Darkover® Grand Council Meeting: Guests

Try the grey stuff, it's delicious!

Guests of Honour: Ellen Kushner and Delia Sherman

Ellen Kushner was raised in Cleveland, Ohio. She attended Bryn Mawr College and graduated from Barnard College. After graduating, she worked in publishing as a fantasy editor for a few years. Her first novel was Swordspoint: A Melodrama of Manners followed by Thomas the Rhymer, which won the Mythopoeic Award and the World Fantasy Award, and then two more novels in her "Riverside" sequence, The Fall of The Kings (written with Delia Sherman) and The Privilege of the Sword (Locus Award).

Her latest book is the shared-world anthology Welcome to Bordertown, co-edited with Holly Black. She has taught writing at the Clarion and Odyssey workshops. The rest of the world knows her better as the host of public radio's Sound & Spirit, a musical exploration of world myth and the human experience. She lives in New York City with Delia Sherman, and no cats whatsoever.

Delia Sherman was born in Tokyo, Japan, and brought up in New York City. She has spent a lot of time in schools of one kind or another. While she was writing her dissertation for her PhD, she started teaching, first at Boston University, where she taught Freshman Composition and Fantasy as Literature, and then at Northeastern University, where she was a Lecturer in Composition. She also worked in a bookstore for a while, and her short fiction appeared in WeirdBook and The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction.

While she was still teaching, she wrote her first novel, Through a Brazen Mirror, which led to a 1990 nomination for the Campbell Award for Best New SF Writer. Her second novel, the historical The Porcelain Dove, won the Mythopoeic Award in 1994. Her short stories for younger readers have appeared in numerous anthologies. “CATNYP,” a story of a magical New York Between, inspired her first novel for children, Changeling. The sequel, The Magic Mirror of the Mermaid Queen followed in 2009.

Artist Guest of Honour: Shoshana Epsilon

Sue Schroeder (aka Shoshana Epsilon) specializes in Computer Art and is primarily a photographer in Second Life, a virtual on-line community. She concentrates on "portrait photography" within Second Life (pictures of people's avatars) and landscapes (pictures of people's building skills), and focuses on various techniques within the environment, including focus, object occlusion, lighting, posing, backgrounds, sky and sun settings, and creating a sense on contact and empathy within the portrait medium.

She resides in Maryland with her family and 2 cats in an old Victorian house that needs too much work.

Illustrious Grand Master: Melissa Scott

Melissa Scott studied history at Harvard College and Brandeis University, and earned her PhD. in comparative history. She published her first novel in 1984, and has since written some two dozen science fiction and fantasy works, including three co-authored with her partner, Lisa A. Barnett. Scott's work is known for the elaborate and well-constructed settings. While many of her protagonists are gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgendered, this is perfectly integrated into the rest of the story and is rarely a major focus of the story. Shadow Man, alone among Scott's works, focuses explicitly on issues of sexuality and gender. She won the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer in Science Fiction in 1986, and has won several Lambda Literary Awards.

Musical Guests of Honour: Clam Chowder

Clam Chowder is a small musical group in Maryland, USA, which plays an eclectic collection of British and American folk songs, sea shanties, unusual songs from all sources, original material, and anything else that has opportunities for close harmony. The group has played in venues ranging from the Washington DC Folk Festival to the World Science Fiction Convention.

Steampunk Guest of Honour: Mark P. Donnelly

Mark P. Donnelly is a multi-award winning author, historian, screenwriter, and television producer as well as internationally renowned duelist, swashbuckler, and constant gentleman.

Currently, he has about 20 books in print — all of which are non-fiction — and all of which are on historical subjects. In addition to his work in print, Mark P. Donnelly has scripted and/or produced nearly 200 hours of broadcast television for Discovery, History Channel, PBS, BBC, National Geographic, Biography, A&E, etc.

He is also a Professore di Armes in various forms of historical combat and western martial arts who has taught workshops around the world and is honored to have been frequently counted among the top instructors in Europe. After nearly 14 years in England he recently returned to the colonies and currently resides in Pennsylvania.

Special Guest: Katherine Kurtz

Born in Florida, Katherine Kurtz attended the University of Miami and, later, UCLA. She went on to work as a designer for the Los Angeles Police Academy. Her best-known work, the Deryni series, ranks near the top of modern fantasy fiction. Ms Kurtz lives in a gothic revival house in County Wicklow, Ireland, with her husband, author Scott MacMillan.

