Lerzan Aksoy is an acclaimed expert in the science of loyalty management. She is associate professor of marketing at Fordham University, New York. Lerzan has coauthored and co-edited several books on loyalty and service: Loyalty Myths, Customer Lifetime Value and Profit Maximization Through Customer Relationship Marketing.
Maria Alexander has committed a number of literary crimes—against Gothic.net, Chiaroscuro Magazine, Paradox Magazine and other publications. She’s been fined with several Honorable Mentions by the Year’s Best Horror & Fantasy, appearances on the preliminary ballot for the Stoker Award and being a finalist in the 2003 Moondance Short Fiction Competition sponsored by Coppola and Oprah. In 2005, more of her stories will skulk doggedly in anthologies by Penguin and ROC Books. You can find a full rap sheet at www.thehandlesspoet.com. She dwells marginally in Los Angeles with two ungrateful cats and a fish who hates you.
Christopher Allen is the managing editor and founder for ComicBookGalaxy.com. He has also written for The Comics Journal, Kevin Smith’s MoviePoopShoot.com, Ain’t It Cool News and NinthArt.com, and is one of the 2006 judges for the comics industry’s prestigious Will Eisner Comics Industry Awards. He has two children and lives in San Diego.
Mark Allen, a resident of Santa Cruz, Calif., is known and admired by athletes around the world for his extraordinary six Ironman championships. Called The Greatest Triathlete of All Time by Triathlete Magazine, Mark has been on the cover of every major sports magazine and readers and the media will be hungry to know how he became “the fittest man alive.” Mark is not only presenting fitness guidelines for life, he is sharing the philosophy of physical and spiritual health he learned as a student of Brant Secunda that made the difference in his becoming a champion. This is the first time in print that he has ever told the real story of how he won the Ironman.
Peg Aloi has been a practicing witch for a decade and a half. She often rants about film and TV for The Witches’ Voice Web site. She is also a film critic for The Boston Phoenix and a professor of film studies. Her favorite on-screen depiction of The Old Religion is the 1973 film “The Wicker Man.”
A Hugo and World Fantasy Award nominee, Lou Anders is the editorial director of Prometheus Books’ science fiction imprint Pyr (www.pyrsf.com), as well as the anthologies Outside the Box (Wildside Press 2001), Live Without a Net (Roc 2003), Projections: Science Fiction in Literature & Film (MonkeyBrain December 2004), FutureShocks (Roc January 2006) and Fast Forward 1 (Pyr February 2007). He is the author of The Making of Star Trek: First Contact (Titan Books 1996) and has published more than 500 articles in such magazines as The Believer, Publishers Weekly, Dreamwatch, Star Trek Monthly, Star Wars Monthly, Babylon 5 Magazine, Sci-Fi Universe, Doctor Who Magazine and Manga Max. His articles and stories have been translated into Danish, Greek, German, Italian and French. Visit him online at www.louanders.com.
The Penguin Who Knew Too Much (August 2007) is eighth in Donna Andrews’s Meg Langslow series from St. Martin’s Press. She has also written the Turing Hopper series (Berkley Prime Crime), featuring an artificial intelligence as the sleuth. When not writing, Donna can be found puttering in her garden, making small inroads on her massive to-be-read collection and playing with her computers. She’s vice president of the Mid-Atlantic chapter of Mystery Writers of America, national chapter liaison for Sisters in Crime, the author liaison for Malice Domestic and a member of the Private Investigators and Security Association. For more information visit donnaandrews.com.
Kevin J. Apple, Ph.D., is an assistant department head and associate professor at the Department of Psychology at James Madison University. He enjoys teaching a wide variety of classes including general psychology, research methods and the psychology of the Holocaust. His main research interests include both the intergroup bias and methods for assessing classroom learning. When not teaching classes or doing research, he is most likely spending time with his wife and two children or watching a reality television show. His favorite “Survivor” player is Ethan Zohn. Kevin admires Ethan for being a fierce competitor who played the game with integrity.
Jennifer Armstrong is a staff writer at Entertainment Weekly and the co-founder of alternative online women’s magazine SirensMag.com.
Catherine Asaro is author of 14 novels as well as short fiction (published and upcoming) and is acclaimed for her multiple award-winning Skolian Empire series, which combines adventure, hard science, romance, fast-paced action and themes that challenge the status quo. Her standalone novel The Quantam Rose won the 2001 Nebula Award. Her October 2003 novel, Skyfall, was honored with the Romantic Times Book Club award for “Best Science Fiction Novel.” Asaro’s novella “Moonglow,” in Charmed Destinies (November 2003), was followed by her fantasy novel The Charmed Sphere (February 2004), part of the Luna Books launch. Also published in February 2004 was Irresistable Forces, a six-author anthology for NAL, edited by Asaro and including stories by Lois McMaster Bujold and Catherine, among other award-winning, bestselling authors. Sunrise Alley, her next novel, is due out in August 2004, and Triad, the latest in the Skolian Empire Series, will be published in December 2004. Asaro has a Ph.D. in chemical physics from Harvard.
Originally from Chicago, Kurek Ashley has taken himself from being $20 away from being homeless in two countries to now being a millionaire residing on the Sunshine Coast of Australia, while working in over 13 countries around the world, speaking to over 10,000 people a year at his powerful workshops. Kurek is regularly interviewed for stories on his own life and his methods for teaching personal and professional development in magazines, newspapers, TV and talk back radio shows. Kurek is the author of four top-selling personal development audio programs: “Fire Up Your Life,” “Massive Momentum—Serious Success,” “The Powers In The House” and “Power Up To Peak Performance” and the creator of The Life Success Club. Kurek has been referred to as the “Perfect balance between Wayne Dyer and Anthony Robbins.”
Linda Bacon, Ph.D., earned her doctorate in physiology, specializing in weight regulation, from the University of California, Davis. She also holds graduate degrees in psychology, specializing in eating disorders and body image, and exercise science, specializing in metabolism, and has professional experience as a researcher, clinical psychotherapist, exercise physiologist and educator.
Dr. Bacon is currently an associate nutritionist at the University of California, Davis and the lead investigator for a clinical research study that evaluates the Health at Every Size program, co-sponsored by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. She is also a nutrition professor in the biology department at City College of San Francisco. Additionally, she maintains a private practice, advising individuals, health care professionals and institutions on strategies for implementing the Health at Every Size program.
Virginia Baker lives in Utah with a flock of large birds and the cats who fear them. She has a master’s degree in English, but learned to write by reading really good books. A freelancer by day, she also writes award-winning fiction. Her first book, Jack Knife, published by Penguin, is a thriller revolving around Jack the Ripper. Whether she’s creating or consuming them, she loves books like bon-bons—and believes that while reality may be the essential meat and potatoes of life, a good read is pure chocolate.
Lauren Baratz-Logsted lives in Danbury, Conn., with her husband Greg Logsted and their gorgeous daughter Jackie. Lauren is the author of the published novels The Thin Pink Line, Crossing the Line, A Little Change of Face and How Nancy Drew Saved My Life, all dark comedies; Vertigo, a literary novel set in the Victorian era with erotic and suspense undertones; and the forthcoming young adult novel Angel’s Choice. Lauren also has an essay in BenBella’s Jane Austen–themed anthology Flirting with Pride & Prejudice and is the editor of and a contributor to BenBella’s This is Chick-Lit.
Daniel Barbour is co-editor and maintainer of Halo.Bungie.Org’s Halo Story Page; he works as a writer and editor, spends an equal if not greater time hobbying at the same and is currently in the final, fatigued stumbles of an oft postponed philosophy and English double major. Barbour hails from Seven Persons, Alberta, and lives a life of contrasts: striving to learn the Means Simplistic, yet invariably turning his head to catch each flashing and zapping that electric modernity has to offer. Daniel and his wife, Renae, enjoy taking time to garden, make soap and (to an increasingly questionable extent) continue renovations in their (increasingly less decrepit) 1910 coal mansion.
Mike W. Barr has contributed to some of pop culture’s most enduring series, including Sherlock Holmes, Ellery Queen, Star Trek, Star Wars, Doc Savage, the Shadow and Batman. He’s also created some, including the comic book series Camelot 3000, Batman and the Outsiders, The Maze Agency and Mantra. In 2003 he published the Star Trek novel Gemini and is currently marketing two original fantasy novels. He has written numerous short stories; this fall his book on science fiction comic books of the Silver Age, The Silver Age Sci-Fi Companion, will be published by TwoMorrows. He lives in a house with too many cats and not enough books.
C. J. Barry is an award-winning author whose love of the paranormal began young, with science fiction novels and her brother’s comic books. An earthbound wife and mother of two, C. J. lives with her family and cat in a small town in upstate New York where she works as an information technology manager. She is a member of the Romance Writers of America, the Fantasy, Futuristic & Paranormal chapter and president of the Central New York Romance Writers. For more information, visit her Web site at www.cjbarry.com.
Bob Batchelor is an award-winning writer and historian. He teaches public relations in the School of Mass Communications at the University of South Florida. A noted expert on American popular culture, he is the author or editor of the books: The 1900s (Greenwood Press, 2002), a history of the first decade of the 20th century from a popular culture perspective; editor of Basketball in America: From the Playgrounds to Jordan’s Game and Beyond (Haworth Press, 2005); co-author of a study on the development of consumer culture and marketing: Kotex, Kleenex, Huggies: Kimberly-Clark and the Consumer Revolution in American Business (The Ohio State University Press, 2004); and co-author of The 1980s (Greenwood Press, 2006). His fiction has appeared in The Pebble Lake Review. Bob has published more than 500 articles and essays in magazines, Web sites, and reference works, including the Dictionary of American History, Inside Business magazine and The American Prospect Online. His essays have appeared in newspapers in California, Tennessee and Delaware. Bob graduated from the University of Pittsburgh with degrees in history, philosophy and political science. He received an M.A. in history from Kent State University. He has taught history and nonfiction writing at Cleveland State University and Neumann College. Visit him online at www.bobbatchelor.com.
Robert Batsell, Ph.D., is originally from Brownsville, Texas. He earned bachelor’s degrees in biology and psychology from Southern Methodist University, and his Ph.D. in experimental psychology from Texas Christian University. Currently he is the Kurt D. Kaufman Associate Professor and Chair of Psychology at Kalamazoo College. He is a biopsychologist whose teaching interests include general psychology, experimental psychology, psychology of learning and biopsychology. His research focuses on the learning mechanisms that underlie food aversions in humans and nonhumans. He spends way too much of his time watching “Survivor” along with his 9-year-old son Evan. He is indebted to Karen Doyle, Dan Jacobson, Suzanne MacDonald and Andy Mozina for their feedback on his manuscript.
Stephen Baxter was born in Liverpool, England, in 1957. He is a chartered engineer. He applied to become a cosmonaut in 1991—aiming for the guest slot on Mir eventually taken by Helen Sharman—but fell at an early hurdle. His first professionally published short story appeared in 1987, and his science fiction novels have been published in the U.K., the U.S. and many other countries. His most recent books include Exultant (Del Rey, 2005), part of a series called Destiny’s Children; and Time’s Eye (Del Rey, 2004), the first of a new collaborative series with Sir Arthur C. Clarke called A Time Odyssey.
Peter S. Beagle is the author of The Last Unicorn, A Fine and Private Place and The Inkeeper’s Song among other works of fiction and nonfiction. He was born in New York City, now lives in Oakland, Calif., and has recently completed a new novel entitled Summerlong.
Sandy Becker has been a practicing scientist for 27 years. The first 25 years were spent doing research in developmental biology at Wesleyan University in Connecticut. To supplement her income she moonlighted as a science journalist. Before discovering her true calling as a biologist she worked as a writer of civil service tests, a fifth-grade teacher, a folk singer and a mom. Since leaving Wesleyan she has worked for Advanced Cell Technology, a biotech company in Massachusetts, hoping to make something medically useful out of embryonic stem cells.
Melissa J. Beers is senior lecturer and Psychology 100 Program Director at Ohio State University, where she teaches several courses, including introductory social psychology, statistics and the teaching of psychology. She is also vice president of the Strategic Research Group (SRG), a research and consulting firm based in Columbus, Ohio, as well as a wife and a very proud mother of a 3-year-old son. She received her Ph.D. in experimental social psychology from Ohio University. Had she been privileged to attend Hogwarts, she would have hoped to be sorted into Ravenclaw.
In 1992 James John Bell left a four-year career in television news with ABC to support Native American sovereignty struggles with creative media strategies and award-winning documentary video-making. In 1996 he founded CounterMedia in Chicago to provide alternative media coverage of the Democratic National Convention, helping to lay the foundation for the Indy Media Center and today’s global independent media movement. James was the writer/director at the Chicago-based nonprofit public interest communications firm Sustain, where he managed advertising and public relations campaigns for critical environmental and social issues surrounding biotechnology, energy, land use and transportation for the Sierra Club, Rainforest Action Network, Earthjustice, Friends of the Earth and the Center for Food Safety, among others. His work has appeared in many publications, most notably the New York Times Magazine, the Washington Post and Communication Arts. James is currently an award-winning advocacy advertising writer and producer for print, television, radio and the Web for the nonprofit communications firm that he co-founded in 2003 called SmartMeme.com. His clients include national nonprofits, like Greenpeace and the Breast Cancer Fund, and SmartMeme now has offices and staff on the West Coast, East Coast, Midwest and Northwest. An avid gamer, hacker and writer, he continues to write about social issues and technology for a number of countercultural magazines and Web sites like Clamor, the Earth First! Journal and Verbicide, as well as mainstream science and technology publications, like the Futurist. He recently authored the afterword to the eco-sci-fi classic The Sheep Look Up by science fiction legend John Brunner, published by Benbella Books.
Between 1996 and 2002, Raymond Benson was commissioned by the James Bond literary copyright holders to take over writing the 007 novels. In total he penned and published worldwide six original 007 novels (including Zero Minus Ten and The Man with the Red Tattoo), three film novelizations, and three short stories. His classic encyclopedic work on the 007 phenomenon, The James Bond Bedside Companion, was first published in 1984 and was nominated for an Edgar Allan Poe Award by Mystery Writers of America for Best Biographical/Critical Work. Raymond has also written non-Bond novels: Face Blind (2003) and Evil Hours (2004). Using the pseudonym David Michaels, Raymond is also the author of the bestselling books Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell (2004) and its sequel Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell—Operation Barracuda (2005), both New York Times bestsellers. Raymond’s most recent original suspense novel is Sweetie’s Diamonds, published in 2006. www.raymondbenson.com
Bob Berman is one of the best known and most widely read astronomers in the world. He’s Astronomy magazine’s “Strange Universe” columnist as well as Discover Magazine’s astronomy columnist since 1989, and is responsible for the astronomy section of the Old Farmers Almanac. He is perhaps uniquely able to translate complex scientific concepts into language that is understandable to the casual observer yet meaningful to the most advanced.
Freelance columnist Amy Berner is obsessed with television. Although she spends much of her time as an event planner, she pops up in various places with reviews and essays, primarily covering genre television. She has appeared in several Smart Pop anthologies, including Five Seasons of Angel, The Anthology at the End of the Universe, Alias Assumed, Farscape Forever and Getting Lost. She lives in San Diego.
Abbie Bernstein: Writer G.O. Likeskill is a journalist currently taking a sabbatical at the world-famous Arkham Asylum. Visiting days are Tuesdays and Thursdays, which are connected by Wednesdays.
Bruce Bethke was a regular contributor to Amazing Stories in the 1980s and 1990s, as well as to a wide variety of other magazines. A critically acclaimed and award-winning science fiction novelist, he takes strangely perverse pride in knowing that he once managed to convince the editor of Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine that his unabashed swashbuckling pirate story was in fact a science fiction story. Bethke can be contacted through his Web site, www.BruceBethke.com.
The Anthology at the End of the Universe
Jo Beverley is the bestselling author of 27 historical romance novels, most set in and around the Regency period. She is a five-time winner of the RITA award, the top award in romance fiction, and a member of the RWA Hall of Fame for Regency romance. She is also on the RWA Honor Roll. Her latest publication is A Most Unsuitable Man (NAL, February 2005). www.jobev.com
Jason Biro has more than 12 years of lending experience. Unlike a typical corporate executive, Jason works hands-on with homeowners from all backgrounds. Jason is vice president/CFO of Team One Lending, a residential and commercial firm located in Wellington, Fla. He also conducts classes and training for local mortgage brokers. Jason is the exclusive mortgage expert for WFLX Fox 29 News. He lives with his wife in Lake Worth, Fla.
Robert Biswas-Diener is known as the “Indiana Jones” of positive psychology. His studies on culture and happiness have taken him to such far-flung places as Greenland, India, Kenya and Israel. He is also a career coach and is program director for Education and Learning for the Center for Applied Positive Psychology (CAPP). He lives in Portland, Ore.
Jake Black, a native of Orem, Utah, graduated from Brigham Young University with a degree in history. He has spent the last six years contributing to numerous “Smallville” projects, including short stories, DVD features, Web articles and comics. He has published licensed work on “Superman Returns,” WWE, Star Trek and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and has had essays in several academic publications. He is also a prolific comic book writer, having been published by DC, Marvel and several independent companies. Visit jakeblack.com for more.
Survivor, expert and activist Jodee Blanco is one of the country’s pre-eminent voices on the subject of school bullying. She is the author of the New York Times bestseller Please Stop Laughing At Me … One Woman’s Inspirational Story. A chronicle of her years as the student outcast, the book inspired a movement inside the nation’s schools and is swiftly becoming an American classic. Referred to by many as “the anti-bullying bible,” it is required reading in hundreds of middle and high schools and numerous universities throughout the country. Please Stop Laughing at Me … has also been recognized as an essential resource by the National Crime Prevention Council, the Department of Health & Human Services, the National Association of Youth Courts, Special Olympics, the FCCLA (Future Community and Career Leaders of America), Teacher Magazine and hundreds of state and local organizations from the PTA and regional law enforcement coalitions to school safety groups. Blanco’s highly anticipated sequel, Please Stop Laughing at Us … One Survivor’s Extraordinary Quest to Prevent School Bullying, is written in response to the demand for more information from her core audience—teens, teachers, parents and other Adult Survivors of Peer Abuse like herself, who have come to know Blanco as the champion of their cause. It provides advice and solutions set against the backdrop of her dramatic personal and professional journey as the survivor who unexpectedly finds herself the country’s most sought-after anti-bullying activist.
In addition to her books, Blanco’s unprecedented approach to shifting the social dynamic of America’s schools is saving lives and making headlines throughout the United States. She’s presented It’s NOT Just Joking Around!™, her acclaimed anti-bullying program, to a combined audience of over 500,000 students, teachers and parents nationwide at the behest of such entities as the United States Department of the Interior, the United States Department of Justice, the National Catholic Educational Association, the Illinois Association of School Boards and scores of local school districts, many of whom are adopting her initiatives as part of their core bullying prevention curriculum. It’s NOT Just Joking Around!™ has also generated tens of thousands of dollars in grant awards for schools and organizations coast to coast.
Blanco has successfully intervened in numerous bullying-related attempted suicides and acts of student retaliation. She is a respected crisis management consultant and expert witness in the areas of school violence and peer abuse, and is frequently called upon by the media as an expert interview. Some of the outlets who have turned to her for commentary include Newsweek, CNN, NBC, FOX, “The John Walsh Show” and National Public Radio. She is also the resident authority on school bullying for Meredith Vieira’s popular parenting Web site CafeMom.com. Blanco’s life story has been featured in Parade, Teen Newsweek, Teen Guideposts, Hispanic, the Chicago Tribune, the St. Petersburg Times and hundreds of local daily newspapers across the United States and is part of a permanent exhibit at the Chicago National Historical Society.
A tireless advocate for the shunned and forgotten student, Blanco’s rare understanding of why kids abuse other kids comes from a deep personal place. From fifth grade through the end of high school, she was rejected and tormented by her peers simply for being different and knows firsthand what it’s like to contemplate retaliation. As an adult, she decided to go public with her story because she was frustrated by society’s misconceptions about the true cause of the school tragedies such as Columbine. Since the release of Please Stop Laughing At Me …, Blanco has committed her life to turning her pain into purpose. Inspired by the thousands of letters and requests she receives for help, she travels around the country sharing her story of forgiveness and triumph. One of the most sought-after keynote speakers and seminar presenters, Blanco’s anti-bullying initiatives are redefining the scope of possibilities for curbing suffering in our schools worldwide.
Blanco’s work has been published in Japanese, Danish and Arabic. She lives in the suburbs of Chicago with her husband and family where she is currently at work on a series of anti-bullying related fiction titles for young adults. For more information on Blanco’s anti-bullying work, visit her Web site at www.jodeeblanco.com. Information on her consulting company can be found at The Blanco Group.
Alex Bledsoe, author of The Sword-Edged Blonde (Night Shade, 2007), picked Batman as his favorite superhero around age 4, according to his mother. Except for those awful Schumacher years, he’s never regretted his choice.
Lawrence Block is the author of The Burglar in the Rye, Hit List, Hope to Die and Tanner on Ice. His articles and short stories have appeared in American Heritage, GQ, The New York Times, Playboy and Redbook. He is a Grand Master of the Mystery Writers of America and has won the Edgar, Japanese Maltese Falcon, Nero Wolfe and Shamus awards. He lives in New York City.
Paul Bloom is a professor of psychology at Yale University who does research on language and development. He is the author of Descartes’ Baby: How the Science of Child Development Explains What Makes Us Human.
Bob Bly is the author of more than 60 books including The Ultimate Unauthorized Star Trek Quiz Book (HarperCollins), Why You Should Never Beam Down in a Red Shirt (HarperCollins) and Comic Book Heroes: 1,001 Trivia Questions About America’s Favorite Superheroes (Carol Publishing Group). A science fiction fan since age 12, he has read more than 500 science fiction novels and stories, and seen dozens of science fiction films. Bob has sold short fiction to Galaxy science fiction magazine. Bob’s science credentials include a B.S. in chemical engineering and articles in such publications as Chemical Engineering, Chemical Engineering Progress and Science Books & Films. He has been a member of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers since 1979.
Peter J. Boettke is an economics professor at George Mason University and the author of several books on the history, collapse, and transition from socialism in the former Soviet Union. His most recent books are Calculation and Coordination (Routledge, London, 2001) and The Economic Way of Thinking (Prentice Hall, 2002). Before joining the faculty at GMU, Boettke taught at New York University and was a National Fellow at the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace at Stanford University. Boettke earned his Ph.D. at George Mason University and his B.A. at Grove City College.
Samantha has written about film and television for Playboy.com, PopMatters.com and ShinyGun.com, the magazine she founded with fellow Northwestern grads in 2000. She lives in Chicago and is at work on a novel about Everygirls (and boys) grown up.
Mary Borsellino lives in Australia and writes whatever and whenever she can. She’s contributed to a number of essay collections about comic books, and founded the Web site Girl-Wonder.org in 2006. As much as she adores spending her days putting words together into thoughts, she also enjoys being distracted as frequently as possible, so please feel free to drop her a line at mizmary@gmail.com any time.
Dr. Nick Bostrom is a philosopher at Yale University. He founded the World Transhumanist Association in 1998 (with David Pearce) and is a frequent spokesperson and commentator in the media. Bostrom’s research interests are in philosophy of science probability theory, and the ethical and strategic implications of anticipated technologies (including AI, nanotech, genetics, etc.). He has a background in cosmology, computational neuroscience, mathematical logic, philosophy, artificial intelligence and stand-up comedy, and is the author of the book Anthropic Bias: Observation Selection Effects in Science and Philosophy (Routledge, New York, 2002).
Sharon Bowers is an independent scholar who is interested in the intersections of gender, narrative and popular culture. She has presented at national and regional pop culture conferences on texts such as “ER,” “Fastlane” and “The L-Word.” The author of the novel Lucifer Rising and a contributor to the NYPD Blue anthology What Would Sipowicz Do?, she is currently working on a book-length examination of competitive discourses of sexuality in primetime television. As someone who considers herself a free-floating signifier, she admires Edie’s interrogative potential (if not her fashion sense) but wishes she had Bree’s proficiency with a handgun (not to mention a basket of her muffins).
Scott Boyter is editor of the Dallas Sports Page. He resides in Dallas.
Gayle Brandeis is an award-winning author whose first book, Fruitflesh: Seeds of Inspiration for Women Who Write, has been adopted by writers worldwide. Gayle’s novel The Book of Dead Birds won Barbara Kingsolver’s Bellwether Prize for Fiction in Support of a Literature of Social Change in 2002, and was published by HarperCollins. Her poetry, fiction and essays have appeared in dozens of magazines and anthologies, including Salon.com, Nerve.com, Hip Mama and The Oy of Sex: Jewish Women Write Erotica. Gayle’s second novel, Self Storage, will be published by Ballantine in January 2007. Gayle, who was named a Writer Who Makes a Difference by The Writer Magazine, is writer-in-residence for the Mission Inn Foundation’s Family Voices Project, and teaches writing throughout Southern California. She lives in Riverside, Calif., with her husband and their two children.
Patricia Bray is the author of the award-winning fantasy Devlin’s Luck, which is the first novel in her bestselling Sword of Change trilogy. Patricia balances her writing with a full-time career as an IT project manager and claims credit for turning her coworkers into fellow “Farscape” fans. In 2006 she’ll launch a new fantasy series with the publication of The First Betrayal. For more information about her books and upcoming convention appearances visit her Web site at www.patriciabray.com.
David Brin’s bestselling SF novels have won Hugo, Nebula and other awards and have been translated into 20 languages. His 1989 thriller Earth foreshadowed global warming, cyberwarfare and the Web. A 1998 movie was loosely adapted from his Campbell Award winner The Postman, while Foundation’s Triumph brought a grand finale to Isaac Asimov’s famed Foundation universe. Kiln People portrays people using “home copiers” to be in two places at once. David’s nonfiction book The Transparent Society deals with openness, security and liberty in the future; it won the Freedom of Speech Award of the American Library Association.
Maurice Broaddus holds a Bachelor of Science degree in biology (with an undeclared major in English) from Purdue University and works as an environmental toxicologist. He has been involved in ministry work for well over a decade and is in the process of becoming a pastor and planting a church. His horror fiction has been published in numerous magazines and Web sites. His television reviews can be read at the Hollywood Jesus Web site (www.hollywoodjesus.com). He is married to the lovely Sally Jo and enjoys life with two sons, Reese and Malcolm. Learn more at www.MauriceBroaddus.com.
