Eleanor Arnason
Eleanor Arnason’s earliest published story, “A Clear Day in the Motor City”, appeared in New Worlds in 1973. Since then, she has published six novels and almost 50 works of shorter fiction.
Her anthropological science fiction novel A Woman of the Iron People won the Tiptree and Mythopoeic Society Awards. Her novel Ring of Swords won a Minnesota Book Award. Her story “Dapple” won the Gaylactic Spectrum Award for best short fiction, and other stories of Eleanor’s have been finalists for the Nebula, Hugo, World Fantasy, Sturgeon and Sidewise Awards.
Eleanor lives in the Twin Cities Metro Area in Minnesota and is currently finishing a sequel to Ring of Swords.
Learn more about Eleanor Arnason at her blog.
Elizabeth Bear
Elizabeth Bear was born on the same day as Frodo and Bilbo Baggins, but in a different year. She is one of only five writers who have gone on to win multiple Hugo Awards for fiction after winning the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer.
She is the Hugo, Sturgeon, Locus, and Campbell Award-winning author of nearly 30 novels including Hammered (2005), Blood and Iron (2006), The Stratford Man (2008), All the Windwracked Stars (2008), Range of Ghosts (2012), Karen Memory (2015), and most recently The Stone in the Skull, an epic fantasy from Tor. Elizabeth has also written and published and over a hundred short stories.
Elizabeth is one of the regular panelists on podcast SF Squeecast, which won the 2012 and 2013 Hugo Awards for Best Fancast.
She lives in Massachusetts with her partner, writer Scott Lynch.
You can learn more about Elizabeth Bear at her website, www.ElizabethBear.com, and follow her on her Facebook Page or on Twitter at @matociquala.
Wesley Chu
Wesley Chu is an award-winning science fiction author. Born in Taiwan, he immigrated to the United States when he was young and was raised in the fields of Nebraska before settling in Chicago, Illinois. He attended the University of Illinois and received a degree in Information Systems and worked in consulting, insurance and banking industries for many years before he transitioned to writing full time. Wesley is also an accomplished martial artist and has acted in film, television, and has worked as a model and stuntman.
Wesley has published seven books, and in 2015 won the John W. Campbell Best New Writer Award. His debut novel, The Lives of Tao, earned him the Alex Award by the Young Adult Library Services Association and was selected by Goodreads as a Science Fiction Choice Award Finalist. Wesley’s Time Salvager has been optioned to be a movie by Paramount with Michael Bay attached as director.
Wesley is currently co-writing a Magnus Bane trilogy with Cassandra Clare in her popular Shadowhunters universe.
You can learn more about Wesley Chu at his website, www.chuforthought.com, and follow him on Twitter at @wes_chu.
Paul Cornell
Paul Cornell has written episodes of Elementary, Doctor Who, Primeval, Robin Hood, and many other TV series. He’s worked for every major comics publisher, including his creator-owned series Saucer State for IDW; This Damned Band for Dark Horse; and runs on Batman and Robin for DC Comics; and Wolverine and Young Avengers for Marvel Comics.
Paul’s ongoing series of novels are Witches of Lychford and Shadow Police, both from Tor.
He’s won the British Science Fiction Association Award for his short fiction, an Eagle Award for his comics, a Hugo Award for his podcast, and shares in a Writer’s Guild Award for his contributions to Doctor Who.
Learn more about Paul Cornell at his website, www.PaulCornell.com, and follow him on Twitter as @paul_cornell.
Amal El-Mohtar
Amal El-Mohtar is an award-winning author, poet, and critic. She has written stories about djinn, iron shoes, glass hills, bird women, book women, the Arabic alphabet, singing fish, Damascene dream-crafters, sentient diamond oceans and pockets that are bigger on the inside. She’s also the author of The Honey Month (2010), a collection of poetry and prose written to the taste of twenty-eight different kinds of honey.
Her short fiction has won the Nebula and Locus Awards, been shortlisted for the Hugo, World Fantasy, Sturgeon, Aurora, and Eugie Foster Awards, and has appeared in The Djinn Falls in Love & Other Stories (2017), Tor.com, The Starlit Wood: New Fairy Tales (2016), Lightspeed, Strange Horizons, and Uncanny Magazine. Her poetry has won the Rhysling Award three times and received the Richard Jefferies Poetry Prize in 2012.
