Jess Adams
Jess Adams lives in Dayton, OH with her spouse, 3 cats, 1 corgi, and lots of books and movies. Sometimes, there are zines and video games, too. She is also known as raanve. http://www.sff.net/people/raanve

John Joseph Adams
John Joseph Adams (www.johnjosephadams.com) is the bestselling editor of many anthologies, such as Wastelands, The Living Dead (a World Fantasy Award finalist), By Blood We Live, Federations, and The Improbable Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. Barnes & Noble.com named him “the reigning king of the anthology world,” and his books have been named to numerous best of the year lists. He is also the fiction editor of the forthcoming science fiction magazine Lightspeed (www.lightspeedmagazine.com), and is the co-host of The Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy podcast. John lives in New Jersey. www.johnjosephadams.com

Rachel Adelstein
Rachel Adelstein is a Ph.D student in ethnomusicology at the University of Chicago. She has been singing shape–note for ten years, but pauses occasionally to eat, sleep, and get an education.

Camille Alexa
Camille Alexa's work appears in Fantasy Magazine, Escape Pod, ChiZine, and various anthologies. She's the Flash Fiction Editor for Abyss & Apex Magazine, the Poetry Editor for Diet Soap, and she writes for The Green Man Review. A collection of her short fiction and poetry, Push of the Sky, is forthcoming from Hadley Rille Books. More information and an updated bibliography on camillealexa.wordpress.com. http://camillealexa.wordpress.com/

Will Alexander
William Alexander lives in Minneapolis with spouse (an artist) and cat (a polydactyl lunatic). His fiction shows up in magazines (Weird Tales, Zahir, Postscripts, and Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet). www.willalex.net

Sandra Ulbrich Almazan
Sandra Almazan is an assistant scientist in the Chicago area. Her work has appeared in the anthology Firestorm of Dragons. Her website is at www.sandraulbrich.com, and her blog is at www.ulbrichalmazan.blogspot.com. www.sandraulbrich.com

Laurel Amberdine
As a girl, Laurel Amberdine wanted to be a physicist, but instead of doing her school work she spent all her time reading novels. As a grown up, she has debugged obscure tech mysteries as a Linux sysadmin, written threatening letters as a paralegal, and run an interior design company. Now, in reversal of childhood, she spends too much time studying physics when she ought to be working. She lives in the midwest with a husband who thinks she should write more stories about mysterious space stations, and one cat who doesn't care what she writes, as long as she stays at the desk and pets him occasionally. Laurel has recently taken up reviewing as a part of Amazon's Vine program, and welcomes eARCS for potential review. livejournal.amberdine.com

Julie Andrews
Julie has a Master's degree in Information Technology, is a 2007 graduate of the Clarion workshop in San Diego, and currently works in a public library. Julie will be hitting in big in 2012, so don't waste the opportunity to see her for free. http://julieandrews.livejournal.com

Bob Angell
R. R. Angell was born under a full moon, a telling detail. As a Libran, he is always seeking balance; he rides a unicycle and wishes he could juggle better. You may have seen his work in Asimov's, Interzone, The Baltimore Review, and Gargoyle among others, and several anthologies including Sex & Chocolate, Best Date Ever, and Stress City. You can find out more at www.rrangell.com www.rrangell.com

S. N. Arly
S.N.Arly enjoys writing dark stories suitable for young adults and regular adults. Her most recent publications include a dark fantasy tale in Tales of the Unanticipated (ToTU) #29 and a retelling of "Little Red Riding Hood" in the all wolf story anthology WolfSongs Volume 1. She lives in St. Paul with her spouse, two young children and two shelties who routinely herd ideas in her direction. http://www.facebook.com/#!/S.N.Arly1

Balloon Contortions (Animals and Hats)
I'm an amateur writer of spec fic. I discovered the wonders of literary cons at Potlatch in 2008 and became immediately addicted. I'm currently vice-chairing the FOG Conference (Friends of the Genres), a new literary con modeled after WisCon, Readercon, and Potlatch. It will be held annually in San Francisco, beginning in the fall of 2010.

Heather E Beatty
I'm a writer, painter, and art car artist. Although my Lutheran upbringing tells me that I really should pick one and focus on it, I've found instead that they all feed each other. Currently I am teaching art car classes and as a teacher I focus on helping my students find a process—a way to find ideas and make choices. Although this can be fun and exciting, it is also often nerve–wracking to really look at your own ideas; is it good? is it bad? is it interesting? was this always really part of me or did I somehow I steal this idea from someone else? Part of the reason why I enjoy WisCon is I hear these questions asked and the importance of intention is widely understood.

Georgia "Aiden" Beaverson
Georgia functions as both a fiction–for–young–adults writer and as an adult nonfiction writer. As Aiden Beaverson, she wrote the middle–grade fantasy The Hidden Arrow of Maether (Delacorte 2000) and La Marque de l’Elue (Bayard 2002). That getting–published experience was quite addictive. She has several novels under consideration as she writes this and hopes to boast endlessly about a multi–book deal at WisCon 33. http://gbeaverson@livejournal.com

Suzanne Alles Blom
Author of Inca, an alternate history nominated for the Sidewise Award; preparer of tax returns; host of a salon; occasional rabblerouser; homeowner and landlord; no cats.

Dr. Bogstad
Janice Bogstad was one of the three folks who started SF-3, WisCon and Janus in 1975. She has been writing about, reviewing books by, and doing interviews with women in science fiction, writers and critics, since before that time. She currently reviews for 11 publications, including ones on women and science fiction and fantasy, but also women in China, women in medieval culture and library journals on collection development. She is a professor, head of collection development, for McIntyre Library at University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, and also teaches in the Women’s Studies and English departments. Her language-studies of SF and women include French, German and Chinese, as well as English and she especially enjoys literature and history from 7th, 12th and 20th–21st century China and 12th and 20th–21st century France. http://www.uwec.edu/Library/cd/janice_bogstad.html

Ben Burgis
Ben Burgis is a 2006 Clarion West grad, Philosophy Ph.D. student at the University of Miami, where he studies paraconsistent logic, an adjunct Philosophy instructor at Miami–Dade College and a low–res MFA student at the University of Southern Maine (Stonecoast). His recent short stories have been published in Flytrap, Diet Soap and elsewhere. http://benburgis.livejournal.com

Erin Cashier
Erin Cashier is fond of the unreliable narrator. I’m dying to leave things at that, but—My main journal is at http://therinth.livejournal.com. It’s private, but if you’ve got an lj account you can peek in. I grew up in Texas but I live/work/play in Northern California, I have a redwood tree in my front yard, like all writers my cat loves me particularly much, and my fiance is a fantastic man. The things that interest me most are Disneyland (not kidding), esoteric philosophy books, alchemy as it relates to Jungian theories, William Blake, and The Office. Things you should know about me: I made a special side trip to that Snake Farm between San Antonio and Austin on a recent trip to Texas, I have quite a lot of tattoos, and I can eat my weight in sushi. "Cruciger" is in Writers of the Future volume 24. "Hangman" is live at Beneath Ceaseless Skies as of 2/12/09. "The Alchemist's Feather" will be appearing in Beneath Ceaseless Skies sometime in 2009. "Bloodreader" will be appearing in Three Crow Press Fall of 2009. "Greg's Life, the King James Version" will be appearing in Issue #6 of Polluto Magazine. And "...that I carried you" will appear in the Footprints anthology, from Hadley Rille Books...Unreliability commences. http://therinth.livejournal.com

