Program Participant Biographies, Continued

Butch Honeck

Butch Honeck is the creator and proprietor of Honeck Sculpture. It has evolved over the years into a variety of bronze fantasy sculpture. Butch also does specialty casting, putting your idea into bronze. His business involves his son, Conan, and wife, Susan, who design several of his items.

Honeck was born Nov. 5, 1940 in Ann Arbor, Michigan. He joined the US Navy at 17 and served in the Pacific. Butch worked as an auto mechanic and body repairman for several years. When he broke his leg skiing in 1972 he started making small welded steel sculptures to pass the time. By 1974 he made sculpture his full-time business. Eventually, he taught himself how to cast metal and made his own foundry.

He loves motorcycles and has raced in many venues including Daytona International Speedway. He also spent many summers hiking and climbing in the Rockies, Big Horns, and Mt. Rainier. He still rides a street bike, a Honda Shadow, adorned with many of his own designs, in chrome. He has a pirate skeleton on the back of it.

Honeck Sculpture will celebrate its 35th year in 2009.
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Carole Parker

Carole has been working behind the stage at local, regional, WorldCon, and Costume-Con masquerades for more than twenty-five years. Almost all of these years have been spent helping masquerade contestants feel more comfortable by being a den mother, lead den mother, assisting the Masquerade Green Room Manager, and being the Green Room Manager at Nippon2007 WorldCon. Other work behind the scenes includes being part of the concom for Costume-Con 26, and a founding member of Silicon Web (SiW), an online chapter of the International Costumers' Guild (ICG). Carole has also competed as a masquerade contestant and has won workmanship awards for her dyework.

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Cat Rambo

Fantasy and science fiction writer Cat Rambo's work has burst onto the scene in recent years with work appearing in a variety of venues, including Asimov's, Weird Tales, and Strange Horizons. Her collaboration with Jeff VanderMeer, The Surgeon's Tale and Other Stories, appeared in 2007. She is the co-editor of Fantasy Magazine. (http://www.fantasy-magazine.com)

John Barth described Cat Rambo's writings as "works of urban mythopoeia" -- her stories take place in a universe where chickens aid the lovelorn, Death is just another face on the train, and Bigfoot gives interviews to the media on a daily basis. She has worked as a programmer-writer for Microsoft and a Tarot card reader, professions which, she claims, both involve a certain combination of technical knowledge and willingness to go with the flow. In 2005 she attended the Clarion West Writers' Workshop and is a member of the Codex Writers' Group.

She is one of the minds behind Armageddon MUD, the oldest roleplay-intensive MUD (an interactive text-based game) on the Internet, which has been described as "like no other MUD I have played before," "the most creative, emotionally involved mud on the Net," "the most entertaining game I've ever played" and "a place of astonishing beauty and detail." Her gaming articles have appeared in the Escapist as well as anthologies such as Settlers of the Virtual Frontier.

Cat's website is available at http://www.kittywumpus.net

She lives and writes in Washington State when not being distracted by her charming spouse Wayne. Her hair is rarely its natural color. It is indeed her real name.
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Cheryl Morgan

Cheryl Morgan is a member of the famously eccentric Bay Area Science Fiction Association (BASFA). Her official position within the club is Minister for Misinformation. Please bear that in mind when reading this biography.

Contrary to popular rumor, she was not born on an aircraft, or on the Internet, or even in Australia. She began life in the UK and considers herself Welsh. Many years ago she was a poor, suffering role-playing addict. A generous philanthropist called Martin Hoare suggested that she could cure herself of that addiction by joining a support group called Fandom. Sadly this did not cure her addictive personality, but simply resulted in her producing different types of fanzine and attending lots more conventions.

Through various accidents of fate, Morgan has lived and worked on three continents. She very much misses Australia and is looking forward to seeing Melbourne again in 2010. She doesn't miss the UK very much because she has cat genes and therefore hates getting wet. When in Europe she prefers to spend her time in Finland, because the people are so nice and sauna is such a wonderful thing to do. Unfortunately she can't stay there for too long as her flesh is a much-loved delicacy amongst Finnish mosquitoes. The rest of her life is spent either on aircraft or in the San Francisco Bay Area.