Summer Brooks is an avid reader and writer of fantasy and science fiction, with a deep passion for good SF television and movies in general. That passion led her into the den of the Dragon Page Radio, a haven where she could likely live happily ever after. She started out as a book reviewer for the talk shows, but soon after experiencing the fun of live radio, she became an additional on-air voice for many of the Dragon Page talk shows and podcasts. A year and a half later, FarPoint Media was created as a parent umbrella for the growing number of shows Michael and Evo manage, and Summer is now producer and co-host for five of those shows. She handles the guest interview bookings for “Slice of SciFi,” “Cover to Cover,” and “With Class,” and is featured on “Slice of SciFi,” “The Babylon Podcast,” and “The Kick-Ass Mystic Ninjas” shows. In addition to reveling in many SF media venues, Summer is hard at work writing articles and novels, and she desires to write and produce a TV series or miniseries that leaves a mark on people. Summer is also a Web admin and novice designer and a licensed massage therapist, and has a small but happy client base for both endeavors. More info on the FarPoint Media shows can be found at farpointmedia.net.
Alan Brown, Ph.D., has been a professor of psychology at Southern Methodist University for the past 30 years. He has published more than 50 professional articles and four books in the area of human memory processes. He lives in Dallas.
Tiffany Lee Brown is a writer, performer and interdisciplinary artist based in Portland, Ore. She is the editor of 2GQ, the literature and media arm of the non-profit 2 Gyrlz Performative Arts, and is presently a guest editor for PLAZM magazine. Her work is published in periodicals such as Bookforum, Utne, Bust, Tin House and Art Access, and in anthologies including The Bust Guide to the New Girl Order, Gargoyle, Slow Trains, Northwest Edge and The Clear Cut Future. She has performed at the Portland Rose Festival, Wordstock, Burning Man, Performance Works NW, the Richard Foreman Festival, the Enteractive Language Festival, the Dark Arts Festival and others. She is currently collaborating with book artist Clare Carpenter on A Compendium of Miniatures, to be published by 2GQ in late 2006. Tiffany would like to thank Soapstone for offering her the wonderful residency at which she was able to finish this piece, and Bill Palmer for his invaluable insights. Tiffany welcomes online visitors at www.magdalen.com and at 2GQ.org.
Dr. Ian Browne is the pseudonym for a well-known figure who, for reasons of security, must remain anonymous. A dashing, passionate figure, Dr. Browne has had a diverse career, including time as a jet fighter pilot, professional pool hustler and paid assassin. He spent many years in Japan mastering the ancient art of Bushido and has been rumored to have worked for a clandestine intelligence organization. Dr. Browne has been married to two, and soon three, of the world’s most beautiful women. A polymath, Dr. Browne is an expert in many fields, including the history of psychiatry. He divides his time between London and Los Angeles.
David Bruce is a film critic with a background in both television and theology. He is founder of the popular hollywoodjesus.com, which views popular culture from a spiritual point of view. He has served as an administrator for NBC in California, received his Master of Divinity degree from North Park University Seminary in Chicago and has pastored three churches. He travels extensively, speaking at schools, conferences and churches. He currently resides with his family in southern Oregon.
Karin H. Bruckner, M.A., L.P.C., is a writer, researcher and licensed therapist with a master’s degree in psychology from Texas Woman’s University. Her interests center on gender, spirituality and the development of healthy paradigms for experiencing anger on a personal as well as a global level. She is the mother of three children and, along with her kiwi husband, currently enjoys a bi-continental lifestyle in the U.S. and New Zealand.
John Brunner was the author of dozens of science fiction novels, including Shockwave Rider and Stand on Zanzibar, winner of the Hugo Award.
Charlene Brusso is a New England–based freelance writer and science fiction/fantasy author with a B.S. in physics and astronomy from the University of Rochester. She has written for BenBella Books’s Farscape Forever!, as well as an array of magazines and venues, from Amazon.com and Amazing Stories to Publishers Weekly and Playgirl. As Tastykakes are not available in her neck of the woods, she swears by chocolate clouds and Key lime cheesecake from Trader Joe’s.
Ginjer Buchanan, born in Pittsburgh long enough ago to remember the invention of television, moved to New York City to work in social services. She also freelanced for Pocket Books as consulting editor for the Star Trek novel program. In 1984, she was offered a full-time job as an editor at Ace Books. Her current title is senior executive editor and marketing director, Ace/Roc books. Her first novel, a “Highlander” tie-in titled White Silence, was published in February of 1999, and she had an essay in the third “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” episode guide.
A graduate of Wilmington College in Ohio, David E. Bumbaugh is a Unitarian Universalist minister who has served congregations in the Midwest and the Northeast for 40 years. He is currently a professor of ministry at Meadville Lombard Theological School in Chicago since 1999. The author of two books, The Education of God (1994) and Unitarian Universalism: A Narrative History (2000), he has contributed articles to various journals, chapters for several books and poems to various publications.
Alafair Burke is an author and law professor. After graduating with distinction from Stanford Law School and serving as a deputy district attorney in Portland, Ore., she is now an associate professor at Hofstra Law School and frequently serves as a legal and trial commentator for radio and television programs. She lives in New York City and is the author of the Samantha Kincaid series of mystery novels (Judgment Calls, Missing Justice and Close Case). Her first stand-alone thriller, Dead Connection, will be published in July 2007. Alafair welcomes contact from readers at www.alafairburke.com.
Maggie Burns is an aspiring television writer and novelist living in Los Angeles. Educated at Oberlin College and Penn State University, she very nearly completed a Ph.D. in comparative literature, in the course of which she learned an awful lot of ancient, medieval and modern languages, as well as how to write for television. She has taught literature and writing at the University of Pennsylvania, Temple University and Willamette University. A lifelong musician and omnivorous reader, she writes incessantly, knits, quilts, repairs engines, watches a lot of quality television, works at a major studio and climbs Mt. Hollywood as often as possible.
Michael A. Burstein, winner of the 1997 Campbell Award for Best New Writer, has earned 10 Hugo nominations and two Nebula nominations for his short fiction. Burstein grew up in Forest Hills, Queens, but now lives with his wife Nomi in Brookline, Mass., where he is an elected town meeting member and library trustee. He has two degrees in physics and attended the Clarion Workshop. He taught science for many years and he currently edits science textbooks. More information on Burstein and his work, as well a link to his blog, can be found on his Web page, www.mabfan.com.
Jim Butcher is a martial arts enthusiast with 15 years of experience in various styles, including Ryukyu Kempo, Tae Kwon Do, Gojo Shorei Ryu and a sprinkling of kung fu. He enjoys fencing, singing, bad science fiction movies and live-action gaming. He is the author of the Dresden Files series, which includes Storm Front, Fool Moon, Grave Peril, Summer Knight, Death Masks and Blood Rites, as well as the Codex Alera series. He lives in Missouri with his wife, son and a vicious guard dog.
Lorie Byrd has been a big fan of television and a follower of politics her entire life. She graduated from N.C. State University in 1988 with a B.A. in political science. In April 2004, she became a contributor to Polipundit.com, a political blog, and in 2005 began writing at Townhall.com, where she is currently a weekly columnist. She also writes a monthly column for the Washington, D.C., edition of The Examiner where she is a member of the Blog Board of Contributors. She now blogs at Wizbangblog.com and at LorieByrd.com. Lorie lives with her husband and two daughters in North Carolina.
Mike Byrne is an assistant (but hopefully associate by the time you read this) professor of psychology at Rice University in Houston, though he grew up in Minneapolis. He has an advanced love-hate relationship with all forms of technology, particularly computers. Mike’s research is focused on computer simulation of human cognition and performance, in order to better understand how to design technology that more effectively meshes with human capabilities. When not working, Mike spends most of his time with his wife and two boys (ages 1 1/2 and 5 at the time of this writing), neither of whom will hopefully turn out too much like Bart.
Marie-Catherine Caillava is a mutant living in London. She’s a ghostwriter, translator and radio critic specialized in SF. Her special powers are getting the printer stuck five minutes before the publisher rings at the door, and reading her dog’s mind, especially at eleven p.m. when it’s raining outside. Her hobbies are Zen calligraphy, Kyudo and daydreaming about peace on earth.
Laura Caldwell, who lives in Chicago with her husband, left a successful career as a trial attorney to become a novelist. She is the author of Burning the Map, A Clean Slate, The Year of Living Famously, The Night I Got Lucky and two novels of suspense, Look Closely and The Rome Affair. She is a contributing editor at Lake Magazine and an adjunct professor of law at Loyola University Chicago School of Law. Laura is frequently compared to Bree on “Desperate Housewives,” but she holds steadfast to the reasoning that this is only because of her red hair.
Todd M. Callais is a Ph.D. candidate in the department of sociology at the Ohio State University. His research interests are criminology, inequality and the sociology of culture. His recent research has focused on the social impact of popular culture as well as stigma management techniques for people leaving prison. Most recently his work has been published in the book How Real is Reality TV: Essays on Representation and Truth. Todd lives in Columbus, Ohio, with his wife Melissa and his dogs, Mr. Bojangles and Cash: The Dog in Black.
For more than 40 years, Dr. T. Colin Campbell has been at the forefront of nutrition research. His legacy, the China Study, is the most comprehensive study of health and nutrition ever conducted. Dr. Campbell is Jacob Gould Schurman Professor Emeritus of Nutritional Biochemisty at Cornell University. He has received more than 70 grant-years of peer-reviewed research funding and authored more than 300 research papers. The China Study was the culmination of a 20-year partnership of Cornell University, Oxford University and the Chinese Academy of Preventive Medicine.
A 1999 graduate of Cornell University, Thomas Campbell is currently pursuing a career in medicine. In addition, he is a writer, actor and three-time marathon runner. Born and raised in Ithaca, N.Y., he has appeared on stage in London, Chicago and most of the states east of the Mississippi River. Mr. Campbell enjoys playing soccer, skiing and hiking.
Dr. John K. Cannizzo grew up in Deming, NM. He graduated from the University of New Mexico with a double major in astrophysics and mathematics (B.S., 1979). He pursued graduate studies at the University of Texas at Austin in theoretical astrophysics (M.A., 1981; Ph.D., 1984). He was a post-doctoral researcher at Harvard University and an Alexander von Humboldt Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics. John is currently a research professor through the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, working at the Goddard Space Flight Center on various projects in computational astrophysics.
Andrea Carlo Cappi, a thriller writer born in Milan, Italy, in 1964, created his own serial characters and turned into literary heroes two famous Italian comic book characters, Martin Mystery and Diabolik. He has published various essays, and a bestselling book on 007 written with Orson Scott Card.
Orson Scott Card, the author of Ender’s Game, Ender’s Shadow, Magic Street and Enchantment, is a distinguished professor of writing and literature at Southern Virginia University.
Jacqueline Carey is the bestselling author of the critically acclaimed Kushiel’s Legacy trilogy of historical fantasy novels and the Sundering epic fantasy duology. Jacqueline enjoys doing research on a wide variety of arcane topics, and an affinity for travel has taken her from Finland to Egypt to date. She currently lives in west Michigan, where she is a member of the oldest Mardi Gras krewe in the state. Although often asked by inquiring fans, she does not, in fact, have any tattoos.
Author and screenwriter Deanna Carlyle writes comedy, mysteries and thrillers. She is the winner of the James D. Phelan Literary Award and co-founder of the International Women’s Fiction Festival held each year in Matera, Italy. Visit her online at www.deannacarlyle.com.
Alan Carroll is one of the pre-eminent authorities worldwide on teaching IT professionals the art of public speaking. A transpersonal psychologist who has combined his clinical study of the human mind with his natural talent as a speaker, he travels around the globe at the behest of such influential corporations as Cisco Systems, AT&T, Nortel, Avaya, Symantec Corporation, among many others to work with their IT personnel. From struggling third-world countries to prosperous European cities, Carroll’s innovative approach to training IT professionals how to connect with live audiences and turn abstract concepts into compelling conversation continues to impact the careers of thousands.
Marked for life by reading Dracula at the age of 12, Margaret L. Carter specializes in the literature of fantasy and the supernatural, particularly vampires. She received degrees in English from the College of William and Mary, the University of Hawaii and the University of California. Her nonfiction works include Dracula: The Vampire and the Critics, The Vampire In Literature: A Critical Biography and Different Blood: The Vampire as Alien. She is also the author of a werewolf novel, Shadow of the Beast, and three vampire novels, Dark Changeling (2000 Eppie Award winner in horror), Sealed In Blood and Crimson Dreams. With her husband, retired navy captain Leslie Roy Carter, she co-authored a fantasy novel Wild Sorceress. She has recently ventured into erotic romance with three vampire novellas, “Night Flight,” “Tall, Dark, and Deadly” and “Virgin Blood” from Ellora’s Cave (www.ellorascave.com). Visit her Web site, www.margaretlcarter.com.
Joe Casey is the writer and co-creator of comic book series such as Automatic Kafka, Gødland, The Intimates, Codeflesh, The Milkman Murders and Secret I.D. He has also written for the major superhero franchises at both Marvel Comics and DC Comics, including Uncanny X-Men, Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, Fantastic Four: First Family, Adventures of Superman, Wildcats, G.I. Joe: America’s Elite, The Incredible Hulk, Batman: Tenses and Iron Man: The Inevitable. He lives and works in Los Angeles.
Peter Cashwell is a University of North Carolina graduate. Peter’s book The Verb ‘To Bird’ was named a Barnes & Noble “Discover Great New Writers” selection in summer 2003, as well as a Book Sense 76 selection. The book’s irreverent tone and eclectic approach to its subject attracted attention from a wide variety of sources. Martha Stewart chatted with Peter on an episode of “Martha Stewart Living.” John Hanson Mitchell, editor of Sanctuary, the Massachusetts Audubon Society’s journal, called the book “[a] fine literary ramble and a good laugh to boot—no mean feat in a genre that perhaps takes itself too seriously.” The Bloomsbury Review described the book as “[a] delightfully literary and eclectic memoir about the manifold joys of birding” and its author as “[a] very literate, observant, insightful storyteller.” Peter’s work has appeared in The Comics Journal, the Readerville Journal and Woodberry Forest Magazine, as well as on WVTF public radio. He lives with his wife, Kelly Dalton, and their two sons in Woodberry Forest, Va., where he teaches English and speech.
P.C. Cast is the New York Times bestselling author of the House of Night series (Marked, Betrayed, Chosen, Untamed) with her daughter, Kristin Cast. She lives in Tulsa, Okla.
John E. Castaldo, M.D., is the chief of the Division of Neurology at Lehigh Valley Hospital (LVH), led neuroscience research for 20 years and heads the nationally recognized LVH Stroke Center. He is professor of clinical medicine (neurology) at Penn State College of Medicine. He has published many articles in the field of cerebrovascular disease and won the Cardiovascular/Neurovascular Care Award from the American Heart Association for his clinical work in the field. He lives in Allentown, Pa.
The Man with the Iron Tattoo and Other True Tales of Uncommon Widsom
Adam-Troy Castro is a well-known author of science fiction, fantasy and horror whose short stories have received five nominations for the Nebula Award, two for the Hugo Award and one for the Stoker. In 2007 he and collaborator Jerry Oltion shared the Seiun Award for best work translated into Japanese, for their acclaimed novella “The Astronaut from Wyoming.” His prior books include Emissaries from the Dead (Harper Collins, first in a series of novels about interstellar investigator Andrea Cort), the Sinister Six trilogy and nonfiction volumes examining the Harry Potter phenomenon and the television show “The Amazing Race.” A full-time writer when he isn’t procrastinating, Adam lives in Miami with his wife Judi and a motley assortment of anarchist cats that includes Meow Farrow and Uma Furman. For further information, including essays, artwork, fiction excerpts and regular updates on forthcoming work, please check out Adam’s Web site at www.sff.net/people/adam-troy.
The Anthology at the End of the Universe
Jeanne Cavelos began her professional life as an astrophysicist, working in the Astronaut Training Division at NASA’s Johnson Space Center. After earning her M.F.A. in creative writing, she moved into a career in publishing, becoming a senior editor at Bantam Doubleday Dell, where she created and launched the Abyss imprint of psychological horror, for which she won the World Fantasy Award, and ran the science fiction/fantasy publishing program. Jeanne left New York to pursue her own writing career. Her books include the bestselling Passing of the Techno-Mages trilogy, the highly praised science books The Science of Star Wars and The Science of The X-Files, and the anthology The Many Faces of Van Helsing. Her work has twice been nominated for the Bram Stoker Award.
Michael Chabon is the author of two short story collections and four novels, including The Mysteries of Pitssburg, Wonder Boys, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, which won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2001, and the young adult novel Summerland. Originally published in the Paris Review and awarded its Aga Khan Prize, his most recent book is the novella “The Final Solution.” Chabon’s work has appeared in such magazines as The New Yorker, Harper’s, GQ, Esquire and Playboy, and in a number of anthologies, among them The O. Henry Prize Stories and Best American Short Stories. He lives in Berkeley, Calif., with his wife, Ayelet Waldman, also a novelist, and their four children.
Mark Changizi is an assistant professor of cognitive science at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. His research areas tend to concern the evolutionary function and design principles governing complex behaviors, perceptions and organisms. His first book appeared in 2003 with Kluwer, an academic monograph called The Brain from 25,000 Feet: High Level Explorations of Brain Complexity, Perception, Induction and Vagueness (Kluwer Academic, Dordrecht). He is the first author on 25 journal articles in diverse topics and Dr. Changizi’s research has been written up in more than 75 magazines and newspapers worldwide, including Time Magazine, Newsweek, USA Today, Discover Magazine, New Scientist (twice), Financial Times, Daily Telegraph (twice), Scientific American, The Times of London, Natural History Magazine, Reuters, ABC News, MSNBC, Fox News, Gehirn & Geist Magazine, Bild der Wissenschaft (twice), Der Standard, Rhein Zeitung, Die Presse, Die Welt, De Morgen, Suddeutsche Zeitung, NRC Handelsblad, Internet Haber, Spiegel and Arzte Zeitung. He has also appeared as a guest on the CBC News “As It Happens” radio show.
Jacob Clifton is a staff writer for the Web site Television Without Pity, writing weekly columns about television topics and series of interest (currently: “The Apprentice,” “Doctor Who,” “Battlestar Galactica” and “American Idol”). Excerpts of his writing have been used as readings for graduate and undergraduate classes in women’s studies, media studies and psychology. Other media credits include appearances on “E! True Hollywood Story,” commentary on media topics for MTV News, and several national newspapers and radio shows. Jacob lives and writes in Austin, Texas, and is currently editing his novels Red Settlement and Serious Vanity for publication.
Jennifer Coburn is a chick-lit writer living in San Diego with her husband William and their daughter Katie. She is the author of The Wife of Reilly, Reinventing Mona and Tales From the Crib. Coburn’s debut novel has been optioned for film by Freedom Productions and Gold Circle Films. Her fourth novel, a sequel to Tales, will be released in February 2007. She has written for national and regional newspapers and magazines, and especially enjoys writing about mothering.
Britta Coleman writes the column “Practically Parenting” and is the author of Potter Springs, a novel from Warner Books (June 2005). She lives in Fort Worth, Texas, with her husband, two children and a fussy Chihuahua.
James Como is a professor of rhetoric and public communication at York College of the City University of New York and a founding member (1969) of the New York C. S. Lewis Society, the oldest and still the largest of such societies. He has published “C. S. Lewis at the Breakfast Table” and Other Reminiscences and Branches to Heaven: The Geniuses of C. S. Lewis. Parts of this essay have appeared in the latter and in CSL: The Bulletin of the New York C. S. Lewis Society.
Ed Connor, Ph.D., is an associate professor of neuroscience at Johns Hopkins University, where he earned his Ph.D. He lives in Baltimore with his wife Amy and their fiercely independent 2-year-old son Malcolm.
Roxanne Longstreet Conrad is a worrisome confabulation of persons, including Rachel Caine, Julie Fortune, Roxanne Longstreet, Roxanne Conrad and Ian Hammell (she has no idea what Ian writes, actually, and that’s probably for the best). She has Web sites, the most prominent of which is www.rachelcaine.com. Until recently, she was a recovering Harry Potter addict. Sadly, the recovery process ground to a halt after she was discovered gazing dreamily at her lenticular Sirius Black wanted poster and her autographed photo of Snape while holding her Hermione Granger wand and wearing her Time Turner pendant. She also was honored by being appointed Head of Slytherin House at The Witching Hour, a 2005 Harry Potter symposium in Salem, Mass. Blackmail photos abound.
Andrew R. A. Conway is a cognitive neuroscientist who conducts research on individual differences in memory capacity, cognitive control and intelligence. He earned his B.S. in computer science and psychology from Union College (Schenectady, N.Y.) in 1991, and his M.A. and Ph.D. in experimental psychology from the University of South Carolina in 1993 and 1996, respectively. He is currently a lecturer in the Psychology Department at Princeton University where he teaches courses on statistics for psychologists. He also serves on the editorial board of the scientific journal Memory & Cognition. He is single (with no legal right to marriage in his state) and resides in Manhattan.
Gerry Conway has worked in comics since the age of 16 and is best known in Spider-Man circles for scripting the death of Gwen Stacy and for his co-creation of the Punisher. In addition, Conway has written several novels and worked in both film and television as a writer and producer. He lives in Los Angeles.
Chelsea Cooley competed in the Miss Teen USA, Miss USA and Miss Universe pageants and held the Miss USA 2005 title. She was the first Miss North Carolina USA to win the Miss USA crown. Cooley’s pageant consulting company, StandOut Productions, serves 50 clients across a dozen states, 16 of whom went on to compete in the 2008 Miss USA contest.
Carol Cooper is a New York-based journalist and cultural critic who has been writing professionally about books, music, film, pop trends and social issues for over 20 years. Her work has been published in various national and international publications, including Essence, Elle, Latin N.Y., The Face (England), Actuel (France), the Village Voice, the New York Times and Rolling Stone. Her work has been cited in academic journals, and her critical and sociological essays have been included in a number of anthologies, including Rolling Stone: The ’70s (Little, Brown and Company), Brooklyn: A State of Mind (Workman Publishing Company), Dark Matter 2: Reading the Bones (Warner Aspect) and The Rolling Stone Book of Women in Rock (Random House). She is a member of the national nonprofit comics advocacy group Friends of Lulu and a 1974 graduate of the Clarion Writer’s Workshop for Fantasy and Science Fiction. She is widely traveled and holds both B.A. and M.A.L.S. degrees from Wesleyan University in Connecticut.
Harris Cooper is professor of psychology and director of the program in education at Duke University. He studies research methodology and applications of social psychology to educational policy and practice. Dr. Cooper was raised by Fritz Freiling, Hannah Barbera, MGM and the Warner Brothers, while his mother must have been doing something more important. When not watching “The Simpsons,” he is editor of the Psychological Bulletin, the premier journal publishing research syntheses in the social sciences.
Larry Costa is an instructor at Columbia University, the author of Massage Mind and Body, and a fashion and beauty expert who has worked with celebrities such as Julia Roberts, Leonardo DiCaprio, Cameron Diaz, Estée Lauder and Donald Trump. He has been featured on “The Early Show,” “Today” and “What Not to Wear.” He lives in New York City.
Carol Costello founded the Soul of Selling Institute and has been in sales for more than 30 years. She has been a freelance investigative reporter and national magazine writer. She lives in San Francisco.
Nelson Cowan is a cognitive and developmental psychologist with research interests in working memory, attention, intelligence, individual differences and their development across the life span. He earned his B.S. from the University of Michigan in 1973 with an independent major in the neurosciences, and his Ph.D. in psychology at the University of Wisconsin in 1980. He is currently Curators’ Professor of Psychology at the University of Missouri at Columbia and an associate editor of the European Journal of Cognitive Psychology. In the past he has served as associate editor of the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition and of the Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology. In addition to research articles, he has written two books: Attention and Memory: An Integrated Framework (Oxford Press, 1995) and Working Memory Capacity (Psychology Press, in press), and he has edited The Development of Memory in Childhood (Psychology Press, 1997). He is married with a son in high school and an older stepson and stepdaughter.
John Cox was born and raised in Los Angeles, where he attended the USC School of Cinema-Television. John has worked as a professional screenwriter for the last ten years and has written projects for Warner Bros, DreamWorks, MGM, Sony, ABC, CBS, the USA Network and more. John became a Bond fan when he saw his first and still favorite 007 film, The Spy Who Loved Me, in the summer of 1977. He collects James Bond first editions and is also an expert on the life of Harry Houdini. John lives in Hollywood, Calif.
Jennifer Crusie is a New York Times bestselling author whose novels include Bet Me, Faking It and Don’t Look Down (with Bob Mayer). She is a frequent contributor to the Smart Pop series, and editor of Flirting with Pride and Prejudice and Totally Charmed. She holds an M.A. in women’s lit and an M.F.A. in fiction. For more information visit www.jennycrusie.com.
Csilla Csori is a programmer/analyst at the San Diego Supercomputer Center. She works primarily on database and software development for business applications, and she also moonlights as a gremlin hunter for her colleagues when their computer programs start acting funny. Recently, she released version 5.1 of ProBook grant application software she authored for the University of California. It’s one of those pesky projects that started small but took on a life of its own, and now, like Doctor Who’s Cybermen, keeps coming back to demand more upgrades. She gained an interest in quantum physics in college while interning at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center. In her spare time, she enjoys playing softball, kayaking, and any other excuse to be outdoors in San Diego’s perfect weather.
Michelle Cunnah loves and empathizes with Susan more than the other Housewives, because she often feels like Susan’s less wacky, not-quite-as-accident-prone older sister. But in a “Michelle’s life has way less drama” kind of way. Originally from England, Michelle spent six years living just outside Manhattan. She has lived in quite a lot of other places, too. Currently, she can be found weebling ineptly along the cycle lanes in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. The award-winning author of 32AA, Call Waiting and Confessions of a Serial Dater, she can also be found on the Web at www.michellecunnah.com.
Don Cusic is the author of 14 books, including Johnny Cash: The Songs. As an author, teacher, historian, musician, songwriter and executive, Cusic has been actively involved in the music business since 1973. He is currently professor of music business at Belmont University in Nashville. In addition to the book on Cash, Cusic is the author of the biography Eddy Arnold: I’ll Hold You In My Heart; an encyclopedia of cowboys, Cowboys and the Wild West: An A–Z Guide from the Chisholm Trail to the Silver Screen; The Sound of Light: A History of Gospel and Christian Music; The Cowboy Way: The Amazing True Adventures of Riders in the Sky; Music in the Market, Poet of the Common Man: Merle Haggard Lyrics; Willie Nelson: Lyrics 1959–1994 and Hank Williams: The Complete Lyrics.