Suzy Charnas
I come from a long line of smart, tough women who married clever but useless husbands, kicked the men out in exasperation, and raised the kids on their own; a born and bred New Yorker, child of two commercial artists, I was trained to be an artist myself. Nevertheless (or consequently), for the past thirty-plus years I've been living with my lawyer–husband in New Mexico, writing science fiction, fantasy, horror, and anything else that takes my fancy, with no end in sight. I wrote and drew my own comic books at age six and took a joint major at Barnard College—Economic History—because I wanted tools to build convincing societies to set stories in. Peace Corps teaching in Yorubaland taught me much that American Education falsifies or denies outright and made me permanently marginal to my home culture—ideal positioning for any kind of artist (I've lots of good company out here). I live, on and off, with cats, dogs, stepkids, grandkids, siblings, inlaws, a talent for getting outraged letters printed in the papers, and an imagination fired by the strange, the mysterious, and the provocative (my husband says I write "realistic stories about fantastic things"). My life experience so far has led me to liberalism (the search for a humane society), feminism (the search for gender parity), a light-hearted belief in reincarnation (the search for—!), and a preference for exploring the questions (rather than demonstrating "The Answer") that I think drives great stories. Drop by www.suzymckeecharnas.com www.suzymckeecharnas.com

Richard Chwedyk
Richard Chwedyk is a lifelong Chicagoan. He was educated in the Chicago public school system (which is to say, not much at all), Columbia College Chicago and Northwestern University, where he received an M.A. in English in 1988. His bibliography can be traced as far back as 1975, but the sf reader will find little of interest until 1986, when he entered a story in a contest sponsored by ISFiC and Windycon. His first “pro” sf story appeared in Amazing Stories in 1990; since then, his work has appeared in Space and Time, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, and anthologies such as Animals Don’t Knock!: Tails from the Pet Shop (Tina Jens, ed. 11th Hour Productions, Chicago, 1999), Cthulhu and the Coeds, or: Kids and Squids (Tina L. Jens, ed. 2001. 11th Hour Productions. Chicago), Tales From the Red Lion (John Weagley and Andrea Dubnick, eds. Twilight Tales, Chicago. June 2007), Visual Journeys (Eric T. Reynolds, ed. Hadley Rille Books, Overland Park KS. July 2007), and Hell in the Heartland (Roger Dale Trexler and Martel Sardina, eds. Annihilation Press, Carbondale IL. January 2008). His Sturgeon– and Nebula–shortlisted story “The Measure of All Things” was reprinted in the Hartwell/Cramer–edited Year’s Best SF 7 (Eos Books, 2002). Its follow–up, “Bronte’s Egg,” received the Nebula Award and made both the Hugo ballot and the Sturgeon shortlist. The novella was reprinted in Nebula Awards Showcase 2004 (Vonda N. McIntyre, ed. Roc Books, New York, 2004). Along with his short fiction, Chwedyk has written a fair amount of sf and sf-related poetry. “A Few Kind Words for A. E. Van Vogt” was reprinted in Year's Best SF 8 (David Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer, eds. Eos Books, 2003). “Rich and Pam Go to Fermilab and Later See a Dead Man” was a Rhysling Award nominee and appeared in the 2004 Rhysling Anthology. Other poems have appeared in the journals Tales of the Unanticipated and Snow Monkey, and the anthology Tales From the Red Lion. No books. No collections. Yet. Rumors of novels come and go. A thirty–year stretch in the newspaper business keeps him busy and anxious. Along with his writing, Chwedyk has moderated a number of critique–style workshops at conventions such as Chicon V and Chicon 2000 (where he also organized the “Writing Track” programming), Confrancisco, L. A. Con in both ’96 and ’06, Conadian, Bucconeer, ConJose, Torcon, Windycon and WisCon. He coordinated the Chicon 2000 and the Torcon workshops and has run the Windycon workshops for the past seven years (or is it eight?). He has taught Freshman Rhetoric and Composition at Triton College in River Grove, Illinois, and has been teaching a Short Story Writing class for the continuing education division of Oakton Community College in the Chicago suburbs. For the past thirty–one years he has been married to the poet Pamela Miller—a pretty steady gig and a good one at that. Their home, as one would expect, is a chaos. http://www.sfwa.org/members/chwedyk/

Lisa Cohen
lisa has been coming to wiscon since 2003. by an odd coincidence, that is also the year she started shapenote singing, two months later. since then, she has recruited many innocent victims to engage in both.

Bridget Collins
We started Beer and Marmalade last May and have been meeting monthly at the Argus to discuss Wiscon authors and Tiptree winners. We have read: Daughters of the North, China Mountain Zhang, Half Life, A Companion to Wolves, Privilege of the Sword, Zahrah the Windseeker, Air, Set This House in Order, Y the Last Man (Volume 1), The Evolution of Trickster Stories among the Dogs of North Park after the Change, Her Smoke Rose Up Forever, Portable Childhoods, and Lilith's Brood. http://community.livejournal.com/beer_marmalade/

Tina Connolly
Tina is a writer and face painter in Portland, OR. Her stories have appeared in Strange Horizons and Beneath Ceaseless Skies and are forthcoming in Highlights. She is a graduate of Clarion West 2006. http://tinaconnolly.com

Haddayr Copley-Woods
Haddayr Copley-Woods is a Minneapolis–based writer with stories in places such as strangehorizons.com, ideomancer.com, and Polyphony. She has reprints in Best American Erotica and Best Romantic Fantasy. haddayr.com

Michele Cox
Michele Cox grew up in between Wisconsin and Arkansas, and has stayed in between ever since. (This may explain why she's now living on the West Coast.) She has a Master of Arts in theology and church history, is active in the Episcopal church, is an initiated priestess, and works as a business analyst for a major telecommunications company. Presented with any given either–or choice, her likeliest answer is "Yes, please!" She is dependent on her very tolerant partners, not–so–tolerant cats, and a vast number of inanimate objects. http://gramina.livejournal.com

Juliette Crane
Juliette Crane is an artist and writer living in Madison, WI. She is currently making jewelry and painting theatrical landscapes while revising her middle-grade fantasy novel. She is a member of the Codex Writers' Group and The Society of Children's Book Writers & Illustrators, and a graduate of the Odyssey Writers' Workshop (2008). www.juliettecrane.com

Ann Crimmins
Editor of six–volume Zelazny Project from NESFA Press; staff member New York Review of Science Fiction. Involvement in feminist activities for forty years: served as both chapter and state president in NOW; former member of NOW Board of Directors; conference director of North East Region Conference on Lesbian Rights for NOW; former regional director of Lesbian Rights Task Force for NOW; former Title IX building representative. Retired from full–time secondary teaching, now teaching part time at Capital Community College, Hartford, CT. I have held local elective office for most of the last thirty years.

Patricia Cumbie
Patricia Cumbie is author of the young adult novel Where People Like Us Live (HarperCollins 2008). www.patriciacumbie.com

Leah Cutter
Leah R Cutter is the author of three historical fantasy novels as well as several fantasy, science fiction and horror short stories. Her most recent novel is THE JAGUAR AND THE WOLF (Roc 2005). She's lived all over the world, including Hungary and Taiwan, and now resides in Seattle, WA with her cat and many books. She supports herself and her writing habit by doing technical writing. http://lrcutter.livejournal.com/

Deborah
Deb Stone is a lifelong geek, fan, and feminist whose avocations include knitting up yarn and unraveling the mysteries of HTML, Javascript, and PHP. In the mundane world, she challenges censorship and advocates for intellectual freedom and privacy rights on behalf of a non–profit organization.