When Morgan moved to Australia she decided to start a fanzine so that she could keep in touch with friends back in the UK. As postage was very expensive, and she really didn't want to have to play with mimeo machines again, she decided to email it to people instead. Then she discovered the Internet. Thus, rather by accident, she became the first person to win a Hugo Award for a fanzine whose primary means of distribution was electronic rather than on paper. Emerald City was published from September 1995 to November 2006, a total of 134 regular issues and five special issues. All issues can still be found online at http://www.emcit.com.

These days her writing can be found on her personal blog, Cheryl's Mewsings (http://www.cheryl-morgan.com/), and on the web site she runs with Kevin Standlee: Science Fiction Awards Watch (http://www.sfawardswatch.com/). She also maintains web sites for various fannish organizations. She has been nominated for nine Hugo Awards, winning once. She was also a Guest of Honor at the 2007 Finncon in Jyväskylä.
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Colin Harvey

Colin Harvey is a British writer who lives just outside Bristol in the South-West of England. He is the author of Vengeance (2001, revised 2005), Lightning Days (2006) which was a finalist for the USA News Best Book Award, and The Silk Palace (2007). His new novel, Blind Faith, is something of a departure; it's a contemporary mystery with a speculative twist, set on the South Coast of England.

Having worked for twenty years with a multinational which manufactured soap powders, deodorants and ready meals, Harvey's fondest memory -- apart from the travel, which he loved -- is launching Ben & Jerry's ice cream in Iceland. Since leaving, he has worked as an almost full-time writer for the last year, but puts in about fifteen hours a week in the Bristol Eye Hospital, moving patient files from room to room in a process that can only be described as 'surreal.' His wife Kate works in the next corridor over, but doing different things with the files...

He'll be going back to university in late 2009 to take a degree in Creative Writing and Media Communications. Much of the attraction is in studying new formats, such as scriptwriting, gaming and poetry, about all of which Colin admits to knowing less than nothing.

Colin is currently finishing up Killers, an anthology of cross-genre spec-fic thrillers featuring original stories from writers such as Bruce Holland Rogers, Eugie Foster and Paul Meloy. All Colin's books are published by Swimming Kangaroo Books, an independent publisher based in Texas. His short fiction is comparatively sparse, but includes a novelette in Albedo One and 3rd place in the Speculations Grabber contest. Forthcoming projects include an SF anthology, Future Bristol, and a hard SF novel, Winter Song.

When not writing or reviewing for Suite101 and Strange Horizons, or judging Travel Grants Applications for the Speculative Literature Foundation, Colin likes to walk his spaniel, go to the cinema with Kate, or just have a few drinks with friends -- whether locally, or at cons. He hopes to make a few more at this con, and to learn about American beers.

www.geocities.com/colin_harvey
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David Hartwell

Editor and publisher David Hartwell earned his Bachelor’s degree in 1963, a Masters in English Literature in 1965, and his PhD in 1973. Since then, he has had a hand in almost every facet of science fiction and fantasy publishing.

David simply has too many accomplishments to list in this limited space. As a leading editor in the genre, his credits include the annual Year’s Best Science Fiction and Fantasy editions dating back to 1995, and numerous awards, including Hugo and World Fantasy Awards. He has taught at universities and colleges throughout the United States and as far away as Australia and served as director of science fiction at several publishing houses.

David is a frequent guest at science fiction conventions and award ceremonies and an editorial consultant on reference books dealing with fantasy, science fiction and horror literature.
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David Silver

David M. Silver is the founder of the Internet Robert A. Heinlein Reading Group on July 7, 1997, which was joined by Virginia Heinlein anonymously in 1999. After she revealed her identity, she asked him to become a director of The Heinlein Society while she considered founding it in 2000. He is a charter member of the Heinlein Society; was appointed a board member in November 2000, just prior to The Society's incorporation. He was appointed by Virginia Heinlein as its Secretary-Treasurer less than one month later, served as Secretary-Treasurer from appointment until September 2003. He was re-elected by the membership to two full three-year terms as Director in September 2003 and August 2006, and elected by the Board as its President and Chairman successively for five terms.