Other Guests

Danielle Ackley-McPhail has worked both sides of the publishing industry for over sixteen years. Currently, she is a project editor and promotions manager for Dark Quest Books. Her published works include the urban fantasies, Yesterday's Dreams, Tomorrow's Memories, and The Halfling's Court: A Bad-Ass Faerie Tale, and the non-fiction writers guide, The Literary Handyman. She has edited the Bad-Ass Faeries anthology series, and Dragon's Lure, and has contributed to numerous other anthologies and collections. To learn more about her work, visit www.sidhenadaire.com, www.literaryhandyman.com, or www.badassfaeries.com.

Diana Bastine has had her first young adult fantasy novel, The Source, published this year by Helm Publishing. She also knits altar cloths and blankets for cat carriers. She has finished the sequel to The Source and has a third volume planned, along with a steampunk novel and an adaptation of her unpublished screenplay, among other writing projects.

J-F Bibeau is an author, costumer designer and actor of French Canadian origin. His first fantasy novel, Felsic Current, enjoys a blossoming fan base. His stories are every bit as clever and explosively creative as he is.

Margaret L. Carter specializes in vampires, having been marked for life by reading Dracula at the age of twelve. In addition to her horror, fantasy, and paranormal romance fiction, she has had several books and articles published on the supernatural in literature. Her vampire novel Dark Changeling won an EPPIE Award in the Horror category in 2000.

Theresa Crater has published two contemporary fantasies, Beneath the Hallowed Hill and Under the Stone Paw and several short stories, most recently Bringing the Waters in The Aether Age: Helios. She's also published poetry and a baker's dozen of literary criticism. Currently, she teaches writing and British lit in Denver.

Celia S. Friedman is a best-selling author of fantasy and science fiction, as well as an accomplished costume designer. Critics have acclaimed her complex and compelling characters, richly textured worlds, and keen insight into the shadows and twists of human nature. She has published eight science fiction and fantasy novels to date, including the acclaimed Coldfire Trilogy. Her works have been translated into German, French, Italian, Dutch, Russian, and Polish.

Nebula Award winner Esther Friesner is the author of thirty-seven novels and over one hundred eighty-five short stories, in addition to being the editor of ten popular anthologies. She is also a published poet and a produced playwright. Her works have appeared in the U.S., the U.K., Japan, Germany, Russia, France, Poland and Italy. Her latest novels include Sphinx's Princess and Sphinx's Queen (Random House), Threads and Flames (Viking/Penguin), and she is presently working on a two-book series about Japan's 3rd century Queen Himiko — Spirit's Princess and Spirit's Bride — for Rand House.

Halla. Born in Washington, DC and living in nearby Maryland all her life, Halla spent her childhood surrounded by farms being replaced by suburbs, reading avidly, and visiting museums as often as possible. She has been drawing, painting, sculpting and crafting as long as she can remember. Halla has been active in fandom and doing fannish art for over 30 years and still does it more for love than money.

Elektra Hammond has worked in the back end of publishing as a copyeditor and proofreader since the late-90s, working in fiction and non-fiction for both large and small press. Currently, she continues to freelance, is a fiction editor for buzzymag.com, and is acquisitions editor for Sparkito Press, an imprint of Dark Quest Books. Her first published story, The Case of the Duchess's Dog, appears in the anthology In An Iron Cage: The Magic of Steampunk.

Kelly A. Harmon used to write truthful, honest stories about authors and thespians, senators and statesmen, movie stars and murderers. Now she writes lies, which is infinitely more satisfying, but lacks the convenience of doorstep delivery, especially on rainy days.

Nancy Janda. A long-time resident of the East Coast art circles, Nancy is a versatile artist, playing in many different mediums as the spirit moves her. She prefers challenges to rote routine; mastery is a call to try something new. She's more likely to attempt a something new and foreign than settle for repeating the past. To date she's experimented in ink and graphite illustration and pastiche, sculpture, glass etching, gemstone carving, stained glass, fibercrafts, origami and more. If it fires her imagination, it will move her hands. Like the dragons and firelizards that she draws so well, she's attracted by the bright and shiny. She's geeky enough to be cool, smart enough to know when to tone down the geek. And she loves to teach, giving classes in various art forms at Darkovercon and other conventions for the past ten years or so. Best of all she's a good listener, too, as well as a good talker. Watch out or you could find yourself charmed by this tall gryphon of a lady.

