Program Participant Biographies, Continued

Helen Montgomery

Helen J. Montgomery, LCSW, CLL is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker in the state of Illinois, who specializes in the treatment of adults with Mental Illness and Chemical Dependency. She is also a Certified Laughter Leader through World Laughter Tour, Inc. (www.worldlaughtertour.com) and facilitates the Chicago Fandom Laughter Club, which is held at several of the local Chicago SF/F cons. She would also be delighted to hold a Club at any other cons around the country that she attends.

Active in fandom for about 15 years, Helen served as the Publications Division Head for Denvention 3, which is the highest level position she has had at a Worldcon. She has no aspirations to go any higher up! Instead, she is perfectly happy to stick with being the Con Chair of Capricon 29 (www.capricon.org), in February 2009. Helen has also been on the Board of Directors (twice) for Phandemonium, the parent Corporation of Capricon, and has been on the concom for nine of the last ten Capricons.

Why one year off the concom? That would be 2005, when she was heavily involved with the Chicago in 2008 Worldcon Bid instead. Helen’s partner of 15 years, Dave McCarty, was the Bid Chair for the 2008 bid, and she decided that she either had to get really involved in the bid or never see him for two years. Many people question her decision, but she remains deluded convinced that it was the right one. Enough so that she is currently the Secretary for the Board of Directors of the Chicago in 2012 Worldcon Bid, and preparing for another crazy two years of bidding!

Helen’s other favorite fannish activity is tormenting Tim Miller, D3’s Souvenir Book Department Head, by reminding him repeatedly that her Detroit Red Wings stomped his Dallas Stars in the 2008 Stanley Cup Playoffs, and went on to win the whole shebang! Be sure to watch for Tim on Saturday at the convention as he is forced to wear a Wings jersey for having lost the bet!
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J. Alan Erwine

J Alan Erwine has sold more than 40 short stories to a variety of markets, as well as three short story collections and one novel. As an editor, he has edited more than a dozen books, and currently edits two on-line zines for Sam's Dot Publishing. He's also currently helping to design a new science fiction role playing game for Nomadic Delirium Press called Ephemeris. In his free time, when he has it, he also does freelance editing.

J currently lives just outside of Denver with his amazing fiancee, two beautiful little girls, two cats that always keep him entertained, and a turtle.

To learn more about J, please feel free to visit his website at http://www.jalanerwine.com
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Jetse de Vries

Jetse de Vries is a technical specialist for a propulsion company, and used to travel the world for this. Of late, due to the increased time both his story writing and joining the Interzone editorial team is taking up, he's trying to settle into a desk job.

He is part of the Interzone editorial team since March 2004. His non-fiction articles, reviews, essays and interviews have appeared in Interzone, The Fix, New York Review of Science Fiction, Vector, and others.

He writes SF since 1999, and had his first story published in November 2003. His stories have appeared in about two dozen publications on both sides of the Atlantic, and include Amityville House of Pancakes, vol. 1, JPPN 2, Nemonymous 4, Northwest Passages:A Cascadian Anthology, DeathGrip: Exit Laughing, HUB Magazine #2, and Clarkesworld Magazine (May 2007), amongst others.

They're upcoming in the SF Waxes Philisophical anthology (slated for November 2007) and Postscripts Magazine #14.

Which makes him a sort of late-labelled, experimental pulpster with a modern sensibility, and a wicked sense of humour, all drenched in stylistic excess, with the odd tendency of extreme extrapolation. And all he really wants to do is write SF...

He lives in 's-Hertogenbosch (or Den Bosch as it's also called) in The Netherlands: the town of medieval artist Hieronymous Bosch.

Outside SF he enjoys music (predominantly with loud guitars), arts (mostly the visual ones) and a bourgondic lifestyle which he tries to offset by traveling the 25 kilometers to his day job on his push bike.

Contact him at: Jetse(dot)deVries(at)gmail(dot)com.
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John Moore

John Moore has been active in fandom since PhilCon '77. He sold his first short story to Aboriginal SF in 1986 and his first novel to Baen in 1994. His fifth novel, A Fate Worse than Dragons, was released last year by Ace.

