fantasy and horror, Vitale has become a favorite voice among genre fans through his monthly "TV on TV" column in SCI FI Magazine. He has reached out to fans through online chats on SYFY.COM and has spoken at science fiction conventions. He is recognized throughout the company as a walking encyclopedia of television and movie facts and trivia. (Rather than lullabies, Vitale regularly rocks his newborn baby to sleep by singing television theme songs to her.)
Emily Wagner
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 nearly twenty years of experience running at least one game, and as many as three concurrently. He is currently studying for his PhD in Law and Public Policy at Northeastern University, with a focus in renewable energy policy. He works as a policy research assistant for the Center for High-rate Nanomanufacturing.
A native of MA, Cheryl Wallace has been attending cons for 30+ years in multiple states and countries. She's also been involved with The Rocky Horror Picture Show for as many years, experiencing it not only from an audience member's perspective, but also as a participant; most recently as a member of the RHIS (Rocky Horror Internet Show). She has interests in cult movies, trivia, gaming, crafts and improv comedy. She can be seen around Arisia volunteering as a Heinlein Society "Naughty Nurse."
Conor Walsh
Kit Walsh teaches intellectual property and civil liberties advocacy at Harvard Law School, focusing on free speech and privacy issues. Kit has testified before the Massachusetts state legislature on bills concerning government surveillance, privacy, campaign finance, transparency, and corporate accountability. Kit holds a J.D. from Harvard Law School and a B.S. in Brain and Cognitive Sciences from MIT, where research projects included seeking a cure for Alzheimer's, genetically engineering artistic bacteria, and building cyborg frogbots.
Emily Walton
Jeff Warner is: a professor of autodidactism, a not-recently-published writer, an associate member of first fandom, a 7th level ninja-smof with a lawful/good alignment, available for cheap dates, a co-founder of 3 sf conventions and a utility infielder for others, a freelance blurb-ologist and a philosophical entertainer. "Geek, Nerd, AND Dork? I'm a Triple Threat!"
Peggi Warner-Lalonde
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. Her day job is create accessible electronic texts for college students with disabilities. She is also currently an active advocate for better access services at conventions.
Ket Waters is a Scottish, jazz, and Cape Breton fiddler, but may be better known as a costumer, jeweller, or simply "that blue-haired girl". In the past she has been a volunteer, truck-unloader, writer, artist, and maker-of-another-convention's-badges (she did not, however, add a scratch and sniff). She released her first EP last year, and has stopped thinking you should ask about it since the sound quality is awful. She may also be available to play fiddle tunes for your event, and does think you should ask her about this. At Arisia, she teaches chainmail classes, makes costumes on a budget, and drinks too much coffee.
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.
A J Watts
Tinamarie Webber
Abigail Weiner has many pseudonyms, most of which start with M.
Susan Weiner is a professor of physiology, a social insect researcher, a LARP writer with Alleged Entertainment, a fiddle player and songwriter who has played with Stranger Ways and Cheshire Moon, and somehow also manages to date far too many people. She's not exactly sure how she does all that either.
Michele Weinstein has been involved with hall costuming and prop making since the 1970's. Masquerade competition has been a more recent activity. She has won several awards (for workmanship and presentation) at both regional and Worldcon levels—often working with her daughter, Sara.
Sara Weinstein is a second generation fan whose first convention was at age seven and has been seeing conventions as a second home ever since. Being involved in cons has always been a family affair, whether it be tech crew with dad, costuming with mom, or simply making a family amongst her friends. Other than sci-fi and fantasy, her main interest has been music. She plays a plethora of instruments ranging from the harp to the trombone, and has now taken music to be her career studying music therapy. She recently made a life-long friend in her Lyon & Healy Style 100 pedal harp in mahogany that she named Effie (short for Flora & Fauna). Ask her about her harp! Go cons!
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 has been a presentation judge.
Ruth Wejksnora-Garrott is a licensed psychologist and psychotherapist working in Somerville, specializing in working with people from various counterculture groups—geeks and goths and pagans, otaku and kinksters and poly folk and anyone else who's looking for a therapist who will work with them on the problems actually bothering them, and won't look askance at all these perfectly reasonable aspects of their lives. She's been singing with Sassafrass for the past four years, and is greatly looking forward to the upcoming release of their CD Sundown: Whispers of Ragnarok.
Wendee
Jesse Wertheimer
Joanna Weston
Nathan Weston
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.
A Vermont-licensed lawyer, Valerie White is a sexual freedom activist and practicing polyamorist. She's executive director of the Sexual Freedom Legal Defense and Education Fund, on the advisory council of the Woodhull Freedom Foundation, on the coordinating council of Family Tree, and on the board of Unitarian Universalists for Polyamory Awareness. She speaks nationally on sex and the law.
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.
Doug Wilder has been attending conventions for over a decade, hosting panels for nearly as long, and watching anime for more years than he should probably admit openly. As the resident mecha fan of AnimeCons.com's podcast, AnimeCons TV, he can often be found talking about giant robot shows to anyone who will listen. On the rare occasions that he does shut up about his mechanical friends, Doug has run other panels such as "The Aging Otaku" and "The Changing Face of Anime Conventions", as well a variety of other geeky topics.