Heather Rose Jones has published a connected series of stories about shapechangers in MZB's Sword and Sorceress anthology series, as well as a stand-alone story The Treasures of Britain which draws on the same medieval Welsh literature that provided the data for her PhD thesis. Her other professional publications are scattered eclectically across the fields of biotech, onomastics, clothing history, and linguistics. Despite ambitions to see some of her longer fiction projects in print, she is content to make a living as a discrepancy investigator in the pharmaceutical industry.

Debra Killeen is the author of the award-winning fantasy series The Myrridian Cycle. Volume 4, Priestess Awakening, was released this spring, with the final volume, Kingdom in the Balance, due out in 2011. Debra is currently at work on other writing projects including a trilogy taking place in the Myrridian universe, a paranormal mystery series, and an urban fantasy novel for middle-grade readers.

Timothy Liebe is the "Dreaded Spouse-Creature" of bestselling fantasy author Tamora Pierce, and co-author of Marvel's WHITE TIGER comic.

Scott MacMillan (occasionally known as Mr. Katherine Kurtz) was educated at the University of Southern California and the American Film Institute. He has been a film-maker, an award-winning editor of Western fiction, a world-class black-powder shootist, a mounted police officer, a novelist, a screenwriter, a reserve army officer, a vintage car enthusiast, an expert on antique arms and armour, and an avid student of heraldry, military history, crumbling castles, chivalry, and Scottish and Irish heritage. While living in Ireland, he served as a Herald of Arms in the Office of the Chief Herald of Ireland, and comments regularly on the forum at www.xmarksthescot.com. Now that he and Katherine are mostly settled in their new home in Virginia, readers might look forward to the long-awaited third Nazi Vampire book in the not-too-distant future. Meanwhile, Scott is developing several film and TV projects.

Mike McPhail is the author and anthologist of the military science fiction series Defending The Future, published by Dark Quest Books. He is the creator of the Alliance Archives (All'Arc) series and its related Martial Role-Playing Game (MRPG), a manual-based, percentile system, that realistically portrays the consequences of warfare.

Alanna Morland is the author of Leopard Lord and Shackle and Sword, now sadly out of print, as well as a short story in Sword and Sorceress XXII. After living in multiple states and two foreign countries (thank you, Uncle Sam!), Alanna and her husband live in Maryland for now, near their daughters, sons-in-law, 5 grandchildren and a varying cast of family pets.

Diana L. Paxson was inspired by Marion Zimmer Bradley in the 1970s to begin her writing career. She is the author of 29 novels, including the Chronicles of Westria, numerous short stories, and non-fiction books such as Trance-Portation, Essential Asatru, and Taking up the Runes. When Marion's health began to fail in the 90s, Paxson took over writing the Avalon series. Her most recent novel is Sword of Avalon, set in the 12th century BCE, which includes the forging of Excalibur. Her next publication will be Seeing for the People, on the history and work of oracles, due out in February 2012. She lives in the multi-generational, multi-talented household called Greyhaven in Berkeley.

Tamora Pierce is a bestselling author of fantasy books for teenagers. Her books, known for their teenaged girl warriors and wizards, have received critical acclaim and a strong fanbase. She is now a #1 New York Times bestselling author and has written over twenty-five books.

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.

Hannah Shapero is also known as "Pyracantha," a professional artist living in the Washington, DC area. She has done lots of different kinds of art, especially science fiction, fantasy, and architecture.

Michelle D. Sonnier writes dark urban fantasy, sometimes verging on horror, and delights in delivering a laugh or a shiver. Her new collection from Cold Moon Press, Charmed City: 13 Tales of the Dark and Strange in Baltimore (due out in October 2011), tells stories of strange and dark magic in the city.

Vonnie Winslow Crist is author-illustrator of The Greener Forest, a new fantasy short story collection from Cold Moon Press in which the world of Faerie collides with our workaday world. Her award-winning fiction has been included recently in Faerie Magazine, Dragon's Lure, Tales of the Talisman, Shelter of Daylight, Cemetery Moon, While the Morning Stars Sing, Dia de los Muertos, Potter's Field 4, and Sideshow 2.

Leona Wisoker is an eclectic author who researches like a butterfly on crack. This tendency directly led to the sale of her science fantasy series, Children of the Desert, which was picked up by Mercury Retrograde Press. The first book in the series, Secrets of the Sands, was released in April 2010.

Darkover^® Grand Council Meeting

November 25-27, 2011

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