An enthusiastic collaborator, Amal has written an episode for Serial Box’s Bookburners, co-written a time-travelling spy vs. spy novella with Hugo-nominated author Max Gladstone, and co-founded the Banjo Apocalypse Crinoline Troubadours, an international performance collective of writers, performers, and musicians, with Caitlyn Paxson and CSE Cooney. She is also a contributor to Down and Safe: A Blake’s 7 Podcast; Walkthrough, a podcast about Six to Start game The Walk; and co-editor of fantastical poetry journal Goblin Fruit with Jessica P. Wick.
As a critic, Amal writes regularly for NPR Books, Tor.Com, and Lightspeed magazine. A life-long fan of Doctor Who, she’s also contributed essays to Chicks Unravel Time, Queers Dig Time Lords, and Companion Piece.
In her (few) hours of rest she lifts weights, plays the harp, writes letters to her friends by hand, and has been known to lead impromptu sing-alongs from Steven Universe and Hamilton. She lives in Ottawa with her husband and two jellicle cats.
To learn more about Amal El-Mohtar, check out her website, www.amalelmohtar.com. You can also find Amal on Twitter as @tithenai, where she is very often silly.
Lindsay Ellis
Lindsay Ellis is a video essayist and film critic who makes content exploring on film theory, narrative, structure, and film history.
Having graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Cinema Studies from New York University in 2007 and a Master of Arts in Cinematography and Film/Video Production from the University of Southern California in 2011, Lindsay has been producing video content for nearly a decade. She is known for the popular internet series The Nostalgia Chick (2008-2014), has appeared on Nostalgia Critic, and the film Kickassia (2010). Nowadays Lindsay publishes her video essays on her YouTube channel, which has over 300,000 subscribers.
Known especially for her highbrow analyses, many of Lindsay’s videos involve Disney or Transformers. Really, she is a film columnist in video form.
Lindsay has written for The Mary Sue, Tor.com, IFC, and Vox.
You can learn more about Lindsay Ellis on her Youtube Channel, and follow her on Twitter at @thelindsayellis.
Lee Harris
Lee Harris is the senior editor at Tor.com Publishing, having been with the imprint from the very start. He edits science fiction and fantasy novels and novellas. Books he has edited have won numerous awards, including Hugos, Nebulas, Locus, Arthur C Clarke, Alex, Kitschie, and Philip K Dick Awards. Lee is also the only British editor to have ever been nominated for a Hugo; he suspects someone, somewhere made a mistake, but he’s hanging onto the pin, anyway!
In addition to his editorial career, Lee also writes—mainly short stories, though he has written for the stage, too, and he’s partway through writing a novel—but then, isn’t everyone?
Lee is married with two beautiful young daughters, and has far too many unread books and unwatched DVDs—not that that would ever prevent him from buying more! He hates raisins and sultanas, though adores mince pies (and, no; he doesn’t understand that, either.) He is delighted to have been asked back for CONvergence’s 20th incarnation, as he says it’s easily his favourite convention in the world (and work takes him to a lot!)
Learn more about Lee Harris at his blog, www.LeeHarris.com, and follow him on Twitter as @LeeAHarris.
James Kakalios
James (Jim) Kakalios is the Taylor Distinguished Professor in the University of Minnesota’s School of Physics and Astronomy. He received his Ph.D. in Physics from the University of Chicago in 1985; he worked as a post-doctoral research associate at the Xerox—Palo Alto Research Center; and then in 1988, having had enough of those California winters, joined the faculty of the School of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Minnesota. His research involves the synthesis and characterization of amorphous/nanocrystalline composite semiconductor thin films, and the study of voltage fluctuations in neurological systems.
In 2001 he created a Freshman Seminar class entitled: “Everything I Know About Science I Learned from Reading Comic Books” that led to his writing the popular science book The Physics of Superheroes. Published in 2005 in the U.S. and the U.K., it has been translated into seven languages, and was followed by The Amazing Story of Quantum Mechanics (2010) and The Physics of Everyday Things: The Extraordinary Science Behind an Ordinary Day (2017).