Moondancer Drake
Moondancer Drake is an author of environmental and spiritually driven multicultural fiction, especially paranormal lesbian romance. She is also a vocal advocate for civil rights and the responsibility of all people to take better care of Mother Earth. She lives in Wisconsin with her family and is an active member of the Temple of Diana. She has been studying with teachers at the temple for the past few years and is working her way towards ordination as a Dianic priestess. Moondancer draws much of her inspiration from her spirituality as well as experiences as a Cherokee woman and a mother. Moondancer’s first novel, Ancestral Magic, is scheduled for release in spring of 2009 through PD Publishing. She also has several stories out in an LGBT flash fiction Horror anthology called Chilling Tales of Terror and the Supernatural, and her story "True Love" appears in I Do, a charity anthology benefiting Lambda Legal’s fight against anti LGBT laws like Prop 8. If you want to know more about Moondancer and her writing you can visit her at her website at www.moondancerdrake.com. www.moondancerdrake.com

Timmi Duchamp
L. Timmel Duchamp's short fiction has been out in the world since 1989; a good portion of it has appeared in Asimov's SF, while most of the rest can be found in anthology series, including the Leviathan, Bending the Landscape, & Full Spectrum series. (A small portion of it has been collected in Love's Body, Dancing in Time.) She's also published five novels (The Marq'ssan Cycle), a short novel titled The Red Rose Rages (Bleeding), & a lot of criticism. Lately most of her time has been gobbled up by her publishing venture, Aqueduct Press, which is dedicated to "bringing challenging feminist science fiction to the demanding reader." She lives in Seattle. http://ltimmel.home.mindspring.com

Megan Dunning
Megan Dunning works in environmental education and devotes her free time to music and books. Though she has been singing since she was small, she wasn't introduced to shape–note singing until grad school, when Lisa invited her to a Thursday singing.

Sigrid J. Ellis
Sigrid Ellis is an air traffic controller, a parent, a feminist, a blogger, and a comics writer. http://sigridellis.wordpress.com/

Ruthanna Emrys
Ruthanna Emrys is a cognitive scientist with particular interests in narrative processing and the psychology of developing technologies. Her fiction has appeared in Analog and Strange Horizons. http://ashnistrike.livejournal.com

Carrie L. Ferguson
Carrie is a past WisCon co–coordinator who continues to enjoy working on the WisCon concom (hint: it's a lot of fun—you should join, too). A member of Broad Universe, Carrie spends her time working toward publication when she's not serving her State as one of its legislative auditors.

Ariel Franklin-Hudson
Ariel is a graduate student in Renaissance and Early Modern Studies. She has been attending Science Fiction Conventions since before she was born.

Beth Friedman
Avid reader; copyeditor; editor and publisher of slash zines

Joyce Frohn
Joyce has been a professional writer for more than ten years. Her husband is still waiting for her to make enough money to get him away from the daily grind of the sausage factory. She has been published more than one hundred times. She is a fourth generation feminist and first signed petitions when she was ten.

Jeanne Gomoll
Jeanne Gomoll has worked on and attended all WisCons since the very first one in 1977. She works most frequently on WisCon publications, but has also chaired W20 and W30. Gomoll serves as an SF3 officer, a Tiptree Motherboard officer, and a Broad Universe advisor. She makes her living doing graphic design as owner of the company Union Street Design, LLC. www.unionstreetdesign.com

Sandra Marie Grayson
Sandra M. Grayson is Associate Professor of English at University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee. Grayson's numerous publications include the books A Literary Revolution: In the Spirit of the Harlem Renaissance (2008), Visions of the Third Millennium: Black Science Fiction Novelists Write the Future (2003), and Symbolizing the Past: Reading Sankofa, Daughters of the Dust, and Eve's Bayou as Histories (2000). www.uwm.edu/~sgrayson

Magenta Griffith
Magenta is a Witch and a writer of occult non–fiction. She has read science fiction for many years, and goes to as many cons as she can afford. She lives in Minneapolis and is the companion to a black and white cat named Lady Zen. She and her partner own 240 shelf feet of books at last count.

Eileen Gunn
Eileen Gunn is the author of the story collection Stable Strategies and Others and the co-editor of The WisCon Chronicles Two. Her fiction has received the Nebula Award in the US the and Sense of Gender Award in Japan, and been nominated for the Hugo, Philip K. Dick, and World Fantasy awards and short-listed for the James Tiptree, Jr. award. She is the editor/publisher of the Infinite Matrix webzine and for twenty years has been a member of the board of directors of the Clarion West Writers Workshop. http://www.eileengunn.com/

Ian K. Hagemann
Ian K. Hagemann is a mixed–race fan and writer in Seattle. He helped start Potlatch and the Carl Brandon Society, and is currently doing and leading personal work with The Mankind Project.

Andrea D. Hairston
Andrea Hairston was a math/physics major in college until she did special effects for a show and then she ran off to the theatre and became an artist. She is the Artistic Director of Chrysalis Theatre and has created original productions with music, dance, and masks for over twenty–five years. She is also a Professor of Theatre and Afro–American Studies at Smith College. Her plays have been produced at Yale Rep, Rites and Reason, the Kennedy Center, StageWest, and on Public Radio and Television. She has translated plays by Michael Ende and Kaca Celan from German to English. Andrea Hairston's novel, Mindscape, was published by Aqueduct Press and won the Carl Brandon Society Parallax Award and was shortlisted for the Phillip K Dick Award and on the Tiptree Honor list. "Griots of the Galaxy," a short story, appears in So Long Been Dreaming: Postcolonial Visions of the Future, an anthology edited by Nalo Hopkinson and Uppinder Mehan. Among her many essays is, "Stories Are More Important than Facts: Imagination as Resistance in Guillermo del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth" in Narrative Power: Encounters,Celebrations, Struggles edited by L. Timmil Duchamp and published by Aqueduct press in 2010 andreahairston.com

Lesley Hall
Lesley Hall has been reading sff and being a feminist for many years. She has published 2 short stories, reviews in Strange Horizons and Vector, and a short study of Naomi Mitchison (Aqueduct, 2007) www.lesleyahall.net

Sumana Harihareswara
Sumana Harihareswara is a NYC–based technology manager whose latest scifi project is co–editing, with Leonard Richardson, the free, Creative Commons–licensed anthology Thoughtcrime Experiments. She's written a weekly newspaper column, taught stand–up comedy, and worked on open source software projects like Miro. She has degrees from UC Berkeley and Columbia University. http://www.brainwane.net

Eric M. Heideman
Eric M. Heideman is a Minneapolis public librarian; the founder and editor (since 1986) of Tales of the Unanticipated (TOTU); a founding member (since 1992) of SF Minnesota and its multicultural SF convention, Diversicon; and the founder/manager of Krushenko's, an SF salon, appearing at various MN–WI Cons. His fiction has appeared in Writers of the Future, Vol. 3, Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, and Best Mystery and Suspense Stories, 1988 (Walker); he has published over 200 reviews, essays, and interviews in such markets as the Twin Cities Star Tribune, monsterzine.com, TOTU, and various con program books. www.diversicon.org ; www.totu-ink.com

John Helfers
John Helfers is an author and editor currently living in Green Bay, Wisconsin. During his fourteen years working for Martin H. Greenberg at Tekno Books, he has edited fifteen short story anthologies for DAW, as well as numerous other ones and novels for other publishers in all genres. He has also worked with well–known authors and co–editors such as Lawrence Block, Larry Bond, Dale Brown, Anne Perry, Jeffery Deaver, Michael Connelly, Walter J. Boyne, Harold W. Coyle, Stephen Coonts, Charlaine Harris, Margaret Weis, Kim Harrison, Mercedes Lackey, and Kevin J. Anderson. He has also published more than thirty–five short stories in anthologies such as If I Were An Evil Overlord, Time Twisters, and Places to Be, People to Kill. He has written media tie-in fiction for the Dragonlance®, Transformers®, Battletech® and Shadowrun® universes, among others. He has written both fiction and nonfiction, including the third novel in the first authorized trilogy based on The Twilight Zone™ television series, the YA novel Tom Clancy’s Net Force Explorers: Cloak and Dagger, and a history of the United States Navy. His latest non–fiction book, The Vorkosigan Companion: The Universe of Lois McMaster Bujold, was nominated for a 2008 Hugo Award for Best Related Book.