Biologist turned award-winning author/editor, Julie E. Czerneda has nine novels with DAW Books, presently working on Regeneration, the conclusion to her acclaimed Species Imperative trilogy. She has edited themed SF anthologies for DAW, as well as Fitzhenry & Whiteside’s Tales from the Wonder Zone and Realms of Wonder series. In her spare time, she promotes the use of SF to develop scientific literacy, consults for Science News for Kids, canoes, flies rockets and loves to chat about exceptional TV with her family, even over dishes. Go to www.czerneda.com for more.
Kyle Dabruzzi is a summer fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
Erin Dailey is a freelance writer and Web designer who also happens to have the best damn day job in the world. She moved to New York City last year and would like you to know that she’s already becoming one of those insufferable New Yorkers who thinks that no place else in the world compares to the Big Apple. Yes, she’s already totally annoying. When she’s not pretending that she’s super cool, she covers the TV show “Heroes” on Television Without Pity (www.televisionwithoutpity.com). She’s not fond of doctors, but if her internist looked even remotely like McDreamy, she’d start exhibiting signs of hypochondria and FAST.
Russell W. Dalton is the associate professor of Christian education at Brite Divinity School of Texas Christian University in Fort Worth, Texas. He is the author of Faith Journey through Fantasy Lands: A Christian Dialogue with Harry Potter, Star Wars, and The Lord of the Rings and Video, Kids, and Christian Education. He is a popular conference speaker on issues of religious education and faith and popular culture.
Bradley J. Daniels, M.S., (Brad, for short) earned his B.A. (summa cum laude) in psychology from the University of Central Florida. He began attending the University of Florida in 2003 and completed his M.S. in psychology in 2005. He is currently a doctoral candidate working on a Ph.D. in clinical and health psychology, with a specialization in clinical neuropsychology (and a particular interest in forensic neuropsychology). He also teaches as an adjunct assistant professor at Santa Fe Community College. He is an avid film and pop culture enthusiast, and regularly uses these media in the classroom as a tool to enhance the teaching of psychology. He has also published a previous essay in BenBella’s Psychology of Joss Whedon anthology.
Joy Davidson, Ph.D., is a psychologist, certified sex therapist, author and video-maker based in Manhattan. She is a familiar expert guest on national television and radio, including “Oprah,” “20/20,” CNN News, NPR, “Prime Time Live,” “Entertainment Tonight” and “Montel.” Dr. Davidson is the author of or contributor to six nonfiction books, and the creator of multi-volume self-help videos for women and couples. She is well known as a magazine and Web advice columnist and appears frequently in publications such as Glamour, Cosmopolitan, Marie Claire, Esquire, Redbook and Men’s Health.
Clayton Davis lives with his wife in Severna Park, Md. He holds the airline transport pilot and flight instructor ratings with more than 10,000 hours logged in everything from gliders to jets. He has published flying stories in aviation magazines and many short stories elsewhere. He served in the USAF as a codebreaker and Russian linguist. Awarded the Saint Ignatius Gold Medal by the Azov Academy, Russia. After retirement from military service he was a high-school mathematics teacher. Clayton Davis graduated from Syracuse University, B.A. ’67, and is listed in Marquis Who’s Who in America.
Randee Dawn is a New York-based journalist and is a senior editor with the Hollywood Reporter. Randee freelances for MovieMaker magazine. She has previously worked for Soap Opera Digest, National Public Radio’s “Living on Earth” and WGBH-TV’s “The Ten O’Clock News.” In the past 20 years she has covered the entertainment industry for Billboard, The Boston Phoenix, E! Online, New Musical Express and other national and international publications. She also contributed to the first edition of Les Series Tele, a French book about American television, and has a paralegal certificate from New York University. Her short fiction has appeared online in 3AM Magazine and on the “Well-Told Tales” podcast.
Sylvia Day is a former Russian linguist with the U.S. Army Military Intelligence. She sold her first novel 13 months after she began writing and followed that with the sale of 10 more within the next year to multiple publishers, including HarperCollins and Kensington. Her award-winning books have been called “wonderful and passionate” by WNBC.com, “wickedly entertaining” by Booklist and frequently garner Readers’ Choice and Reviewers’ Choice accolades. She is a devout Morelli fan (while secretly carrying a torch for Ranger). Visit her at www.SylviaDay.com.
Vox Day is a game design expert and libertarian opinion columnist. He left the frozen tundra of Minnesota for the sunny shores of the Mediterranean more than a decade ago, speaks three languages and is a member of the SFWA, IGDA and Mensa. He is the author of numerous games, books and graphic novels in the fantasy and science fiction genres and is the inventor of the WarMouse™. For more information about Vox Day, join the spirited discussion that takes place daily at his blog, Vox Popoli, at voxday.blogspot.com.
Don DeBrandt has been accused of authoring The Quicksilver Screen, Steeldriver, Timberjak, V.I. and the “Angel” novel Shakedown, as well as writing two books under the pseudonym Donn Cortez: The Closer, a thriller, and The Man Burns Tonight, a mystery set at Burning Man (to be published in August 2005). He does not deny these charges. His two current novels are CSI: Miami—Cult Following and CSI: Miami—Riptide.
Keith R. A. DeCandido has been a fan of Spider-Man since seeing his live-action adventures on “The Electric Company” as a kid. His first short story sale and first novel sale were both collaborative Spider-Man tales (“An Evening in the Bronx with Venom” with John Gregory Betancourt in 1994’s The Ultimate Spider-Man and Venom’s Wrath with José R. Nieto in 1998), and solo he’s also written a Spidey short story (“Arms and the Man” in 1997’s Untold Tales of Spider-Man) and a Spidey novel (Down These Mean Streets in 2005). He’s become a regular Smart Pop contributor, having also written essays in Finding Serenity, The Man from Krypton, Star Wars on Trial, The Unauthorized X-Men and King Kong Is Back!, with more to come. Find out less at his official Web site at DeCandido.net.
David DeGraff has been a space cadet since he was 6 years old, watching Neil Armstrong bounce across the lunar surface. No longer a cadet, Dr. DeGraff is now chair of the physics and astronomy department at Alfred University. In addition to the standard physics and astronomy classes, Dr. DeGraff also teaches Life in the Universe, Science in Science Fiction, Living in Space and The Theory and Practice of Time Travel.
A. M. Dellamonica, author of A Slow Day at the Gallery (a Year’s Best SF pick) and numerous other SF and fantasy stories, has published fiction in Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, SciFi.Com’s SciFiction, and Strange Horizons, as well as anthologies including the upcoming Passing for Human, edited by Steve Utley and Michael Bishop. A 2006 Canada Council Grant recipient for her current work in progress, The Wintergirls, she teaches writing through the UCLA Extension Writers’ program and writes book reviews for Science Fiction Weekly.
Dr. Stephanie R. DeLusé, psychologist, researcher, author and teacher, is also Associate Faculty Director of the Bachelor of Interdisciplinary Studies (BIS) program at Arizona State University. Her graduate training focused on social and personal issues that affect most of us at one time or another—issues around individual/group interactions, family support and divorce, and health and wellness. Her most recent academic efforts have earned her recognition for her teaching, including selection as one of ASU’s Featured Faculty in 2006 and an Outstanding Faculty Award in 2005. In her sparse free time she communes with nature most frequently in the guise of her cat, her trees and her herb garden replete with insect life and lizards.
Ray Dempsey lives in Palo Alto, Calif. During his career he taught high school and college-level classes, worked in sales and marketing in publishing and the airlines industry, and most recently served as customs compliance manager in high tech before retiring. He holds degrees from Emerson College, Boston; marketing (summa cum laude) from Clark University; and an M.B.A. from Babson College. He has published in Monogram Aviation Publications and contributed articles to the Ian Fleming Web site. Ray has traveled extensively in the United States, Asia and Europe where, in Holland, he had the good fortune to meet his beautiful wife Anneke, his partner for over 34 years.
Daniel C. Dennett, the author of Freedom Evolves (Viking Penguin, 2003) and Darwin’s Dangerous Idea (Simon & Schuster, 1995), is University Professor and Austin B. Fletcher Professor of Philosophy, and Director of the Center for Cognitive Studies at Tufts University. His first book, Content and Consciousness, appeared in 1969, followed by Brainstorms (1978), Elbow Room (1984), The Intentional Stance (1987), Consciousness Explained (1991), Kinds of Minds (1996) and Brainchildren: A Collection of Essays 1984-1996 (MIT Press and Penguin, 1998). He co-edited The Mind’s I with Douglas Hofstadter in 1981. He is the author of over 200 scholarly articles on various aspects on the mind, published in journals ranging from Artificial Intelligence and Behavioral and Brain Sciences to Poetics Today and the Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism.
Craig Derksen received a B.A. from the University of Manitoba and an M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Maryland. He works in many areas of philosophy but his primary interest is the philosophy of popular art. His first exposure to Hugh Laurie was as the Prince Regent in “Blackadder the Third” (also as Prince Ludwig the Indestructible in “Blackadder II”). Craig sometimes wishes he was a House, but is only a Wilson.
Alan M. Dershowitz is a Brooklyn native who has been called “the nation’s most peripatetic civil liberties lawyer” and one of its “most distinguished defenders of individual rights,” “the best-known criminal lawyer in the world,” “the top lawyer of last resort” and “America’s most public Jewish defender.” He is the Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law at Harvard Law School and the author of 27 works of fiction and nonfiction, including six bestsellers. More than a million of his books have been sold worldwide, in numerous languages, and more than a million people have heard him lecture around the world. His most recent nonfiction titles are Finding Jefferson: A Lost Letter, A Remarkable Discovery and The First Amendment in An Age of Terrorism, Preemption: A Knife That Cuts Both Ways (Norton, 2006), The Case for Peace: How the Arab-Israeli Conflict Can Be Resolved (Wiley, August 2005); Rights From Wrongs: A Secular Theory of the Origins of Rights (Basic Books, 2004) and The Case for Israel (Wiley, 2003). You can find out more at www.alandershowitz.com.
Roni Deutch is the most recognizable tax expert in America, known by name to one out of every three in this country over the age of 18. The founder of the largest tax resolution firm in the nation, she is recognized as an experienced tax debt attorney dedicated to resolving IRS back taxes. Her tax law firm, which began as a one-person practice in a small condo, has grown to employ hundreds and has assisted thousands of taxpayers across the country in finding the appropriate relief from the IRS. Today her competitive spirit continues as she reaches out to those in need of help with IRS tax debts. Residence: North Highlands, Calif.
The Tax Lady’s Guide to Beating the IRS – And Saving Big Bucks on Your Taxes
Elisabeth DeVos is the author of science fantasy novel The Seraphim Rising, as well as short fiction that has appeared in Talebones magazine and the anthology Imagination Fully Dilated. Her stories explore what happens when mythical, mystical beings collide with the Muggle world of religion and rationalism. Elisabeth grew up near Orlando and earned a B.S. in computer science from the University of Central Florida. She has lived in the Seattle area for over a decade and read her first Harry Potter while flying diagonally across the country for the umpteenth time.
Dave DeWitt is a writer, editor and show producer. He is the author or co-author of more than 30 books and cookbooks, mostly concerning chile peppers and spicy foods. He is the publisher of the Fiery Foods & Barbecue SuperSite, www.fiery-foods.com, the editor of Fiery Foods & BBQ magazine, and co-producer of the National Fiery Foods & Barbecue Show, now in its 19th year. He lives in Albuquerque, N.M., with his wife Mary Jane and their three Cornish Rex cats and two Dobermans.
Melissa Dickinson is a professional graphic designer and aspiring writer. She and her husband own a consulting company that specializes in custom Web development and intranet business solutions, but they are hoping to shift gears into restaurant ownership very soon. Her Star Trek story “Triptych” appeared in Strange New Worlds, Volume II.
Bryan J. Dik, Ph.D., completed his doctoral study at the University of Minnesota and during daylight hours is an assistant professor in the counseling psychology program at Colorado State University. His scholarly interests fall broadly in the domain of vocational psychology and include person-environment fit theories of career development, measurement of vocational interests, and basic and applied research on calling and vocation. He lives with his wife Amy and sons Eli and Silas in Wellington, Colo.
Larry Dixon is an acclaimed artist and interior illustrator with work ranging from Harvard Press to Marvel. Son of an extraordinary Okie farmgirl and a Delta Force commando, Larry has been a racecar driver, volunteer firefighter, stormspotter and all-around adventurer. His passions are falconry, technology, music history, special effects, custom cars, comedy, games, fashion and model making. Larry was also the Great Eagles reference adviser for the Lord of the Rings films. With Mercedes Lackey, he’s credited for popularizing gryphons and has been guest of honor at more than 200 conventions worldwide. He lives in Oklahoma, where he collects comics, odd cars and injuries.
Cory Doctorow (craphound.com) is European affairs coordinator for the Electronic Frontier Foundation (eff.org), a member-supported nonprofit group that works to uphold civil liberties values in technology law, policy and standards. He represents EFF’s interests at various standards, bodies and consortia, and at the United Nations’ World Intellectual Property Organization. Doctorow is also a prolific writer who appears on the mastheads at Wired, Make and Popular Science magazines, and whose science fiction novels have won the Campbell, Sunburst and Locus Awards and whose story “0wnz0red” was nominated for the Nebula Award. He is the co-editor of the popular weblog Boing Boing (boingboing.net). Born in Canada, he now lives in London, England.
Brian Doherty is a senior editor at Reason magazine, a monthly of politics and culture. He has written for dozens of publications, ranging from the Washington Post to USA Today to Salon.com, and his work has been anthologized in many books. He lives in Los Angeles and has attended Burning Man for the past nine years.
Kim Gale Dolgin is a professor of psychology at Ohio Wesleyan University. She received her B.A., two M.A.’s and Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania. She teaches courses in adolescent and child development as well as human sexuality. Her research interests include parent-adolescent “friendship” in late adolescence, sibling relationships, children’s understanding of emotional pain and the development of higher order, complex reasoning skills. She is co-author, together with Philip Rice, of the textbook The Adolescent: Development, Relationships, and Culture, now in its eleventh edition. Dr. Dolgin has received both of her university’s outstanding teaching awards. She is an avid, long-standing reader of both fantasy and science fiction and would have named her children after Tolkien characters had her husband permitted it.
When Kate Donovan isn’t watching escapist TV, she’s writing books or practicing law in northern California, where she lives with her very understanding husband and two children. Her first published novels were time travels and paranormal romances, one of which, A Dream Apart—her first and still her favorite—was the story of a young woman who discovers that she’s really a witch and has to learn to embrace her powers and a very unusual Destiny. Is it any wonder Kate became a “Charmed” fan? Her latest is Exit Strategy, a female action/adventure story from Silhouette’s Bombshell line.
Award-winning ex-journalist and novelist Carole Nelson Douglas is the literary chameleon behind 50 novels in several genres. Her Irene Adler Sherlockian novels of historical suspense were the first to introduce a woman from the Doyle canon as a protagonist and won a New York Times Notable Book of the Year citation. Her Delilah Street, Paranormal Investigator, urban fantasy-mystery Dancing with Werewolves debuts in November. The 19-book Midnight Louie series (Cat in a Red Hot Rage, etc.) features four human crime solvers abetted by a feline detective who writes his own chapters. Janet Evanovich described this Sam Spade with hairballs as “the funniest, hairiest, hard-boiled PI on the planet!” Ain’t no Vaseline on him, either.
Jennifer Dunne writes erotic romance novels and novellas for Ellora’s Cave—including “Dancing in the Dark” in the anthology Party Favors, featuring a heroine obsessed with Julian McMahon’s portrayal of Cole Turner—and fantasy and science fiction novels for Cerridwen Press. She is a three-time EPPIE award winner and has been nominated for the PRISM, Sapphire, Pearl and many other awards not named after sparkly jewels. Visit her Web site at www.jenniferdunne.com.
Doranna was born writing (instead of kicking she scribbled on the wall of the womb) and never stopped, even though it took some time for the world to understand what she was up to. She grew up attached to college-rule notebooks and resisted all attempts at separation. Eventually she got a college degree (wildlife illustration) and had grand adventures on horseback in the Appalachians before ending up in the Southwestern high country with her laptop, dogs, horse and uncontrollable imagination.
Colin Duriez is author of a number of books on C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien and the Inklings, including A Field Guide to Narnia, The C. S. Lewis Encyclopedia, The C. S. Lewis Chronicles, The Inklings Handbook (with David Porter), Tolkien and C. S. Lewis: The Gift of Friendship and Tolkien and The Lord of the Rings. He has lectured on Lewis and Tolkien in many countries, and has appeared as a commentator on BBC television and on extended-version DVDs of Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings and the PBS series “The Question of God,” on Lewis and Freud.
Amanda Dykema-Engblade, Ph.D., is an assistant professor of psychology at Northeastern Illinois University in Chicago. She earned her doctorate in social psychology from Loyola University, Chicago. Her primary research interests include small group performance and decision-making. She teaches courses in statistics, research methods, social psychology and industrial-organizational psychology.
Tom Easton is professor of science at Thomas College in Waterville, Maine. He holds a doctorate in theoretical biology from the University of Chicago. His work on scientific and futuristic issues has appeared in many magazines, from Astronomy to Consumer Reports and Robotics Age. His latest nonfiction books are Taking Sides: Clashing Views on Controversial Issues in Science, Technology, and Society (McGraw-Hill Dushkin, 6th ed., 2004) and Taking Sides: Clashing Views on Controversial Environmental Issues (11th ed., 2005). His latest novels are Firefight (Betancourt, 2003) and The Great Flying Saucer Conspiracy (Wildside, 2002).
Nicholas R. Eaton is a graduate student pursuing a Ph.D. in clinical psychology at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities; he received his B.A. from Washington University in St. Louis (’03). He once won first prize in a trivia contest at a regional Star Trek convention—a fact he neglected to mention when applying to work with Dr. Krueger. A friend suggested he watch a series described as “Star Trek meets the Wild West,” which sounded horrible. His interest in disseminating psychological research to the public, as well as his subsequent love of that show, led to this chapter—a chapter that he sincerely hopes you have found to be informative and enjoyable.
Johanna Edwards is an award-winning journalist and radio/TV producer. Her first novel, The Next Big Thing, debuted on the national bestseller list where it remained for nearly three months. Johanna’s second novel, Your Big Break, was also a bestseller. Johanna lives in Memphis, Tenn., where she is currently at work on her next book.
Leigh H. Edwards is assistant professor of English at Florida State University. Her research on U.S. literature and popular culture has appeared in journals such as Narrative, The Journal of Popular Culture, Feminist Media Studies and Film and History. She is currently completing a book on Cash titled Johnny Cash and American Ambivalence. Other research in media studies includes a book manuscript, Reality TV’s Family Values: Narrative, Ideology, and New Domestic Forms. Recent publications include: “Dangerous Minds: The Woman Professor on Television,” in Geek Chic: Smart Women in Popular Culture (2007), edited by Sherrie A. Inness; “Chasing the Real: Reality Television and Documentary Forms,” in Docufictions: Essays on the Intersection of Documentary and Fictional Filmmaking (2006), edited by Gary D. Rhodes and John Parris Springer; and “‘What a Girl Wants’: Gender Norming on Reality Game Shows” (2004) in Feminist Media Studies. She has forthcoming articles on PBS’s “Frontier House” and frontier mythology, and on interracial romance narratives. A staff writer for PopMatters, an international magazine of cultural criticism published online at popmatters.com, she reviews television and film. She has also published a poem on Cash, “Johnny Cash Ode,” in Xconnect: Writers of the Information Age, Volume VII (Xconnect, print annual, 2005) and in the online journal issue, CrossConnect 23 (September 2005). An eighth-generation Floridian, she earned her B.A. from Duke University and her M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania as a National Mellon Fellow.
Lynne Edwards, Ph.D., is associate professor of media and communication studies at Ursinus College in Collegeville, Pa. She is the author of several essays about popular culture including “Slaying in Black and White: Kendra as Tragic Mulatta in Buffy the Vampire Slayer” in Fighting the Forces: What’s at Stake in Buffy the Vampire Slayer (Rowman & Littlefield, 2002) and “Victims, Villains, and Vixens: Teen Girls and Internet Crime” in Girl Wide Web: Girls, the Internet, and the Negotiation of Identity (Peter Lang, 2005). Lynne currently is writing The Other Sunnydale: Representations of Blackness in Buffy the Vampire Slayer (Lexington Books, exp. 2006).
Bob Eggleton is a successful science fiction, fantasy and landscape artist. In his 20 years of putting brush to canvas or board, he has won nine Hugo Awards and 12 Chesley Awards, as well as various magazine awards, and his art can be seen on the covers of magazines, books, posters and prints, and of late, stationery, drink coasters, journals and jigsaw puzzles. He has also worked as a conceptual illustrator for movies and thrill rides (including the Academy Award nominated animated film “Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius”) and illustrated two books of experimental artwork about dragons, Dragonhenge and The Stardragons. Primal Darkness: The Gothic and Horror Artwork of Bob Eggleton is currently available from Cartouche Press, and work has already begun on Bob’s next collection of recent art works, Dragon Cosmica.
Devon Ellington publishes under a half a dozen names in both fiction and nonfiction. Her work appears in publications including Wild Child, Rose and Thorn, Hampton Family Life, Emerging Women Writers, Femmefan and Toasted Cheese. Her plays are produced in New York, Los Angeles, London, Edinburgh and Australia. For two years, she wrote four serials in four genres—mystery, western, magical realism and action/adventure/pirate—for Keep It Coming. She writes the Literary Athlete column for The Scruffy Dog Review, her Web site is www.devonellingtonwork.com and her blog on the writing life is Ink in My Coffee (devonellington.wordpress.com).
In his mind, Harry Elliott has always been a Bond Girl. So if you see him on the street, please refer to him only by his Bond Girl name, “Dude LooksLikeaLady.” Harry works in product development for a “major” dot com. While not making the Internet more user-friendly, Harry thinks of himself as a creative and freelance writer, and has the record for the most single-post blogs in history. Harry lives and breathes in the exhaust-scented city of Chicago, exactly a mile and a half due north of the left-field bleachers of Wrigley Field.
P. N. Elrod is the print-published author of over 20 novels and 20 short stories, and is best known for her ongoing hard-boiled noir series The Vampire Files. She has cowritten three novels with actor/writer Nigel Bennett. She’s edited three collections, including coediting Stepping Through the Stargate for BenBella Books, and is working on a fourth, and writing, writing, writing. Her Web site is www.vampwriter.com. She would love to buy Harvey a drink and talk about Crichton’s lesser-traveled subconscious paths, especially if it includes dish on where he got those leather pants.
Susan Engel earned a B.A. from Sarah Lawrence College in 1980, and a Ph.D. in developmental psychology from CUNY Graduate Center in 1985. She is currently a senior lecturer in psychology and director of the Program in Teaching at Williams College. Engel has taught students from age 3 to adults. In addition to journal articles and book chapters, Engel has written three books, The Stories Children Tell: Making Sense of the Narratives of Childhood (W. H. Freeman, 1985), Context Is Everything: The Nature of Memory (W. H. Freeman, 1997) and most recently, Real Kids: Creating Meaning in Everyday Life (Harvard University Press, 2005). She is also the co-founder and educational adviser to an experimental school in eastern Long Island, the Hayground School, and writes a regular column on teaching, “Lessons,” for the New York Times. Engel’s research interests include the development of autobiographical memory, narrative processes in childhood, imagination and play in childhood and the development of curiosity. She lives with her husband and three sons in New Marlborough, Mass.
Renee Engeln-Maddox, Ph.D., is a faculty member in the department of psychology at Northwestern University (Evanston, Ill.). She earned an M.A. in clinical psychology from Miami University (Oxford, Ohio), and a doctorate in social psychology from Loyola University, Chicago. Her research interests include portrayals of women in the media, body image disturbance and media literacy.
Elizabeth Engstrom is the author of nine books and more than 250 short stories, articles and essays. She teaches the fine art of fiction at writers’ conferences and conventions around the world, and is currently a regular contributor to Court TV’s Crime Library. You can visit her Web site at www.elizabethengstrom.com.
Samuel S. Epstein, M.D., D. Path., D.T.M&H, Professor Emeritus of Environmental and Occupational Medicine at the University of Illinois at Chicago, is an internationally recognized authority on the causes and prevention of cancer, the toxic and carcinogenic effects of environmental pollutants, and of ingredients and contaminants in consumer products—food, cosmetics and toiletries, and related public policy concerns. He has published some 270 peer-reviewed scientific articles and authored or co-authored 15 books.
Epstein has served as consultant to the U.S. Congress and as a member of the EPA. He has also presented to the United Nations. Epstein has been awarded numerous honors, including the 1998 Right Livelihood Award for International Contributions to Cancer Prevention; and the 2005 Albert Schweitzer Golden Grand Medal for Humanitarianism and for International Contributions to Cancer Prevention. Epstein has appeared on major national TV programs including “60 Minutes,” “Face the Nation,” “Meet the Press,” “Good Morning America,” the “Today” show and documentaries, including the 2004 prize-winning “The Corporation.”
Dr. Roy Eskapa was born in South Africa and received his B.A. at Reed College in Portland, Ore. He received both his M.A. and Ph.D. at the California School of Professional Psychology in Los Angeles. He is a past member of the American Psychological Association and a past fellow of the British Psychological Society.
Dr. Eskapa now works as a psychotherapist, specializing in addiction and enuresis (bedwetting). He has successfully used the Sinclair Method with many of his patients.
Just after completing his Ph.D., Roy wrote Bizarre Sex (HarperCollins, 1988), which was based on his experiences as a doctoral student in clinical and forensic psychology in California. He contributed a chapter on multimodal therapy to Integrative and Eclectic Psychotherapy: A Handbook (Open University Press, 1992).
From 1991 until 2000, he ran the London Enuresis Clinic during which he designed and developed Dri-Guard, a home treatment program for enuresis. The program consisted of an electronic biofeedback device, manual, charts and instructional video which won an award from the British Medical Association.
In addition to his regular work, he is deeply involved with the causes of and treatments for addiction. In 1991, he heard about Dr. David Sinclair, the world-renowned American neuroscientist running the alcohol research program for the Finnish government. He visited Sinclair’s laboratory on several occasions and studied his scientific publications. He thought the world of addiction treatment might change overnight based on the results of the clinical trials. After noticing success with the Sinclair Method in his own patients, he was highly impressed with cure rates and continued to follow Dr. Sinclair’s research. He was particularly impressed with the results from the clinical trials from this powerful way of curing alcohol addiction.
Dr. Eskapa currently lives in London.
Jane Espenson grew up in Ames, Iowa, where she was introduced to the writings of Jane Austen at an early age by her English lit–major mother. She eventually found herself with a long career as a television writer/producer, but she never gave up the essential love of Austen. She wrote for a number of half-hour comedies, including “Ellen,” then moved on to drama writing, including stints on “The O.C.,” “Gilmore Girls” and a five-year run on “Buffy the Vampire Slayer.” While working at “Buffy,” she was able to write a vampire-themed comic book story in the style of Austen, rekindling her love for that kind of storytelling. She continues in television, working under a development deal with 20th Century Fox television, creating shows of her own and rereading Austen in her spare time. She’s delighted to be included in this collection.