Penelope Wilhelm is a professional musician and music teacher, a lay Emergent Church leader at The Crossing, nascent game master, cisgender transsexual, camp counselor, an accidental political activist, and an intentional life-long sci-fi fan. She began drumming when she was three, began teaching drums when she was sixteen, and went on to major in composition at Berklee College of Music. Penny's fandom started early watching Dr. Who with her grandmother. She grew up watching Space: 1999, Star Blazers, Battlestar Galactica, the Star Wars trilogies, Star Trek (all of them), and several others. Penny was instrumental in organizing her church's efforts to help pass transgender civil rights legislation in Massachusetts. She works 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.
After the failure of his LED Light Sabre, Stephen R Wilk was reduced to selling flashlights on street corners. He did find time to persuade Oxford University Press to publish his collection of articles on weird optics, "How the Ray Gun Got Its Zap!" He also had fictional pieces appearing in Analog and Tales of the Undead, as well as several online publications. Against everyone's expectations, he continues to be a Contributing Editor for the OSA.
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 seven anthologies including a Lambda Literary Award winner. 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, and writing erotic sf/f for Circlet Press.
Jennifer Williams is an author, editor, and crazy cat lady. Her most recent work is the anthology Like a Sacred Desire: Tales of Sex Magick published by Circlet Press and featuring stories by Raven Kaldera, D.L. King, and David Sklar. She has also recently been published in the Lambda Literary Award nominated collection Women of the Bite edited by Cecilia Tan, and Vicious Verses and Reanimated Rhymes, a collection of zombie poetry edited by A.P. Fuchs. She is an active member of the New England Horror Writers Association and a staff writer for Blogcritics.org.
Walt Williams—W. B. J. Williams 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.
Karl T. Winkler
Attorney, occasional writer, and all around fan, James A. Wolf was known as Dungeon Master Jim on The Toucher and Rich Show on WBCN, when there was a WBCN. He is presently shopping novels and plotting trouble.
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 are raising their daughter "Roo." Go to her website, TasksAtBey.com, to see what else 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 and daughter.
Trisha Wooldridge of Auburn, MA is the current president of Broad Universe (www.broaduniverse.org), as well as a member of New England Horror Writers, the Horror Writers Association, and the Worcester Writers Collaborative. She has co-produced the Spencer Hill Press UnCONventional (January 2012) and Doorways to Extra Time (August 2013) anthologies. Her writing can be found in the EPIC award-winning Bad-Ass Faeries anthologies; Journal of New England Horror Writer's Epitaphs (2011) and Wicked Seasons (2013) anthologies; Corrupts Absolutely? from Damnation Press; Once Upon an Apocalypse anthology (2013); and Poetry Locksmith. She also gets paid to review food, play with horses, and interview chefs, bands and people who make movies. Her first novel, The Kelpie (as T. J. Wooldridge), is available from Spencer Hill Press. She also has a very patient Husband-of-Awesome, a calico horse, a tabby cat, and two Giant Baby Bunnies. www.anovelfriend.com
Phoebe Wray has a futurist novel in print JEMMA7729, and the sequel J2, will be released in early 2012. A third volume is in the works. She also has published stories in Farthing, Andromeda Spaceways, and the anthologies No Man's Land, All About Eve, and Backless, Strapless & Slit to the Throat, online at Fables.org and ChiZine. She serves on the Advisory Board of Broad Universe and lives in Massachusetts.
Brianna Spacekat Wu is head of development at Giant Spacekat Productions, where she is writing and directing the upcoming videogame "Revolution 60". This game, which will be released for iOS next year, is a fully 3D-animated game about girls in space who kick ass, and features professional voice actors such as Amanda Winn-Lee. Brianna is also a frequent contributor to science fiction fanzines. She's known for her high-energy art style featuring tall, skinny women. Wu is six foot two, and a dedicated marathoner. She runs over 55 miles every week, and almost 3,000 miles per year. She is married to four-time Hugo-award-winner Frank Wu.
Frank Wu is an award-winning artist, writer, and animator. He's married to fellow artist/costumer/gamer Brianna Spacekat Wu. Frank's art has materialized in many magazines and books. Frank won the Illustrators of the Future Grand Prize and four Hugo Awards. He also has four scientific papers to his credit, along with humor published in The Journal of Irreproducible Results and The Annals of Improbable Research. He is also chief spaceship designer for the videogame "Revolution 60" being developed by Giant Spacekat, as led by Brianna Wu. Rev60 is set for released on iOS devices (iPad, iPad mini, iPhone, etc.) in March this year.
Kevin Wynott
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.
Amy Yampanis
Keith Yampanis
Dr. Willie Yee is President of the Mid-Hudson Astronomical Association, Executive Officer of the USS Abraham Lincoln Ncc-71809, Contributing Producer and member of the Grip and Electric Team of Star Trek Phase II, and creator of the Prius-class shuttlecraft Zhang Heng. He is a retired psychiatrist.
Bill "Dr. Crash" Yerazunis is a professional mad scientist, working on things like virtual reality, LEDs, spam filters, reversible fuel cells, wireless power, 3D printers, and sharks with frickin' lasers on their heads. In his spare time, he performs secretive cloning experiments, tries to learn Kung Fu by chewing on floppy disks, and plays "Toccata and Fugue in D Minor" on a huge synthesizer while he laughs like a… well, like a mad scientist.
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. He loves to see how these "futuristic" designs over the last 100 years ties in with what he knows from real hardware and his background in computer-human interaction.
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.