Chris Hill
Chris is from the UK and has been an sf fan since he discovered Doctor Who as a wee lad. He is a reviewer for Vector, the BSFA critical magazine, and has also occasionally reviewed sf for Interzone and other places. He was the BSFA Awards Administrator for four years and by the time you read this will have just finished his first of two years as an Arthur C. Clarke Award judge. He also performs with a local operatic and musical society. He's starting to lose count but he thinks that this is his sixth WisCon! bookzombie.livejournal.com

Penny Hill
British SF reader. Reviewer for "Vector" the BSFA reviews magazine . Especially interested in YA fiction. Jury member for 2006 Carl Brandon Society Awards.

Chip Hitchcock
has been reading SF long enough to remember when the Tom Swift Jr. series was in single digits and fantasy was rarely published; he works on conventions and edited some of the early NESFA Press books. Mundanely he's a former chemist who now writes software.

P. C. Hodgell
PcH, recently retired from UWO, lives in a 19th century house with four cats and thirty koi. The horse is stabled elsewhere. She has been writing the same series for the past thirty years and hopes to finish it before her wits give out. pchodgell.com

Emily Horner
Emily Horner is a teen librarian in Brooklyn, NY and a young adult novelist. Her debut, A Love Story Starring My Dead Best Friend, is coming in June from Dial Books For Young Readers. http://www.emilyhorner.com

Jim Hudson
Long–term fan and convention organizer (since 1973). One of the coordinators of this year's WisCon. In my day job, I build database applications for environmental work.

Kerrie Hughes
DAW anthologies; writer: Haunted Holidays, Women of War, Furry Fantastic. As editor: Maiden Matron Crone, Children of Magic, Fellowship Fantastic, Dimension Next Door, Gamer Fantastic 07/07/09, Zombie Raccoons and Killer Bunnies 10/01/09, Girls Guide to Guns and Monsters 2010. DAW: writer: Valdemar Companion. TOR; editor: Chicks Kick Ass 2010. BAEN: writer: Vorkosigan Companion.

Jesse the K
I found peace reading SF in the bathroom during 3rd grade recess. Second–wave feminist, pre–ADA disability rights activist, white Jew. Often online when should be sleeping. Fascinated by every sort of encoding. Colorful beige ideas dream furiously. http://jesse-the-k.livejournal.com

Deborah Lynn Jacobs
Deborah Lynn Jacobs is the author of three novels for teens. Her latest novel, Choices, asks: What if there were multiple copies of you, living out your life in infinite parallel universes? Choices was a finalist for the Sunburst Award for Canadian Literature of the Fantastic, and is a Quick Pick for Reluctant Young Adult Readers, 2008. Deborah has made many choices in her life: college counselor and instructor, free–lance writer, author, wife, and mom. Deborah is a transplanted Canadian, now thriving in the Milwaukee area. Visit her at www.deborahlynnjacobs.com, www.myspace.com/deborahlynnjacobs, and http://dljacobs.livejournal.com Choices (Roaring Brook Press, 2007 ISBN 10: 1-59643-217-9 ISBN 13: 978-1-59643-217-8 Starred review, Kirkus Reviews; Quick Pick for Reluctant Young Adult Readers; Finalist, Sunburst Award for Canadian Literature of the Fantastic; Teensreadtoo Gold Award, Hall of Fame winner) Powers (paperback; Square Fish Press, 2008 ISBN 13: 978-0-312-37756-4 ISBN 10: 0-312-37756-8) Powers (hardcover; Roaring Brook Press, 2006 ISBN: 1-59643-112-1; Nominated as a Quick Pick) The Same Difference (Upper middle grade novel, ages 10 and up; Royal Fireworks Press, 2000) www.deborahlynnjacobs.com

Victoria Janssen
Victoria Janssen's first erotic novel, The Duchess, Her Maid, the Groom and Their Lover, was a December 2008 release from Harlequin Spice. Her second, The Moonlight Mistress, is a December 2009 Spice release. She enjoys playing with genre tropes. Frequent themes in her stories include role reversal and empowering women, usually through unconventional means. Under her pseudonym, Elspeth Potter, she's sold more than thirty short stories to various anthologies, including Best Lesbian Erotica, Best Women's Erotica, Best Lesbian Romance, Periphery, and The Mammoth Book of Best New Erotica. She's also sold to Fishnet Magazine. Her latest publication, a one hundred word story titled "Unlimited Minutes," appears in both Frenzy: 60 Stories of Sudden Sex; and Never Have the Same Sex Twice: A Guide For Couples. www.victoriajanssen.com

Kelly Jones
Kelly Jones is a fantasy novelist, an avid reader of many genres, and a former public librarian. She has worked with young writers through the 826 Seattle program and as a writing mentor. kelljones.livejournal.com

Juliana
Juliana is a member of Think Galactic, a n00b librarian, and a geek of anthropology, fan fiction, and many other things.

Keffy R.M. Kehrli
I'm a 24 year old writer from the Pacific Northwest corner of the United States. Despite living in Washington, I attended the Clarion–formerly–known–as–East at UCSD last year (2008). I have bachelor's degrees in both physics and linguistics. However, instead of getting a real job, I continue to scandalize my family by living in a house with four other people, three cats and some goldfish while writing freelance and selling office supplies. http://www.keffy.com

Sylvia Kelso
Sylvia Kelso lives in North Queensland and writes F and SF with alternate North Queensland or analogue Australian settings. Two of her fantasy novels, The Moving Water and Amberlight were finalists for best fantasy novel in the Aurealis Australian genre fiction awards. She is also an adjunct lecturer at James Cook University, with research interests in F, SF and horror. In 2008 she co–edited a special volume on the work of Ursula Le Guin for the academic journal Paradoxa and a collection of her papers and/or essays, Three Observations and a Dialogue: Round and About SF will be released at WisCon 2009 by Aqueduct Press. http://members.iinet.net.au/~sakelso/

Mikki Kendall
Mikki Kendall has had a love affair with fiction since she first understood language. As a child she told herself her own bedtime stories and escaped to life in faraway lands regularly. In many ways she's still living in those dreams. A creative writing class at the age of 9 set her on a path of writing fiction as a means of expression. As she grew older she discovered fandom in all its dubious glory and learned that there was more to a good story than whether or not it was on a bestseller list. Now, prompted in part by many discussions about speculative fiction and its impact on society she has turned attention to trying to carve out a niche in the market for people that look like her. No longer content to imagine having Rapunzel's long blond hair, she wants to give her children and all the children of the world princesses that fight for themselves and princes that don't have to always slay the dragon to be a hero.

Marianne Kirby
31-year old, writer/editor/artist, living/reading/making stuff in Orlando, FL. Somehow my husband and I own four cats. This is two more than we started with. I blog about fat and body issues at http://www.therotund.com and have a book coming out May 05, 2009. I work for a defense contractor as an editor by day, and by night I write and glue things to other things. I'd really like to learn how to weld. Everything is political. http://www.therotund.com

Gary Kloster
I'm a house husband in rural Minnesota, a science reference librarian who now answers the urgent questions of 'When's lunch?' and 'Bathroom?' Not really much different then helping the undergrads back at the university, but it wears thin. In an effort to save my sanity, and avoid housework, I've turned to writing. You can find my work in Writers of the Future 25, Baen's Universe, Fantasy Magazine and Warrior Wisewoman 3. www.garykloster.com

Ted A Kosmatka
Ted is a lab tech by day and a writer by night. His fiction has appeared in Asimov's, F&SF, Ideomancer and elsewhere. In 2008, his work was translated into Russian, Hebrew and Polish, and he has reprints forthcoming in four Year's Best anthologies in 2009. (editors: Dozois, Strahan, Horton, and Hartwell/Cramer) http://www.tedkosmatka.com/