Bob Eubanks began his broadcasting career as a disc jockey. Best known for his role as host of the popular “The Newlywed Game,” Eubanks can be seen hosting “The Hollywood Christmas Parade” with cohost Leeza Gibbons for KTLA-TV in Los Angeles. He lives in Santa Ynez, Calif.
Rhonda Eudaly lives in Fort Worth, Texas, where she’s worked in offices, banking, radio and education to support her writing and her cat, Dixon. She will soon be adding her fiancé Jimmy and his dog Diamond to her family. She likes to spend time with friends and family, swing dance and read. Her two passions are writing and music. Rhonda had over a dozen fiction and nonfiction stories published in various anthologies, magazines and Web sites. Check out her Web site—www.RhondaEudaly.com—for more information.
Troy D. Evans is a professional speaker and author who resides in Phoenix, Ariz., with his wife Pam and his dog Archibald. Troy travels the country delivering keynote presentations, and since his release from prison has taken the corporate and association platforms by storm with his message about overcoming adversity, adapting to change and pushing yourself to realize your full potential.
Regency-period romance, Elisabeth Fairchild’s work is described as “theme-driven, lushly set and lyrically layered wit—Jane Austen style.” Half English (her mother still maintains U.K. citizenship) with a keen ear for British voice, a sharp eye for accurate and evocative setting and a wry tongue-in-cheek wit, the award-winning author is also published in Germany, Italy, Bulgaria and the Netherlands.
Her last three releases, Sugarplum Surprises, A Game of Patience and Valentine’s Change of Heart, have been chosen as “Top Pick” releases. She is currently working on a new book and dabbling with a Regency period screenplay. For a sneak peek at sample chapters, visit www.gimarc.com/fairchild.html. Write Elisabeth at fairchild@gimarc.com.
Bill has been a professor, teacher, corporate executive and college dean. He is one of the founders of Mayfair Games, a board and role-play gaming company, and designed award-winning board games and role-playing modules. He more recently produced and designed several computer games. As a book packager, a person who prepares series of books from concept to production for major publishers, his company Bill Fawcett & Associates has packaged more than 250 books for every major publisher. Bill began his own novel writing with a juvenile series, Swordquest, for Ace SF in the early ’80s and has written several since. The Fleet science fiction series he edited and contributed to with David Drake has become a classic of military science fiction. He has collaborated on several mystery novels as Quinn Fawcett, including the Authorized Mycroft Holmes and Madame Vernet mysteries. His recent works include Making Contact: A UFO Contact Handbook, and a series of books about great mistakes in history: It Seemed Like a Good Idea, You Did What? and How to Lose a Battle. As an anthologist Bill has edited or co-edited more than fifty anthologies.
Dino Felluga is an English professor at Purdue University, West Lafayette, Ill. His first book, The Perversity of Poetry: Romantic Ideology and the Popular Male Poet of Genius is forthcoming from the SUNY Press. He is currently working on expanding a Web site (with accompanying book) that introduces critical theory to students and scholars by way of popular culture: www.purdue.edu/guidetotheory.
J. R. Fettinger is the webmaster of Spidey Kicks Butt (www.spideykicksbutt.com), and the author of all essays on the site. He lives with his wife Karen and children Rachel and Spencer in Medina, Ohio. He hopes he is closer to the Ben Parker model of fatherhood than the Norman Osborn one, but his kids will have the final say on that.
Sandy Field, Ph.D., is a freelance science writer based in Lewisburg, Pa. She holds a B.S. degree in genetics from the University of California, Davis and a Ph.D. in biochemistry, cell and molecular biology from Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y. She specializes in continuing medical education, writing in the areas of oncology and infectious disease. Her other passions include science fiction, forensic science, San Francisco Giants baseball, bicycling, Tae Kwon Do and cooking for her family. Visit her Web site at www.fieldscientific.com.
Randall Fitzgerald has been an investigative newspaper and magazine reporter and book author for 37 years. He has written investigative features for Reader’s Digest, the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal. His most recent book is The Hundred Year Lie: How Food And Medicine Are Destroying Your Health, published in hardcover in 2006 by Penguin/Dutton and in paperback in 2007 by Plume.
Judy Fitzwater is the author of the Jennifer Marsh mystery series, published by Ballantine Books, and the suspense novel No Safe Place, a May 2006 release from Silhouette Bombshell. A former journalist and an Air Force brat, she now lives with her husband in the Washington, D.C., area, where she writes novels filled with mystery, humor and suspense.
Miellyn Fitzwater writes and produces television promos for TLC series, including “Miami Ink” and “What Not to Wear.” She has also penned and produced several independent short movies. She lives in Washington, D.C., with her very own “Luke” and their three plants. Miellyn not so secretly wants to be Amy Sherman-Palladino when she grows up.
Thomas Flamson is a doctoral candidate in anthropology at the University of California, Los Angeles. His research interests include intentionality, theory of mind, and the role of emotions in risky decision-making. His current research focuses on the evolutionary origins of humor and aesthetic preferences, and their role in developing social relationships. Besides being a long-time fan of Joss Whedon’s work, he was once served Cheetos by Seth Green (“Oz” from “Buffy” and “Angel”) at a party.
Melanie Fletcher is a woman of simple tastes—she likes to write, preferably for money. Her fiction includes “Star Quality” (Selling Venus, Circlet Press), “Hermaphrodite” (Crossing the Border, Indigo/Gollancz), “Bartok and the Unicorn” (Quantum Muse, July 2002), “The Female of the Species” (Quantum Muse, April 2003) and “A Rose By Any Other Name” (The Four Bubbas of the Apocolypse, Yard Dog Press). She has also produced the chapbooks The Stories That Would Not Die! and Dark Matter—Erotica SF and Fantasy (Belaurient Press).
When she’s not crushing on Ranger, Natasha Fondren keeps her fingers busy playing the roles of writer and pianist in Ohio. Thanks to Lula, she’s learning to look on the bright side, even when disasters strike.
Gary Fong is a globally renowned photographer, inventor and entrepreneur. He is the father of “story-booking,” now the industry standard in wedding photography, in which candid shots are arranged in real time to tell a story, as opposed to the archaic method of taking posed, stilted shots. He is also the inventor of the Lightsphere, a specially colored dome that is held in place over the flash unit of a camera. Before long, more than 200,000 units were sold worldwide, thus creating a multimillion-dollar plastics business. Since inventing the Lightsphere, Fong has built a veritable cottage industry around variations on the popular product, including The Origami and The Puffer, all of which have become standard equipment used by most wedding photographers worldwide. He is considered one of the most influential photographers and inventors of his generation.
D. C. Fontana has credits as a writer on such diverse television series as “Star Trek,” “Bonanza,” “The Waltons,” “The Streets of San Francisco” and “Dallas.” She has served as story editor on the original “Star Trek” series, “Star Trek Animated,” “Fantastic Journey” and “Logan’s Run,” and as associate producer on “Star Trek: The Next Generation.” She has experience in writing children’s shows, science fiction, westerns, action adventure, mysteries, daytime specials, animation and interactive games. She is a member of Mystery Writers of America, Romance Writers of America and the Society of Children’s Book Writers & Illustrators, as well as the Writers’ Guild of America, west, and Writers’ Guild of Canada.
Paul Fontana graduated from Colby College in 1996 with honors in philosophy. This essay was written while he was studying the New Testament at Harvard Divinity School. He currently lives in New York City.
James L. Ford is a professor of East Asian religions in the department of religion at Wake Forest University, N.C. He earned an M.A. in 1996 and Ph.D. in 1998 in East Asian religions from Princeton University. Dr. Ford’s primary research centers on medieval Japanese Buddhism and he recently completed a manuscript titled Boundless Devotion: Jokei (1155-1213) and the Discourse of Kamakura Buddhism. At present, he is executive secretary for the Society for the Study of Japanese Religion and serves on the steering committee for the Japanese Religions Group of the American Academy of Religion.
Karen Joy Fowler is the New York Times bestselling author of The Jane Austen Book Club, which has also been an Oprah Book Club book. She is also the author of Sister Noon (a PEN/Faulkner finalist), Sarah Canary, The Sweetheart Season and the story collection Black Glass. She lives in Davis, Calif.
Nancy Franklin is an associate professor of psychology at Stony Brook University, specializing in human cognition and memory. She received her Ph.D. in 1989 at Stanford University, where she trained with Barbara Tversky and Gordon Bower. Her current research concerns false memory and emotional influences on memory and judgment.
Jonathan B. Freeman recently completed his B.A. in psychology and gender & sexuality studies at New York University, and is currently a doctoral student at Tufts University, earning his Ph.D. in experimental psychology. He is currently interested in the social, neural, cultural and cognitive processes involved in person construal, first impressions, social evaluation and interpersonal interaction. In search of nuanced understandings, he tries to work at multiple levels of analysis: social (and cognitive) psychology, social and cultural neuroscience and critical/cultural studies of gender, sexuality, race, class and capitalism. Hopefully not having to entirely abandon his delusional ideas about making sense of interesting mental life and its inextricable ties to society and culture, he desperately tries to reconcile a secret infatuation with Mr. Incredible with his varied resistances against heteronormative patriarchy.
Karyn M. Frick, Ph.D., is an associate professor of behavioral neuroscience in the Department of Psychology at Yale University. She received her B.A. from Franklin and Marshall College, and her M.A. and Ph.D. in psychology from the Johns Hopkins University. Her research focuses on the neurobiology of learning and memory, with particular interest in how hormones, aging and the environment affect these processes. She spends way too much time watching reality TV, including “Survivor,” and still feels that Boston Rob should have won “Survivor: All-Stars” (at least he got the girl!).
Charlotte Fullerton grew up in New England with the same school uniform, hairstyle and academic attitude as Rory, but left her own version of Stars Hollow behind for Los Angeles to attend the University of Southern California’s School of Cinema-Television. Currently, Charlotte is a busy freelance writer of children’s books, pop culture magazines and some of your kids’ favorite animated TV shows. Still, she is perhaps best known as one of the creators of the fan-favorite Star Wars short film, “Troops.” Whenever Charlotte gets homesick, she has lunch on the Warner Bros lot and walks around the Gilmore Girls’ exteriors decorated for fall or winter—which she doesn’t have to rake or shovel.
Michelle K. Gardner, if sorted, would be designated to the noble House of Ravenclaw. Although she has never read Hogwarts, A History (but would welcome such an opportunity), she is considered the Hermione of her generation. Michelle’s research areas include all things Harry Potter with side diversions into wizards from other worlds. Commonly referred to as the woman who “loves ladybugs and all things imaginary,” Michelle is the mother of a beautiful and inventive seven-year-old girl, wife of a very tolerant and loving husband and located in the world’s largest destination for theme-park entertainment. Comments on the above article are always welcome, enelya.oronar@gmail.com.
Richard Garfinkle is the author of two science fiction novels: Celestial Matters (which won the 1996 Compton Crook Award for best first novel in science fiction) and All of an Instant. At present he is engaged in the more dubious practice of writing nonfiction science popularization. He lives in Chicago with his wife and children.
Susan M. Garrett is a lifelong television addict with a fascination for bizarre television trivia. Okay, so who else knows that Jaime Sommers and Jim Rockford had the same telephone number but different area codes? A long history of writing fan fiction resulted in the assignment of a TV tie-in novel—Forever Knight: Intimations of Mortality was published by Boulevard Books, a division of Berkeley/Penguin/Putnam, in 1997.
Daveed Gartenstein-Ross is the vice president of research at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and the author of My Year Inside Radical Islam.
Amy Garvey is a former editor who now works on the other side of the desk as an author. Writing romance spiced with mystery gives her a chance to make up stories featuring dead people, hot sex and humor, which seems like a pretty good way to make a living to her. Check out her Web site at www.amygarvey.com.
Whitney Gaskell briefly—and reluctantly—practiced law, before publishing her first book, Pushing 30. She is also the author of True Love (and Other Lies), She, Myself & I and the forthcoming Testing Kate. Whitney lives on the Treasure Coast of Florida with her husband and son. She is currently at work on her fifth book. Whitney wishes she could be more like Bree—or, at least, she’d like to have an immaculate house and serve a gourmet meal every night—but sadly doesn’t have the time or energy to do much more than run the vacuum once a week and order take-out.
Bear Jack Gebhardt has been a front-line, belly-to-belly stop-smoking coach for more than 15 years. He currently works full time with a northern Colorado health district not only directly helping smokers quit in both individual and group settings but also training local doctors, nurses, therapists and front-line health workers to more gracefully help their smoking clients. As an award-winning journalist, he has written for several publications, such as Fitness, the Columbia Journalism Review, the Christian Science Monitor and Reader’s Digest. He also has written two other books, The Manager’s Magic Method, Finding and Keeping Good Help for Your Entry-Wage Jobs and Help Your Smoker Quit—A Radically Happy Strategy for Nonsmoking Parents, Kids, Spouses, and Friends.
Roberta Gellis has a varied educational background—a master’s degree in biochemistry and another in medieval literature—and working history: 10 years as a research chemist, many years as a freelance editor of scientific manuscripts and well over 30 years as a writer. One of the most successful writers of historical fiction of the last few decades, she has published about 25 meticulously researched historical novels since 1964. She has been the recipient of many awards, including the Silver and Gold Medal Porgy for historical novels from West Coast Review of Books, the Golden Certificate and Golden Pen from Affaire de Coeur, The Romantic Times Award for Best Novel in the Medieval Period and Lifetime Achievement Award for Historical Fantasy, and Romance Writers of America’s Lifetime Achievement Award.
Richard J. Gerrig, Ph.D., is a professor of psychology at Stony Brook University. He received his B.A. from Yale in 1980 and his Ph.D. from Stanford in 1984. Gerrig’s primary research focuses on readers’ experiences of narrative worlds. He considers both the basic cognitive psychological processes that enable readers to understand discourse and the broader consequences of readers’ experiences of being transported to narrative worlds. With Philip Zimbardo, he is the author of the introductory textbook Psychology and Life.
David Gerrold is the author of numerous television episodes including the legendary “Trouble With Tribbles” episode of “Star Trek.” He has also written for “Land of the Lost,” “Babylon 5,” “Twilight Zone,” “Sliders” and other series. He has published 45 books, including two on television production. He taught screenwriting at Pepperdine University for two decades. He has won the Hugo, the Nebula and the Locus award. A movie based on his autobiographical novel, The Martian Child, is now in production.
Andrew R. Getzfeld, Ph.D., received his B.A. in psychology from Vassar College, his M.S.S.W. from the University of Wisconsin, and his Ph.D. in school psychology from the University of Tennessee. An associate professor in psychology at New Jersey City University and an adjunct associate professor at New York University, Andrew’s areas of interest include eating disorders and the addictions, abnormal psychology and psychopharmacology. He has written two books: Abnormal Psychology Casebook: A New Perspective (Pearson Prentice-Hall, 2004) and Essentials of Abnormal Psychology (Wiley, 2006). Andrew loves international travel, writing, and grew up with Spider-Man and Superman, often wishing he too could bend steel with his bare hands.
Natasha Giardina is a lecturer and senior research assistant at Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane, Australia. She is currently investigating the ways young people engage with new media technologies and the kinds of online and offline spaces they inhabit. She wears her “Geek Pride” badge with honor and encourages others to come out of the server room.
Todd Gilchrist is a Los Angeles–based writer who has worked for more than 10 years as a film, music and TV critic. Currently employed by IGN.com as the DVD Editor-in-Chief, he has previously contributed to numerous Web sites and print publications, including the Miami New Times, Filmstew.com, Starburst Magazine and Scifi.com among others. Todd’s reviews have also appeared in collegiate-level textbooks such as Reading Culture: Contexts For Critical Reading and Writing, and he is a member of the Los Angeles Film Critics Association.
After leaving PC Gamer magazine after reaching deputy editor, Kieron Gillen has since been working as a freelance journalist for organs as varied as Eurogamer and the Escapist, Wired and the Guardian. He makes a living, of sorts.
Karin Gillespie is the author of the Bottom Dollar Girl series. Her latest release is Dollar Daze (Simon and Schuster, August 2006). Karin maintains a Web site and a popular publishing industry blog called Southern Comfort at www.karingillespie.com. She is also the founder of the Girlfriends’ Cyber Circuit, a virtual tour for women novelists.
Nick Gillespie joined Reason’s staff in 1993 as an assistant editor and ascended to the top slot in 2000. His work has appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, Slate, Salon and many other publications. He is a frequent commentator on radio and television networks such as National Public Radio, CNN, C-SPAN, Fox News Channel and MSNBC. Prior to joining Reason, he worked as a reporter at several New Jersey newspapers and as an editor at several Manhattan-based music, movie and teen magazines. He is almost certainly the only journalist, living or dead, to have interviewed both Ozzy Osbourne and the 2002 Nobel laureate in economics, Vernon Smith. In 1996, Gillespie received his Ph.D. in English literature from the State University of New York at Buffalo. He holds an M.A. in English with a concentration in creative writing from Temple University and a B.A. in English and psychology from Rutgers University. He lives in the Washington D.C. area with his wife and two sons.
Laura Anne Gilman is the author of more than 20 short stories, three nonfiction books for teens, several nonfiction essays, two “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” tie-in novels and a forthcoming original novel, Staying Dead, out in August 2004, with the follow-up, Curse the Dark, scheduled for July 2005. For more information, go to www.sff.net/people/lauraanne.gilman.
James Gilmer is a radiographer (which is a fancy way of saying he takes x-rays) at Sparrow Regional Medical Center, a Level 1 Trauma hospital in Michigan, and is also a part-time writer. He is a graduate of Michigan State University and also the Clarion 2000 Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Workshop. His short fiction has appeared in Webzines such as Ideomancer and book anthologies such as Mota 3: Courage. He has also been a newspaper stringer and contributed to magazines such as Variants from Variance Press. He currently lives with his wife, Elise, and is awaiting the day when he can retire thanks to her new nursing degree and spend his days writing in a hammock. Until that day, he is still pursuing both his fiction and nonfiction writing when he’s not distracted by watching “House M.D.”
Tracy R. Gleason, Ph.D., is an associate professor in the department of psychology at Wellesley College, which is where Buffy, and particularly Willow, should have gone to college. She received her Ph.D. from the Institute of Child Development at the University of Minnesota in 1998. Her contributions to this essay provided a lovely forum for combining her research interests in relationships and imagination.
Mitch Golant, Ph.D., is a licensed psychologist and the coauthor of six books, including What to Do When Someone You Love Is Depressed. He lives in Los Angeles.
Award-winning author Christie Golden has written 22 novels and several short stories in the fields of science fiction, fantasy and horror. Though best known for tie-in work, Golden is also the author of two original fantasy novels from Ace Books, King’s Man & Thief and Instrument of Fate, which made the 1996 Nebula Preliminary Ballot. Under the pen name of Jadrien Bell, she wrote a historical fantasy thriller titled A.D. 999, which won the Colorado Author’s League Top Hand Award for Best Genre Novel of 1999. She wrote “The White Doe” for the “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” anthology The Longest Night. Her latest “treks” include “Voyager” novels Homecoming and The Farthest Shore. The two-part storyline takes place immediately after the “Voyager” finale, in which she takes familiar friends in new directions. Golden lives in Denver, Colo., with her artist husband Michael Georges and their two cats. Her Web site is www.christiegolden.com.
P. Gardner Goldsmith worked in the script departments of “Outer Limits” and “Star Trek: Voyager.” He received the Writers’ Guild Fellowship in 1998 and the Institute for Humane Studies Fellowship in 1996. His articles have appeared in Investor’s Business Daily, The Freeman, Human Events, SFX (U.K.), Naked (U.K.), Manchester Union Leader, TechcentralStation.com, FEE.org, Mises.org and LewRockwell.com. Gard was 2006 NH Libertarian of the Year, runs www.libertyconspiracy.com and his first book, Live Free or Die, is due in July 2007. He would like to thank Leah and Jill… And to let you know that he owns a handsome brown coat.
Jennifer Goltz teaches voice and music theory at Scripps College in Claremont, Calif. She specializes in performing new music and writes about music of the turn of the last century and the relationship between performance and analysis. She can be heard on “Cold Water, Dry Stone: The Music of Evan Chambers” (Albany Records, 2001) and “American Grab-Bag: Songs by Logan Skelton” (Centaur Records, forthcoming). In her spare time, she sings with the Ann Arbor-based klezmer band Into the Freylakh, with which she has released two CDs: “Into the Freylakh” and “The Shape of Klez to Come.”
Dr. Debra Gonsher is the head of the Humanities Division and chairperson of the Communication Arts & Sciences Department at Bronx Community College of the City University of New York. She has taught at four- and two-year schools throughout the metropolitan area including Kean College of New Jersey, City College and Hunter. Her most recent publication is the college textbook CareerSpeak: Articulation and Presentation. A documentary filmmaker, she has spoken extensively at film festivals, on the lecture circuit and on serial radio promotional tours. Her most recent documentary won a 2006 Emmy Award.
Wind Goodfriend, Ph.D., is an assistant professor of psychology at Buena Vista University. She earned her Ph.D. in social psychology in 2004 from Purdue University. Her areas of research expertise are gender stereotypes and romantic relationships, focusing specifically on positive and negative predictors of relationship stability over time. In her final year of graduate school, Dr. Goodfriend received both the Outstanding Teacher of the Year Award and the Outstanding Graduate Student of the Year Award for her research. Since then, she has been nominated for and won several more research and teaching awards.
The Psychology of the Simpsons
Andrew Gordon is an English professor and director of the Institue for Psychological Study of the Arts (ISPA) at the University of Florida. He has been a Fulbright lecturer in American literature in Spain, Portugal and Serbia, and a visiting professor in Hungary and Russia. He teaches contemporary American fiction, Jewish-American fiction and science fiction literature and film. His publications include An American Dreamer: A Psychoanalytic Study of the Fiction of Norman Mailer; Psychoanalyses/Feminisms (coedited with Peter L. Rudnytsky) and Screen Saviors: Hollywood Fictions of Whiteness (coauthored with Hernan Vera; the book discusses many films including the science fiction or fantasy films “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” “Men in Black” and “The Matrix”). He has written numerous essays on science fiction and science fiction film, including the films of George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, and Robert Zemeckis, in Science-Fiction Studies and other journals.
Bill Gordon is a lifelong fan of “Battlestar Galactica.” Thirteen years old when the series first aired, Bill joined the revival effort at age 14. While he has given up on a continuation, he holds out hope for a faithful remake. Bill is co-owner of the Tombs of Kobol (www.tombsofkobol.com), the Internet’s premier site for original series information, as well as information on “X-Men” producer Tom DeSanto’s derailed 2001 continuation effort. In 2003, Bill served as president of the Colonial Fan Force, a group that raised $12,000 to take out pro-continuation ads in Daily Variety, Cinescape and Dreamwatch. In his non-Galactica life, Bill serves as a communications specialist at the Federal Aviation Administration in Washington D.C. He climbs onto the stages of various theatres in the Washington D.C. metropolitan area himself from time to time, and he believes that “Firefly”/“Serenity” (which he’d also like to see continued) constitutes the most innovative science fiction franchise since the original “Star Trek.” He subscribes to the following axiom, put forth by legendary television director/writer/producer Kenneth Johnson: “… execs need to re-imagine because they can’t simply imagine.”
Nicole P. Gotlin first met the Backstreet Boys one week after their formation in 1993. She spent the next nine years working with them. During that time she served as their managerial assistant as well as the operations manager of their Orlando-based home office. Nicole had a front row seat as they rose from a baby band to international superstars. She currently lives near Orlando, Fla., with her husband Douglas, a physician, and their son, Max Stuart.
Kevin R. Grazier, Ph.D., is a planetary scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif., where he holds the dual titles of Investigation Scientist and Science Planning Engineer for the Cassini/Huygens Mission to Saturn and Titan. There he has won numerous JPL- and NASA-wide awards for technical accomplishment. Dr. Grazier holds undergraduate degrees in computer science and geology from Purdue University, and another in physics from Oakland University. He holds an M.S. degree in physics from, again, Purdue, and he did his doctoral work at UCLA. His Ph.D. research involved long-term, large-scale computer simulations of Solar System evolution, dynamics and chaos—research which he continues to this day. Kevin is also currently the science adviser for the PBS animated series “The Zula Patrol” and for the Sci-Fi Channel series “Eureka,” as well as the Peabody Award–winning “Battlestar Galactica.” Commited to astronomical education, Dr. Grazier teaches classes in stellar astronomy, planetary science, cosmology and the search for extraterrestrial life at UCLA, Cal State LA, and Santa Monica College. He has served on several NASA educational product review panels, and is also a planetarium lecturer at LA’s landmark Griffith Observatory. He lives in Sylmar, Calif.—and occasionally Mesa, Az.—with a flock of cockatiels and a precocious parrot.
Melanie C. Green, Ph.D., is an assistant professor at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. She received her bachelor’s degree (in psychology and literature) from Eckerd College and her Ph.D. in social psychology from Ohio State University. She wishes she could have attended Hogwarts as well, but the owl with her admission letter must have gone astray. Her research explores the persuasive power of narratives, which gives her a perfect excuse to read books such as the Harry Potter series.
Susan Green is an award-winning journalist. She freelances for Vermont Life, a quarterly magazine; the Burlington Free Press, the state’s major daily newspaper; and Seven Days, an alternative weekly. She also has reviewed films for BoxOffice magazine and written entertainment stories for the Hollywood Reporter. Her articles have appeared in Rolling Stone, Premiere and USA Today, among other national periodicals.
With Kevin Courrier, Green coauthored two editions of Law & Order: The Unofficial Companion (Renaissance/St. Martin’s Press, 1998 and 1999). Her coffee-table book about Bread & Puppet Theater came out in 1986 (Green Valley Media). She contributed a chapter to Backstory 3: Interviews with Screenwriters of the ’60s (University of California Press, 1997) and her short fiction has been published in several literary journals.
Robert Greenberger is a writer and editor with extensive credits in fiction and nonfiction. Having grown up watching too much television, he feels eminently qualified to contribute to Smart Pop’s collections, this being his third offering. By day, he is production manager at Weekly World News, where the stories are even more outrageous than anything witnessed at Seattle Grace. He makes his home in Connecticut.
