Program Participant Biographies, Continued

Alphabetical List of Participants * * To Previous Page of Biographies * * To Next Page of Biographies

		Mike Resnick Mike Resnick is, according to Locus, the all-time leading short fiction award winner, and stands fourth on the list when you include novels and non-fiction. He is a 5-time Hugo winner, and has won other major awards in the USA, France, Spain, Poland, Croatia and Japan, and has been nominated in England and Italy. Resnick was born in Chicago in 1942, and attended the University of Chicago where he met and married Carol. They have one daughter, Laura, the 1993 Campbell winner. A fan favorite at conventions, Resnick was asked about his past experience on programming. He noted, "There are too many to list; I've been on panels at close to 40 WorldCons." His panels usually focus on writing, publishing, or editing. He is the author of 55 science fiction novels, over 200 stories, and 2 screenplays, and has edited 50 anthologies. He is currently the executive editor of Jim Baen's Universe. His Starship series has been appearing annually from Pyr. Earlier this year he produced The Other Teddy Roosevelts for Subterranean Press, co-edited The Dragon Done It with Eric Flint for Baen Books, and this August Pyr will publish Stalking The Unicorn and Stalking The Vampire. Return to Index

Eleanor Wood Eleanor Wood (B.A. New York University, M.A. Bryn Mawr College) is the president of Spectrum Literary Agency which she founded in the late 1970's. Born in New Jersey, with childhood years also spent in upstate New York and in Pennsylvania, she never plans to leave New York City which she loves for many reasons, including its theatre, classical music concerts and, of course, its vibrant publishing life. She enjoys conventions and has appeared on countless panels, usually ones dealing with the business of publishing, though at this year's Boskone she was pleased to participate in a panel discussion called "Remembering Jim Baen" – a truly great editor and publisher who is sorely missed. Eleanor is also Agent for The Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) and is honored to represent the Nebula Awards volumes and other SFWA-generated projects. Her Spectrum list includes authors of science fiction, fantasy, mystery, suspense and other areas of commercial fiction as well as a smaller number of nonfiction writers. A list and bios of authors she represents can be found via the Spectrum website. Return to Index

		John Joseph Adams Born in Perth Amboy, New Jersey, John Joseph Adams moved to Florida at the age of nine. After earning his degree in English from the University of Central Florida he moved back to Perth Amboy in 2001. He planned to get a job in publishing "so that I could hold an interesting day job while continuing to pursue writing." However, four months later, he got a job as an editorial assistant at the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. Editing took over his life, and creative writing has been moved to the back burner. Aside from his duties as assistant editor at F&SF, John's book and audio book reviews have appeared in Locus, Publishers Weekly, Kirkus Reviews, and many other publications. He is also the print news correspondent for SCI FI Wire on the SCI FI Channel and writes feature articles and interviews for SCIFI.com When asked about hobbies, John responded that "I have a bad habit of turning my hobbies into paying work so that spending all my time reading, writing, or thinking about SF is a good thing." A big time metalhead, he confesses to being obsessed with Guitar Hero and Rock Band. He's also a movie buff-- science fiction, fantasy, and the samurai and western genres in particular--and claims to be the world's biggest fan of Mythbusters. John is the editor of the Wastelands: Stories of the Apocalypse anthology. Two more anthologies, Seeds of Change and The Living Dead, will be coming out in August and September. Return to Index

Daniel Abraham Born in Albuquerque, New Mexico, writer Daniel Abraham lives there still with his wife and daughter. He started off in college as a theater arts major and ended up with a degree in biology, focusing on genetics. He still remembers the third day of class in the genetic engineering lab, when the instructor said, "Oh. Um. Try not to get the phage on your skin." Instead of working in biology, though, Daniel chose to work in bookstores and also spent ten years at a local ISP. Daniel has been writing most of his life, but only started publishing in the last twelve years. Since his first short story, "Mixing Rebecca," he's published a couple dozen short stories and written six novels, including a collaboration with George R.R. Martin and Gardner Dozois. He's won the International Horror Guild Award and made the short list for the Nebula. He says, "I think the measure of a story's success is the effect is has on the reader." Daniel is also a Campbell Award nominee this year. Daniel has two short stories coming out—"Best Monkey" in the Solaris Book of New Science Fiction and "Balfour and Meriweather in the Adventure of the Emperor's Vengeance" in Postscripts. The last book in his Long Prince Quartet is also due out from Tor early next year. Return to Index