Mary Robinette Kowal
Mary Robinette Kowal is the 2008 recipient of the Campbell Award for Best New Writer, and the author of Shades of Milk and Honey, coming out from Tor Books in August, 2010. Her short fiction appears in Strange Horizons, Cosmos and Asimov's. Mary, a professional puppeteer and voice actor, lives in Portland, OR with her husband Rob and eight manual typewriters. She is serving her second term as Secretary of Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. In addition to her writing, she also performs as a voice actor, recording fiction for authors such as Elizabeth Bear, Cory Doctorow and John Scalzi. Visit www.maryrobinettekowal.com http://www.maryrobinettekowal.com

Naomi Kritzer
Naomi Kritzer's short stories have appeared in Realms of Fantasy, Strange Horizons, and Tales of the Unanticipated. Her novels (Fires of the Faithful, Turning the Storm, Freedom's Gate, Freedom's Apprentice, and Freedom's Sisters) are available from Bantam. She recently completed a children's fantasy novel about a girl who realizes that a house down the block is being used as a safe house by people immigrating illegally from another world. Naomi lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota with her husband and two daughters. http://www.naomikritzer.com

Rachel Kronick
Rachel Kronick lives in Minneapolis. She is a long-time SF&F fan, RPG gamer and worldbuilder. She's fluent in Mandarin Chinese and interested in transgender issues, and has survived a bout of being programming head for Minicon. http://www.jiawen.net

Alex Lamb
Alexander Lamb splits his time between writing science fiction, software engineering, teaching improvised theater, running business communication skills workshops, and conducting digital physics research. Currently, his only piece of fiction in print is Ithrulene, a short story in the Polyphony 5 anthology by Wheatland Press. This story was singled out for praise by Gardener Dozois in his 2005 end of year review for Locus. He is a graduate of the Clarion West writers program and a Milford group attendee. As an improviser, Alex has founded three theater companies and is the inventor of the archetypal improv style, a technique used to bring Joseph Campbell's theories of narrative structure to unscripted theater. As Britain's foremost expert on spontaneous plotting, he has created play formats now used and enjoyed across the world from London to San Francisco. As a trainer, he has worked with CEOs, high school students, international sales professionals, astrophysicists, doctors, world-class athletes, and graduate students. He was a speaker at the ASTD International Conference this year—”the largest business training conference in the world." Alex addressed an audience of training professionals on the use of improvisation techniques to rave reviews. In his day jobs, Alex has worked on the trading floors of international finance, crafted the next generation of man-machine interfaces and worked as an Artificial Intelligence researcher on three continents. He is currently working as a specialist in interactive business simulations. His most recent fascination is with the use of simple algorithms to unlock the secrets of quantum gravity. Though not a career physicist, he was contributing speaker at the New Kind of Science Conference this year. Alex addressed an audience of Computer Science and Physics professionals on his work simulating subatomic particles. His research in this arena has already yielded one international collaboration and his first scientific publication in this field will be coming out shortly. He currently lives in Santa Cruz, CA with his wife, Genevieve Graves, an astrophysicist at UCSC. www.alexlamb.com

Ann Leckie
Ann Leckie has published short stories in Subterranean Magazine and Strange Horizons, and Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine. Her story "Hesperia and Glory" was reprinted in Science Fiction: The Best of the Year, 2007 Edition edited by Rich Horton. Ann has worked as a waitress, a receptionist, a rodman on a land-surveying crew, and a recording engineer. She lives in St. Louis, Missouri. http://annleckie.com

David D. Levine
David D. Levine is a lifelong SF reader whose midlife crisis was to take a sabbatical from his high-tech job to attend Clarion West in 2000. It seems to have worked. He made his first professional sale in 2001, won the Writers of the Future Contest in 2002, was nominated for the John W. Campbell award in 2003, was nominated for the Hugo Award and the Campbell again in 2004, and won a Hugo in 2006 (Best Short Story, for "Tk'Tk'Tk"). His "Titanium Mike Saves the Day" was nominated for a Nebula Award in 2008, and a collection of his short stories, Space Magic, from Wheatland Press (http://www.wheatlandpress.com) won the 2009 Endeavour Award for best SF/F book by a Pacific Northwest writer. In January 2010 he spent two weeks at a simulated Mars base in the Utah desert (http://bentopress.com/mars). He lives in Portland, Oregon with his wife, Kate Yule, with whom he edits the fanzine Bento, and their website is at http://www.BentoPress.com. http://www.bentopress.com/sf/

Michael Marc Levy
Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Stout teaching science fiction and children's literature. Co-editor of the scholarly journal Extrapolation. Author of three books and numerous essays and book reviews.

Sandra J. Lindow
Sandra Lindow's poetry appears frequently in places such as Asimov's. She has 18 Rhysling nominations and 6 books of poetry. Presently she is writing a book on moral development in the work of Ursula K. Le Guin. She teaches, edits, writes and lives on a hilltop in Menomonie, WI. Her husband is Michael Levy.

Heather Lindsley
Heather Lindsley is a geographically conflicted Southern Californian who keeps most of her stuff in Seattle while living in London. Her stories have been published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Strange Horizons, and Year's Best Science Fiction #12. She will also have a story in an upcoming issue of Asimov's. www.randomjane.com

Shira Lipkin
Shira Lipkin is a writer, activist, and general force of nature. Her short fiction and poetry have appeared in _Interfictions 2_, ChiZine, Electric Velocipede, Lone Star Stories, and more. She works at the Boston Area Rape Crisis Center, and is raising the next generation of kickass feminist geek girls. She lives in Boston with her husband, daughter, and the requisite Writers' Cats. You can track her movements at shiralipkin.com. Please do. She likes the company. http://shiralipkin.com

Rochelle Lodder
Rochelle Lodder started singing shape–note seven years ago. She also likes to sing folk songs from the Republic of Georgia. This is her second WisCon.

Joanna Lowenstein
Joanna almost found fandom at 15, but was scared and went to the mall instead. She found it again at 24, and hasn't left since.

Catherine Lundoff
Catherine Lundoff is the editor of the fantasy and horror anthology "Haunted Hearths and Sapphic Shades: Lesbian Ghost Stories" (Lethe Press, 2008)and coeditor of "Hellebore and Rue: Tales of Queer Women and Magic" (forthcoming, Drollerie Press). She is also the author of the erotica collections "Crave: Tales of Lust, Love and Longing" (Lethe Press, 2007) and "Night’s Kiss" (Lethe Press, 2009) as well as over seventy published short stories. She is a Golden Crown Award winner, a Spectrum Award short fiction finalist and a contributor to Women in Science Fiction and Fantasy: An Encyclopedia (Greenwood Press, 2008). www.visi.com/~clundoff

Betsy Lundsten
Betsy has been working on conventions since high school. She lives in St. Paul with some number of mammals. http://www.mooseparty.org

Elise Anna Matthesen
Beads, metal, words, music, thoughts, questions, a hearing impairment, and many pairs of pliers.

Margaret McBride
Taught science fiction at the University of Oregon for 17 years. Chair of 2004 Tiptree Award committee.

Kelly McCullough
Kelly McCullough's first novel in the WebMage series, WebMage, was released by Ace in 2006 to considerable critical praise. It was followed by Cybermancy, CodeSpell, MythOS, and SpellCrash. His short fiction has appeared in numerous venues including Weird Tales, Writers of the Future, and Tales of the Unanticipated. His illustrated collection, The Chronicles of the Wandering Star, is part of a National Science Foundation—funded middle school science curriculum, Interactions in Physical Science. http//www.kellymccullough.com

Farah Mendlesohn
Farah Mendlesohn is an editor and critic. She has published on both science fiction and fantasy. She co-won the Hugo for The Cambridge Companion to Science Fiction in 2005, and Rhetorics of Fantasy is nominated for a BSFA award this year. Her most recent book is the edited collection of essays, On Joanna Russ. http://www.farahsf.com

ANONYMOUS
Madge's day job is as a public relations professional. For ten years she'd been pimping technology companies and the non–fiction books their executives produce, including a business book with the word 'castration' in the title. Under the cloak of darkness she squeezes in time to work on her own stories. Madge is a graduate of Viable Paradise XII and has had short stories published in Escape Pod and Whispering Spirits. She is currently chipping away at a novel, while looking longingly at several short stories in progress.

