Viscountess Mercedes Lackey-Edgerton-Smythe has had a rose, a dahlia and a tulip named for her. A neck-or-nothing rider, she was the first ever female to be named Master of the Derbyshire Hunt. She raises peafowl and swans and is a notable expert on 11th-century incunabula. And if you believe any of this, perhaps your copy of Burke’s Peerage is not what it should be. She is the author of several fantasy series, including the Elemental Masters series in which this story is set.
Mur Lafferty has a varied past dabbling in many forms of media. She worked in the gaming and Internet industries for nine years, from Red Storm Entertainment to writing freelance for RPGs including Warcraft: The RPG, Mage and Exalted. She has written for the magazines PC Gamer, Scrye, Knights of the Dinner Table, Anime Insider and Inquest. Mur has been a podcast producer since 2004, hosting the popular shows “Geek Fu Action Grip” and “I Should Be Writing,” as well as aiding other podcasters in their sound engineering (including Senator John Edwards’ “One America Committee” podcast). Mur is the co-author of Tricks of the Podcasting Masters, a “right brain” approach to the art of podcasting. She lives in Durham, N.C., with her husband, her daughter and a little brown dog.
Eli Lake is a senior reporter for the New York Sun. Before that he was the chief diplomatic correspondent for United Press International. Mr. Lake’s work has appeared in the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, the New Republic, the Weekly Standard, the National Review and the Washington Times. In his reporting he has traveled to all five continents and all three members of the Axis of Evil. In 2005 and 2006, Mr. Lake lived and reported for a year from Cairo for the New York Sun.
Raised in Maryland, Paul Lake earned his undergraduate degree at Towson University and taught for two years at a Baltimore school. After receiving the Mirrielees Creative Writing Fellowship in Poetry, he earned his master’s degree in creative writing and English at Stanford University. Lake taught at University of Santa Clara in California for two years before moving to Arkansas to teach at Arkansas Teach University, where he is currently a professor of English and creative writing. In 1988, he won the Porter Prize for Literary Excellence, an annual prize given to one Arkansas writer each year, and now he is the poetry editor of First Things, a journal on current issues. He has two published books of poetry, Another Kind of Travel (Chicago) and Walking Backward (Story Line), and one previously published novel, Among the Immorals, a satirical thriller about poets and vampires in San Francisco. He lives in Russellville, Ark., with his wife Tina and their two children.
Mario J. Lanza is a well-known writer and humorist whose “Survivor Strategy” column was one of the most widely read on the Internet between the years 2001 and 2004. He was recently called “one of the foremost Survivor experts in the world” by “Survivor: Amazon” contestant/sociopath Rob Cesternino. Mario has read every book on serial killers ever written, and he’s also done extensive research on criminal psychopathology. In fact, at one point in his life he wanted to work for the FBI as “one of those Silence of the Lambs guys.” This didn’t quite pan out, but he does claim he can spot a sociopath 100 yards away. When he’s not writing about “Survivor,” Mario enjoys baseball, horror movies, being creeped out by Brian Heidik and empathizing with other humans. And he’s thrilled that his bio is just a little bit longer than Brad’s.
Robert Lanza, M.D., is considered one of the leading scientists in the world. He is currently chief scientific officer at Advanced Cell Technology and adjunct professor at Wake Forest University School of Medicine. He has hundreds of publications and inventions, and 20 scientific books: among them, Principles of Tissue Engineering, which is recognized as the definitive reference in the field.
Justine Larbalestier is a Sydney-born researcher and writer. She has written a radio show about the end of relationships, a short film about the Midas legend, and extensively on American science fiction culture, particularly in the ’40s and ’50s as well as “Buffy the Vampire Slayer.” Her first book is The Battle of the Sexes in Science Fiction ( Wesleyan University Press, 2002).