Eric Greene is a graduate of the Religious Studies department at Wesleyan University and of Stanford Law School. Hailed as “groundbreaking,” his first book was the critically acclaimed Planet of the Apes as American Myth: Race, Politics and Popular Culture. Eric recently examined “Star Trek” and Cold War politics in BenBella’s Boarding the Enterprise and wrote about “Battlestar Galactica’s” treatment of September 11/Iraq War anxieties in BenBella’s So Say We All. Greene works as a civil rights activist in Los Angeles, where his professional hats have also included actor and commentator on politics and the arts.
John Gribbin trained as an astrophysicist but makes his living writing science books for non-scientists. His best known is In Search of Schroedinger’s Cat, and his latest is Deep Simplicity. His science fiction books are less well known and mostly out of print, but older readers may have come across The Sixth Winter (co-written with Douglas Orgill). Gribbin lives in his county of East Sussex, in England, and has an honorary post at the University of Sussex, which provides him with agreeable company and involves no duties at all.
Beny Gruenfeld was born in 1928 in Cluj (or Kolozvar, in Hungarian) in what is today Romania. After miraculously surviving the Holocaust, he and his brother Herman arrived in Sweden in mid-July 1945. To be able to remain with his brother, Benny turned down an offer to enter senior high school and instead became a blue-collar worker, first working for a glass cutter and then in a factory. After three years in Sweden, first in Landskrona and then in Stockholm, Benny enlisted as a volunteer in the Israeli Armed Forces and participated in the Arab-Israeli War. In Israel he was trained as an aircraft mechanic. After four years in Israel he returned to Sweden and, by virtue of the skills he had acquired in Israel, managed to get a job in Sweden’s then-budding civil aviation industry. Between 1952 and 1962 he lived and worked in Stockholm. From 1962 until his retirement in 1993, he was employed at the Kallinge airfield outside Ronneby in southern Sweden. After his retirement Benny began visiting schools in order to relate his experiences during the Holocaust, and since then has travelled to schools throughout the country. In fact, this soon grew into a second career, and in recent years he has given roughly 100 talks a year in school auditoriums across Sweden, reaching out to some 10,000 high school students every year. Given that an age cohort in Sweden is around 100,000, this number is substantial. Benny obtained his pilot’s license in 1958, and throughout the 1960s flying was one of his favorite hobbies. It was also during this period that he took up painting. He paints in oil and he finds his inspiration outdoors, mostly in landscapes. Benny has had many exhibitions in the province of Blekinge where he lives. Benny is married to Solveig and they have three children together. He also has eleven grandchildren.
Steven Gulie is a writer, poet and photographer. He lives in Oakland, Calif., with his angelic wife and two enchanting daughters, two and a half cats, tanks full of fish, a couple of snakes and some crickets and preying mantises. Some of the animals eat each other; he tries not to worry about it. He works for Apple, where his job is to take very complex things and explain them simply. He still rides his bike and occasionally body surfs.
James Gunn is an emeritus professor of English at the University of Kansas, and director of its Center for the Study of Science Fiction. He is the author of a dozen novels, half a dozen collections of stories and a dozen books about science fiction, as well as the editor of nearly a dozen anthologies.
Karen Haber is the author of eight novels including Star Trek Voyager: Bless the Beasts, co-author of Science of the X-Men, and editor of the Hugo-nominated essay collection celebrating J.R.R. Tolkien, Meditations on Middle Earth. Most recently she has helmed Kong Unbound, a book of essays and an official tie-in to the new movie, published by Pocket Books in October 2005. Her short fiction has appeared in Asimov’s science fiction magazine, the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction and many anthologies. She reviews art books for LOCUS magazine and profiles artists for Locus publications including Realms of Fantasy. She also co-edits the Best of Science Fiction and Fantasy anthologies series with Jonathan Strahan. Her newest science fiction novel, Crossing Infinity, a tale of gender confusions between worlds, was published in November 2005.
Vernell Hackett is a freelance journalist in Nashville, Tenn., who has covered the Nashville music scene for a number of magazines, including Country Weekly, Classic Country & Western Music Magazine, the Home Services Guide, Bluegrass Unlimited, American Cowboy, Billboard Magazine, Country Song Roundup, Working Cowboy and Venues Today. A native of Riesel, Texas, Vernell moved to Nashville in 1973 to write articles about country music. She has interviewed many country, bluegrass, western and Christian artists, including Johnny Cash, Garth Brooks, Michael W. Smith, Dolly Parton, Brad Paisley, Don Edwards, Del McCoury, Willie Nelson, George Strait, Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Merle Haggard, Michael Martin Murphey, Waddie Mitchell, Reba McEntire, Trisha Yearwood, Stephen Curtis Chapman, Amy Grant, Larry Stephenson, LeAnn Rimes, Alan Jackson, Montgomery Gentry and Hanna McEuen. Vernell helped establish American Songwriter magazine in 1984, which she edited until 2004. She graduated from Sam Houston State University in Huntsville, Texas, with a B.S. degree in journalism. Vernell has written about a variety of subjects during her career, including music, art, and entertainment, travel, pets, food, legislation, characters, home décor, crafts, history, video and business.
Olle Häger was born in 1935. He grew up on a small homestead in Hälsingland, a province in the center of Sweden dominated by forest land and forestry. Olle broke away from his background and enrolled at Uppsala University, where he studied humanities. His academic studies were completed when he defended his dissertation in history dealing with the authenticity of the accounts of the life and deeds of the Swedish king Gustav Vasa in the 16th century. Since 1964 he has been a radio and television producer. He has specialized in historical documentaries, and he has received numerous national and international awards for his films. The government of Sweden awarded him an honorary professorship, a highly prestigious and rare award, in 1996 for his achievements. His work as a documentary filmmaker has been the object of academic examination in a recent Ph.D. dissertation: David Ludvigsson (2003), The Historian-Filmmaker’s Dilemma: Historical Documentaries in Sweden in the Era of Häger and Villius (Department of History, Uppsala University). Olle is also an author of books. He has published 10 historical books and several crime novels. At age 71 he still works as a documentary filmmaker at the Swedish Public Service Broadcaster—Sveriges Television (SVT). During his work with Benny’s Holocaust memoir, Magnus contacted Olle, who found the story so compelling that he wanted to make a film based on it. The film, entitled “A Round Trip to Hell”—with Benny Grünfeld in Auschwitz, was first aired in 1996, and has since then been shown numerous times in Sweden and several other countries. Olle also became involved in the book manuscript. In particular, he wrote the historical background to Benny’s highly personal account.
Joshua Halberstam began his higher-education teaching career at Brookdale Community College, where he taught philosophy for several years. His subsequent teaching stints included elite four-year and professional schools such as NYU (from where he received his Ph.D. in philosophy). Currently Dr. Halberstam is an adjunct professor at Teacher’s College (Columbia University) and at a New York City community college. In addition to his professional publications in philosophy and education, Dr. Halberstam has published books for the general reader, both nonfiction and (forthcoming) fiction. Among his books is Acing College (Penguin), which has gone into multiple printings. Dr. Halberstam is a frequent guest on national television and radio (e.g. four-time guest on “Oprah”) as well as a guest lecturer at a wide array of institutions, most recently at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government.
Adam Hall was one of many pseudonyms for the English writer Elleston Trevor, who wrote 19 Quiller novels, including Quiller Balalaika.
Sherry Hamby, Ph.D., is research associate professor in the department of psychology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She is co-author of The Conflict Tactics Scales handbook, and author or co-author of more than 50 other publications on victimization, assessment and other topics. Dr. Hamby is a recipient of awards from the National Register for Health Service Providers in Psychology and the American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children. She has been principal investigator on grants from the National Center for Health Statistics, Indian Health Service and other agencies. She is also a licensed clinical psychologist.
Gabriella M. Hancock is Peter Hancock’s daughter. She is completing a Bachelor of Science degree in psychology at the University of Central Florida’s Burnett Honors College.
Jillian Hancock lives on the edge of the known world in Wellington, New Zealand. Information architect by day, writer by night, she spends her free time trapped in a complex barter cycle with ruthless pirates—but can’t really talk about it. Whenever the pirate cartel gets her down she reminds herself that somewhere, someone is doing an interpretive dance, which cheers her right up. Like everyone else in NZ, she knows a Hobbit personally.
Peter A. Hancock is Provost Distinguished Research Professor in the Department of Psychology and Institute for Simulation and Training at the University of Central Florida in Orlando, Fla. His research focuses on the future of human-machine symbiosis.
Richard Hanley is a professor of philosophy at the University of Delaware. He is the author of Is Data Human? The Metaphysics of Star Trek, and several articles, including pieces in Star Wars and Philosophy and Superheroes and Philosophy.
Matthew Scott Hansen is the co-author of Andy Kaufman Revealed!: Best Friend Tells All. He lives in Granada Hills, Calif.
Robin Hanson is a professor of economics at George Mason University. In 1998 Robin received his Ph.D. in social science from the California Institute of Technology, and then served as a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation health policy scholar at the University of California at Berkeley. Earlier he received a master’s in physics and a master’s in the philosophy of science from the University of Chicago, and spent nine years researching artificial intelligence, Bayesian statistics and hypertext publishing at Lockheed, NASA and independently. Robin’s work has appeared in several publications, including CATO Journal, International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence, Journal of Evolution and Technology, Social Philosophy and Policy, and Theory and Decision.
Richard Harland lives between the golden beaches and green hills of Wollongong, south of Sydney in Australia. For 10 years, he was a university academic, with three published books on the philosophy of language. Then he resigned to become a full-time writer. He has published SF thrillers (the Eddon and Vail series), a fantasy trilogy (the Ferren books) and two gothic cult novels. His latest novel, The Black Crusade, won the Aurealis Award for Best Novel in any category of SF, fantasy or horror.
Kristin Harmel is the author of the Warner Books/5 Spot novels How to Sleep with a Movie Star and The Blonde Theory, as well as the upcoming The Art of French Kissing (Warner Books, February 2008) and When You Wish (a YA novel from Delacorte Press/Random House, January 2008). She is a frequent contributor to People magazine and a freelance writer whose work has appeared in magazines including Glamour, American Baby, Men’s Health and YM. She appears regularly on the nationally syndicated TV morning show “The Daily Buzz.” After having lived in New York, Paris and Los Angeles, she now resides in Orlando, Fla., where she can be found every Thursday night on her couch, her TV tuned to ABC. She really has met Patrick Dempsey and would like to consider changing her name to Kristin Harmel-McDreamy. Visit her Web site at www.KristinHarmel.com.
Steven Harper lives in Ypsilanti, Mich., with his wife and son. He teaches English in Walled Lake, Mich., and he is appalled that the school requires him to teach Romeo and Juliet, which contains horrifying violence and shocking dirty jokes. His students think he’s hysterical, which isn’t the same as thinking he’s hilarious. He is the creator of the Silent Empire series for Roc Books, including Dreamer, Nightmare and Trickster. Currently, he’s working on Offspring, the fourth book. His books were nominated twice for the Spectrum Award. Visit his Web page at www.sff.net/people/spiziks.
Charlaine Harris, who writes one conventional mystery series and one humorous/vampire/romance/adventure mystery series, lives in southern Arkansas with a husband, three children, a ferret, two dogs and a duck. The duck stays outside. Charlaine won the 2002 Anthony Award for Dead Until Dark, the debut novel of her vampire series. Almost needless to say, she loves “Buffy.”
David Harris is an Australian physicist and science journalist. He previously presented a popular radio show in which callers would challenge him to answer their scientific questions. In the same spirit, he wrote 65 episodes of a television series that answered children’s science questions. He has also reported on science for newspapers and magazines, and is founding editor-in-chief of the magazine symmetry, which focuses on the world of particle physics, synchrotron x-ray science and cosmology. He is currently based in California at Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, which copublishes symmetry with Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory.
Todd Harris is a commercial illustrator whose wide body of work includes video games, film and comic books. He lives in Los Angeles.
Harry Harrison is the author of numerous books including Make Room! Make Room!, Return to Eden and The Stainless Steel Rat series. He lives in New York City.
Carol Hart, Ph.D., is a freelance health and science writer based in Narberth, Pa., just outside of Philadelphia. She is the author of Good Food Tastes Good: An Argument for Trusting Your Senses and Ignoring the Nutritionists (forthcoming, SpringStreet Books) and Secrets of Serotonin (St. Martin’s Press, 1996, with a revised and expanded second edition forthcoming in early 2008).
Maryelizabeth Hart is co-owner of Mysterious Galaxy, an independent genre bookstore in San Diego. She co-authored companion books to “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” and “Angel” with husband Jeff Mariotte and regular Smart Pop contributor Nancy Holder. Her regular writing jobs are editor of the store’s newsletter, and reviews contributor. She has been reading her whole life and remains passionate about books.
Jesse Hassenger was born in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., a small town without an Irish mafia or a biker gang. He graduated from Wesleyan University in 2002 with a major in English, and currently lives in Brooklyn, N.Y. His reviews have appeared in PopMatters, The L Magazine, and on filmcritic.com; his fiction has appeared in Me Three and Dirt, and he is a member of the Blackout Writing Collective. He enjoys many types of pie and rarely writes in the third person.
Richard Hatch has portrayed “Battlestar Galactica’s” Apollo and Tom Zarek. A Golden Globe Award nominee, he is a veteran actor on screen—films and television—as well as the stage.
Holt Medallion and double RITA finalist Candace Havens is the author of Charmed & Dangerous, Charmed & Ready, Charmed & Deadly and the upcoming Like a Charm (Berkley, 2008). A syndicated entertainment columnist, Havens is the managing editor for FYI Television, Inc. She is also the author of the BenBella biography Joss Whedon: The Genius Behind Buffy and a contributor to the anthologies Five Seasons of Angel and Alias Assumed: Sex, Lies and SD-6.
Heather Havrilesky grew up in Durham, N.C., and graduated from Duke University. In 1996, she and illustrator Terry Colon created “Filler,” a popular cartoon that ran for five years on Suck.com, one of the Web’s first pop culture magazines. She’s written for the LA Times, the Washington Post, New York, Spin, BookForum and NPR’s “All Things Considered.” She is currently a TV critic for Salon.com and maintains the Rabbit Blog. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband Bill and their two dogs.
Thomas Hayden is a freelance journalist and writer with a special interest in science, medicine and culture. Formerly a staff writer at Newsweek and U.S. News & World Report, his articles and reviews have appeared in more than a dozen publications, including National Geographic, Nature and the Washington Post. He is also the co-author of On Call in Hell: A Doctor’s Iraq War Story, which was a national bestseller in 2007. He lives in San Francisco with his wife and fellow writer, Erika Check Hayden.
A sci-fi TV junkie since the first season of the original “Star Trek,” K. Stoddard Hayes finally validated her addiction when she sold her first article to Babylon 5 magazine. Since then, she has written about many genre series, including “Stargate: SG-1,” “Buffy” and “Angel,” “Star Trek” and, of course, “Farscape.” She is also the author of Xena, Warrior Princess: The Complete Illustrated Companion. She recently contributed five articles on classic television series to The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Science Fiction and Fantasy, including the “Farscape” entry. When not programming her VCR to catch the latest episodes of current TV series, she likes to take her family to the beach or the movies, read comic books and plot to overthrow the male domination of screenwriting.
Natalie Haynes is a comedian and writer. Her first stand-up show was nominated for a Perrier Best Newcomer Award at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2002. Her first novel, The Great Escape, is published in September 2007, and she writes regularly for The Times. She reviews theater, film, books and television for BBC “Newsnight Review.”
Dr. Linda Heath is a professor of psychology at Loyola University Chicago, where her teaching and research interests focus on media effects, research methodology, and psychology and law. She received her M.A. and Ph.D. from Northwestern University in social psychology and her B.A. from the Ohio State University.
Kyle Hebert lives and writes in Lexington, Ky. His fiction has appeared in The Glut, Sexy Stranger, and Mitochondria’s First Anthology of Rarities and Loose Ends. He is also the fiction editor for Nougat. His first manuscript for a novel is sitting on an editor’s desk waiting to be read.
Sibylle Hechtel received her Ph.D. in biology from the University of California, Irvine. She taught the Biology of Aging at the University of Michigan while researching mitochondrial DNA evolution and later worked as a faculty research fellow at Caltech studying repetitive DNA. After several years of working 60 to 70 hours weekly in labs with no windows, she quit academics to work as a writer. Her work has been published in New Scientist, Red Herring, Reuters Health and others. She wrote a book on rock climbing due out in 2007.
George Hedley owns a $50 million construction and real estate development business as well as HARDHAT Presentations. Over the last five years, as a much-requested popular professional speaker, George speaks 50 times per year to business audiences, conventions, associations and at company meetings. As many as 25,000 people see him present keynote speeches or seminars every year. George is based in Costa Mesa, Calif.
John G. Hemry also writes under the name Jack Campbell and is the author of several novels, including the first and so far only legal thriller military SF series (a.k.a. “JAG” in space), which includes A Just Determination, Burden of Proof, Rule of Evidence and Against All Enemies. His latest space opera is The Lost Fleet: Dauntless (August 2006) under the Jack Campbell pen name. John loves the first Star Wars trilogy but wishes George had stopped there. He wanted to marry a woman like Leia and ended up with one who’s pretty darn close but even better. He’s also the author of the Stark’s War series and numerous short fiction stories, as well as nonfiction articles on topics like interstellar navigation. A retired U.S. Navy officer, he lives in Maryland with his wife “S” and three children.
Amy Hendel, R-PA, IDEA, ACSM, is a family lifestyle therapist, registered physician assistant and well-known TV personality, health expert, reporter, correspondent, producer and writer for a wide variety of television and radio shows and print publications. She reaches millions of people through a broad spectrum of media outlets including guest spots on NBC’s “Today,” Fox News and Rachael Ray, as a traveling expert/correspondent for NBC Health Fairs where she speaks to audiences throughout the country, as “Healthy Home” segment host on “Housesmarts” and as a regular coach and mentor for iVillage.com, a Web site with more than 16 million subscribers. As CEO of healthgal.com, her daily newsletter hits thousands of homes.
Hendel’s master’s level R-PA degree followed her Bachelor of Science degree. She is a personal trainer, fitness instructor and nutritionist; and her professional affiliations include the California Association of Physician Assistants, the American Association of Physician Assistants, the American College of Sports Medicine and the International Association of Fitness Professionals (IDEA).
C. Lenny Henderson, CFP, became a Certified Financial Planner while working as a financial advisor at a major Wall Street firm. He followed the advice of Making Work Optional and is now pursuing a medical degree. He lives in Oklahoma City.
Nancy Henderson is an award-winning writer who enjoys pursuing stories that break societal stereotypes and challenge readers to look at human issues in a new light. She has published hundreds of articles in major periodicals ranging from Parade and the New York Times to Smithsonian, Woman’s Day and Southwest Airlines Spirit. In recent years, two of her primary areas of expertise—human interest and business—have “accidentally” meshed into a specialty that focuses on people who are making a difference through their work. Nancy is a member of the American Society of Journalists and Authors and the Authors Guild. She has won two Print Journalism EDI (Equality, Dignity and Independence) awards from Easter Seals for “raising awareness of disability issues and encouraging realistic portrayals of people with disabilities.” One of the honors was for “An Enabling Workforce,” a story she wrote about Habitat International, Inc. for Nation’s Business in 1998. Nancy’s magazine articles about Habitat have also prompted numerous calls and letters from socially conscious entrepreneurs, disability groups and parents with disabled children, as well as many unsolicited invitations for Habitat owner, David Morris, to share his message at workshops for business, education, healthcare and disability groups throughout the U.S. Nancy lives in Chattanooga, Tenn.
Magnus Henrekson was born in 1958. In November 1956, at age 19, his biological mother Gabriella Zador (b. Palfy, 1937–2006) escaped Hungary following the Soviet invasion. After a short interim in an Austrian refugee camp she came to Sweden in early 1957. She became pregnant later that year, and rather than opting for a life as a single mother in a foreign country she decided to give up her child. As a result, Magnus grew up as an adopted child in a Swedish farming family. He knew from an early age that he was adopted and that his biological mother was Hungarian. He first met his biological mother in 1984, and it took several years before she told him who his biological father was. Gabriella’s first years in Sweden had been tumultuous and the pregnancy was the result of a brief relationship. The father had never been informed of the pregnancy, let alone the birth of his son. Magnus contacted his biological father Benny Grünfeld in 1992, and they began to make up for time lost. Benny retired a year later, and, partly as a way of getting to know each other, they compiled Benny’s memories from the Holocaust years into a book manuscript. Very early on Magnus showed talent for academic studies and had a vivid interest in social matters. He eventually specialized in economics. After receiving his Ph.D. in 1990 he has been an academic economist. In Sweden he is a well-known and respected academic, and for almost 20 years he has been a keen and frequent controversial participant in the Swedish public debate. He is currently Jacob Wallenberg Professor of Economics at the Stockholm School of Economics and president of the Research Institute of Industrial Economics in Stockholm. In his research he has covered a wide array of topics, but in recent years his main interest has been the role of entrepreneurship for economic development and prosperity. Magnus is married to Karin and has two daughters, Ebba and Hedvig, born in 1992 and 1994, respectively.
Nancy Herkness is the author of two award-winning novels: A Bridge to Love and Shower of Stars. She learned how to “deconstruct” at Princeton University, where she studied English literature and creative writing. Born and raised in the mountains of West Virginia, Nancy now lives in New Jersey with her husband, two children and a golden retriever. She was shocked to discover that, according to the Desperate Housewives Quiz, she most resembles the character of Gabrielle. Of course, she wouldn’t mind having Gabby’s figure or her shoes.
Richard E. Heyman, Ph.D., is research professor of psychology at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. His research focuses on family dysfunction, especially family violence. He has authored or co-authored more than 60 scholarly papers, book chapters and books and has received over 20 federal research grants. His alliance with Ashley was forged two and a half years ago when she arrived at Stony Brook and her passion for “Survivor” got him to start watching the show.
Darren Hudson Hick is a doctoral candidate in philosophy at the University of Maryland, College Park, and the former managing editor of the Comics Journal. He has previously contributed to the Smart Pop anthology Webslinger: SF and Comic Writers on Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man. For more information, visit www.typetoken.com.
Janine Hiddlestone is a lecturer and tutor in politics, history and communications at James Cook University in Australia. She has a Ph.D. in political history and has published on the place of war in culture and history, and how pop culture became the centerpiece of so much of the public’s understanding—and misunderstanding—of events. She has explored the influence of technology on pop culture, and vice versa, and its pedagogical uses in encouraging students to develop an interest in political and historical issues. She has also attained infamy among her colleagues as a pop culture tragic.
Raelynn Hillhouse has slipped across closed borders, smuggled jewels and been recruited as a spy by two of the world’s most notorious intelligence services (they failed). The St. Louis Post-Dispatch wrote that “she’s truly like James Bond and Indiana Jones all rolled into one.” Her widely acclaimed first novel, Rift Zone, draws from her experiences. Her next novel, Outsourced (Forge, May 2007), is about an operative who becomes a target in the multibillion-dollar War on Terror, and the only one he can trust is his ex-fiancée—who’s been hired to kill him. A former professor and Fulbright fellow, Hillhouse lives in Hawaii.
Andrea Schicke Hirsch has been a bookseller, freelance editor and copywriter, teacher and paralegal. She studied theatre and English at Fordham University and has a master’s degree in education from the University of Bridgeport. A Connecticut native, she lives in Wilton, Conn., with her family.
Dr. Dave Hodgson is an ecologist, working at the Centre for Ecology and Conservation on the Cornwall (U.K.) campus of the University of Exeter. He lives in the middle of Cornwall and enjoys views of the North and South coasts. He and Penny share their house and garden with Merlin, the magic dog, and Patch and Bridget, the depraved bunnies. When not studying the maintenance of biodiversity, he plays drums for warblefly, the kickingest trad-punk band this side of anywhere.
Steven A. Hoffman has lived in 17 states and countries and has been very happy to call Sioux Falls, S.D., home since 1997. When he’s not writing, he oversees a seven-gallery visual arts center, a science center with three floors of hands-on exhibits, a domed large format theater and a performing arts center with 1,900- and 300-seat theaters. Professionally, Steve has curated performing arts series, festivals, events and individual performances for more than 15 years. Steve holds degrees from the University of Illinois and University of Wisconsin and has worked and taught in Chicago, New York, Ann Arbor, Mich., and Madison, Wis. He is actively involved with a variety of local and national boards, associations and panels and has previously been published in several literary and trade publications. Since living in South Dakota his appreciation for country music, fishing and hunting has steadily grown. Steve can be contacted at SH.writings@hotmail.com.
Nancy Holder is a four-time Bram Stoker Award–winning author, and was nominated a fifth time for one of her “Buffy” novels. She also received a special award from Amazon.com for The Angel Chronicles, Volume 1. She has written or cowritten over three dozen projects in the “BtVS” and “Angel” universes. Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Watcher’s Guide, Volume 1, coauthored with Christopher Golden, appeared on the USA Today bestseller list and was described in Entertainment Weekly and the Wall Street Journal as “superb.” She lives in San Diego with her 8-year-old daughter, Belle, a daunting karate student and key soccer defender, who, as of this writing, is eagerly awaiting her first softball season.
Alesia Holliday’s first book was all about being a desperate housewife. The autobiographical E-mail to the Front was the first book to tell the real truth about military families when one spouse is at war. After several years as a trial lawyer, Alesia is a “recovering” attorney turned award-winning author. For news of her novels—romantic comedies, chick-lit and mysteries—please visit her online at www.alesiaholliday.com. For news of her latest Desperate Mom moment, you can visit her blog and laugh at her. (Everybody else does.) Alesia, who in her college days was a lot like Gabrielle, is now firmly in Lynette’s camp. Except Alesia’s kids are way, way better behaved. And there are no rats.
Robert Hood is a widely published writer of horror fiction who also indulges his abiding passion for genre cinema through irregular critiquing. His articles “Nights of the Celluloid Dead: a History of Zombie Films” and “Killer Koalas: Australian and New Zealand Horror Films” are available, along with other film comment, via his Web site (www.roberthood.net). He recently co-edited (with Robin Pen) an international anthology of original stories entitled Daikaiju! Giant Monster Tales (Agog! Press, 2005) and won an Atheling Award for Genre Criticism for a piece on the film “The Weight of Water.” He lives in Wollongong, which is a regional city south of Sydney on the east coast of NSW, Australia.
Misty K. Hook, Ph.D., first developed her love for all things Joss Whedon during her doctoral training in counseling psychology. After getting her degree, Dr. Hook spent five years as an assistant professor of psychology teaching classes on gender and family issues. Her students quickly learned about her love of both “Buffy” and feminism and often gave her “Buffy”-related items. Dr. Hook is now a licensed psychologist in private practice where she deals a lot with gender issues. In her spare time, she enjoys spending time with her husband and son, who she hopes will be as much of a feminist as Joss Whedon.
