Program Participant Biographies, Continued

Melissa Morman

Melissa Morman was born and raised in Billings, Montana. She now lives in Littleton, Colorado (a suburb of Denver). She has BAs in History and Russian. She's been married for almost 20 years to Brian (Denvention Treasurer). They have two cats named Midnight and Shadow, and of course books. Lots of them. She works as a legal secretary for a medium-sized law firm in Denver.

Morman's favorite reads are alternate history and period mysteries. She's been active in the local branch of the SCA for (mumble) years. She started fencing in the SCA about four years ago and thoroughly enjoys it. She loves baseball, good beer, good friends, and good food. She got her driver's license four years ago (at 46). She's a Late Bloomer. Her favorite words to live by are attributed to Archbishop Oscar Romero: "We are workers, not master builders, ministers, not messiahs. We are prophets of a future not our own."

Morman's first foray into fandom was a MileHiCon in (she thinks) 1986, shortly after she started dating Brian. She'd never even heard of fandom, but she was immediately hooked and attended her first Worldcon, Nolacon, in 1988 (about six weeks before her wedding).

Photo by Sheila McClune.
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Michelle Brothers

Michelle Brothers got dragooned into helping with WorldCon because all of her friends were doing it. Fortunately, she has some experience with running local, regional and national events for her local SCA group and {gasp} thinks that sort of thing is fun. This is her first WorldCon.

Photo by Keith McClune.
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Patrick Swenson

Patrick Swenson edits the magazine Talebones and runs Fairwood Press. Book titles includes first novels by James Van Pelt and Jay Lake, a reprint of Alexei Panshin's Nebula-award winning novel Rite of Passage, and collections by Louise Marley, Paul Melko and Ken Rand. Available this summer is James Glass's novel The Viper of Portello, and coming up this fall will be the anthology Exquisite Corpuscle, edited by Frank Wu and Jay Lake, the first collection of Ken Scholes, Long Walks, Last Flights & Other Strange Journeys, and a collection by Mark Rich, Across the Sky. For more information see: www.fairwoodpress.com and www.talebones.com.

Patrick was born in Pullman, Washington, but spent his formative years in Montana. He returned to Washington for college and has been a high school teacher now for 24 years. He holds a Masters in Education. He is a graduate of Clarion West way back in 1986. Although he had early story sales to places like Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Fantasy Magazine, Figment, and others, he started editing and publishing after working for a few years as a columnist for the small press zine Figment, run by his friends and mentors Barb & J.C. Hendee. He began Talebones in 1995. Fairwood Press started in 2000. He also runs a writers retreat at Lake Quinault, Washington. Information is at http://www.rainforestwritersvillage.com.
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Paul Cornell

Paul Cornell is a novelist, short story writer, comics and TV writer.

He wrote "Father's Day" and "Human Nature/The Family of Blood" for the new Doctor Who (all of which were Hugo nominated). He's currently writing Captain Britain and MI-13 and the Fantastic Four: True Story miniseries for Marvel Comics. He has short stories in the next volumes of all three of the world's continuing original SF anthologies. His SF novels are Something More and British Summertime. His interests include cricket, the music scene in his home town and Forteana. He lives in Oxfordshire.
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Pierce Watters

Pierce Watters is Senior Book Editor for Planet Stories Books at Paizo Publishing. www.paizo.com in Seattle. Pierce “has done almost everything in publishing at one time or another except run the printing press.” He was Assistant Librarian for Tuolumne County at the age of 16, has been the buyer for a major book and magazine wholesaler, managed a bookstore, and been a sales and marketing rep for a number of publishers including Ace, Tor, Ballantine, Berkeley, and Warner.

“I got my real start in publishing by attending Clarion East in 1974. My teachers were: Robin Scott Wilson, Gordon R. Dickson, Harlan Ellison, Tom Disch, Damon Knight, and Kate Wilhelm. Where else could I learn so much about writing and publishing in six intensive weeks?”

Pierce was Senior Book Editor at Taylor Publishing and Executive Editor at Dallas Publishing. He has been Editor-in-Chief of Dragon magazine and Dungeon magazine at TSR, Executive Editor for the same two titles and Publisher, at Wizards of the Coast.