Gretchen Moran Laskas is an eighth-generation West Virginian, the setting for her first novel, The Midwife’s Tale. Her young adult novel The Miner’s Daughter, about the coal camps of West Virginia in the Great Depression, will be published by Simon and Schuster in 2007. Her short fiction has been published in numerous literary magazines, including Salt Hill, Pleiades and Mobius, and is included in the anthology American Girls about Town. Laskas now lives in Virginia with her husband and son. The Midwife’s Tale has won Appalachian Book of the Year, the Weatherford Award for Fiction, for outstanding contribution to Appalachia, and has been nominated for Southeastern Booksellers Book of the Year and the Virginia Library Award. It also received a Library Journal starred review and was selected as a “Must Read” by Working Mother Magazine and was a Featured Alternate Selection of the Literary Guild and Doubleday Book Club.
Mary Lavoie is a long-time fan of fantasy and science fiction. She works as a technical writer in Provo, Utah, where she lives with her husband Robert and cat Inx.
David M. Lawrence has never decided what he will do when (if) he grows up. He is a scientist who teaches geography, meteorology, oceanography and (sometimes) biology at the college level. He is a journalist who covers everything from high school sports to international research in science and medicine. He is a scuba diver looking for a way to make a living on the water. When not consumed with those activities, he looks at his guitars and wonders if he’s too old to become a rock god. (It would help if he could actually play.) He lives in Mechanicsville, Va., with his wife, two children and a menagerie of creatures with legs, scales and fins.
Benjamin Le, Ph.D., is a native Californian and currently an assistant professor of psychology at Haverford College (Pa.), after having completed his undergraduate degree at Grinnell College and Ph.D. in social psychology at Purdue University. His research is on commitment, emotions and social networks in close relationships. Le has not yet applied to be on “Survivor,” for fear of being rejected.
Lilo and Gerard Leeds met in a ski lodge in the Adirondack Mountains in 1950, were married in 1951 and now, more than 55 years later, have a family of five children and 13 grandchildren. Lilo and Gerard hold degrees in math and science, respectively, received their master’s degrees together in liberal arts, and have, between them, seven honorary doctorates. They live in Long Island, N.Y.
Stephanie Lehmann is the author of the novels Thoughts While Having Sex, Are You in the Mood?, The Art of Undressing and You Could Do Better, which is about a curator at the Museum of Television. Her plays have been produced Off-Off Broadway, and her essays have appeared on Salon.com. Originally from San Francisco, she now lives in Manhattan with her husband and son. Stephanie finds it hard to believe that she no longer lives with her daughter. Stephanie’s mother says she’ll get used to it, which may or may not be insulting. Stephanie’s glad her daughter does come home from college to visit occasionally, and when she does, they enjoy drinking coffee and eating something with sugar in it and gabbing while watching TV. Stephanie does the same when she visits her mother. You can visit Stephanie at her Web site www.StephanieLehmann.com.
Justin Leiber is a professor of philosophy at the University of Houston. His nonfiction books include Can Animals and Machines Be Persons? (Cambridge, Mass.: Hackett, 1986), An Invitation to Cognitive Science (Oxford: Blackwell, 1991) and Paradoxes (London: Duckworth, 1992); his fiction includes Beyond Rejection (Ballantine, 1980) and its two sequels, and The Sword and the Eye and The Sword and the Tower (Tor Books). He did a B. Phil. at the University of Oxford, coming in first of 20-odd on a degree for which the minimum passing requirement is the equivalent of an undergraduate first in Greats. His daemon was Shasta IV, a cougar of the University of Houston, who had a deep rumbling purr and did loop-the-loops on the ceiling of her cage when he came alone in the evening to visit with her inside her cage. He misses her dreadfully.
Richard A. Leo, Ph.D., J.D., is an associate professor of criminology, law and society, and psychology and social behavior at the University of California, Irvine. He has conducted extensive research and published numerous articles on police interrogation practices, Miranda requirements, false confessions and miscarriages of justice. He is the recipient of the Ruth Shonle Cavan Young Scholar Award from the American Society of Criminology and the Saleem Shah Career Achievement Award from the American Psychological Association and the American Academy of Forensic Psychology.