In 2007, Jim served as the science consultant for the Warner Bros. superhero film Watchmen. He appears on the DVD version of the film in a special feature that discusses some of the science behind one of Watchmen’s central characters, Dr. Manhattan. In 2009, Jim made a video with the University News Service on “The Science of Watchmen,” which has been viewed over 1.6 million times and in 2009 won a regional Emmy Award in the Advanced Media: Arts/Entertainment category. In 2012, Jim served as one of the science consultants for the Marvel Entertainment superhero film The Amazing Spider-Man.
Jim is a Fellow of the American Physical Society (APS) and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), and has served as the Chair of the APS Committee on Informing the Public and the Past-Chair of the APS Forum on Outreach and Engaging the Public. His efforts at science communication and public outreach have been recognized by a 2009 Regional Emmy Award, the 2014 AAAS Public Engagement with Science Award, the American Institute of Physics’ 2016 Andrew Gemant Award and an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Lincoln (U.K.).
You can learn more about Jim Kakalios at his website, www.kakalios.com, and follow him on Twitter at @JimKakalios.
Kelly McCullough
Kelly McCullough writes fantasy, science fiction, and books for younger readers. He is best known for his novels, with more than a dozen in print or forthcoming at the moment, including eleven ACE/PRH fantasy releases in the WebMage and Fallen Blade series and his middle grade work from Macmillan’s Feiwel and Friends, including School for Sidekicks; the forthcoming Magic, Madness and Mischief; and its sequel Spirits, Spells, and Snark. His microfiction series DragonDiaries and Badnoir can be found on his webpage or by following him on Twitter or Facebook.
Kelly’s award winning short fiction has appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies including Tor.com, Weird Tales, Fantastic Stories of the Imagination, and Writers of the Future, among others. He also dabbles in science fiction as science education with The Chronicles of the Wandering Star, an illustrated collection of short stories written as part of a middle school physical science curriculum funded by the National Science Foundation, and Hanny and the Mystery of the Voorwerp, a science comic that he co-wrote and co-edited as part of a project funded by NASA and the Hubble Space Telescope.
Born in Grand Forks, Kelly lived in North Dakota for the first few years of his life before moving to Minnesota. There, he went to the Saint Paul Open School for eleven years, an alternative K-12 school where he was allowed to do pretty much as he pleased as long as he demonstrated educational competency in his classes. The self-discipline and intellectual freedom involved was a perfect foundation both for a successful college experience at Hamline University and the University of Minnesota and for his later career as a novelist.
Kelly currently resides in a moderately sized Midwestern university town where he indulges his passions for writing, reading, various physical pursuits of the running, biking, weight-lifting variety, cat herding, and uxorious devotion to his brilliant and beautiful wife. He is also known to get up to a certain amount of silliness involving various combinations of art, science, cameras, high speed video, props, costumes, and any number of friends and co-conspiritors. Things like a video of slow motion snowballs, or Narnia related hijinks at his friend Neil Gaiman’s lamppost.
Learn more about Kelly McCullough on his website, kellymccullough.com, and follow him on Facebook and on twitter as @KellyDMcC.
Mary Jo Pehl
Mary Jo Pehl is a writer on the television show Mystery Science Theater 3000, and was featured on air as the beloved arch-nemesis Pearl Forrester.
She has toured the country with Cinematic Titanic, the live version of Mystery Science Theater 3000, and currently co-stars with Bridget Nelson on RiffTrax. Mary Jo is featured in the second season of Hidden America with Jonah Ray on SeeSo and has appeared in Maria Bamford’s Lady Dynamite.
Her writing has appeared in Austin Monthly, Austin Chronicle, Minnesota Monthly, Minneapolis StarTribune, Catholic Digest, Salon.com, and in several anthologies, including Life’s A Stitch: The Best of Contemporary Women’s Humor and Travelers’ Tales: The Thong Also Rises.
Mary Jo’s commentaries have aired on NPR’s All Things Considered and she has appeared live with the Mortified show and on its podcast.
Mary Jo’s book, Employee of The Month and Other Big Deals, is available on Amazon.
Learn more about Mary Jo Pehl on her website, www.mjpehl.com, and follow her on Facebook and on Twitter as @maryjopehl.