An engineer by day, John has neither spouse, kids, nor pets, and thus leads a life free of care and responsibility. He grew up in Doylestown, Pennsylvania, went to high school in Johannesburg, South Africa (his father was installing computer systems there) and relocated to Houston as an adult. He still lives there, a city that is flat, humid, and only slightly above sea level. He has been warned that Denver is a little different. He still uses a film camera, has a fondness for real maple syrup, and drives a 1987 Fiero. He has a terrible memory for names and faces, so if you're not wearing your badge he has no idea who you are, no matter what happened that night in Boston.
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Joshua Palmatier

Joshua Palmatier was born in Coudersport, PA, but since his father was in the military he moved around. A lot. He’s lived in the states of Pennsylvania (three times), Florida (twice), Washington, California (briefly), Virginia, Texas (twice), and now resides in upstate New York. He has spent the majority of his life so far going to school, earning a Bachelors of Science and a Master of Arts degree in mathematics from the Pennsylvania State University, followed by a PhD in mathematics from Binghamton University. He is currently teaching mathematics (what else) at the State University of New York—College at Oneonta, taught for two years at Lock Haven University of Pennsylvania, and taught for three years at Bloomsburg University while taking a break between his masters degree and the PhD.

Joshua started writing science fiction and fantasy novels and short stories in the eighth grade, when the teacher assigned a one page Twilight Zone-ish short story. He wrote a story about Atlantis. It was from the perspective of one of the inhabitants as he escaped in a spaceship, watching his world being destroyed by water from one of the viewports of the ship. He got an A. Joshua has never stopped writing since, mainly focusing on novels.

The Skewed Throne is Joshua’s first published novel, but it’s the fourth novel he’s written. The sequels—The Cracked Throne and The Vacant Throne—are now available at your local bookstore.

He has recently handed in the start of a new series set in the same world as the Throne of Amenkor novels, the first book of which is called Well of Sorrows. You can email him with questions or comments at jpalmatier@sff.net. Check out his website with reviews and excerpts at www.joshuapalmatier.com.
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Karen Miller

Karen Miller was born in Vancouver, Canada, of a British mother and Australian father. Her family returned to Australia when she was two, and she's lived there ever since, aside from three years in the UK after she graduated from university.

Miller has a BA in Communications, with majors in Film Studies, Literary Studies, Professional Writing and Radio Production, and an MA in Children's Literature. Her first fantasy novel, The Innocent Mage, was shortlisted for an Australian Aurealis Award, and the first two books of the Godspeaker trilogy (Empress of Mijak and The Riven Kingdom) were Tiptree Honor List titles for 2007.

She has held a variety of jobs, including college lecturer, publishing production assistant, and local government PR officer. She owned horses for 25 years, working with them professionally as a competitor, judge and a breeder. Prior to starting her writing career she owned and managed her own SF/F and mystery bookshop. She performs and directs with her local theatre company, which has taught her a lot about storytelling from different perspectives.

Miller has loved books, TV and film her whole life. She's always been a fan at heart, but with few outlets for it with the limited convention scene in Australia. But once hooked up to the World Wide Web, she started touching base with other fans.

"The only way to guarantee a dream won't come true," says Miller, "is to give up on it." She hopes no one will take her blank face as a sign she finds you boring. She says she's hopeless at meeting hordes of new people. "My brain tends to freeze."

Her publishing credits this year include: the conclusion to the Godspeaker trilogy -- Hammer of God and The Accidental Sorcerer, book one of the Rogue Agent series, both in Australia, the latter under her pen name, K.E. Mills, Stargate SG-1: Do No Harm (general release), Godspeaker book one, Empress (US/UK) with book two, The Riven Kingdom, released in October, and Star Wars: The Clone Wars -- Wild Space in December.

Coming up next year: Witches Inc, Rogue Agent book two, Stargate SG-1: Consequences, another Star Wars novel, as yet untitled, the first in the Kingmaker, Kingbreaker sequels, and The Accidental Sorcerer (US/UK).
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Kat Richardson

Kat Richardson is the author of the Greywalker paranormal detective novels. She's a member of SFWA and currently serves on the Northwest regional board of the Mystery Writers of America as well.