Dr. Robert A. Leonard is a professor of linguistics at Hofstra and a lead researcher at Robert Leonard Associates, a consulting firm. Leonard received his B.A. from Columbia College, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa, and his M.A., M.Phil. and Ph.D. from Columbia Graduate School, where he was a Faculty Fellow. He won a Fulbright Fellowship for his overseas Ph.D. research. He may be the only Fulbright Fellow to have performed at Woodstock. While in college he cofounded and led the rock group Sha Na Na and performed at the Woodstock Festival, the Fillmores East and West, on television’s “Tonight Show,” in the Academy Award-winning “Woodstock” movie and the recently released film “Festival Express” with Janis Joplin and the Grateful Dead.
Jonya A. Leverett graduated from the University of Georgia with a degree in art history. Before entering the applied social psychology doctoral program at Loyola University Chicago, she worked in trial consulting. She is entering her second year of doctoral study at Loyola University Chicago, and her research interests include the manipulations and effectiveness of media and propaganda.
Sam Levin is currently a student who attends school in Massachusetts. He recently completed a natural history, The Pond.
Paul Levinson’s The Silk Code won the 2000 Locus Award for Best First Novel. He has since published Borrowed Tides (2001), The Consciousness Plague (2002), The Pixel Eye (2003) and The Plot to Save Socrates (2006). His science fiction and mystery short stories have been nominated for Nebula, Hugo, Edgar and Sturgeon Awards. His eight nonfiction books, including The Soft Edge (1997), Digital McLuhan (1999), Realspace (2003) and Cellphone (2004), have been the subject of major articles in the New York Times, WIRED and Christian Science Monitor, and have been translated into eight languages. He appears on “The O’Reilly Factor,” “The CBS Evening News,” “Scarborough Country” and numerous national and international TV and radio programs. He is professor and chair of communication & media studies at Fordham University in New York City.
Lawrence P. Levitt, M.D., is Senior Consultant in Neurology Emeritus at Lehigh Valley Hospital in Allentown, Pa. He founded the neurology division at that hospital and assisted the effort to transform it into the largest teaching hospital in Pennsylvania. He is professor of clinical medicine (neurology) at Penn State College of Medicine. He is co-author of Neurology, one of America’s most popular neurology texts. The book is now in its seventh edition and has been translated into eight foreign languages including Russian, Chinese and Japanese. He lives in Allentown, Pa.
The Man with the Iron Tattoo and Other True Tales of Uncommon Widsom
Gary Lewandowski Jr., Ph.D., originally from Fairless Hills, Pa. (a suburb of Philadelphia), received his bachelor’s degree from Millersville University of Pennsylvania. He received his master’s and Ph.D. in social/health psychology from the State University of New York at Stony Brook in Long Island, N.Y. He is currently an assistant professor of psychology at Monmouth University (the alma mater of former “Survivor” contestants Katie Gallagher and Stephenie LaGrossa) in West Long Branch, N.J. His research focuses on romantic relationships, including interpersonal attraction, relationship maintenance and breakups.
Romantic Times award–winning author Jacqueline Lichtenberg is the primary author of Star Trek Lives!, the Bantam paperback that revealed the existence of “Star Trek” fandom and looked in-depth at the motivations behind fan involvement in the television series. She is featured in the docudrama film “Trekkies Two.” Her first published novel, House of Zeor, was the first novel in the legendary Sime Gen universe—a series that sparked its own outpouring of fan activity. She has two occul/SF novels in print, titled Molt Brother and City of a Million Legends, and BenBella Books has recently reprinted her vampire romance Those of My Blood and its companion novel Dreamspy. www.simegen.com/jl/ provides details.
Brad Linaweaver is an award-winning science fiction writer whose novel Moon of Ice was endorsed by Robert A. Heinlein, Ray Bradbury, William F. Buckley Jr. and Isaac Asimov. Before collaborating with Richard Hatch on three “Battlestar Galactica” novels, he hit the bestseller lists as co-author (with Dafydd ab Hugh) of four novels based on the Doom video game—the game that inspired the movie starring the Rock. Linaweaver also wrote the “Sliders” novel based on the Universal television series and is a prolific writer of short stories and articles. He has original story credits on some films as well as two nonfiction books to his credit, co-edited a major science fiction anthology Free Space with Ed Kramer, and also publishes a magazine, Mondo Cult.