Tamora Pierce
Tamora Pierce is a New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestselling author of more than 28 fantasy novels for teenagers, and has been Guest of Honor at numerous conventions, including Worldcon 2016. She has written comic books, radio plays, articles, and short stories, and is the winner of the 2013 Margaret A. Edwards Award for Lifetime Achievement in Young Adult Literature, the RT Book Reviews Career Achievement Award, and the 2005 Skylark Edward E. Smith Memorial Award for Imaginative Fiction.
Tortall: A Spy’s Guide, a collaborative effort with other experts on Tamora’s Tortall universe, came out in October 2017. It was followed in February 2018 by the first in a three-book Tortall series, Tempests and Slaughter.
Tamora lives in central New York with her husband Tim Liebe and their uncountable number of cats, two parakeets, and the various freeloading wildlife that reside in their back yard. She currently devotes her minimal free time to local feline rescue.
You can learn more about Tamora Pierce at her website, www.tamora-pierce.net, and follow her on her Facebook Page and on Twitter at @tamorapierce.
Gordon Purcell
Gordon Purcell is an American comic book artist perhaps best known for his Star Trek work, in particular his realistic renditions of the actors who play that franchise’s characters, as well as those of similarly licensed books, such as The X-Files, Xena: Warrior Princess, Lost in Space, Godzilla, The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, and Terminator.
He began his career in 1987 working for Lightning Comics on the title A.C.T.I.O.N. Force. His first published work for DC Comics was in 1988 on the title Flash, and he has since provided art for many more DC, Marvel, Joe’s Comics, and Heroic Publishing superhero titles including Justice League of America, Justice Society of America, Avengers, Silver Sable, Flare, Protectors Inc., Robin, Aquaman, and Wonder Man.
Gordon has contributed to graphic novel series Kolchack: The Night Stalker for Moonstone Books, as well as Soulsearchers, Elvira, and The Phantom for the same publisher, and Beyond the Wall for IDW. He has also worked on role playing games, providing artwork for such games as Gammarauders.
Gordon graduated from the University of Minnesota with Bachelor’s degrees in studio arts and theater, and currently resides in Plymouth, Minnesota, with his wife and son.
You can learn more about Gordon Purcell by following him on Twitter at @gordonpurcell.
Victor Raymond
Victor J. Raymond, PhD, is a sociologist, gamer, writer and longtime political activist. He started gaming playing Avalon/Hill’s U-Boat at the age of 8 with a friend’s father. He went on to play more board wargames and discovered Dungeons & Dragons in 1975, along with miniatures; the Society for Creative Anachronism; science fiction fandom; and the Minnesota Renaissance Festival. He was a participant in Gary Alan Fine’s seminal ethnography of role-playing games, Shared Worlds, published in 1983, and was a member of various gaming and science fiction clubs and conventions in the Twin Cities. Despite all of this, he went on to finish his Bachelor of Science from Macalester College in 1986. He graduated with Highest Honors for his thesis on the sociology of role-playing games.
Over time, Victor developed many close and enduring friendships in the gaming community in the Twin Cities and elsewhere. A friend of Dave Arneson and Prof. M.A.R. Barker, he was a member of the latter’s Thursday Night Group of gamers from the early 80’s until the mid-2000’s. Victor was also close friends with noted science fiction writer John M. Ford, and played in many of his campaigns, and helped playtest Ars Magica, written by Jonathan Tweet and Mark Rein-Hagen.
In 2008, he worked to start the Tekumel Foundation, dedicated to preserving and promoting Prof. Barker’s creative legacy, the fantasy world of Tekumel. The Foundation has published several reprints of role-playing game material by Prof. Barker, and licensed other companies to produce new material for the world of Tekumel. Victor is currently the chair of the Foundation.
Continuing his interest in science fiction and fantasy, Victor was a founding member of the Carl Brandon Society in 1999, an organization dedicated to increasing racial and ethnic diversity in the production of and audience for speculative fiction. The Society administers the Parallax and Kindred Awards, as well as the Octavia E. Butler Memorial Scholarship for the Clarion and Clarion West Writers Workshops. He is currently the Secretary of the Steering Committee for the Society.