The Psychology of Harry Potter
David Hopkins is a high-school English teacher and comic-book writer (Karma Incorporated, Emily Edison and Antigone). He lives in Arlington, Texas, with his wife Melissa and their daughter Kennedy. If anyone from Marvel reads this, he’d like a job writing Spider-Man—thank you very much. Visit David’s Web site at www.antiherocomics.com
Ellen Hopkins is a poet and award-winning author, with 20 published nonfiction books for children and five New York Times bestselling young adult novels-in-verse. Her sixth novel publishes August 2009. She is currently hard at work on her seventh and says she hopes for a Printz nomination before she reaches her expiration date. Hopkins lives with her husband, 11-year-old son, two dogs, one cat and a “whole mess of fish” on her hilltop estate near Carson City, Nev.
Tanya Huff lives and writes in rural Ontario, Canada, with her partner Fiona Patton, six and a half cats and an unintentional Chihuahua. Her latest book and the third of the Tony Foster novels, Smoke and Ashes, will be out in hardcover in June 2006.
Ashley N. Hunt, M.A., is a graduate student in the clinical psychology Ph.D. program at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. Her research interests include couples conflict and communication and the observational methodologies used to study such phenomena. Ashley hopes that her strategies and alliances will help her outwit, outplay and outlast the challenges of graduate school.
Elizabeth Hutcheson is a freelance features writer and photographer living in Ireland.
William J. Ickes, Ph.D., is distinguished professor of psychology at the University of Texas at Arlington. He is the editor of Empathic Accuracy (1997) and the author of Everyday Mind Reading: Understanding What Other People Think and Feel (2003). His research on empathic accuracy has been recognized by three international research awards.
Alexander J. Ispa-Cowan is a high school student who enjoys playing guitar and piano, working with lasers, electronics and the physical sciences generally, playing soccer, watching “The Simpsons” and its animated competitors, picking up political information from “The Daily Show” with Jon Stewart and, sometimes, reading and creative writing.
Robert T. Jeschonek has written Star Trek fiction for Pocket Books, including a story that won the national grand prize in Strange New Worlds VI. His original fiction has appeared in magazines and Web sites including Postscripts and Abyss & Apex. His comic book work has appeared in War, Commercial Suicide and Dead by Dawn Quarterly. He has worked in radio, television and public relations and currently works as a technical writer for a defense contractor. Visit his Web site at www.robertjeschonek.com for news, original fiction and the Flog, a fictionalized blog with an emphasis on fantasy.
Dr. Duke Johnson has dedicated more than 20 years of his life to stopping the epidemic spread of chronic diseases around the world. He is an expert on the different medical traditions practiced globally and on the state of world health, with patients living in more than 30 different countries. His preventive health teaching regularly reaches more than 3 million people in 55 countries. Dr. Johnson is Medical Director of the 30,000-square-foot, $14 million Nutrilite Health Institute Center for Optimal Health in Southern California and is a highly requested lecturer, having spoken to more than 100,000 people in 30 different countries on five continents. He has significant media experience with articles in many well-respected magazines and many large international newspapers.
Jeremy Johnson is a CFP as well. He is financial advisor with BancFirst. He lives in Tulsa, Okla.
Kerri L. Johnson is an assistant professor of communication studies at UCLA. She earned her Ph.D. from Cornell University in 2004. Her research examines the causes and consequences of social categorization, often involving perceptions of sex and gender. Together with her students, she aims to “save the world, one bullet point at a time” (Mercurio, P. Two Spoons).
Bill Joy is a co-founder, chief scientist and corporate executive officer of Sun Microsystems and has played a critical role in the development of a number of critical technologies, including Jini and Java. In 1997 he was appointed co-chairman of the Presidential Information Technology Advisory Committee. His many contributions were recognized by a cover story in Fortune Magazine, which called him the “Edison of the Internet.”
Charles Kalish is a professor of educational psychology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His research interests concern the development of inductive inference and intuitive theories. Thanks to this essay, he is now able to look back on all those enjoyable hours spent reading Harry Potter books and realize he was actually working.
Michael J. Kane is a cognitive psychologist with research interests in memory, attention, intelligence, cognitive control and individual differences. He earned his B.A. in psychology from Haverford College in 1989, and his Ph.D. in cognitive psychology in 1995. He is currently an associate professor of psychology at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and serves on the editorial boards of two scientific journals, as associate editor for Memory & Cognition and consulting editor for Journal of Experimental Psychology: General. He is also the father of two and the husband of one.
USA Today bestselling author Donna Kauffman has seen her books reviewed in venues ranging from Kirkus to Library Journal to Entertainment Weekly. A past RITA finalist, National Readers Choice, Maggie and PRISM award winner, she lives in Virginia with her teenage sons and a growing menagerie of animals. Donna loves to hear from her readers. You can contact her through her Web site at donnakauffman.com.
Frank C. Keil received a B.S. in biology from M.I.T. in 1973, an M.A. in psychology from Stanford University in 1975, and a Ph.D. in psychology from the University of Pennsylvania in 1977. He was a faculty member in the Psychology Department at Cornell University from 1977 to 1998. Since 1998 he has been professor of psychology and linguistics at Yale University, where he is also Master of Morse College. He has been a Guggenheim Fellow, a Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, and has received national awards from the American Psychological Association and NIH for his work in cognition and cognitive development.
Tim Keiningham is a world-renowned authority in the field of loyalty measurement and management. He is chief strategy officer and executive vice president for Ipsos Loyalty, one of the world’s largest research organizations. A prolific author, Tim has coauthored numerous books on loyalty and service: Loyalty Myths, The Customer Delight Principle, Service Marketing and Return on Quality.
Tim is also an acclaimed scientific researcher, having won numerous awards for his research. He is one of only a very small number of scientific researchers to have twice won best paper from the Journal of Marketing, the most prestigious scientific journal all of management and economics (as measured by the citation index).
Jay Kelly, CDP, AAMS, is a former financial advisor with a major Wall Street firm. He also took his own advice in Making Work Optional and left the financial services industry to pursue advanced degrees in philosophy so he can teach in the college classroom. He lives in Oklahoma City.
Karen Kendall is the award-winning author of 14 romantic comedies and many disasters. She grew up in central Texas, has a B.A. from Smith College in Northampton, Mass., and now lives in South Florida with her husband, where she writes full time. The books of the Stephanie Plum series are among her most treasured possessions.
As the owner of three wild and crazy dogs, Beth Kendrick was a big fan of McVet. (Finn, we hardly knew ye!) Her novels include Nearlyweds, Fashionably Late, Exes and Ohs and My Favorite Mistake. You can visit her Web site at www.bethkendrick.com.
Caren Kennedy is a freelance features writer and photographer living in Ireland.
Nationally bestselling author Julie Kenner’s first book hit the stores in February of 2000, and she’s been on the go ever since, with over 20 books to her credit. Her books have won numerous awards and have hit bestseller lists as varied as USA Today, Waldenbooks, Barnes & Noble and Locus magazine. She writes a range of stories, from sexy and quirky romances to chick-lit suspense (The Givenchy Code) to paranormal mommy lit (Carpe Demon and California Demon). Visit Julie on the Web at www.juliekenner.com.
David A. Kenny is a Distinguished Board of Trustees professor at the University of Connecticut where he has taught since 1978. He has also taught at Arizona State University and Northwestern University. He is the author of six books, the most recent being Dyadic Data Analysis, and over 100 journal articles and book chapters. Besides his work in person perception, he is known for his contributions in the area of methodology. He is the proud father of three children, one of whom co-authored this chapter.
Alison Kent was a born reader, but was married with children before she decided she wanted to be a writer when she grew up. She found a home at Harlequin when she accepted an invitation issued by her editor live on the “Isn’t It Romantic?” episode of CBS “48 Hours.” She now writes for both Harlequin Blaze and Kensington Brava, penning stories she believes in—fantasies that show readers the way love was meant to be. She lives in Texas with her hero, four vagabond kids and a dog named Smith. And she actually manages to write in the midst of all that madness.
Kay Kenyon’s science fiction novels include The Seeds of Time, Maximum Ice and The Braided World; the latter two were finalists for the Philip K. Dick and John W. Campbell awards, respectively. Her speculative fiction explores themes such as cultural and biological transformation and the dilemmas presented by alien contact. She has recently completed her most challenging novel to date, Bright of the Sky, the first of a quartet of books.
New York Times bestselling author Sherrilyn Kenyon has been a devout “Angel” fan from the beginning. She lives outside of Nashville, Tenn., with her husband and three sons. Versatile and prolific, she has successfully published in virtually every known genre and subgenre. Writing as Kinley MacGregor and Sherrilyn Kenyon, she is the bestselling author of several series, including The Dark-Hunters, Brotherhood of the Sword, The MacAllisters, Sex Camp Diaries and BAD. For more information, you can visit her online at one of her Web sites: sherrilynkenyon.com or kinleymacgregor.com.
Shoshana D. Kerewsky earned her master’s degree in counseling psychology from Lesley College and her doctorate in clinical psychology from Antioch New England Graduate School. She is an assistant professor in counseling psychology and human services at the University of Oregon, an adjunct instructor in the Transitions to Success program at Lane Community College and a licensed psychologist in private practice. In addition to psychology publications, her work has appeared in English Journal, Fiction International and literary anthologies. Although she never learned to speak Elvish or Klingon, she may be the only psychologist ever to present to the American Psychological Association in full wizard’s regalia.
Dan Kerns served as chief lighting technician (“gaffer”) for the final three seasons of “Angel” after serving as the assistant chief lighting technician (“best boy”) for seasons one and two. He is native of Port Carbon, Pa., and currently lives in Burbank, Calif.
Kristen Kidder is a writer, cultural scholar and recovering academic who lives in Brooklyn, N.Y. In the last seven years, she has only missed one episode of “Gilmore Girls.”
Award-winning author Nancy Kilpatrick has published 14 novels, 150-plus short stories, five collections of stories and has edited seven anthologies. She has also penned three comic books, co-scripted a bilingual stage play and written a slew of nonfiction. Much of her work involves vampires; for example, her popular Power of the Blood series, which will be reprinted this year (Mosaic Press), and her newest title Eternal City (Five Star Books/ Gale Publishing). In 2004 she will publish The Goth Bible, a nonfiction profile of the modern gothic culture (St. Martin’s Press), and Goth Gurrls & Boi, an anthology she is co-editing with Nancy Holder (Roc/NAL). Nancy is currently writing the screenplay for one of her books, Near Death, being produced by C3 Productions. Check her Web site for the latest news: nancykilpatrick.com.
Daniel M. Kimmel is a Boston-based film critic whose reviews appear in the Worcester Telegram & Gazette. He is the Boston correspondent for Variety and a past president of the Boston Society of Film Critics. He is an award-winning author of several books, including The Fourth Network, a history of FOX broadcasting, and The Dream Team, a history of DreamWorks. He is also a regular contributor to the Internet Review of Science Fiction.
Daniel S. Kirschenbaum, Ph.D., is the director of the Center for Behavioral Medicine & Sport Psychology in Chicago and a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Northwestern University Medical School. He has served as a consultant to dozens of professional journals, the U.S. Olympic Committee, the National Basketball Association, the Ladies Professional Golf Association, the World Scientific Congress on Golf and several major corporations. He is the author of The 9 Truths about Weight Loss. He lives in Chicago.
Ellen Kirschman, Ph.D., police and public safety psychologist, is the author of I Love a Cop: What Police Families Need to Know (Guilford, 1997) and I Love a Firefighter: What the Family Needs to Know (Guilford, 2004). She lives in California.
Paul Kix was educated in the public schools of rural Iowa and is a 2003 graduate of Iowa State University. He interned at many places, most notably ESPN the Magazine, found permanent employment in Phoenix at New Times, and then, in 2004, moved to Dallas and the city’s alt-weekly, the Observer. He is now associate editor at D magazine, Dallas’s monthly magazine. In his office cube is a miniature Cadillac Escalade. It has spinners. Paul’s proud of those spinners.
Amanda Anne Klein is a Ph.D. candidate in film studies in the English department at the University of Pittsburgh. Her dissertation is a case study of 1990s ghetto action films and a theorization of how and why film cycles form. Her publications include forthcoming essays in the journal The Quarterly Review of Film and Video and in the anthologies Deadwood: A Western to Swear By and Media(ted) Deviance and Social Otherness: Interrogating Influential Representations. She has also published online essays and reviews in Critical Quarterly Debates, Reality Blurred: Exposed and PopMatters.
Geoff Klock (D.Phil., Oxford University) is the author of How to Read Superhero Comics and Why (Continuum 2002) and Imaginary Biographies: Misreading the Lives of the Poets (Continuum 2007). The first applies Harold Bloom’s poetics of influence to comic books; the second argues that the bizarre portrayal of historical writers in 19th- and 20th-century poetry constitutes a genre (and will be followed by a companion book on film). For BenBella, he has written on “Veronica Mars,” “Firefly” and “House.” His blog—Remarkable: Short Appreciations of Poetry, Comics, Film, Television and Music—can be found at geoffklock.blogspot.com. He lives in New York City, where he is a freelance academic.
E. David Klonsky, Ph.D., received his B.A. in psychology from Washington University in St. Louis and his Ph.D. in clinical psychology from the University of Virginia. He is currently an assistant professor of psychology at Stony Brook University, where he is also director of the Personality, Emotion and Behavior Laboratory. His research examines the personality traits and emotion processes that lead to psychopathology and maladaptive behaviors. He wishes to thank his wife Alexis for her love, support and numerous Harry Potter insights. David and Alexis would both like to thank J.K. Rowling for bettering the world through her books and example.
Steve Knowlton is a senior research analyst with Kaiser Foundation Health Plan. He received his B.A. in rhetoric from the University of California, Berkeley, his M.A. in communications from the University of California, Davis, and his M.A. in psychology from the University of Pennsylvania.
JA Konrath writes the pretty funny Lt. Jacqueline “Jack” Daniels mystery series. Whiskey Sour, Bloody Mary and Rusty Nail are currently in print, with threats of more coming soon.
Wesley A. Kort is professor in and chair of the Department of Religion and a member of the Graduate Faculty of Religion at Duke University. He has his Ph.D. degree from the University of Chicago, and before joining the faculty at Duke, he taught in the Department of Religion at Princeton University. He was born in Hoboken, N.J., and he did his undergraduate work at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Mich. He is the author of many articles and of nine books, the most recent of the being Place and Space in Modern Fiction (University of Florida Press, 2004) and C.S. Lewis Then and Now (Oxford University Press, 2001). At the present time he is working on a book that will address the question of religious identity and its relation to autobiography. Professor Kort has given lectures at many universities; within the last year he presented papers at Claremont University, at the University of Calgary and at Trinity College, Oxford. He is the recipient of a distinguished teaching award at Duke University.
Julia Blackshear Kosatka was in her 30s before she realized that everyone else didn’t have “daydreams” that ran for months with plots and subplots and several generations of characters. The year 2000 really was the end of things as we know them because that was the year she sold her first story (“Bones of the Dead,” Black Gate, Summer 2001). Her most recent fiction sale is “Ned and the Cookie Girls” (The Four Bubbas of the Apocalypse, Yard Dog Press). Julia works at the University of Houston, doing computerish things and counting down the months until her pension is ripe. She lives inside the Loop with her insanely bright 10-year-old daughter and two cats who hate each other with a passion. Life is never dull.
Harley Jane Kozak, a sometime actress, lives in Topanga Canyon, Calif., with her trial lawyer husband, two big dogs and three small children. Her debut novel, Dating Dead Men, won the Agatha, Anthony and Macavity awards. Its sequel, Dating Is Murder, came out last spring, and she’s now writing number three, working-titled Dead Ex. Her short fiction has appeared in Ms. Magazine, Soap Opera Digest, the Sun and the Santa Monica Review.
Marguerite Krause’s favorite activities involve the printed word. In addition to writing, she works as a freelance copyeditor, helping other writers to sharpen their skills, and for relaxation loves nothing better than to curl up with a good book. She is married to her high school sweetheart; they have two children. You can find more of Marguerite’s writing in the anthologies Seven Seasons of Buffy and Five Seasons of Angel; her two-part epic fantasy, Moons’ Dreaming and Moons’ Dancing, co-written with Susan Sizemore; and her fantasy novel, Blind Vision.
The Anthology at the End of the Universe
Robert F. Krueger, Ph.D., is professor of psychology at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities and an associate editor of the Journal of Abnormal Psychology. Dr. Krueger has been honored with both early- and mid-career distinguished research awards from the American Psychological Association and the American Psychological Foundation. His professional interests include personality, psychopathology, statistics and behavior genetics; that said, he feels slightly unnerved by the possibility that, ultimately, his most widely read publication might be about “Firefly.” Aside from his psychological endeavors, Dr. Krueger enjoys things like “The Simpsons,” jazz, science fiction and video gaming. His top secret desire is that this chapter will become a citation classic and someday earn him the degree of Doctor of Science Fiction, honoris causa.
Crime Scene Detective Christine Kruse-Feldstein has been with the Miami-Dade Police Department for over 10 years. She also has experience in law enforcement in Kentucky and was a part of a volunteer fire department working as an emergency medical technician. Overall she has been involved in law enforcement or fire rescue for 16 years. One of Christine’s favorite sayings is “I do not respond unless you are raped, robbed, shot, stabbed or dead.”
James Anthony Kuhoric is known for his work writing licensed science fiction and horror comic books. He’s crafted tales for many fan-favorite series including “Battlestar Galactica,” “First Wave,” “Lexx,” “Army of Darkness” and “Stargate: SG-1.” To this day he maintains that next to his family, quality science fiction is his greatest love. People who know him best sometimes call him “Starbuck.”
Robert Kurzban, Ph.D., is currently an assistant professor at the University of Pennsylvania in the department of psychology. He received his Ph.D. at the University of California Santa Barbara, and received postdoctoral training at Caltech, UCLA and the University of Arizona. His research focuses on evolved cognitive adaptations for navigating the social world in domains such as mate choice, friendship, morality and cooperation.
Amy Kurzweil is in the 11th grade at Milton Academy in Milton, Mass. She and her mother Sonya live in Boston.
Sonya Kurzweil is a psychotherapist, developmental psychologist and an instructor in psychology at Children’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School.
Ray Kurzweil was the principal developer of the first CCD flatbed scanner, the first omni-font optical character recognition, the first print-to-speech reading machine for the blind, the first text-to-speech synthesizer, the first music synthesizer capable of recreating the grand piano and other orchestral instruments, and the first commercially marketed large-vocabulary speech recognition. Ray’s Web site KurzweilAI.net has more than 1 million readers. Among Ray’s many honors, he is the recipient of the $500,000 MIT-Lemelson Prize, the National Medal of Technology and the National Inventor’s Hall of Fame, established by the U.S. Patent Office. He has received 15 honorary doctorates and honors from three U.S. presidents. Ray has written five books, four of which have been national bestsellers. The Age of Spiritual Machines has been translated into nine languages and was the #1 bestselling book on Amazon in science. Ray’s latest book, The Singularity Is Near, was a New York Times bestseller and has been the #1 book on Amazon in both science and philosophy.
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.
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.
Jill MacKay is a 20-year-old student studying zoology at the University of Glasgow, Scotland. When she’s not dissecting snails or chasing after birds, she can be found terrorizing literary agents with various unpublished novels. She and her little sister have been tackling Halo on cooperative play since 2002 but have still to complete Halo 2 on Legendary. This is blamed on their aversion to being shot at.
Dario Maestripieri earned his Ph.D. in psychobiology from the University of Rome, Italy, in 1992. He is currently an associate professor of comparative human development and evolutionary biology at the University of Chicago. His research interests focus on the biology of behavior, and in particular on physiological, ecological and evolutionary aspects of primate social behavior. Dr. Maestripieri has published over 130 scientific articles and several books including Primate Psychology (Harvard University Press, 2003) and Macachiavellian Intelligence: How Rhesus Macaques and Humans Have Conquered the World (The University of Chicago Press, 2007).
Gregory Maguire is co-director of Children’s Literature New England, Incorporated, and author of books for children and adults, including Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West and Son of a Witch.
Nick Mamatas is the author of the Lovecraftian Beat road novel Move Under Ground (Night Shade Books, 2004) and the Marxist Civil War ghost story Northern Gothic (Soft Skull Press, 2001), both of which were nominated for the Bram Stoker Award for dark fiction. He’s published more than 200 articles and essays in the Village Voice, the men’s magazine Razor, In These Times, Clamor, Poets & Writers, Silicon Alley Reporter, Artbytes, the UK Guardian, five Disinformation Books anthologies and many other venues, and more than 40 short stories and comic strips in magazines including Razor, Strange Horizons, ChiZine, Polyphony and others. Under My Roof: A Novel of Neighborhood Nuclear Superiority (Soft Skull Press) was released in early 2007.
Dr. Stephen P. Maran spent more than 35 years in NASA, working on the Hubble Space Telescope and other scientific projects and is the press officer for the American Astronomical Society. His 10 previous books include Astronomy for Dummies® and The Astronomy and Astrophysics Encyclopedia. His awards and honors include the naming of an asteroid for him by the International Astronomical Union, the NASA Medal for Exceptional Achievement, the George Van Biesbroeck Prize of the American Astronomical Society and the Astronomical Society of the Pacific’s Klumpke-Roberts Award for outstanding contributions to the public understanding and appreciation of astronomy.
Since 1990, Michael Marano has been reviewing movies and doing pop culture commentary for the Public Radio Satellite System program “Movie Magazine International,” syndicated in more than 111 markets in the U.S. and Canada. In this capacity, he has seen and ranted on and pontificated about perhaps more than 1,000 genre movies, and is now unfit for most any other form of employment. His articles have appeared in venues like the Boston Phoenix, the Weekly Dig, the Independent Weekly, Paste Magazine and Science Fiction Universe. Marano is also a horror writer, with stories in The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror 11 and Outsiders: 22 All-New Stories from the Edge; his first novel, Dawn Song, won the Bram Stoker and International Horror Guild Awards. He recently visited the set of the “Batman Begins” sequel “The Dark Knight” for the SciFi Channel and saw a lot of cool stuff that he can’t talk about. He is a bitter old punk rocker, and can be reached at www.myspace.com/michaelmarano.
J. David Markham (www.NapoleonicHistory.com/) is an award-winning Napoleonic scholar and biographer and executive vice president of the International Napoleonic Society. Among his books are Napoleon for Dummies (which has been translated into French, Dutch and Russian); Napoleon’s Road to Glory: Triumphs, Defeats, and Immortality; Imperial Glory: The Bulletins of Napoleon’s Grande Armée 1805-1814; and Napoleon and Dr Verling on St. Helena. He has written numerous articles for magazines, journals and encyclopedias, and has appeared on the History, Discovery and Learning channels. His “Napoleon 101” podcast (napoleon.thepodcastnetwork.com/) has thousands of listeners worldwide. David and his wife Barbara live in Olympia, Wash.
Arthur B. Markman is a professor of psychology and marketing at the University of Texas, Austin. He received his Ph.D. in 1992 from the University of Illinois and worked at Northwestern University and Columbia University before moving to Texas. He has written over 80 scholarly works. He is a past executive officer of the Cognitive Science Society. He is also a member of the scientific advisory board for “The Dr. Phil Show.”
Louis Markos (http://fc.hbu.edu/lmarkos) is a professor in English at Houston Baptist University, where he also teaches courses on film. He is the author of Lewis Agonistes: How C. S. Lewis Can Train Us to Wrestle with the Modern & Postmodern World (Broadman & Holman) and “The Life and Writings of C. S. Lewis” (a lecture series produced by the Teaching Company).
Laurence Marschall, Ph.D., is the W.K.T. Sahm Professor of Physics at Gettysburg College where he teaches courses in astronomy, physics and science writing. He received his bachelor’s degree at Cornell University and his doctorate at University of Chicago. He writes a regular column on science books of note for Natural History magazine and is a contributing editor of Smithsonian Air and Space. He also contributes annual astronomy updates to the World Book Encyclopedia. He serves as deputy press officer of the American Astronomical Society. In addition to more than 40 articles in professional journals, Marschall has written for publications such as Sky and Telescope, Astronomy, Natural History, Discover, Harper’s, Newsday and the New York Times Book Review.
Christy Marx has had a long and eclectic career as a writer, TV series developer, comics creator, story editor and game designer. She has worked on comics, graphic novels, manga, live-action television, film, animation, computer games, console games and on-line games, and nonfiction books. In 2000, Christy Marx was awarded the Writers Guild of American/Animation Writers Caucus Award for contributions to the field of animation. Her credits include: “Babylon 5,” “Twilight Zone,” “Spider-Man,” “G.I. Joe,” “Jem and the Holograms,” “ReBoot,” “Conan,” “Beast Wars,” “X-Men: Evolution,” “Stargate Infinity,” “He-Man” and numerous games. Full credits available at www.christymarx.com.
Susan R. Matthews was born in a barracks in Fort Benning in the middle of a windstorm whose chaos has characterized her life ever since, most of which has occurred while she was paying attention to something else. She has been most recently seen in science fiction and murder mystery anthologies; her next Koscuisko novel, Warring States (whose protagonist would almost certainly have been Sorted into Slytherin the moment he set foot to flagstone at Hogwarts), is due out from independent publisher Meisha Merlin in January 2006.
Susan lives in Seattle, with her partner Maggie and two Pomeranian doggies. She has yet to quit her day job at the Boeing Company where she enjoys a regular paycheck, health benefits and other Muggle perks, and is convinced that the reason that You-Know-Who is determined that nobody kills Harry Potter but him is that Harry Potter is the final Horcrux.
Tom McBeath lives in Vancouver, Canada, with Karin Konoval. He’s worked on stages across Canada, most recently as “The Caretaker” (Davies) and “Othello” (Iago). His television work includes the movies “Off-Season,” “Prince of Mirrors,” “Nick Fury” and “In Cold Blood.” In addition to his long-running role as Harry Maybourne on “Stargate: SG-1,” he has appeared in over 20 different series, including “The X-Files,” “Millennium,” “Outer Limits,” “The Sentinel,” “Dead Man’s Gun,” “Highlander” and “The Chris Isaak Show.” Blink and you’ll miss him in feature films such as “Along Came a Spider,” “Double Jeopardy,” “Firestorm,” “Cousins” and “The Accused.”
New author Billy McCarthy sets a genre precedent with this smart, dynamic thriller. McCarthy’s debut novel, The Devil of Shakespeare, delivers a punch to the gut of the entertainment industry, spotlighting obscene appetites for fame, backstabbing charades, cutthroat tactics and the bitter consequences of celebrity. The author, a former rock artist and music industry personality, leverages real life experiences and insider insight to orchestrate this addictive tale of believable fiction.