Sue Linder-Linsley is currently the executive director for the Chickasaw Cultural Center, which is presently being built by the Chickasaw Nation in Sulphur, Okla., and will open in the fall of 2006. She has an M.A. from Southern Methodist University and specializes in the conservation, preservation and care of collections, as well as North American historic and prehistoric archaeology. She is a member of the Register of Professional Archaeologists (RPA) and the managing editor of their professional publication, RPA Notes, as well a Communications Committee member, Archives Committee chair and Web site developer. She is a member of the Society of Professional Archaeologists and the Council of Texas Archaeologists.
Caren Lissner’s humorous first novel, Carrie Pilby, was published in 2003. Her lighthearted essays have appeared in the New York Times, Philadelphia Inquirer and Weatherwise magazine. She lives in Hoboken, N.J., where she serves as the editor of the Hudson Reporter newspaper chain. She graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1993. She can be reached at www.carenlissner.com.
Peter B. Lloyd was trained in science and software engineering but has a passion for philosophy, and has published several articles and books bringing philosophy out of academia. After more than a decade in university research—first in solar engineering and then in clinical trials at Oxford University—he has worked for several years as a freelance software developer. He runs his own consultancy business, which also trades as Whole-Being Books to publish books written by himself and his wife Deborah Marshall-Warren. He has previously contributed to the Smart Pops series in Taking the Red Pill: Science, Philosophy, and Religion in The Matrix and The Man from Krypton: A Closer Look at Superman. His most recent project is Metatopia, a series of video interviews with people working on the frontiers of consciousness. www.peterblloyd.org
Cara Lockwood is the author of I Do (But I Don’t), which was made into a movie for Lifetime Television, as well as I Did (But I Wouldn’t Now), Dixieland Sushi, Pink Slip Party and Wuthering High. Cara lives with her husband in Chicago, where she is currently at work on her next novel.
Chris Logan is a lecturer in the psychology department at Southern Methodist University. His area of expertise is the social psychology of conflict resolution. He has forced references to “The Simpsons” on friends, family members, innocent bystanders and countless psychology students at three universities over the last 10 years. He has a B.A. in psychology from SMU and a Ph.D. in experimental psychology from Texas Tech. He lives in Dallas, where he teaches and consults.
Greg Logsted lives in Danbury, Conn., with his wife, Lauren Baratz-Logsted. He tries to convince their daughter Jackie that he fights robots for a living but in fact owns the Other Guy Cleaning Service. Greg is a lifelong music fan, currently working on his first novel.
Ralph D. Lorenz, Ph.D., is a native of Scotland, but resides in Columbia, Md. He has a B.Eng. in aerospace systems engineering from the University of Southampton, U.K., and a Ph.D. in physics from the University of Kent, U.K. He worked for the European Space Agency in the Netherlands on the design of the Huygens probe to Titan, and for over 15 years has been involved in Mars flight projects and the Cassini spacecraft. He is a Fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Society, the Royal Astronomical Society and the British Interplanetary Society. He has written several books, including Spinning Flight, Space Systems Failures and Lifting Titan’s Veil.
Jean Lorrah is the author of the award-winning vampire romance Blood Will Tell, creator of the Savage Empire series, co-author (with Lois Wickstrom) of the award-winning series of children’s books beginning with Nessie and the Living Stone and co-author (with Jacqueline Lichtenberg) of the cult classic Sime Gen series. Her most recent new novel is Sime Gen: To Kiss or to Kill. Look for Jean’s Savage Empire series from BenBella Books.
James Lowder has worked extensively on both sides of the editorial blotter. His novels include Knight of the Black Rose and Prince of Lies, and his short fiction has appeared in such anthologies as Shadows Over Baker Street and The Repentant. As an editor he’s helmed 10 anthologies, including two collections of superhero tales, and currently serves as consulting editor for the City of Heroes novel series from CDS Books. His nonfiction writing on film and comics has seen print in Amazing Stories, Sci-Fi Universe and the BenBella collection King Kong Is Back!