		K. A. Bedford K. A. Bedford was born in the port town of Fremantle, Western Australia, in 1963. An only child, he grew up in the suburbs of Perth. He was writing all the time, even as a little kid, but it wasn't until he was 14 that he "got serious" (by which he means super duper life-and-death serious, as only a 14-year-old kid could be) about it, and decided that he wanted to be a writer, and started writing with the aim of eventual publication. "Please note," he adds, "that it was 20 years before I made my first sale, despite writing constantly in the meantime." He's done the university thing twice without managing to score degrees. The first time, in the 80s, he was doing an Arts degree, studying English, various types of literary and cultural theory, and theatre. Years later, married to the awesome Michelle, he signed up with a different university to try a Philosophy degree--by correspondence, of all things!--and did middlingly well, but not great, and ultimately left in the middle of the second year because there was this new Canadian publishing firm which--holy moly!--wanted to buy one of his books! He quit school to work on becoming a full-time writer. The only jobs of note he's held down were assignments with the Australian government's public service, working in various departments, including the Bureau of Statistics and the Australian Tax Office, from which he fled screaming in late 1989. The Canadian publisher, EDGE Science Fiction and Fantasy Publishing, which bought my first book, Orbital Burn (a space opera mystery novel), has stuck with his on all his other books (military psychological thriller Eclipse, and space opera murder mystery Hydrogen Steel).
All three of his previous books were shortlisted for Australia's prestigious Aurealis Awards in the Best Australian Novel category in the years of their publication; in 2005 his book Eclipse actually won in that category. "A development that left me gobsmacked, to say the least," he says. This year his new book, unrelated to these other three, Time Machines Repaired While-U-Wait (time travel meets murder mystery), will be released. Unlike the distant-future, space opera backgrounds of the other books, this new one is, for the most part, set in the very near future, in the suburbs of Perth, his hometown—except for those parts of the book that take place way off at the End of Time. The story involves a time machine repairman who used to be a policeman, who one day, while poking about in a malfunctioning time machine, discovers a dead body, a murdered woman. Hijinks ensue. Return to Index

Margaret Bonham Born a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, in some state called Virginia, Margaret Bonham spent most of her younger years bouncing between Virginia, Texas, and New York, until going west on a wagon train with her parents in a blinding snow storm in January to Colorado where she spent most of her teen and adult life. She earned a BS in Computer Science and spent the next umpteen years working as a software engineer and UNIX systems administrator for Lockheed Martin (back when it was Martin Marietta) on rocket programs and various telephony companies including Bell Labs. "Yeah, I really was a rocket scientist," she says. In 2001 she switched over to being a full-time writer and since then, she has published or had under contract some 29 books, which include 6 fantasy novels and 23 pet-related books. She's won the following awards: three Maxwell Awards for writing excellence, one Muse Award, The PSI First Canine Award, The Iams Responsible Cat Ownership Award, 2nd Place Predators and Editors People's Choice Awards, and Runner Up for the Eppie Award 2007.
M.H. (Maggie) Bonham has trained and raced sled dogs since 1987, does martial arts, and is an expert in canine and feline behavior. She podcasted the entire novel Prophecy of Swords. She moved to Montana last year and is currently working on an MA in Liberal Studies from the University of Denver. Her most recent books include Runestone of Teiwas (Yard Dog Press 2007), Lachlei (Dragon Moon Press, 2008) and The King's Champion (WolfSinger Pubs, 2008). Visit her at www.shadowhelm.net and www.lachlei.com. Return to Index

		Vincent Docherty Vincent Docherty is an active fan, including twice chairing the Worldcon. He was born in 1961 in Paisley, a town near Glasgow, Scotland's largest city. He grew up in Glasgow which he considers his home town. He was interested in SF, space, and science almost from birth, which he blames on the moon-race and Gerry Anderson's Thunderbirds. A voracious early reader, he was most inspired by the works of Olaf Stapledon and Arthur C. Clarke, and retains a love of Hard SF to this day. His first contact with organised SF fandom took place at the age of 16, when he attended the first SF convention in Glasgow, Faircon '78. He will therefore be celebrating his 30th anniversary in fandom at Denvention 3. After that first event in 1978, he quickly became involved in organizing conventions as well as running the Strathclyde University SF Group, while doing research in quantum chemistry. His science background led him to work with a multinational energy company, and his career has taken him from Glasgow to London in the UK, then Muscat in Oman, and later Groningen, and currently The Hague in The Netherlands, where his ever-expanding book collection is no doubt contributing to that country's sinking below sea-level. Along the way he found time to work on numerous local cons, British National Eastercons and Worldcons at various levels, including co-chairing both Glasgow Worldcons in 1995 and 2005. E-mail has proven to be very useful in what has often been long-distance con-running. He has been a Guest at several cons in Europe and the USA, is a regular panelist at cons, is involved in efforts to improve the Hugo Awards, and remains an active con-runner including more than one current Worldcon bid, although he considers he has 'hung up his kilt' in regard to chairing Worldcons! Return to Index