Sam McBride is a senior professor with DeVry University (Pomona), teaching communications courses along with 20th-century literature and science fiction. He is coauthor, with Candice Fredrick, of Women Among the Inklings: Gender, C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, and Charles Williams. He has also published on Lewis’ A Preface to Paradise Lost.
Joseph McCabe is the author of the Bram Stoker and International Horror Guild Award-nominated Hanging Out with the Dream King: Conversations with Neil Gaiman and His Collaborators. His writing has appeared in such publications as SFX, Total Film, RES, Paste and the New York Review of Science Fiction. He is a contributing editor of Comic Book Artist and has contributed to the Smart Pop anthology The Man from Krypton: A Closer Look at Superman. He’d like to thank his mother for introducing him to the concept of guilt, and for making him, when he was 8 years old, a truly amazing Spider-Man costume for Halloween.
Denis M. McCarthy is originally from Long Island, N.Y. He received his bachelor’s degree in psychology and philosophy from the University of Notre Dame and his Ph.D. in clinical psychology from the University of Kentucky. His research focuses on examining factors (e.g., personality traits, genetic differences) that influence what people learn about alcohol use and alcohol-related behavior. He is currently an assistant professor in the Department of Psychological Sciences at the University of Missouri.
Chris McCubbin has written more than 20 books, mostly about games (computer and otherwise). He’s a co-founder of and writer/editor with Incan Monkey God Studios. Chris lives in Austin, Texas, with his wife, Lynette Alcorn, and his dogs, Penny and Sammy.
Pam McCutcheon grew up in Arizona and, though she traveled around the world as an engineer for the U.S. Air Force, she never made it to Trenton. Everything she does and doesn’t know about Trenton and New Jersey she learned from Stephanie Plum and her talented creator, Janet Evanovich. Pam has published romantic comedy novels, fantasy short stories (under the name Pamela Luzier), and nonfiction books for writers. She lives in the mountains of Colorado with her dog, Mo, and has no plans ever to visit Trenton.
Glenn McDonald writes about the busy intersections among film, TV, technology, games and pop culture for various Web sites and magazines. He is the author of Deal Me In!: Online Cardrooms, Big-Time Tournaments & the New Poker, and a contributing writer to the National Public Radio program “Wait, Wait … Don’t Tell Me.” His humor essays have been described as “grammatically consistent” and “remarkably frequent.” He lives in a series of fortified underground bunkers.
Gina McGuiness spent more than 35 years in the public affairs arena, handling highly sensitive and controversial subjects of international, national and California interest, community relations and public information management with the U.S. State and Defense Departments, numerous California government agencies and nonprofit, healthcare and educational organizations. She is an award-winning military journalist and a Vietnam veteran. She holds a pilot’s license, but hasn’t flown in many years. She retired from the United States Air Force with the rank of colonel. She serves as a member of the Board of Directors of Air Force Women Officers-Associated (AFWOA), an organization dedicated to maintaining ties between active and retired women officers and preserving the history and promoting recognition of the role of military women. The organization also lends support to women engaged in education and training programs and sponsors a permanent award at the Air Force Academy.
Denise I. McLean is the mother of AJ McLean of the Backstreet Boys. She has been interviewed numerous times, including a “20/20” interview with Connie Chung and interviews on MTV, VH1 and “The Howard Stern Show.” She lives in Orlando, Fla.
Sean McMullen is one of Australia’s leading SF and fantasy authors and has over a dozen books and five dozen stories published or sold. He is the winner of 13 awards for SF and fantasy, and his international sales include the USA, Britain, France, Poland, Russia, Romania, Italy and Japan. He works in scientific computing but is currently doing a Ph.D. on Medieval Fantasy Literature at Melbourne University, where he is also an instructor at the campus karate club. Before he began writing, Sean spent several years in theater and as a musician.
Cathy McSporran is in her third year of a Ph.D. in creative writing. She has published over a dozen short stories and won several awards. She has written papers and essays on C.S. Lewis, Elizabeth Hand and Philip Pullman and teaches classes on creative writing, Arthurian studies and Dante’s Divine Comedy. She is currently working on a novel, Cold City. Cathy lives in Glasgow, Scotland, with her husband and a large roving population of cats.
Teresa Medeiros wrote her first novel at the age of 21 and has since gone on to win the hearts of both readers and critics. All 15 of her books have been national bestsellers, climbing as high as #12 on the New York Times bestseller list, #20 on USA Today and #9 on Publishers Weekly. She is a six-time RITA finalist and a two-time recipient of the Waldenbooks Award for bestselling fiction. Her next novel, After Midnight, will be released by Avon Books in September 2005. You can visit her Web site at www.teresamedeiros.com.
Kenneth Meeks is the managing editor of Black Enterprise magazine and the author of Driving While Black: What To Do If You Are A Victim Of Racial Profiling. He lives with his family in New York City.
Robert A. Metzger is a research scientist and a science fiction and science writer. His research focuses on the technique of molecular beam epitaxy, used to grow epitaxial films for high-speed electronics applications. His short fiction has appeared in most major SF magazines, including Asimov’s, Fantasy & Science Fiction and SF Age, while his 2002 novel, Picoverse, was a Nebula finalist and his most recent novel, CUSP, was released by Ace in 2005. His science writing has appeared in Wired and Analog, and he is a contributing editor to the Science Fiction Writers of America Bulletin.
Award-winning author Tanya Michaels doesn’t think of herself as self-destructive, although she does experience both weakness and addiction when it comes to shows such as “Grey’s Anatomy,” “Veronica Mars,” “Battlestar Galactica” and “Project Runway.” When she’s not glued to the television, she writes funny, heartwarming romance novels and, under the name Tanya Michna, more serious women’s fiction.
Ellen Michaud is the award-winning former editor-at-large of Prevention Magazine. She has been featured in Better Homes & Gardens, Cosmopolitan, the New York Times and the Washington Post. She is a former instructor at Temple University, and she conducts the Vermont Women's Writing Retreat annually. She lives in South Starksboro, Vt.
Dr. Joe Miller is an associate professor in the Department of Cell and Neurobiology at the Keck School of Medicine at USC, as well as the director of pharmacology for the medical school. He is a neuropharmacologist with research primarily in the fields of circadian neurobiology, sleep and stem cell research. In addition, he is a science fiction critic of long standing and has been a fan of science fiction in literature and in cinema for over 40 years.
Joyce Millman is the co-author of the book The Great Snape Debate (BenBella/Borders). Her essays on pop culture have appeared in the New York Times, Salon.com, the Boston Phoenix and several Smart Pop anthologies, including Neptune Noir and Getting Lost. Read more of her work at www.joycemillman.com.
Richard Miniter is the author of two New York Times–bestselling books, Losing Bin Laden and Shadow War, and is an internationally recognized expert on terrorism. He lives in Arlington, Va.
Daniel P. Moloney has a B.A. in religious studies from Yale and a doctorate in philosophy from Notre Dame. He has taught in the Department of Philosophy at Notre Dame and the Politics Department at Princeton. A former editor at First Things, he has written for First Things, Wall Street Journal, National Review, Crisis and American Prospect, among other publications. He is also a contributor to BenBella’s Smart Pop anthology on Phillip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy. He now lives in Rome, preparing for his next great adventure.
Carla Montgomery began as a reluctant voyeur, but is doing her best to make up for that naughty behavior now. Her essays and short stories have appeared in several anthologies and her commentaries aired on the local NPR station. For really weird story ideas, she highly recommends working as a late-night cop reporter. She currently lives with her family in Utah … but that’s another story.
Dr. Max More is an internationally acclaimed strategic futurist who writes, speaks and organizes events on the fundamental challenges of emerging technologies. Max is concerned that our burgeoning technological capabilities are racing far ahead of our standard ways of thinking about future possibilities. His work aims to improve our ability to anticipate, adapt to and shape the future for the better. Max co-founded and is chairman of Extropy Institute and authored the Principles of Extropy, which form the core of a transhumanist perspective. His most recent project is the Proactionary Principle, a tool for making smarter decisions about advanced technologies.
David Morefield is a video producer and freelance writer with a B.S. in mass communications from Virginia Commonwealth University. Since 1996, he has served as an editor at Mr. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, the award-winning James Bond tribute site (www.ianfleming.org), for which he has written numerous articles on 007 and his world. David’s writings on Bond and pulp fiction have also appeared in the magazines Razor and Thriller UK. He lives with his wife and two sons in Richmond, Va., and is on the Web at www.davidmorefield.com.
Actor Tee Morris began his writing career with the portrayal of Maryland Renaissance Festival’s Rafe Rafton, a character that led to his 2002 historical epic fantasy, MOREVI: The Chronicles of Rafe & Askana. Since then Tee’s titles have included Billibub Baddings and The Case of The Singing Sword, Legacy of Morevi and (with Evo Terra) Podcasting for Dummies. He has also contributed essays to The Complete Guide to Writing Fantasy, The Fantasy Writer’s Companion, and BenBella Books’ Farscape Forever: Sex, Drugs, and Killer Muppets. When he’s not writing, Tee is heard podcasting MOREVI from Podiobooks.com and is the host of “The Survival Guide to Writing Fantasy” (found on www.teemorris.com/blog/), a podcast that explores marketing and self-promotional concepts for published and soon-to-be-published authors. Find out more about Tee Morris at teemorris.com.
When not watching “Alias” or being intimidated by gadgetry, Tracy S. Morris is a writer of funny fantasy, silly science fiction and the occasional serious news story. Her first novel, Tranquility, a Southern/science fiction/mystery/oddity novel, is available from Yard Dog Press, along with Bill Allen’s Gods and Other Children. Her fantasy humor chapbook, Medieval Misfits, is also available from Yard Dog Press.
Tracy lives in Fort Smith, Ark., with her husband and three hyperactive ferrets. The ferrets are in charge. You can find out more about Tracy’s work at her Web page, www.tracysmorris.com.
Former Connecticut small-town resident and amateur economist Sara Morrison does recaps of various television shows, including “Gilmore Girls,” at www.televisionwithoutpity.com. She resides in Los Angeles, where she gets way too many parking tickets. It’s really not fair. This is her first publication unless you count “The Red Fox,” a short story she wrote in first grade that was so good her elementary school had it bound and placed in their library. Sara hopes her hometown will allow her back in after this book comes out.
Anne Moyer earned her Ph.D. from Yale University and is an assistant professor at Stony Brook University. She studies psychosocial issues surrounding cancer and cancer risk. She is also interested in research methodology and methods of synthesizing research. As a social and health psychologist, she is fortunate to be able to refer to her fascination with reality TV as “research.”
Dr. Neil Mulholland was born and raised in Glasgow, Scotland. He is presently a senior psychologist in child and family psychiatry at the Glenrose Rehabilitation Hospital in Edmonton, Canada, and consults to several health teams in the region. He also runs a small private practice for kids and adults, where he often uses Harry Potter as a therapeutic tool. In 1979, after spending ten years in the deserts of Arizona and New Mexico, Dr. Neil graduated from Arizona State University. He then returned to Vancouver, Canada, and spent 20 years there before moving to the prairies of Alberta. According to the online quizzes, he’s a bit of a Mr. Weasley.
Jessica Murakami received her B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania and her M.S. in clinical psychology from the University of Oregon. She is currently a doctoral student in clinical psychology at the University of Oregon. Her main research interests are in the area of depression research, particularly related to gender and cultural differences in depression. She is also very much interested in understanding the motivations, risk and protective factors for suicide in diverse populations. At the University of Oregon, Jessica is also pursuing her M.F.A. in creative writing (poetry). She is an avid Harry Potter fan and is convinced that Snape is innocent.
Kevin Andrew Murphy is the author of various science fiction, fantasy and horror novels, including House of Secrets, Penny Dreadful, Drum into Silence and Fathom: The World Below. He’s also published many short stories and novellas, a number in the World of Darkness and Wild Cards anthologies, as well as formal poetry and, of course, essays. He lives in California with three whippets and tries to keep up with them. He thinks they may have knowledge of wormholes.
Siamak Tundra Naficy, Ph.D., currently teaches classes in biological anthropology at Santa Monica College. His doctorate at UCLA explores the evolution of intelligence in dogs and wolves and what this work may say about the co-evolutionary processes that humans and dogs have shared. When he is not studying domestication and animal behavior, he makes a point of rescuing Siberian huskies from certain death.
Vera Nazarian immigrated to the USA from the former USSR as a kid, sold her first story at 17 and has been published in numerous anthologies and magazines, seen on Nebula Awards Ballots, honorably mentioned in Year’s Best volumes and translated into seven languages. A member of Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, she made her novel debut with the critically acclaimed Dreams of the Compass Rose (Wildside Press, 2002), followed by Lords of Rainbow (Betancourt & Company, 2003). Look for her novella The Clock King and the Queen of the Hourglass with introduction by Charles de Lint from PS Publishing and her collection Salt of the Air with introduction by Gene Wolfe from Prime Books, 2005. Visit her Web site at www.veranazarian.com.
Sharlotte Neely, Ph.D., is an award-winning professor of anthropology at Northern Kentucky University. A native of Savannah, Ga., she holds degrees in anthropology from both Georgia State University in Atlanta and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She is the author of the well-reviewed book Snowbird Cherokees and a consultant on the award-winning documentary film of the same title. Dr. Neely has a lifelong love of science fiction and is the author, as Sharlotte Donnelly, of Kasker, a novel of anthropological science fiction. She thinks Dune is the greatest SF novel of all time.
Aaron Thomas Nelson is a writer and editor living in El Dorado Hills, Calif., with his wife and four daughters. Along with his graphic novel Marlow, his comics Joe Doogan: Zombie Hunter and Kid Lightspeed and the Neutron Women are slated for publication. He has also edited two volumes of Arcana’s Dark Horrors Anthology. In 2005, he delivered a paper on Ultimate Spider-Man at Comic-Con in San Diego. When he has some spare time, Aaron enjoys running. Aaron is also found at www.aaronthomasnelson.com.
Carol J. Nemeroff, Ph.D., is associate professor of psychology at Arizona State University and director of the Mind-Body Health Lab. Since 1984 she has been researching the nature and impact of magical thinking in daily life. She is a tremendous fan of Harry Potter and would like to teach at Hogwarts someday.
Lindsay Nichols received her Bachelor of Arts degree at Florida Atlantic University, with majors in psychology and English and a minor in writing and rhetoric. She is currently working toward her M.A. degree in applied social psychology at Loyola University Chicago, where she also intends to earn a Ph.D. Future plans include working in academia, teaching and conducting research.
Larry Niven, author of The Integral Trees and Ringworld, has been the recipient of the Hugo, Nebula, Skylark and Locus awards. He lives in Los Angeles.
Amanda Nowlin-O’Banion’s writing draws not just on her imagination but on her myriad experiences of life “off the beaten path.” From rural Texas to New York City to the sparkling Alaskan tundra, Amanda has worked as a sailing instructor, served as a jack-of-all-trades in Denali and taught English inside a maximum security men’s prison. She has been pursued by bears, won first prize for her mayhaw jelly at the county fair and survived to tell about it. Humorous, provocative and genuine, Amanda’s essays, short stories and other writings reveal the changing landscape of Americana, and the human struggles that come as a result. Her novel-in-progress, The Greenest Grass, from which “The Walls, Texas” is excerpted, explores one young woman’s struggle as she challenges traditional land inheritance patterns and the labor division of her family’s ranch. In 2000, Joyce Carol Oates named Amanda the “¡TEX! Emerging Writer” in fiction, and she was nominated for Best New American Voices 2006. Her work has appeared in the Dallas Morning News, Conversely and will appear in the Summer 2006 issue of SHSR. Amanda has been an invited guest on National Public Radio affiliate KUHF’s program “Front Row” and at the Blaffer Gallery Girls Night Out exhibit. She holds an M.F.A. in creative writing from New York University and is currently a Ph.D candidate in literature and creative writing at the University of Houston, where she teaches. Amanda lives in Huntsville, Texas, with her husband Robert. Special thanks are extended to Robert O’Banion, Debbie and Bill Nowlin, and Ree and Daniel Belhumeur.
Jody Lynn Nye lists her main career activity as “spoiling cats.” She lives northwest of Chicago with two of the above and her husband, author and packager Bill Fawcett. She has published 30 books, including six contemporary fantasies, four SF novels, four novels in collaboration with Anne McCaffrey, including The Ship Who Won; edited a humorous anthology about mothers, Don’t Forget Your Spacesuit, Dear!; and written more than 80 short stories. Her latest books are Strong Arm Tactics, first in the Wolfe Pack series (Meisha Merlin Publishing), and Class Dis-Mythed, co-written with Robert Asprin.
Bachelorette #1, Jennifer’s bestselling debut novel, was called a “poolside page turner” by Cosmopolitan and declared “chick-lit at its most fun” by the Denver Post. Dress Rehearsal, Jennifer’s second book, was selected as a “hot book pick” by US Weekly, hailed as a “sassy novel” by LIFE Magazine and dubbed “perfect” by The Boston Herald. Her third book, Off the Record, will be available September 2005, and Plan B, Jennifer’s first teen chick-lit book, will be published by MTV Books in April 2006. Jennifer received her B.A. from Smith College and her M.B.A. from the University of Chicago. She can be contacted via www.jenniferoconnell.com.
Sten Odenwald received his Ph.D. in astronomy from Harvard University in 1982, and has since been employed by the Space Sciences Division of the Naval Research Laboratory (1982-1990), BDM International (1991-1992), the Applied Research Corporation (1993-1996) and most recently Raytheon (1996-2000+), all located in the greater Washington, D.C. area. He has turned his creative energies toward public education, writing for magazines such as Astronomy and Sky and Telescope. He has won a number of awards from NASA, Raytheon and the American Astronomical Society for his education work. He is the author of four books, The Astronomy Cafe (1998), The 23rd Cycle: Learning to Live with a Stormy Star (2000), Patterns in the Void: Why Nothing is Important (2002) and Back to the Astronomy Cafe (2003). His award-winning Web site the Astronomy Cafe (www.astronomycafe.net) is a great place to visit for information on space and astronomy from A to Z. Dr. Odenwald currently works with NASA as Education and Public Outreach Manager for the IMAGE satellite project, and is involved with the NASA Office of Space Science’s “Sun-Earth Connection Education Form,” where he develops new NASA resources in solar-terrestrial science education, and works with teachers at national conventions and workshops across the country. He received NASA’s “Excellence in Outreach” award in 1999 from the Goddard Space Flight Center.
Dennis O’Neil is a former comic book writer and editor for Marvel Comics and DC Comics; wrote the novelization for the film “Batman Begins”; and is the author of Batman: Shaman and Batman Sword of Azrael. He wrote the main Batman title in the 1970s and 1980s and is the former group editor for the Batman family of books. He lives in Nyack, N.Y.
James A. Owen is the author and illustrator of the Chronicles of the Imaginarium Geographica—which includes Here, There Be Dragons, The Search for the Red Dragon and The Indigo King—as well as the Starchild comic series. He lives and works in northeastern Arizona.
Terrell Owens is currently a wide receiver with the Buffalo Bills. He is one of the league’s most exciting players and the author of the autobiographies Catch This and T.O.
Michael D. Ozner, M.D., FACC, is a nationally renowned pioneer and advocate of preventive cardiology. Dr. Ozner earned his medical degree from the University of Miami School of Medicine and pursued a Cardiology Fellowship from Stanford University/Santa Clara Valley Medical Center in California. A board-certified cardiologist, Dr. Ozner is Fellow of the American College of Cardiology, and past chairman of the American Heart Association of Miami. He is Medical Director of Wellness and Prevention at Baptist Health South Florida, and Medical Director of the Cardiovascular Prevention Institute of South Florida. Dr. Ozner is also a Clinical Assistant Professor of Medicine and Cardiology at the University of Miami School of Medicine.
A well-known national speaker and symposium director, Dr. Ozner has appeared widely on radio, television and in the print media speaking out against fad diets and the American way of eating. He is passionate about educating Americans on the benefits of adopting the well-studied and well-documented Mediterranean diet and lifestyle as a way to live longer, healthier lives free of heart disease and other diet-related conditions.
Laurie J. Pahel is a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst in private practice in Chapel Hill, N.C., as well as an adjunct faculty member of the University of North Carolina in the department of psychiatry. She is also a mother of three children and has read aloud each Harry Potter book at least twice—so far.
Chuck Palahniuk is the New York Times-bestselling author of Choke and Fight Club. He lives in Vancouver, Wash.
After scraping by as a financial analyst, Karthik Panchanathan is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in anthropology at UCLA. His research investigates the role of reputation in the evolution of social behavior, inter-group psychology and the perfect pork stew recipe for his dog, Savannah.
Ariella Papa is the author of the novels On The Verge, Up & Out and Bundle of Joy? She is also a freelance television writer and producer. She lives in Brooklyn, N.Y., with her husband Mike and her dog Sophie. You can visit her online at www.ariellapapa.com.
Courtney Parker is a celebrity ghostwriter and author of Runnin’ Game. She lives in Los Angeles.
Nansook Park is a clinical and school psychologist and associate professor of psychology at the University of Rhode Island. She is interested in good character among children and youth and how it is related to well-being, family functioning, health and education.
Jennifer A. Parks is a professor in the Department of Philosophy at Loyola University in Chicago. Her areas of teaching and research interest include health-care ethics, disability theory, moral philosophy and feminist theory. She has published The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Understanding Ethics and a book on home health care entitled No Place Like Home? Feminist Ethics and Home Health Care. Parks has had articles appear in major academic journals such as the Hastings Center Report and Hypatia. She lives in Chicago with her husband, her year-and-a-half-old son and her pug dog named Oliver.
J. R. Parrish went from being a milkman to a multimillionaire. In 1974 he founded J. R. Parrish Inc., a commercial real estate company in Silicon Valley. He ran the company based on what his mentor Glenn Lay taught him—most important, that to succeed in life you must learn to effectively deal with people. J. R. spent the next 25 years studying and teaching his employees and brokers about human relations. The company grew to be a huge success and one of the premier real estate brokerage firms in Silicon Valley. J. R. retired in 1999. Today he and his wife Lisa live in Hawaii.
Christopher J. Patrick, Ph.D., is Hathaway Professor of Psychology and Director of Clinical Training at the University of Minnesota, where his teaching and research interests focus on emotional and cognitive aspects of crime, violence, antisocial personality and psychopathic behavior. He is a recipient of early scientific career awards from the American Psychological Association and the Society for Psychophysiological Research. His extracurricular pursuits include fiction reading and writing, cooking, softball, ocean surfing and guitar playing.
Deborah L. Patrick worked for years as a legal professional and elementary school teacher. In addition to being an avid fan of “24,” her passions include her daughter Sarah, decorating and home remodeling, horticulture, art, music, yoga and travel. This is her first published work.
Sarah K. Patrick is a freshman in high school, and enjoys many activities such as swimming for her school team, listening to music and attending live concerts, surfing and painting. She also loves to write and is a previously published author.
Brett Chandler Patterson teaches theology and ethics at Anderson University in South Carolina. He studied at Furman University, Duke University and the University of Virginia. He has written several essays recently analyzing ethical themes in pop culture-responsibility in Spider-Man (published by BenBella), redemption in “Lost,” and the fight for social order in Batman: No Man’s Land. He is currently working on a book analyzing the fantasies of C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, Orson Scott Card and Gene Wolfe.
Joseph Pearce, writer in residence and associate professor of literature at Ave Maria University in Naples, Fla., is the author of Tolkien: Man and Myth and C. S. Lewis and the Catholic Church, both published by Ignatius Press. He is editor of the Saint Austin Review.
Loni Peristere was born in Natick, Mass. He graduated from UMASS Boston, then went to work for Joss Whedon as visual effects supervisor on “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” “Angel,” “Firefly” and “Serenity.” Loni co-founded the multi-award winning visual effects company Zoic Studios. He has won an Emmy, two VES awards, a Clio, a London International Advertising Award and a Gold Pencil. Loni recently turned his focus back to writing and is currently developing several projects.
Kayla Perrin lives in Southwestern Ontario. She has a B.A. in English and sociology and a B.Ed, having entertained the idea of becoming a teacher—but she always knew she wanted to be a writer. Teachers were being laid off in Toronto when Kayla graduated, so she pursued her first love of writing. She now has 26 published titles to her credit, including romance, mainstream and children’s fiction. She is a USA Today bestselling author and has won several awards, including twice winning a spot on the Romance Writers of America “Top Ten Favorite Books of the Year” list, a Career Achievement Award from Romantic Times Magazine and an Arts Acclaim Award from the city of Brampton. Kayla’s novel Sweet Honesty was optioned for a movie of the week. You can visit Kayla’s Web site at www.kaylaperrin.com.
Anne Perry is the bestselling author of several historical detective series, including the Thomas Pitt series and the William and Hester Monk series. She has also written two fantasies, Tathea and Come Armageddon. Visit Anne on the Web at www.anneperry.net.
Christopher Peterson is a social and clinical psychologist and professor of psychology at the University of Michigan. He has been studying character strengths and virtues and their positive outcomes on health, well-being and work. He is the author of A Primer in Positive Psychology (Oxford University Press, 2006).
Lee Pfeiffer is the author/co-author of numerous books about the cinema and is regarded as one of the foremost James Bond scholars. His book The Essential Bond: An Authorized Guide to the World of 007 (written with Dave Worrall) is the top selling Bond film book of all time. Pfeiffer is also the editor-in-chief of Cinema Retro magazine, dedicated to films of the 1960s and 1970s (www.cinemaretro.com). He resides in New Jersey.
Carly Phillips started her writing career with Harlequin Temptation in 1999 with Brazen, and she’s never strayed far from home! Carly has since published 25 books, including the New York Times bestsellers The Bachelor, Summer Lovin’ and Hot Item. An avid TV watcher and “Grey’s Anatomy” lover, Carly lives in Purchase, N.Y., with her husband, two daughters and a frisky soft-coated wheaten terrier who acts like their third child. Contact Carly at: P. O. Box 483, Purchase, NY 10577, or visit her cyber home at www.carlyphillips.com.
Rachel Pine is the author of The Twins of Tribeca (Miramax Books, 2005). She is currently director of marketing and communications for Doubledown Media, LLC, the publisher of Trader Monthly and other magazines. She is also a contributor to the Huffington Post. She lives in New York City and Southampton.
Sergio Pistoi started his career as a molecular biologist. Soon after he finished his Ph.D. in 1994, a radiation incident in his lab turned him into an evil science-writing superhero. He was an intern at Scientific American in New York and a stringer for Reuters Health. His credits include Scientific American, New Scientist, Nature and many Italian print and radio outlets. He is also a consultant for research planning and portfolio management. He is a member of the National Association of Science Writers, NASW and the European Union of Science Writer’s Associations. He hides in Tuscany, Italy, with a fake identity. He can be found at www.greedybrain.com.