Besides being a gamer and game preservationist, Victor is a member of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe and also has English and Scottish heritage. Victor’s multiracial background has shaped his activism in a variety of areas, including tenants’ rights, LGBT issues, the rights of the poor, and electoral politics. A founding committee member of the BECAUSE conference, he has been a National Co-coordinator for BiNet USA, an invited speaker at Creating Change, and the co-chair of the People of Color Caucus of It’s Time, Minnesota. More recently, he was an invited guest to the White House three times during the Obama Administration for his work as a bisexual activist.
After moving to Madison, Wisconsin in 2009, Victor started Madison Traditional Gaming, a role-playing gaming club with 40-50 attendees every Tuesday night, playing in eight different campaigns. Most recently, he joined the Board of Directors of Tabletop Gaymers, is a resource for LGBTQ+ gamers to connect with one another. He currently serves as the adviser for the student games club and the Gender and Sexuality Alliance at Madison College, where he is an instructor of sociology.
Learn more about Victor Raymond by following him on Facebook and on Twitter as @badger2305.
Marina Sirtis
British actress Marina Sirtis was the voice of Demona on 27 episodes of Disney’s Gargoyles, as well as The Goliath Chronicles. Demona was one of the villains and was the former lover of Goliath
Marina is probably best known for her role as Counselor Deanna Troi on Star Trek: The Next Generation and has made guest appearances as Troi on several of the other Star Trek series, as well as Family Guy. She also voiced Deanna Troi in several Star Trek video games, and has voiced the computer in the acclaimed fan series Star Trek Continues.
Additionally, Marina was the voice of Queen Bee on Young Justice, played Dr. Svetlana Markov in an episode of Stargate: SG1, and Persena in the live action fan series, Castlevania.
Recently Marina has been on Scandal as General Fletcher, NCIS as Orli Elbaz, and Grey’s Anatomy as Sonia Amin. She had an extensive theater career in England prior to her moving to Los Angeles in 1986. That transatlantic move landed her the role in Star Trek: The Next Generation as well as a growing list of roles in film and television.
Marina is married to rock guitarist Michael Lamper.
To learn more about Marina Sirtis, check out her official website at www.marinasirtis.tv, and follow her on twitter as @Marina_Sirtis.
Lisa Snellings
People often say that artist Lisa Snellings’ work defies classification. It utilizes a wide variety of materials and techniques, mixing two and three dimensions, kinetics, and writings. Over the years, stories based on her work have been written by the likes of Larry Niven, Neil Gaiman, Peter S. Beagle, and Gene Wolfe. Although she has been creating art for as long as she can remember, her art became her career in 1990. It was then that Lisa began work on a ten-year project—a collection of large kinetic works called “The Dark Caravan.” Most of the larger works were commissioned by the late Howard Frank and Jane Frank. Some of those works employed her two-inch-tall Poppets, which, on their own, are now collected all over the world.
A Poppet is a totem: a symbol for a view both childlike and wise. It’s the universal child in each of us that retains a sense of wonder. Poppets watch and imitate humans. They tell stories, both wildly fantastical and deeply human. Even now, Lisa reflects that she is not sure how such a small being, with just two dots for eyes, can affect her so deeply. She continues to explore other themes and other characters, but keeps finding hew ideas for Poppet. She explains, “I’ve told myself that when the nine billion names of Poppet have been recorded, they will simply wink out and be no more. Or they will evolve into something else.”
In the meantime, Lisa is creating a pop-up Poppet book about fear, called Night Birds, and a Poppet Tarot, both with the unique perspective of Poppet. These projects are funded by her Patreon.
Lisa grew up in the Deep South and describes her childhood as classic Southern Gothic. She left for the southern California desert and lived in Palm Springs for seventeen years, which she says was five years too long. Lisa and her family relocated to Eugene, Oregon in 2016 for the trees and the weather. It was a good decision.
Learn more about Lisa Snellings by following her on Twitter at @poppetplanetme.
Melinda Snodgrass
Melinda M. Snodgrass is a recovered lawyer, a screenwriter, and novelist.
She wrote several episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation while serving as the series’ story editor during its second and third seasons. She has also contributed produced scripts for the series Odyssey 5, The Outer Limits, SeaQuest DSV, and Reasonable Doubts; she was also a consulting producer on The Profiler.