Pierce was also Executive Editor of Amazing Stories magazine. At Wizards of the Coast, Pierce was Circulation Director for the above three titles, plus TopDeck, Star Wars Insider, and Star Wars Gamer. He has been an Associate Literary Agent for the Barbara Bova Literary Agency.

Currently, Pierce also writes book reviews for Kobold Quarterly magazine and Fantasy Book Spot.

Other activities include 25 years studying Internal Chinese Martial Arts, serving as Founding Editor of Internal Arts Magazine, teaching tai chi chuan in Seattle, and writing an occasional article for Kungfu magazine.

“I love to cook and love to eat (too well). I also read whenever I am not driving a car or walking, and listen to audio books when I am driving.” Pierce also maintains a personal website and blog: www.piercewatters.com
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Rani Graff

Rani Graff is a publisher and an editor of Science Fiction and Fantasy in Israel, the head of Graff Publishing, a small press founded in 2004. Most of the materials are translated from English, but he lately started two new lines of books: translated YA materials with a strong emphasis on SF&F (such as Sabriel by Gart Nix and the Percy Jackson books by Rick Riordan), and original Israeli books, both SF and mainstream.

Among the titles that were chosen by Rani for Hebrew translation: Spin (2006 Hugo and Geffen Awards winner) and The Chronoliths by Robert Charles Wilson, The Speed of Dark by Elizabeth Moon, His Majesty's Dragon by Naomi Novik, and the Transformation trilogy by Carol Berg.

In the past, before becoming a professional, Rani was active in the fan community in Israel, and was the chairman of the Geffen Awards between 2001-2003. During that time he wrote the first set of rules for the awards. During that time Rani was also a part of the team that escorted writers such as Orson Scott Card and Tim Powers while visiting Israel as Icon's GOH's.

Rani also translated  a few books into Hebrew(for other publishers) and conducted a few interviews for online Israeli magazines. One of those interviews – with SF writer Ted Chiang- was also cited in English and Spanish magazines, on and off line.

Today Rani is a full time editor and a publisher. Denvention is his third Worldcon after attending Glasgow in 2005 and Los Angeles in 2006.
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Rebecca Lickiss

A passionate reader, Rebecca Lickiss began telling stories at an early age. She finally decided to write them down for publication, since it was better than cleaning house again. her husband and her children humor her; otherwise they're making their own dinner. her husband also writes, because he doesn't want to clean house either. Just to keep herself busy, Rebecca has gone back to school to get her master's degree. Her complete bibliography can be seen at www.lickiss.net.
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Roberta Rogow

Roberta Rogow has been writing since she could hold a pencil. She has had stories published in both science fiction and mystery anthologies. She is the author of four mystery novels in which the Reverend Mr. Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (better known as Lewis Carroll) and young Dr. Arthur Conan Doyle collaborate as detectives. She has just completed The Guilty Client, a mystery set in New York City in 1870. She is presently reviewing juvenile mysteries in Mystery Scene Magazine.

Roberta has been Filker, media fanzine editor/publisher, a Costumer and needleworker for more than thirty years, which is why she says her "hobby is Fandom." She received a Workmanship Award for her needlework in "The Art Show," Boston Noreascon 1990

She lives in New Jersey, recently retired after a 37-year career as a Children's Librarian in public libraries there. She has two daughters, one who lives in San Francisco and one in Virginia.

Photo from http://www.geocities.com/mftf.geo/FILK.htm
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Rosemary Hahn

Rosemary Hahn is a St. Louis native. She has two degrees in library science and until a few weeks ago was the head of a the Cataloging Department at the Law School at Washington University in St. Louis. She retired early to do volunteer work with cats. In addition to her husband Paul, her interests outside of SF are cats, gardening, and being with friends.

A fan of hard science fiction, she enjoys, in addition to reading, television series and movies. One of the her favorite aspects of attending cons is being able to find out about new authors she can't wait to read.
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Roy Gray

Roy Gray lives near Manchester in the north west of England, where he does volunteer work for Interzone and its publisher TTA Press. It's his job to find advertisers, obtain publicity and help sell magazines at conventions. He'll be doing the latter at Denvention 3 so come and see him in the dealer's room.

He has had stories published on the web and, around the turn of 2000, in Interzone (hence his interest in its continued success).  He has also had articles and poetry published on SF related websites and, by reaching the finals of the ‘The 1998 Rhysling Award’, appeared in the 1999 Anthology.
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