Born in Southern California, Kat eventually received a BA in Magazine Journalism from Cal State Long Beach. She was a magazine and technical editor for 15 years before becoming a full time novelist. She's been on the fringes of fandom since high school and has been reading and writing fantastical fiction since age 8. She also worked at the Agoura Renaissance Faire for 13 years as actor, dancer, and street performer, and has sold dead lizards and sucked up enough dust to fill in Mount St. Helens. She Escaped From LA to the Pacific Northwest in 1997 where the moist air has created lovely mud for her imagination to mold into all sorts of weird stories. She currently lives on a sailboat in Seattle with her husband and ferrets. She rides a motorcycle, shoots target pistol, and does not own a TV (she doesn't know what she's missing, please don't tease her).

Her first novel, Greywalker was published in 2006 and the third Greywalker novel, Undergroun, will be released in hardback August 5th. She has stories in two upcoming anthologies: Wolfsband and Mistletoe (short werewolf Christmas stories from Tekno books, October 2008) and Mean Streets (Urban Fantasy Noir novellas from Penguin, January 2009).

Although her books have been categorized as Urban Fantasy, Kat prefers to think of them as hardboiled Detective novels with ghosts. "I want to grow up to be Dashiell Hammett--but less dead."
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Kenneth Smookler

Kenneth Smookler was Registration chair at Torcon 2 and Vice-Chair at Torcon 3. His first Worldcon was Tricon and has averaged 9 out of 10 since. In Toronto he was a founding member of OSFiC, president the first few years and a member as long as it lasted.

Smookler was born in Windsor, Ontario 1929 and spent his formative years trying to figure out how the United States (in the form of Detroit) got to be north of Canada.

He is a retired Ontario lawyer, and was in practice for about 35 years, mostly with his wife as one of the partners in the two-person firm of Smookler and Smookler. He specialized in Marketing Law, Computer Law, Entertainment and Travel and did 95% of the litigation. They took very few criminal cases but worked a lot in the areas of his specialty plus Business, Family and Real Estate Law. Smookler added, "I have a Q.C. (Queen's Counsel) which mostly means I've kept my nose clean throughout my professional life and have reasonable political connections -- but it does look good."

He loves to travel and has been to most of Europe, large parts (and some of the small ones) of Canada and the U.S., China, Japan and next year will be in Viet Nam, Thailand, Cambodia and Singapore.

(Kenneth is the one on the left, and no, he wasn't allowed to keep them.)
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Lawrence Person

Lawrence Person is a science fiction writer living in Austin, Texas. His short fiction has appeared in Asimov's, Analog, Postscripts, Jim Baen's Universe, Cross Plains Universe, and The Extreme Book of Science Fiction, while his non-fiction has appeared in Locus Online (where he reviews movies with Howard Waldrop), National Review, Reason, Whole Earth Review, The Freeman, The World & I, Science Fiction Eye, The New York Review of Science Fiction, and Slashdot.org. He owns a large library of SF first editions and makes a mean batch of salsa. His latest publications are "Gabe's Globster" in the June Asimov's, and "Master Lao and the Flying Horror" in Mike Ashley's The Mammoth Book of Extreme Fantasy.
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Lee Martindale

Lee Martindale ascribes to the Heinlein quote that “specialization is for insects”. She's brought grown men to tears To Stand as Witness from Yard Dog Press), incited belly laughs "Combat Shopping" in Esther Friesner’s Turn the Other Chick, written high-brow (stories in three Sword and Sorcress anthologies, and low-brow (in three volumes of Selina Rosen's Bubbas of the Apocalypse anthology series). She's edited a groundbreaking anthology Such a Pretty Face from Meisha Merlin), released a CD of original filk music The Ladies of Trade Town, and an audiochapbook CD To Stand as Witness: Three Arthurian Tales from HarpHaven Publishing.)

A collection of her non-fiction essays on size rights issues, Prejudice by the Pound, has just come out from HarpHaven Publishing.

Upcoming stories include "Old Age and Sorcery" in the Greenberg/Pack anthology Catopolis, and "Nimue And the Mall Nymphs"” in Esther Friesner’s Witch Way to the Mall.

When not slinging fiction, Lee leads writing workshops and guests at SF&F conventions all over the country. She’s also a Named Bard, Lifetime Active Member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, a fencing member of the SFWA Musketeers, and a member of the SCA. She and her husband George live in Plano, TX, where she shares news with friends and fans at http://www.HarpHaven.net and on her LiveJournal blog.
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