Hari Mirchi
I find it hard to describe myself, so I'll borrow some descriptions that have been applied to me: "[She] is very bright but has trouble communicating effectively with other children. She has a tendency towards being stubborn and I might even say arrogant." -- Pre-K teacher "[She] is a voracious reader and sometimes intimidates the other children . . ." -- Kindergarten teacher "[She] is a natural leader, but I fear her lack of patience is hindering her development." -- First grade teacher "[She] does not suffer fools." -- Fifth grade teacher "[She] can be very aggressive sometimes." --Seventh grade teacher "A bright but incredibly stubborn student." --High school physics teacher Some things never change I guess. Oh wait, there's more? "[She is] made of spun marzipan." --LJ user Lucullean "Wonderful, passionate, brilliant, amazing, beautiful, thingamabob." --The Husbeast I am a woman and a third culture kid and an Asian-American and a daughter and a sister and a wife and a friend and an engineer and a community organizer and a coffee addict and a reader and a thinker and a doer and a lover and a lot of other things too.

Nayad Monroe
Nayad Monroe is a slush reader for Clarkesworld Magazine, and she splits her creative time between writing SFF and drawing brightly–colored digital artwork. http://nayad.livejournal.com/

Allan Moore
Eternally curious and perpetually skeptical, Allan has studied and taught the hard sciences and explored the more obscure branches of knowledge for most of his life.

Karen H. Moore
Bean–counter, bookworm, and semi–reformed hippie. ConCom member since 2005. Known to read ketchup bottles if nothing else is available. Has a strange and twisted passion for reconciling complex balance sheet accounts. Enjoys embarrassing her children. Still wears tie–dye. Fairly normal in most other respects.

Rhianna Moore
Girlgeek, omnivorous reader, passionate feminist. Hails from a long line of stubborn women and is a worthy inheritor of the tradition. Plays with all kinds of computers for fun and entertainment.

Allison Morris
Allison Morris works in public libraries because she loves the ways that information, entertainment, and community intersect. That's also why she loves fandom. She maintains the Audiofic podfic archive at http://audiofic.jinjurly.com, volunteers with the Organization for Transformative Works, and is annoyed that despite living in the future sleep is still necessary. http://jinjurly.com

Jessica Lynne Morris
I am a student at the University of Louisville pursuing my Master of Arts in Women's and Gender Studies. Having been raised both a feminist and a science fiction fan, I am always looking for ways in which to integrate my passions into meaningful academic work. I intend to follow through with my education and become a Women's/Gender/Feminist Studies professor. I currently live in Louisville, Kentucky; I am a theory junkie; I will forever be a trekker.

Pat Murphy
Pat Murphy's latest novel is The Wild Girls, the book that she wishes she had when she was 12 years old. She's written eight novels and lots of short stories. Currently, she writes & edits books for Klutz, a publisher of how–to books that come packaged with the tools of their trade (from juggling cubes to face paints to yo–yos). Her latest title is Invasion of the Bristlebots, which comes with two small robots that run on toothbrush heads. Last week, she learned how to make a musical instrument out of pickles. Life isn't dull. Her favorite color is ultraviolet. Her favorite book is whichever one she is working on right now, which happens to be a sequel to The Wild Girls. She won numerous awards for her science fiction stories and novels, including the Nebula for both her second novel, The Falling Woman, and her novelette "Rachel in Love," the Philip K. Dick Award for Points of Departure, the World Fantasy Award for her novella "Bones," and the 2002 Seiun Award for her novel There and Back Again. You can find out more about what Pat's up to at her website: http://www.brazenhussies.net/murphy www.brazenhussies.net/murphy

Erika Nelson
Erika Nelson is an M.A. candidate at the Gallatin School of Individualized Study at New York University. Her academic focus is science fiction film and literature. www.scificonfessions.blogspot.com

Jim Nelson
Participated in "Robots from the future & the past" & "Bang, Whimper, None of the Above" panels in 2009 and 'FanFic 101' and 'SciFi on TV 2007' panels in 2008.

Debbie Notkin
I have had a lot of roles in the science fiction field: a specialty bookseller, a reviewer for Locus, an editor at Tor, coordinator of WisCon programming, past (and current) co–ordinator of WisCon, chair of the Tiptree motherboard. My other passions are body image activism and process–oriented psychology. My day job is reviewing publishing contracts. www.laurietobyedison.com/discuss

Sharyn November
Sharyn November is Senior Editor for Viking Children's Books and Editorial Director of Firebird Books (www.firebirdbooks.com). She has twice been a World Fantasy Award Finalist in the Professional Category, and her anthology, *Firebirds Rising*, was a World Fantasy Award Finalist. http://www.sharyn.org

Rich Novotney
Rich writes novels, short fiction & poetry. He collects rejection slips, does theatre, supports Progressive causes and buys way too many books. 'Thanks to Mary for letting my indulge myself at Wiscon!' Visit Rich at richnovotney.com. richnovotney.com

Jennifer Pelland
Jennifer Pelland lives outside Boston with an Andy, three cats, and an impractical amount of books. Her first collection, Unwelcome Bodies, was published by Apex Books in 2008, and contains her Nebula-nominated story "Captive Girl." She has stories coming out this year in Dark Faith, The Naked Singularity, Close Encounters of the Urban Kind, and Dark Futures. She also bellydances with the group Tassellations. Visit her on the web at www.jenniferpelland.com http://www.jenniferpelland.com

Piglet
A Delicate Flower of the South, successfully transplanted to NYC.

Lettie Prell
Lettie Prell is a science fiction/fantasy writer and the author of Dragon Ring. Her stories have appeared in Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine, Paranormal Underground, The Lorelei Signal, and elsewhere. Her poetry has appeared in Pangaia, Kai Han, and other magazine, and her haiku were featured in the Iowa Drama Workshop production of Kali Ma!. She lives in Des Moines with her writer husband, John Domini, dog Woody and cat Laverne. www.lettieprell.com

Erin R.
My Herbert–ian mantra of 'fear is the mindkiller' has shifted to a more feminist Butler–ian mantra of 'the only truth is change.' I've changed from an unwitting fan of patriarchal science fiction to a fan and student of feminist science fiction and scholarship. My first sf class as an undergraduate at Texas A&M University was eye–opening. Traversing through the pages of Neuromancer, Speaker for the Dead, and countless Asimov tales, I found that the lack of boundaries within the texts could lead the mind anywhere. Of course, those were male versions of 'anywhere' and I slowly, all too slowly, became aware of the amazing, phenomenal literature and scholarship by women in the field of sf. My doctoral studies at the University of Texas at San Antonio have taken me to worlds and cultures of great ideas and individuals, and the journey has only just begun!

Jessica Reisman
Jessica Reisman's first novel came out in 2004; she has stories in a wide variety of magazines and anthologies and lives in Austin, Texas. www.storyrain.com

Gregory G. H. Rihn
Gregory Rihn is a founding member of SF3 and the first WisCon Concom. He has contributed to fanzines including Janus, Aurora, New Moon, WABE and Chunga, as well as Dragon Magazine. He has served on con comittees for over fifty conventions throughout the United States, and was Chair of the very successful 1987 MythCon. He is a frequent con panelist, including having been on panels at every WisCon to date.