Her urban fantasy novels The Edge of Reason, The Edge of Ruin, and the Edge of Dawn are available from Tor Books. Her The Imperials series—The High Ground, In Evil Times, and The Hidden World are available from Titan Books. She is currently working on the fourth book in the series, The Currency of War.
Melinda also co-edits and writes for the Wild Cards book series with George R.R. Martin, and is the executive producer on the upcoming Wild Cards TV series.
When she isn’t writing, Melinda is an FEI dressage rider who owns two Lusitano horses: her stallion, Vento da Broga, and her new young horse, Donhador.
Learn more about Melinda Snodgrass on her website, melindasnodgrass.com, and follow her on Facebook and on Twitter as @MMSnodgrass.
Vincent Truitner
Vincent Truitner is an artist and a veteran digital character animator whose work appears in over twenty feature films, from the 1999 acclaimed animated classic The Iron Giant to the latest installment of the Spider-Man franchise, 2017’s Spider-Man: Homecoming. Over his twenty-year career he has been part of two Academy Award-winning visual effects crews (Spider-Man 2 and The Golden Compass) and has worked at nearly every major visual effects studio, from Industrial Light & Magic and Sony Imageworks to Double Negative and Digital Domain.
Other popular films featuring Vincent’s animation include Maleficent, Transformers: Age of Extinction, Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’hoole, The Amazing Spider-Man, Monster House, and The Matrix Revolutions. To date he is the only animator to have worked on all three cinematic versions of Spider-Man (Toby Maguire, Andrew Garfield, and Tom Holland). Vincent’s film career has taken him as far abroad as Australia and Singapore, and he currently lives and works in Vancouver, Canada (also known as “Hollywood North”).
Vincent first learned the art of bringing digital characters to life in an internship at Pixar Animation Studios and is a graduate of Pixar University. He is an alumnus of Rhode Island School of Design with a BFA in Illustration. Prior to that, he attended the University of Minnesota and Alexander Ramsey (now Roseville) High School in Roseville, Minnesota. Along with his brother Ian (2017 CONvergence Guest of Honor), Vincent grew up in Minnesota and still considers himself a Minnesotan at heart.
From a very young age, Vincent has always had a strong affinity for art. The margins of his school notebooks, from grade school onward, were populated by fanciful creatures envisioned with the tip of his pencil. When not creating animation for feature films, Vincent combines his extensive experience in both animation and traditional art to create unique artwork in a variety of mediums. He is establishing a secondary career as a fine artist, having sold and exhibited work in galleries in Vancouver, Canada and Los Angeles, California. His current work explores the depiction of spirit forms—from traditional ghosts to apparitions who embody the spiritual essence of trees, elements, and environments.
Learn more about Vincent Truitner on his animation website, vintruitner.com, his art website, vctruitner.com, and follow him on Twitter as @vctruitner and Instagram as @vctruitner.
Greg Weisman
Greg Weisman has been a storyteller all his life. His first professional work was as an Associate Editor and Freelance Writer for DC Comics, where he worked on the Captain Atom title, among others.
Greg worked at Walt Disney Television Animation from 1989 through 1996. In 1991, Greg and his team created and developed a new series for Disney: Gargoyles. Greg left his position as an executive to become the Supervising Producer and Supervising Story Editor of the first 66 episodes of that series. In 1996, Greg left Disney for DreamWorks Television Animation, where he also developed numerous projects.
In October of 1998, Greg left DreamWorks to become a full-time freelance writer, story editor, producer, voice director, and voice actor. He produced the first season of Max Steel, the second season of W.I.T.C.H. and, wrote, story edited, and voice acted for Sony’s The Spectacular Spider-Man. He then moved over to Warner Bros., where he wrote the Green Arrow direct-to-DVD short for DC Showcase and produced, story edited, wrote, and voice acted on the Emmy-winning Warner Bros./Cartoon Network series, Young Justice.
After spending time as writer and Executive Producer on the first season of Star Wars Rebels for Lucasfilm and Disney, Greg is currently back on Young Justice, producing, writing and voice acting on the fan-demanded third season.
Greg writes more than animation. He wrote the companion Young Justice monthly comic book for DC Comics and issue #622 of The Amazing Spider-Man for Marvel. He also wrote the Gargoyles and Gargoyles: Bad Guys comic books for SLG Publishing. Most recently, he wrote Star Wars: Kanan and Starbrand & Nightmask for Marvel.