Silver was born in Cleveland, Ohio in 1942. He served in the US Army before and during the Vietnam War. In 1967, after release from active duty and thanks to the G.I. Bill, he studied English literature at UCLA and law at Loyola University in Los Angeles. He served as a federal government hearing officer while studying nights at law school and as federal prosecutor after bar admission until he entered private practice. Before and since his retirement from the practice of law he also served as a director and officer for various Masonic-sponsored charities and youth organizations.

Silver is married to Andrea Joyce Manongdo Silver. They have one daughter with whom they reside in Santa Monica, California. And a pesky cat named Robert.
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Diana Rowland

Writer Diana Rowland lives in south Louisiana with her husband and her daughter. In fact, she has lived her entire life below the Mason-Dixon line. She attended college at Georgia Tech where she earned a BS in Applied Mathematics, and after graduation forgot everything about higher math as quickly as possible.

Writing since she learned to read, Diana finally realized that it was what she wanted to do when she grew up in her mid-thirties when she decided to channel her life-experiences into novels. A self-confessed nerd who grew up devouring as much science fiction and fantasy as she could get her hands on, Diana is currently enjoying melding her love of speculative fiction with her personal knowledge of law enforcement procedures.

Diana has worked as a bartender, a blackjack dealer, a pit boss, a street cop, a detective, a computer forensics specialist, a crime scene investigator, and a morgue assistant, which means that she’s seen more than her share of what humans can do to each other and to themselves. She won the marksmanship award in her Police Academy class, has a black belt in Hapkido, has handled numerous dead bodies in various states of decomposition, and says she can’t rollerblade to save her life.
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Donald Eastlake

Donald Eastlake has been active in convention fandom for about four decades. He has lost count of how many WSFS Business Meetings he has presided at and he was one of the primary instigators and initial chairs of the WSFS Mark Protection Committee.

He has chaired and co-chaired Boskone, a Boston area regional SF Convention. He also currently co-chairs the IETF TRILL Working Group and chairs the IEEE 802.11 Mesh Networking Task Group.
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Edward Muller

Edward Muller is a programmer who lives and works in Vancouver, Washington along with his wife, Dr. Tera Rich, and a pride of three cats. He got interested in writing at age five when his Aunt Anne transcribed one of his spoken stories and showed him what his words looked like on paper. In his early teens he started watching Star Trek and soon migrated to reading Sir Arthur Clarke, Robert Heinlein, and Larry Niven. His first published work was the short story Charity's Case in the Autumn 2000 edition of Artemis Magazine. Since then he has been published in Analog, Flashing Swords, and, most recently, his short story Prizes appeared in the premiere issue of All Possible Worlds.

Ed originally trained to be a draftsperson and holds an AS Degree in Technical Drafting. Two weeks before graduating, he attended a demonstration of one of the first mass market Computer Aided Design software and realized the profession he'd trained for was now obsolete. He promptly went on to earn as BA in Mathematics and Computer Science. After twenty years of dealing with the rather capricious nature of employment in the Silicon Valley, he began working on a CPA, most recently earning an AA Degree in Accounting.

In addition to math, programming, accounting, cookie baking, and writing short fiction, Edward Muller teaches courses in how to write and submit short fiction to magazines. His one-hour presentation Overcoming the Odds has been well received by editors, fellow authors, and participants. He is currently adapting his day long writing workshop, The 5 W's of Science Fiction and Fantasy, into an online webinar.

Ed is also known for having invented the Antimatter Calculator.

More information is available on his website www.EdwardMuller.com

"There's a word for obsessive-compulsive writers," Ed tells people. "It is 'published'."
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