Margaret Ronald
Margaret Ronald's first novel, Spiral Hunt, came out from Eos Books in January 2009. Her work has appeared in Strange Horizons, Realms of Fantasy, Baen's Universe, Fantasy Magazine, and several other venues. She is a member of BRAWL and an alumna of the Viable Paradise workshop. Originally from rural Indiana, she now lives outside Boston. http://mronald.wordpress.com

Benjamin Rosenbaum
Benjamin Rosenbaum lives near Basel, Switzerland, with his wife Esther and his somewhat improbable children, Aviva and Noah, who like to cook pancakes, sing recursive songs, and turn people into pigs. His stories have appeared in Harper's, F&SF, Asimov's, McSweeney's, Strange Horizons, and Nature, been nominated for the Hugo, Nebula, World Fantasy, BSFA, and Sturgeon Awards, and been translated into 14 languages; also, Noah told him he was fancier than Noah's elbow. His first collection, The Ant King and Other Stories, came out in August 2008 from Small Beer Press. More at http://www.benjaminrosenbaum.com http://benjaminrosenbaum.com

Rowan
Rowan mangles computers on a daily basis and reads and watches alternate realities during the cracks in this world. He's been participating in the fringes of internet media fandom for a little while now.

Kate Schaefer
Kate Schaefer designs and makes hats and other frivolous clothing. She is a graduate of the Clarion West Writers Workshop and a member of its board of directors. She has chaired three Potlatches and one Tiptree jury. She can teach you how to raise money for your favorite non–profit cause, how to fold an elephant, or how to strip and curl a feather. She may be allergic to your perfume or your laundry soap; it's not personal. http://www.kateschaefer.com/

Fred Schepartz
Fred Schepartz is the author of Vampire Cabbie, (Literary Road, Seattle, WA), which tells the story of a 1000–year–old vampire who loses his vast fortune in the stock market crash of 1987 and is forced to get a job. Stranded right here in Madison, Wisconsin, the vampire decides to try his hand at cab driving and gets hired at a worker–owned–and–operated cooperative cab company. Fred lives in Madison and really does work as a cab driver (nights, of course) at Union Cab Cooperative, the model for the cab company portrayed in Vampire Cabbie. He publishes and edits Mobius: The Journal of Social Change, and is doing rewrites on his next novel, Guitar God, which he describes as a Jewish, suburban rock and roll fantasy with a 1970s soundtrack. Or, in other words, it's War for the Oaks meets Portnoy's Complaint. Fred also is co–founder of the Madison Vampire Coven. www.mobiusmagazine.com www.vampirecabbie.com

Georgie L. Schnobrich
Georgie L. Schnobrich is a long–time fan, artist, and librarian. She was part of the Hugo-nominated fanzine "Janus" collective, was nominated for a FAAN award for her artwork, is a past WisCon Coordinator, Tiptree Award judge, and has been Fan GoH at Madison's 2009 Odyssey Con.

Brin Schuler
Rural family physician in MN, working with stay–at–home dad/writer spouse, lifelong fan.

David J. Schwartz
Author of numerous short stories and the Nebula-nominated novel _Superpowers_. http://snurri.livejournal.com

Jenny Sessions
2nd generation wiscon attendee, madison native, and big ol' nerd.

Brenna Shanks
As a librarian, I review books for VOYA and participate in the ALA and YALSA. As a writer, I studied at the University of Washington and continue to attend workshops whenever possible.

Nisi Shawl
Nisi Shawl’s stories of speculative fiction, which have appeared in The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror (edited by Ellen Datlow, Kelly Link, and Gavin Grant), Asimov’s SF Magazine, and the groundbreaking Dark Matter anthologies, have been nominated for the Theodore Sturgeon, Gaylactic Spectrum, and Parallax awards. Ursula K. Le Guin praises Shawl’s new story collection Filter House as “superbly written,” and Samuel R. Delany calls it “amazing.” Shawl’s reviews and essays appear regularly in the Seattle Times. She is the co–editor of Strange Matings: Octavia Butler, Science Fiction, and Feminism (forthcoming from Wesleyan University Press) and the co–author of Writing the Other, a guide to developing characters of varying racial, ethnic, and sexual backgrounds which received a special mention from the James Tiptree, Jr. Award jury in 2005. Shawl is a founding member of the Carl Brandon Society and serves on the Board of Directors of the Clarion West Writers Workshop. www.sfwa.org/members/shawl

Diana Sherman
Diana Sherman works at a video game company where she gets to write about superheroes and Romulans. Once upon a time she taught writing to reluctant college students, before the video gaming industry seduced her away with promises of a free Xbox 360. She writes science fiction, fantasy, and plays.

Diane Silver
I am a full–time freelance writer and nationally syndicated columnist, specializing in politics, public policy, LGBT rights, climate change, higher education and spirituality, among other topics. My biweekly column, "Political IQ," is syndicated nationally to newspapers serving LGBT communities. I also write grants and other fund–raising materials for a variety of clients. In my free time, I dabble in fiction. In 2000, I helped found Broad Universe and created BU's newsletter, The Broadsheet. I blog at http://hopeandpolitics.blogspot.com/ www.dianesilver.net

Jef a. Smith
Jef Smith is a member of Chicago's Think Galactic book discussion group, which tackles SF from a radical left perspective. As a concom member for the first Think Galacticon in 2007, he's looking forward seeing it expand and grow in 2009. A lifelong geek, his interests are broad [gaming, media, books] but has a healthy preference for snappy books that push boundaries and display nuance. He works for a major book distributor that distributes a number of genre publishers and can ramble at length about the vagaries of book distribution. He is also working to shut up, listen, and understand the divide between white male privilege and the struggles of those less advantaged. www.thinkgalactic.org

Kristine Smith
Kristine Smith was born in Buffalo, NY. She grew up in Florida, and graduated from the University of South Florida with a BS in Chemistry. She has spent almost her entire working career in manufacturing/R&D of one kind or another, and has worked for the same northern Illinois pharmaceutical manufacturer for way too long. Dog person. Budding foodie. Long–suffering Cubs fan. She's the author of the Jani Kilian science fiction series, beginning with Code of Conduct, which was a finalist for the 1999 Philip K Dick Award. The latest book in the series, Endgame, was released in November 2007. Kristine is the winner of the 2001 John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer. http://www.kristine-smith.com

Joell M. Smith-Borne
Joell Smith-Borne is, in no particular order, spouse to a transguy, mother of a son, student in a School of Information Science, provider of tech support and instruction at a library, and Midwestern transplant living in the South.

Caroline Stevermer
Caroline Stevermer grew up miles from anywhere on a dairy farm in southeastern Minnesota. Her first day at Bryn Mawr College, she met Ellen Kushner, who let her read the manuscript of the novel she was writing. Since then, Caroline has written River Rats, When the King Comes Home, A College of Magics, A Scholar of Magics, and the forthcoming (2010) Magic Below Stairs. With Patricia C. Wrede, she co-wrote Sorcery and Cecelia, The Grant Tour, and The Mislaid Magician. http://members.authorsguild.net/carolinestev/

Chris Stockdale
I am physics professor at Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. My specific area of research is the study radio and X–ray emission from supernovae to better understand the evolution of the most massive stars in a galaxy. I have no formal sci–fi/fantasy writing experience, but am an avid fan of the genre. I am very interested in the creative process that goes in writing genre pieces, especially accurate and well–thought science themes. http://www.marquette.edu/physics/faculty/ChrisStockdale.shtml

Kathryn Sullivan
Kathryn Sullivan writes young adult fantasy and science fiction. Her first book, The Crystal Throne, won the 2002 EPPIE for best Fantasy, and her second, Agents & Adepts, won the 2003 Dream Realm Award for Best Anthology. The sequel, Talking To Trees, was released January 2006, also by Amber Quill Press. Her short stories have appeared in magazines and anthologies. "The Monster and the Archaeologists" appeared in Big Finish's Professor Bernice Summerfield and the Dead Men Diaries, "The Oracle of Cilens" is in Beyond the Mundane: Flights of Mind from Mundania Press, and "The Diplomat's Tale" appeared in Short Trips: Repercussions, published by Big Finish. She also has a children's picture book, Michael & the Elf, published by Writers Exchange E–Publishing. Kathryn lives in Winona, MN, where the river bluffs along the Mississippi River double as cliffsides on alien planets or the deep mysterious forests in a magical world. She is well used to dealing with alien lifeforms, as she's owned by two birds (a cockatoo and a jenday). who graciously allow her to write about other animals, as well as birdlike aliens. http://kathrynsullivan.com