Greg’s first novel, Rain of the Ghosts, was published in 2013; its sequel, Spirits of Ash and Foam, arrived in bookstores in 2014. The full-cast unabridged AudioPlay of Rain of the Ghosts is currently available on Amazon and iTunes, etc. His latest novel, World of Warcraft: Traveler hit bookstores in 2016 and its follow-up, World of Warcraft: Traveler: The Spiral Path, in November 2017.
Greg is happily married to his wonderful wife Beth and has two incredibly amazing kids. (Plus a dog and a cat.)
You can learn more about Greg Weisman on his website, Ask Greg, follow him on twitter as @Greg_Weisman, or head over and like his Facebook page.
Michael “Knightmage” Wilson
Michael “Knightmage” Wilson is an international cosplay entertainer, philanthropist, and stuntman.
He began cosplaying in 2012, drawing from a life-long love for comics and video games, and has since created over 100 costumes, many of his works having been praised and displayed on numerous platforms in print and online. Michael has been listed as one of the top male cosplayers in the world from websites such as The Richest, Screencrush, The Nerdery, Kotaku, Geeks are Sexy, and more. Throughout his convention appearances, Michael has judged multiple cosplay contests and hosted cosplay panels and workshops showcasing the positive, inspiring, and supportive side of cosplay. An avid wrestling fan, Michael has also created various costumes for World Wrestling Entertainment superstars.
Pursuing a love for acting and stunt work, Michael has worked on several Hollywood comic book movie productions including The Avengers, The Dark Knight Rises, Captain America 2: Winter Soldier, and more. He was also an alternate for the 2006 reality show “Who Wants To Be A Superhero” hosted by Stan Lee. Michael has also worked on and has been featured in several fan films and productions such as “Flash Fall” by Together Brother Productions, and the popular YouTube series MAN AT ARMS: Reforged.
Michael is a spokes model for independent comic companies Shot In The Dark Comics and Transgenesis Comics, having lent his likeness to be used for upcoming comic book characters.
Genuinely loving to entertain, make a positive impact, and bring smiles, Michael most often uses his costuming for charitable events, benefits, parades, birthdays, and hospital visits to children. This has led him to becoming a member of esteemed costuming groups The League of Heroes, The Heroes Alliance-Ohio Branch, East Coast Avengers, Costumers with a Cause, Superheroes to Kids in Ohio, and Heroic Inner Kids. Michael often works closely with local and national charity organizations as a sponsor, using his cosplay to generate support for The Make-A-Wish Foundation, Capes 4 Heroes, Putting Downs First, Angels for Animals, and many others. Michael has received numerous awards for his charitable deeds including the Outstanding Service Award from Credit Where Credit Is Due, and most notably the Presidential Volunteers Award from President Barack Obama and the White House.
Michael was born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio and now resides in Youngstown, Ohio. He is a current decorated 18-year veteran Deputy Sheriff for the Mahoning County Sheriff’s Office in Ohio.
Learn more about Michael “Knightmage” Wilson by liking his Facebook Page, and following him on Twitter as @Knightmage and Instagram as @Knightmage1.
Ytasha Womack
Ytasha L. Womack is an award-winning author, filmmaker, independent scholar, and dancer. She is an expert on Afrofuturism and its applications, frequently lecturing on the subject across the world. Ytasha was honored among DesignHub’s 40 Under 40 designers for social good and innovation in 2017. Her books include Afrofuturism: The World of Black Sci Fi & Fantasy Culture, the sci-fi novel Rayla 2212, Post Black, and Beats Rhymes and Life: What We Love & Hate About Hip Hop. Afrofuturism: The World of Black Sci Fi & Fantasy Culture is a 2014 Locus Awards Nonfiction Finalist.
Ytasha is director of the Afrofuturist experimental dance film A Love Letter to the Ancestors From Chicago. The film screened at the Afropunk Festival in Brooklyn; Black(s) to the Future Festival in Paris, France; the Reeltime Film Fest in Nigeria; Afrotopia in Bristol, England; the Black Harvest Film Festival in Chicago, among others. Her other films include Couples Night (screenwriter), Love Shorts (producer/writer), and The Engagement (director). Ytasha’s upcoming sci-fi film Bar Star City is slated for release in 2018. The film follows a bar on Chicago’s Southside that’s a haven for galactic travelers.