Jené Luciani is the author of The Bra Book: The Fashion Formula to Finding the Perfect Fit (BenBella Books, 2009). The fashion, beauty and lifestyle editor, expert, host and broadcast personality can be seen regularly doling out tips and advice on local news outlets all around the country. She has appeared nationally on “The Daily Buzz,” the Style Network, the Discovery Channel, Better TV and on Fox’s “Good Day NY,” to name a few, and is a regular fashion commentator for Fox 23 News in Albany, N.Y. She was recently quoted as one of NBC’s iVillage.com’s “favorite style experts,” alongside Finola Hughes and Clinton Kelly. She has also been quoted in the Chicago Sun Times, a nationally syndicated column in the Albany Times Union and many other publications.
As the New York Contributing Editor for the national luxury shopping Web site Pink Memo and the Fashion, Beauty & Lifestyle Editor for the luxury publication The Wag Magazine, Jené is a noted authority on the topic, along with her highly regarded blog, Beauty and the Burbs.
Luciani has represented prestigious brands such as Bloomingdale’s, where she hosted a fashion show for their biggest benefit shopping day of the year, and Lands End, for which she regularly appears on-air as a spokesperson. She has also interviewed some of the biggest faces in entertainment today, including Bette Midler, Michael Kors, Madonna, Ashlee Simpson, Glenn Close, Vivica A. Fox, Sigourney Weaver, Ellen Pompeo, Vanessa Williams and Molly Sims and has styled photo and cover shoots for celebrities such as Kerry Kennedy.
Prior to becoming one of the most trusted voices in fashion journalism, Jené had a successful career as a television producer. After spending four years at the NBC affiliate in Albany, N.Y., covering 9/11, countless elections and state politics, she moved to New York City, working for News 12 Networks, the Emmy award–winning CW-11 News and a national production company, where her work appeared regularly on the CNN Newsource feeds, “The Daily Buzz” and countless other news outlets.
You can visit Jené’s Web site at www.JeneLuciani.com. Jené lives in New York City with her husband.
Frederick N. Lukash, M.D., FACS, FAAP, has consistently been voted one of “America’s Top Doctors” by the Castle Connolly guide and by the Consumer Research Council of America (BestDoctors.com). A Board Certified cosmetic and reconstructive plastic surgeon in practice in New York City and Long Island since 1981, he is an Assistant Clinical Professor of Surgery at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine.
He received his college and medical degrees from Tulane University. His postgraduate training in surgery and plastic surgery includes Emory University, State University of New York and Harvard University, where he held the position of Instructor in Surgery.
Dr. Lukash is a member of all the major plastic surgical societies, including The American Society of Plastic Surgeons—for whom he is the media spokesperson on the topic of teens and plastic surgery.
Leah E. Lurye is currently a graduate student in the social psychology program, with a special focus in developmental psychology, at New York University. Currently she is interested in what people conceive of as gender typical or atypical, and how they react to those who violate gender norms. She is an enthusiastic Pixar fan and believes “The Incredibles” is one of the coolest movies of all time.
Scott Lynch was born in St. Paul, Minn., in 1978 and currently lives in Wisconsin. His first novel, The Lies of Locke Lamora, will be released in June 2006.
Paul Lytle is an author and musician living on the southwest side of Houston, Texas. He earned a bachelor of arts from Houston Baptist University in English and political science with a specialization in creative writing, and will soon earn a master of liberal arts degree. He is an editor and writer for the Webzine Primum Mobile (www.primum-mobile.net) and is amassing quite a collection of comic books and gently used paperbacks. This is his third contribution to the Smart Pop series, the other two in The Man from Krypton and Webslinger. He hopes that there will be many more in the future, since they provide a good excuse to head over to the comic book shop (“It’s research, honey!”). More of his writings, as well as news and other projects, can be found at www.paullytle.com.
Dr. Mikhail Lyubansky is a lecturer in the Department of Psychology at the University of Illinois-Urbana-Champaign, where he teaches Psychology of Race and Ethnicity and Theories of Psychotherapy. His research interests focus on conditions associated with changes in social identity and beliefs about race, ethnicity and nationalism, especially in immigrant and minority populations. He recently co-authored a book about Russian-Jewish immigration: Building a Diaspora: Russian Jews in Israel, Germany, and the United States. He has no known mutant powers but provides regular Congressional testimony opposing the Mutant Registration Act.