Talks-with-wind
This is my second WisCon, but most of my friends are long time regulars. http://talkswithwind.livejournal.com

Lynne M. Thomas
Lynne M. Thomas is the Head of Rare Books and Special Collections at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb, IL, where she is responsible for popular culture special collections that include the papers of over 20 SF authors, and significant collections of dime novels and popular historical children’s literature. She holds a BA in French and Comparative Literature from Smith College, an MS in Library and Information Science from the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, and an MA in English and American Literature from Northern Illinois University. She has published scholarly articles about cross–dressing in dime novels. Blogging both personally and professionally, she is the co–author of Special Collections 2.0, a book about web 2.0 technologies and special collections in libraries with Beth Whittaker of Ohio State University, published by Libraries Unlimited in July 2009, and the co–editor of Chicks Dig Time Lords, an essay collection celebrating women involved in Doctor Who fandom and in the production of the series, published by Mad Norwegian Press March 15, 2010. http://niurarebooks.blogspot.com

Michael D. Thomas
I am the primary caregiver to my wonderful, medically complicated, special needs daughter. Because of her, I am involved in many organizations that help people with disabilities. I also work for Mad Norwegian Press (http://www.madnorwegian.com/), a small press that focuses on cult television guidebooks. I was an Associate Editor for the Angel guidebook Redeemed and numerous Doctor Who guidebooks (including Chicks Dig Time Lords). I am currently co-writing Fluid Links: The Unauthorized Guide to Doctor Who Novels and Audios. I've also had articles about Doctor Who in the Hugo-nominated fanzine Argentus and the Doctor Who fanzine Enlightenment. http://michaeldthomas.livejournal.com/

Naamen Gobert Tilahun
Naamen Gobert Tilahun is a speculative writer and essayist based in the Bay Area. He has just completed the MFA Fiction program at Mills College. He is a fiction editor at the literary magazine 580-Split. His non-fiction has appeared in print in The WisCon Chronicles: Volume 2 from Aqueduct Press and online at Fantasy Magazine-where he was Review Manager and a regular columnist. He has also been a contributor to "The Angry Black Woman", "Feminist SF!-The Blog" and blogs at his personal blog "Words From The Center, Words From The Edge." His fiction has only appeared on his computer screen so far but he remains optimistic and is currently shopping around his experimental poetry/prose manuscript "Moments in Red Shift", a mythic retelling of colonization and revolution centered on the body of a woman forced to accompany the army that stole her life. http://naamenblog.wordpress.com/

Betsy Traditional Treasures
Life long voracious reader. www.tradtres.com

K. Joyce Tsai
K. Joyce Tsai blogs about books, sequential art, race, gender, and more books at http://oyceter.livejournal.com.

S. J. Tucker
S. J. Tucker, singer of songs and weaver of worlds, was born and raised in the blues–soaked Mississippi River country of southeast Arkansas, and she has been a rolling gypsy minstrel since she set out from Memphis, Tennessee in the spring of 2004. With six full–length albums of original material to her name, as well as several EPs and live albums and one children's book, Tucker travels the United States year–round, sharing her own Celtic Gypsy Fairytale Blues with fans of all ages, from all walks of life. Look no further, brave girls and lost boys; the pixie sings for you! http://www.skinnywhitechick.com

Catherynne M. Valente
Born in the Pacific Northwest in 1979, Catherynne M. Valente is the author of the Orphan's Tales series, as well as The Labyrinth, Yume no Hon: The Book of Dreams, The Grass-Cutting Sword, the crowdfunded phenomenon The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making, and five books of poetry. She is the winner of the Tiptree Award, the Mythopoeic Award, the Rhysling Award, and the Million Writers Award and has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, shortlisted for the Spectrum Award was a World Fantasy Award finalist in 2007 and 2009, and an Andre Norton finalist in 2010. She currently lives on an island off the coast of Maine with her partner and two dogs. Her newest novel, Palimpsest, was released on February 24th, 2009. http://www.catherynnemvalente.com

Monica Valentinelli
Monica Valentinelli splits her time between writing, working as an online marketer, and filling the role of project manager for the horror and dark fantasy webzine http://www.flamesrising.com. As a freelance writer for the gaming industry, Monica has over a dozen game and game fiction credits to her name including: Worlds of the Dead by Eden Studios, an award–winning fiction piece entitled "Promises, Promises" for Promethean by White Wolf and her recent novella "Twin Designs" which was part of the collection Tales of the Seven Dogs Society for the game Aletheia by Abstract Nova Press. Her upcoming works include an essay in the book Family Games: 100 and a horror short story for an anthology dubbed Buried Tales of Pinebox, TX. To read more about Monica, visit her urban fantasy novel series located at http://www.violetwar.com or her blog located at http://www.mlvwrites.com. http://www.mlvwrites.com

John Wardale
John W has been attending SF CONs since 1993 and teaching panels since 1995. He is a computer professional, and was an organizer for E.L.V.I.S. (The Emergency Link to Vital Internet Services) [1994-1999] John has done Renaissance/Fancy/Exotic Hair Braiding and Balloon Animal Sculpting panels for General and/or Children's Programming at several CONs over the years. Besides that above, and computers, John also enjoys speaking on Photography, Libertarianism, Beer, Wine(?), and especially Scotch Whiskey.

Morven Westfield
Fascinated by the supernatural from an early age, Morven is a writer and consumer of supernatural fiction. Her latest in a series of vampires, witches, and geeks is The Old Power Returns. She is a member of the Motherboard of Broad Universe and is the Webmaster for New England Horror Writers. Morven also hosts a podcast called, quite appropriately, Vampires, Witches, & Geeks. www.morvenwestfield.com

Heather H. Whipple
reader, sometime librarian, grad student, someday geographer http://www.sondryfolk.net/hhw

Alex Wilson
Alex's stories and comics have appeared/will appear in Asimov's, LCRW, Outlaw Territory 2 (Image Comics), The Florida Review, The Rambler, Flytrap, Weird Tales, and Futurismic. He is a Clarion 2006 graduate and runs the audiobook project Telltale Weekly. @alexotica on Twitter and LiveJournal. http://www.alexwilson.com

Cliff Winnig
Cliff Winnig writes fiction, plays sitar, and does dance and martial arts. His stories will be appearing this year in the small–press anthologies Footprints (Hadley Rille Books), edited by Jay Lake and Eric T. Reynolds, and Cinema Spec: Tales of Hollywood and Fantasy (Raven Electrick Ink), edited by Karen A. Romanko.

Chris Wrdnrd
Chris Wrdnrd was GoH for two minutes at Corflu Zed. She lives in Seattle with 3 cats, 2 two-wheeled conveyances, 1 spouse, and 1/2 a garden. http://wrdnrd.net/

Patricia C Wrede
Patricia is the author of both YA and adult fantasy novels, including the Enchanted Forest Chronicles and (with Caroline Stevermer) the Kate and Cecelia books.

Caroline M Yoachim
Caroline M. Yoachim grew up in the Pacific Northwest and currently lives in Austin, TX. A graduate of the Clarion West writers workshop, her fiction has appeared in Fantasy Magazine and Shimmer. She has stories forthcoming in Electric Velocipede, Talebones, and Beneath Ceaseless Skies. When she's not writing, Caroline enjoys photography, yoga, and curling up with a good book and a cup of tea. http://carolineyoachim.com

Annalee Newitz, io9.com
I co–edited a collection of essays about nerdy women called She's Such a Geek, published a book about monsters and capitalism called Pretend We're Dead, and have contributed essays to Wired, New Scientist, Popular Science, and the Washington Post.