James Bryant James Bryant was born in Liverpool on the 5th December 1942 and can just remember the last air raids of World War II. His father was a teacher (and, indeed, taught John Lennon for several years) and his mother was a Magistrate on the Liverpool Bench. He was educated by the Jesuits at St. Francis Xavier's College, Liverpool (so is still a practicing Roman Catholic), and took a degree in Physics & Philosophy at the University of Leeds. He is also a C.Eng., a Eur.Ing., and MIEE (this has now become MIET) and an FBIS (Fellow of the British Interplanetary Society). He is an electronic engineer specializing in the applications of analog integrated circuits. After a graduate apprenticeship at Smiths Industries in Cheltenham, where he designed circuits that flew in Concorde, he joined Plessey Semiconductors where he was, successively, a salesman, an integrated circuit designer (designing the World's first monolithic Digital-Analog Converter [DAC]) and, for over eight years, Applications Manager. For six years from 1976 he was also the President of the Citizens' Band Association, a pressure group dedicated to the legalisation of CB Radio in the UK (which took place in 1981) and for much of that time was also Technical Advisor to the UK Parliament's ad hoc Committee on CB Radio.
On the legalization of CB Radio in Britain he joined Voxson Audio as Special Projects Manager, supervising their move into the CB Radio market, but when the project was complete he returned to Integrated Circuit Applications and has been Head of European Applications for Analog Devices for over a quarter of a century. Since Analog Devices Inc. is an American company, and Americans are notoriously poor at geography, "Europe" in this context includes South Africa, Egypt, Israel, India, Turkey, and the Asiatic ex-Soviet Union as far as Vladivostok (he contrived to go there on the Trans-Siberian Express). There are various definitions of what constitutes a "country" but by the Ham Radio (DXCC) definition he has been to eighty different countries (36 in the last year) to give technical seminars on analog integrated circuits to fellow engineers. He gives about sixty seminars per annum. He and a colleague have a regular column on technical problems in analog electronics called "Rarely Asked Questions" which is published monthly in English and Chinese. He has written many papers, books, articles and application notes on the same subject. He is the author of the introduction to the NESFA edition of Lois McMaster Bujold's Shards of Honor but has not written any fiction, although, unkind colleagues allege that some of his technical writing is science fiction. He has a wife who plays the violin professionally, two children, three grandchildren, and innumerable friends around the World. His hobbies include collecting Science Fiction (his collection contains over 7,000 volumes and in every house he has owned he has had to build a library to hold it), Ham Radio (he holds the callsign G4CLF), hypnotism, philosophy, travel, archery, cooking (especially Indian), and scuba diving, and he is a long-time member of the Lois-Bujold List. He lives between Oxford and Swindon in England with his wife and their two cats. http://www.jbryant.eu/home.htm http://www.jbryant.eu/pages/ebook.htm Return to Index

		Chris Becker Hard to imagine, but Chris Becker was born in Las Vegas, NV into a musician's family. His father was a drummer on the famous "strip" and his mother worked in various nightclubs. Despite the ever present music which filled his life, Chris grew up with virtually no musical talent, but was driven in a completely different direction. From the age of five, watching such seminal TV shows as The Twilight Zone, Science Fiction Theatre, and The Outer Limits, his love for science and science fiction were on a collision course with his second love, motion pictures. The inevitable collision occurred when he saw 2001: A Space Odyssey an event that would subsequently change his life forever. Although he pursued chemistry in his undergraduate studies, he was also drawn to film study and writing. To the chagrin of his science advisor, he received a Bachelor Degree in Chemistry and a minor in Film Studies. For another 10 years he would study film, while supporting himself with his science degree, culminating in a teaching position in film for Merced Community College in California. For 7 years he taught film theory, genre (including science fiction), film production, and theatre while being partially funded by a company that was a subsidiary of Universal Studios. During this period he filmed his first documentary on fireworks, called "Star Stuff." Throughout this time, perhaps with a nod to his parents past, he maintained a strong interest in film music, eventually collecting a catalog of over 400 film soundtracks, many of which are from science fiction films.
An avid reader of science fiction, both classic and contemporary, his repeated attempts to publish have been in vain, but in an interesting twist, in 2000 his first published book, Fateful Journey, was a non-fiction study with two close friends on Colorado River injuries in Grand Canyon National Park. He has also contributed to Over the Edge, Death in Grand Canyon and Off the Wall, Death in Yosemite. Currently, he is working on a book about Bernard Herrmann's contribution to science fiction films, he is a director of the Flagstaff Mountain Film Festival, and continues to write science fiction, figuring the odds of being published (he did grow up in Las Vegas!) get better every day. Return to Index

Patricia Wrede A native of Chicago and the eldest of five children, Patricia Wrede began writing in the 7th grade. Her first novel, Shadow Magic, was published after she completed a degree in business at Carleton College, and an M.B.A. from the University of Minnesota. Long a close friend of GOH Lois McMaster Bujold, when Patricia is not writing she enjoys sewing, embroidery, High Tea, reading, chocolate, and the company of her two cats, Cazaril and Nimue. Her books have been mostly fantasy, for both adult and young adult audiences, (including the Chronicles of the Enchanted Forest, a multi-generational series complete with dragons, the Lyra novels and the Mairelon books); the retelling of fairy tales (Snow White and Rose Red); novelizations (Star Wars) and short stories (Book of Enchantments, which includes stories from her other series). She has received the Locus Poll Award for (Snow White and Rose Red), the Mythopoeic Award nomination for Calling on Dragons (volume 3 of her Enchanted Forest series), and the Minnesota Book Award for Dealing With Dragons. Her most recent publication is The Mislaid Magician, third in the Kate and Cecy series co-written with Caroline Stevermer. Return to Index