Ytasha has lectured at a number of universities and cultural events and is a frequent speaker and artist presenter at Comic Cons and science fiction conferences across the USA. She was a featured speaker at Sonic Acts Festival in Amsterdam, the Deutsche Kinemathek’s Science in Fiction in Berlin, the WOW Festival in Liverpool, and the Acheworks Chicago Series. She’s also presented at Duke University, University of Chicago, Clark Atlanta University, Yale University, The New School, and others.
Ytasha began her career as a journalist covering arts, entertainment, and business. She is guest editor for NV Magazine, a New York based business publication; a former editor-at-large for Upscale Magazine; and former columnist for the Chicago Defender. A Chicago native, she has a B.A in Mass Media Arts, studied Arts, Entertainment and Media Management at Columbia College. She has a Masters Certificate in Better Living, a study in Metaphysics and New Thought Philosophy from the Johnnie Colemon Institute.
Ytasha has recently developed an Afrofuturism dance therapy program. She teaches an array of styles for both children and adults with the Beverly Arts Center’s outreach and After School Matters in Chicago.
Learn more about Ytasha Womack at her website, and follow her on Twitter as @ytashawomack.
Information Society
A look into the history of Information Society (InSoc) is a peek at the evolution of electronic music. From their first self-released album in 1983 to their 2014 album _hello world, InSoc have grown from a young electronic band, mutating the sum total of their influences, to a veteran collective influencing a new generation of electronic musicians. One important thing remains constant: The music is distinctly Information Society: monster electro bass and beats topped with lush, poppy vocal hooks.
Led by founder/producer Paul Robb, the group, including vocalist Kurt Larson and bassist James Cassidy, stormed the club charts in the mid 1980s with their Freestyle classic “Running”. Inspired by the worldwide response to the single, the group seized the opportunity and moved to New York to record their major label debut, Information Society.
After a whirlwind series of live dates throughout the world, supporting the self-titled album, the group went on to release the albums Hack and Peace And Love, Inc. and numerous Top 40 hits, notably the #1 smash “What’s on Your Mind (Pure Energy),” as well as “Walking Away,” “Think,” “Repetition,” and “Peace and Love, Inc.” Numerous national and international tours followed; outside the United States the group is particularly popular in South America, Spain, and Japan.
Kurt Larson took the artistic helm of the group in 1997, and released Don’t Be Afraid, which explored the darker recesses of the band’s musical imagination. Meanwhile. Paul Robb released a series of industrial techno records under his nom de disco, Think Tank. During this period, members also pursued musical interests as diverse as video game music, television scoring, and even commercial jingles, a goal the group had announced in one of their earliest manifestos in 1983!
In the early 2000s, re-releases of both “Running” and “What’s on Your Mind” reached #1 on the Billboard Dance/Club chart. This renewed interest in the band and served as a catalyst for a new round of songwriting. InSoc subsequently released an EP of new material entitled Oscillator in 2005, followed by the full-length album Synthesizer in 2007.
Since then, the band has enjoyed something of a renaissance, performing both domestically and abroad, including a 25th Anniversary performance in Philadelphia which was memorialized on the DVD release, It Is Useless to Resist Us: 25 Years of Information Society.
Soon the three original InSoc members—Kurt, Paul and James—reunited to discuss working on a new album and the result, _hello world was the offspring. Released in September 2014, _hello world is rife with songs that have one foot firmly planted in their past and one foot confidently resting in the present. The new album is filled with classic InSoc dance floor fodder like “Get Back”, soaring epics like “Jonestown”, and cinematic textures like “Creatures of Light and Darkness”. Embracing the many faces of synthetic music while remaining organically Information Society, _hello world isn’t as much a rebirth of InSoc as it is a nuclear-powered version that ups the ante.
With history’s tendency to repeat itself, it appears Information Society are poised for another takeover. _Hello World, indeed.
You can learn more about Information Society at their website, www.informationsociety.us, and follow them on their Facebook Page and on Twitter at @insoc.
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