David Pizarro is an assistant professor of psychology at Cornell University. His research interests include moral judgment and the influence of emotion on judgment.
Sharon L. Plotkin, M.S., is a native Floridian with a twin sister who works as a federal agent. She has been employed full time in law enforcement as a crime scene investigator for almost 12 years, for one of the larger police departments in Dade County, and is an adjunct professor who teaches in her field at several local colleges. She is soon to be married to a lieutenant at the same police department, with whom she shares two daughters and three stepdaughters (five teenage daughters in all). Her interests are reading, music, teaching and travel.
Carol Poole, M.A., is a psychotherapist practicing in Seattle. A graduate of Pacifica Graduate Institute in Carpinteria, Calif., she is fascinated by the way pop culture retells ancient myths and occasionally even comes up with new ones such as “Buffy.”
Alan J. Porter is a writer on various aspects of popular culture with a few books and a variety of articles published in magazine titles in the U.K., U.S., Canada, Europe and Australia. He knows way too much about the Batman and is the author of The Unauthorized Batman Collector’s Guide. He also founded Gotham Gazette—The Batman Magazine on the Web and the long-running Gotham Weekly News e-mail newsletter, which were published between 1997 and 2006. He is currently researching a full-length biography of Bob Kane and Bill Finger. Read more online at alanjporter.com.
Dr. Malcolm Potts is the Fred H. Bixby Professor of Population and Family Planning at the University of California, Berkeley. He grew up in England during World War II and went to Cambridge University. Trained as an obstetrician and a research scientist, he has worked internationally for four decades. Professor Potts led a medical team into Bangladesh immediately after the War of Liberation in 1972, and his work has taken him to many other war-torn places including Vietnam and Cambodia, Afghanistan, Egypt, the Gaza Strip, Liberia and Angola. He has had a lifelong interest in history and archaeology, and he has written widely on the evolution of human sexuality in primate behavior. Having been moved by the courage and saddened by the pain of warfare he has asked many times, why do human beings behave like this? And, is there a way wars and terrorism can be made less common? His most recent books are Queen Victoria’s Gene and Ever Since Adam and Eve: The Evolution of Human Sexuality.
Michael Prendergast is an attorney and lives in Jacksonville, Fla., with his wife and two children. He attended Catholic school in south Florida for eight years where he drove the sisters nuts with his constant fidgeting. Thankfully, he’s replaced that habit with text messaging from his cell phone.
Danielle Provenzano is a graduate student in the Ph.D. program in clinical psychology at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. She is interested in couple communication and processes. All who know her comment on the striking similarity between Danielle and Hermione, except for the bushy hair and prominent teeth.
Matthew Pustz is the author of Comic Book Culture: Fanboys and True Believers, published in 2000 by the University Press of Mississippi. He received his doctorate in American studies from the University of Iowa, and he has taught there and at Kirkwood Community College in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. He currently lives in the Boston area.
Jean Rabe is the author of 15 fantasy novels and more three dozen fantasy, science fiction and military short stories. Her latest work is the Finest series from Tor Books, and the upcoming Return to Quag Keep with Andre Norton. Her hobbies include visiting museums (particularly ones filled with old planes and military gear), playing an assortment of games, pretending to garden and participating in fantasy football leagues. She shares her Wisconsin home with her husband, two dogs that wrap themselves around her feet while she works at the computer and a parrot named Trouble, who chatters incessantly.
William C. Rader, M.D., is the only American physician involved in the actual clinical application of human fetal stem cells. Over the past 12 years, he has successfully treated over one thousand patients.
Dr. Rader earned his medical degree with honors from the State University of New York at Buffalo in 1967, and was first in his psychiatric residency class at the University of Southern California Medical Center in 1971.
In 1984, Dr. Rader founded The Rader Institute, the world’s largest eating disorder treatment program, as opposed to weight loss, it was specifically tailored for the needs of patients suffering from anorexia, bulimia and compulsive overeating.
In 1992 Dr. Rader identified sexual abuse as a disorder that required its own distinct treatment. As a result, he developed The Survivor Program, which has helped abused individuals successfully transition from being victims of sexual abuse into becoming empowered survivors.
In the following year, Dr. Rader founded The Immune Suppressed Institute in Mexico City, Mexico, one of the first HIV/AIDS treatment centers in Latin America. During that same period, he served as chief international research consultant for Columbia Laboratories, one of Mexico’s largest pharmaceutical companies.
In addition to his medical career, for over a decade, Dr. Rader was one of the first national medical experts on television. He appeared as a regular guest on such televised programs as “Donahue,” “Jenny Jones,” “Leeza,” “Montel Williams” and “The Sally Jesse Raphael Show.” All of his appearances dealt with important medical, psychological and social issues, some of which were being explored on television for the first time.
He selected the guests and co-hosted programs for “Geraldo,” “The Mike Douglas Show,” “The Merv Griffin Show” and “The Tomorrow Show” with Tom Snyder.
Dr. Rader served as a medical expert for ABC-TV’s “Good Morning America.” He also wrote, produced and hosted numerous health-related documentaries for ABC-TV. He appeared twice weekly from 1977 to 1991 as the medical expert for ABC-TV “Eyewitness News” in Los Angeles, as well as appearing weekly on the nationally syndicated television programs “Hour Magazine” and “The Home Show.” Dr. Rader also created the feature documentary “Rape: The Hidden Crime,” which won him an Emmy. He has been published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).
In addition to his naval commendation, Dr. Rader is the recipient of the Sandoz Award (first in his psychiatric residency class, USC, 1971), and has received awards from Overeaters Anonymous (Man of the Year, 1982) and the National Council of Alcoholism.
In 1995, he founded Medra Inc., an international corporation dedicated to the research and development of the clinical application of fetal stem cells. He serves as chairman of the board, medical director, and chief scientist, successfully treating patients suffering from a wide range of chronic degenerative diseases, a number of which heretofore were considered to be untreatable.
David Rakison is an associate professor of psychology at Carnegie Mellon University. His research focuses on the development of cognition and perception in infancy as well as evolutionary developmental psychology. He has edited two books, Early Category and Concept Development: Making Sense of the Blooming Buzzing Confusion and Building Object Categories in Developmental Time.
John Ramos graduated from Princeton University in Princeton, N.J. Following college, he was a journalist at the business magazine Across The Board, a publication of the business research and membership organization the Conference Board (www.conference-board.org/). He then moved into the financial markets, wherein he worked as an options trader for 10 years before becoming a film producer and aspiring screenwriter who resides in New York City. He also recaps “Veronica Mars” for the well-known Web site Television Without Pity (www.televisionwithoutpity.com) under the handle “Couch Baron.”
Jim Rapoza was born and currently lives in Massachusetts. Over the years he has worked as a bike messenger, bar back, sports reporter, quality assurance engineer and guitarist in punk rock bands. Since 1993 Jim has worked as a technology reviewer and analyst for high-tech magazines PC Week and eWEEK. Jim Rapoza’s award-winning weekly column, “Tech Directions,” delves into all areas of technology and the challenges of managing and deploying technology today.
Frequent Associated Press freelancer Melissa Rayworth’s feature stories appear in many newspapers, including the Washington Post and Los Angeles Times. In 2004, she helped launch Life & Style Weekly, serving as associate editor before fleeing the world of celebrity journalism. Before that, she spent three years in Beijing as a writer/actress on the TV series “Modern English” and appeared in two miniseries (including a bizarre turn as a young Margaret Thatcher). In 2002, her play “The Welcoming Committee” made the NY Fringe Festival’s top ten. She’s writing a book about celebrity culture, viewed through the lens of her experiences in China and New York, where she spent the 1990s doing theater and indie films and making blink-and-you-miss-me appearances in soap operas, “Law & Order,” and films such as “The Thomas Crown Affair” and “Mickey Blue Eyes.” Melissa lives in New Jersey with her husband and two sons.
Terrence Real has been a family therapist and teacher for more than 20 years. Terry’s work has been celebrated in venues from “Today” and “20/20” to Oprah and the New York Times.
Emily Reardon received her M.F.A. from New York University. Most recently, she has had her poems published in NYArts Magazine, The Comstock Review and Southern Poetry Review. Emily has also been a guest editor for NYArts Magazine, and she recently finished a stint as the first writer-in-residence for the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council. She lives and writes in New York City.
Eileen Rendahl was born in Dayton, Ohio, but moved when she was four and only remembers that she was born at the Good Samaritan Hospital across the street from Baskin Robbins because they sent her a coupon for a free ice cream cone every year until she was 12. Eileen makes a point of remembering anything that has to do with ice cream. Or chocolate. Or champagne. She is the author of four novels, the most recent of which is Un-Veiled, the story of twin hairdressers who know too many of their clientele’s secrets and not enough of their own.
Laura Resnick is the author of 20 original-fiction novels, including Disappearing Nightly and Doppelgangster. You can find her on the Web at www.LauraResnick.com.
Mike Resnick is the winner of four Hugo Awards, a Nebula and numerous other major awards in the USA, France, Japan, Spain, Croatia and Poland. He is the author of 45 science fiction novels, nine books of nonfiction, 12 collections, 175 short stories and two screenplays, and has edited more than 40 anthologies. His work has been translated into 22 languages.
David Rettinger is assistant professor of psychology at Yeshiva University in New York City. His research interests focus on the cognitive processes of decision-making and students’ academic integrity decisions. James Rettinger is a recovering attorney and New Yorker in San Diego. He likes to barbeque and loves the Mets. The brothers were raised on a steady diet of high and low culture growing up, and find “The Simpsons” the perfect TV show for them. If only you could eat it. They wish to thank their wives and AOL IM for supporting the writing of this chapter.
Lani Diane Rich lives in upstate New York with her husband and two daughters. Most of her time is split between writing women’s fiction novels, singing songs from the “Buffy” musical episode with her kids and fighting with her husband. You can find out more about Lani at www.lanidianerich.com
Robert Burke Richardson hunts Snark in Edmonton, Alberta. He is the author of the elderly superhero saga Old School—“These aren’t your father’s superheroes … they’re your grandpa’s!”—from Arcana Studio, as well as stories, essays and pointless posts on his weblog, elf-help.blogspot.com.
Edward J. Rielly chairs the English department at Saint Joseph’s College of Maine. In addition to 10 volumes of his own poetry, he has published several nonfiction books. His recent publications include The 1960s (Greenwood), Baseball: An Encyclopedia of Popular Culture (ABC-Clio; recently released in paper by the University of Nebraska Press), Baseball and American Culture: Across the Diamond (a collection of essays from Haworth) and F. Scott Fitzgerald: A Biography (Greenwood). He is editing Baseball in the Classroom: Teaching America’s National Pastime, a collection of essays on baseball as pedagogy, for McFarland; and is writing Sitting Bull: A Biography (Greenwood) and Football: An Encyclopedia of Popular Culture (U of Nebraska Press). He also writes a newspaper column on baseball and has published many individual articles, book reviews, short stories and poems.
Rick Riordan is #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series, and the author of the upcoming first installment in the 39 Clues series. For 15 years, Riordan taught English and history at public and private middle schools in the San Francisco Bay Area and in Texas. He lives in San Antonio with his wife and two sons.
Patricia Rippetoe, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist and fantasy writer. She obtained her Ph.D. in psychology from the University of Alabama, and her research on protection motivation theory and breast-cancer detection was named the psychology department’s outstanding dissertation for 1985. As an assistant professor in the University of Alabama at Birmingham Medical Center’s department of psychiatry, she taught psychology students at the graduate level, as well as psychology interns and psychiatry residents. For the last 18 years, Dr. Rippetoe has treated hundreds of adult patients in solo practice using cognitive therapy techniques. In 2005, she was admitted to the annual Viable Paradise Workshop for writers of science fiction and fantasy. She is available for consultations at St. Mungo’s (send owls to office, please) and hopes one day to find her way to Platform 9 3/4.
Chris Roberson’s novels include Here, There & Everywhere, The Voyage of Night Shining White, Paragaea: A Planetary Romance, Set the Seas on Fire and the forthcoming End of the Century, Iron Jaw and Hummingbird and The Dragon’s Nine Sons. His short stories have appeared in such magazines as Asimov’s Science Fiction, Postscripts and Subterranean, and in anthologies such as Live Without a Net, The Many Faces of Van Helsing, FutureShocks and Forbidden Planets. Along with his business partner and spouse Allison Baker, he is the publisher of MonkeyBrain Books, an independent publishing house specializing in genre fiction and nonfiction genre studies, and he is the editor of the anthology Adventure Vol. 1. He has been a finalist for the World Fantasy Award three times—once each for writing, publishing, and editing—twice a finalist for the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer and twice for the Sidewise Award for Best Alternate History Short Form (winning in 2004 with his story “O One”). Chris and Allison live in Austin, Texas, with their daughter Georgia. Visit him online at www.chrisroberson.net.
An author bio has been requested for this unit. To give truthful details about its date of manufacture and mission parameters would violate Cylon protocols. Instead, please substitue: Adam Roberts mark 1, born, yes that’s it, born 1965 upon the planet Earth, definitely Earth. At … London, England. Currently a writer of SF and a professor at the University of London.
The Anthology at the End of the Universe
Flirting with Pride & Prejudice
Spider Robinson is the author of Callahan’s Key, Callahan’s Legacy and The Free Lunch. He has received three Hugo Awards, a Nebula Award and the Pat Terry Memorial Award for Humorous Science Fiction. He is particularly known for his series Callahan’s Place, believed to be the inspiration for one of the largest newsgroups on the Internet. He lives in Bowen Island, British Columbia.
Justina Robson is the author of three internationally critically acclaimed works of science fiction: Silver Screen, Mappa Mundi and Natural History. Her next book is called Living Next Door to the God of Love and is out in late 2005. She occasionally reviews literary SF for the Guardian newspaper and the small press. Her short stories have appeared in the U.K. and U.S. She always wanted to be a writer and made it through years of practice writing TV and film fanfics, so this essay is by way of thanks to all the many happy viewing hours. For more information please go to www.justinarobson.com.
Selina Rosen lives in rural Arkansas with her partner, her parrot Ricky, assorted fish and fowl—both inside and out, several milk goats, an undetermined number of barn cats and her dogs, Spud and Keri. Besides writing, editing and taking care of the farm, she’s a gardener, carpenter, rock mason, electrician (NOT a plumber), Torah scholar and sword fighter. In her spare time she creates water gardens, builds furniture, and adds to her ongoing creation of the “Great Wall of Kibler.”
Selina’s short fiction has appeared in several magazines and anthologies including Sword and Sorceress 16, Such A Pretty Face, Distant Journeys, three of the MZB Fantasy Mags, Tooth and Claw, Turn the Other Chick and Anthology At the End of the Universe, just to name a few. Her critically acclaimed story entitled “Ritual Evolution” appeared in the first of the new Thieves World anthologies, Turning Points, and her second TW story, “Gathering Strength,” appeared in the new TW anthology Enemies of Fortune. The Bubba Chronicles is a collection of her short fiction that features—strangely enough—bubbas.
Her novels include Queen of Denial, Recycled, Chains of Freedom, Chains of Destruction, Strange Robby, The Host trilogy, Fire & Ice, Hammer Town, Reruns and novellas entitled “The Boatman” and “Material Things,” and Bad Lands, a gonzo-mystery novel co-written with Laura J. Underwood from Five Star Mystery (Techno Books).
In her capacity as editor-in-chief of Yard Dog Press, Ms. Rosen has edited several anthologies, including the award-winning Bubbas of the Apocalypse, The Four Bubbas of the Apocalypse: Flatulence, Halitosis, Incest and … Ned, International House of Bubbas and two collections of “modern” fairy tales—the Stoker-nominated Stories That Won’t Make Your Parents Hurl and More Stories That Won’t Make Your Parents Hurl.
A former fiction and magazine editor, Bev Katz Rosenbaum is the author of the young adult novels I Was a Teenage Popsicle and its upcoming sequel Beyond Cool. She doesn’t think she’s quite as messed up as Stephanie Plum, but it’s certainly close. Bev lives in Toronto with her husband and two children.
Robin S. Rosenberg is a clinical psychologist and co-author of Psychology in Context and Fundamentals of Psychology (introductory psychology textbooks) and Abnormal Psychology: The Neuropsychosocial Approach (abnormal psychology textbook). She has taught psychology courses at Lesley University and Harvard University and has a private practice in the Boston area. Her first foray into applying psychological theories and research to popular culture figures was for The Psychology of Harry Potter; she is the editor of the Psychology of Superheroes anthology. She can be found at drrobinrosenberg.com.
Karl S. Rosengren, Ph.D., is a professor of psychology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His research examines the development of causal reasoning in children. He is co-editor of Imagining the Impossible: Magical, Scientific, and Religious Thinking in Children. He has been fascinated by all things magical and mysterious since growing up as a full-blooded Muggle in suburban New Jersey.
Award-winning author Stephanie Rowe writes paranormal romance for Warner Books. She also writes teen fiction for girls under the name of Stephie Davis. For more information, visit Stephanie on the Web at www.stephanierowe.com or www.stephiedavis.com.
Russell Rowland’s first novel, In Open Spaces (HarperCollins, 2002), received a starred review in Publishers Weekly, which called it “an outstanding debut.” It made the San Francisco Chronicle’s bestseller list and was named among the Best of the West by the Salt Lake City Tribune. Russell recently completed The Watershed Years, a sequel to In Open Spaces. One of Russell’s stories was chosen as one of the notable stories of 2005 by the Million Writers Award, and he was a MacDowell Fellow in 2005. Russell is currently co-producing a feature film with his brother and consulting with several writers on their own projects. He lives in San Francisco.
In addition to condensing other people’s novels, Brenda Scott Royce has written one of her own—Monkey Love, which Janet Evanovich hailed as “Delicious as a jelly doughnut!” Like Stephanie Plum, Holly Heckerling, the plucky heroine of Monkey Love, juggles romantic entanglements, career disasters and wacky relatives—but at least nobody shoots at her! (The most menacing character in Monkey Love is a mischievous monkey with a mad crush on Regis Philbin.) Not surprisingly, given her love of all things monkey, Brenda is director of publications for the Los Angeles Zoo. She has completed Monkey Star, the sequel to Monkey Love, and is contemplating more monkey adventures.
Steven Rubio has never been cornered by a mountain lion. His writing has been featured in several books in the Smart Pop series.
Kristine Kathryn Rusch writes mystery novels about 1960s black detective Smokey Dalton under the name Kris Nelscott. Those novels have been nominated for the Edgar, the Shamus and several other awards. As Kristine Kathryn Rusch, she writes science fiction and fantasy. While most readers ask Nelscott how she can write from the perspective of a black man, no one asks Rusch how she can write from the point of view of an elf.
Fred Saberhagen’s stories of fantasy and science fiction, including the popular Berserker® series, have been appearing in books and magazines for more than 40 years. An Air Force veteran and former writer and editor at Encyclopedia Britannica, he lives in New Mexico with his wife Joan Spicci.
Martha C. Sammons is professor of English at Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio. Her books include A Guide Through Narnia: Revised and Expanded Edition, “A Far-Off Country”: A guide to C.S. Lewis’ Fantasy Fiction, “A Better Country”: The Worlds of Religious Fantasy and Science Fiction and The Internet Writer’s Handbook 2/e. She has worked as a contract technical writer and consultant in several area industries.
Alicia Sanchez is currently a serious games researcher at Old Dominion University’s VMASC. Prior to joining academia and completing her Ph.D. in modeling and simulation at the University of Central Florida, she spent several years researching teams and teamwork for the Naval Air Warfare Center Training Systems Division.
Sankara Saranam, the son of self-exiled Iraqi Jews, holds a B.A. in religion from Columbia University and a master’s degree in Eastern texts and Sanskrit from St. John’s College in Santa Fe, N.M. A former monk and present-day teacher, lecturer, world traveler, poet and composer, he lives with his wife and son in Albuquerque, N.M.
Pamela Sargent has won the Nebula Award and the Locus Award and has been a finalist for the Hugo Award. Her books include the historical novel Ruler of the Sky, the alternate history Climb the Wind and the science fiction novels The Shore of Women, Venus of Dreams, Venus of Shadows and Child of Venus. She has also edited several anthologies, among them Women of Wonder, The Classic Years and Women of Wonder, The Contemporary Years. Her most recent collection of short fiction is Thumbprints. She lives in Albany, N.Y.
Cheryl Sawyer is an historical novelist, author of La Créole and Rebel (Bantam, Australia). Her U.S. début, published in Signet Eclipse (NAL) in January 2005, was Siren, the love story of real-life pirate Jean Laffite and his passionate rival, privateer Léonore Roncival. The Chase, a novel of the Napoleonic Wars featuring a beautiful English noblewoman who falls in love with a renegade French soldier, followed in June 2005. Cheryl has two master’s degrees with honors in English and French literature and her career has included teaching and publishing. Cheryl’s home is Australia, but during work on her current novel she is based in Costa Rica. You can visit her Web site at www.cherylsawyer.com.
Robert J. Sawyer, called “just about the best science fiction writer out there” by the Denver Rocky Mountain News and the leader of sci-fi’s next-generation pack by Barnes and Noble, frequently writes science fiction about artificial intelligence, most notably in his Aurora Award–winning novel Golden Fleece (named the best sci-fi novel of the year by critic Orson Scott Card in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction); The Terminal Experiment (winner of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America’s Nebula Award for Best Novel of the Year); the Hugo Award–nominated Factoring Humanity; the Hugo Award–nominated Calculating God (which hit #1 on the bestseller list published by Locus, the trade journal of the sci-fi field); and his just-released 13th novel, Hominids, which deals with the quantum-mechanical origin of consciousness. According to Reuters, he was the first sci-fi author to have a Web site; for more information on Rob and his work, visit that extensive site at www.sfwriter.com.
Danielle Schaaf is a public relations consultant and lives in Houston with her husband and three children. She attended Catholic school in south Florida for eight years where, early on, nuns told Danielle she was a cheeky girl. She still is.
Peter J. Schakel has taught at Hope College since 1969 and for the past 20 years has been the Peater C. and Emajean Cook Professor of English. He has written or edited five books on C.S. Lewis, as well as three on British literature of the 18th century and three textbooks. His most recent books are Approaching Literature in the 21st Century: Fiction, Poetry, Drama (Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2005), co-authored with Jack Ridl, and The Way into Narnia: A Reader’s Guide (Eerdmans, 2005).
Jeffrey A. Schaler, Ph.D., a psychologist, is assistant professor of justice, law and society at American University’s School of Public Affairs in Washington, D.C. He is the author of Addiction Is a Choice (2000) and editor of Szasz Under Fire: The Psychiatric Abolitionist Faces His Critics (2004), both published by Open Court Publishing Company, Chicago.
James V. Schall, SlJ., is a professor in the Department of Government at Georgetown University. His books include, among others, The Unseriousness of Human Affairs, At the Limits of Political Philosophy, The Sum Total of Human Happiness and Another Sort of Learning. He writes a monthly column, “Sense and Nonsense,” in Crisis Magazine and “Schall on Chesterton” in Gilbert Magazine.
Barbara Ann Schapiro, Ph.D., is a professor of English at Rhode Island College with a specialty in psychoanalysis and literature. She is the author of The Romantic Mother: Narcissistic Patterns in Romantic Poetry (Johns Hopkins, 1983), Literature and the Relational Self (NYU, 1994), and D. H. Lawrence and the Paradoxes of Psychic Life (SUNY, 1999). She is also co-editor with Lynne Layton of Narcissism and the Text: Studies in Literature and the Psychology of Self (NYU, 1986). Barbara remains a “Survivor” fan and is no longer embarrassed by it. She has even convinced her husband, after some initial resistance, to watch with her. He now shares her addiction.
Read Mercer Schuchardt is an assistant professor of communication arts at Marymount Manhattan College. He is the cofounder of Cleave: The Counter Agency, the cofounder and publisher of Metaphilm, and a contributing editor for The New Pantagruel. He is the author of The Disappearance of Women: Technology, Pornography, and the Obsolescence of Gender and Metaphilm: Seers of the Silver Screen. His writing has appeared in numerous publications, including Chicago Tribune, Utne Reader and the Washington Times. He lives in Jersey City, N.J.
Brant Secunda is a world-renowned shaman, healer and teacher in the Huichol Indian tradition of Mexico. He is the only Westerner to have completed a 12-year apprenticeship with Don José Matsuwa, the revered Huichol Indian shaman. Since 1979, Brant has been the director of the Dance of the Deer Foundation Center for Shamanic Studies in Santa Cruz, Calif. Brant is a founding member of the American Herbalist Guild and the Peace University of Berlin, with President Jimmy Carter and Bishop Desmond Tutu, and is co-founder of the Humanistic Medicine Conference in Germany. Brant’s work has been documented on television, radio and in articles and books throughout the USA, Europe and Japan. Brant Secunda has medically documented cases of healing cancer, hepatitis, infertility, aneurysms and many others. He has many well-known patients, including movie actor Steven Segal. Members of the international medical, religious and educational communities, including the World Health Organization, have recognized Brant’s commitment—as well as his knowledge—by inviting him to be a featured speaker, workshop leader and participant at numerous conferences worldwide.
Ges Seger is the author of The Once and Future War. He is currently misusing both of his physics degrees working as a computer programmer at Wright-Patterson AFB in Ohio. Between that, writing, driving his wife and children to their activities, and his own competitive Irish dancing career, he has no time for anything in the way of meaningful hobbies.
David Seidman has been a comic book writer, a publicist for the comics publishers NBM Publishing and Claypool Comics, senior editor of Disney Comics, a teacher of comics writing at UCLA and an author of storybooks and other fiction starring superheroes such as Spider-Man and the Fantastic Four. As a journalist, he’s written about comics for publications ranging from the Los Angeles Times to the trade journal Comics and Games Retailer. In addition, he’s authored more than 30 books on subjects as diverse as Christmas lights, longevity medicine, teenage life in Iran, relocating to Los Angeles and the F/A-18 warplane.
Susan Seliger is an award-winning writer, magazine editor, editorial and marketing consultant.
Melissa Senate is the author of three bestselling chick-lit novels: See Jane Date (which was made into a TV movie for ABC Family), The Solomon Sisters Wise Up (which took her on a whirlwind three-city book tour of Italy) and Whose Wedding Is It Anyway? (chosen by Marie Claire magazine as a Top Ten must-read pick). Melissa has two books coming out in 2006: The Breakup Club (January), and her debut chick-lit novel for teens, Theodora Twist (May). Melissa lives on the southern coast of Maine with her husband and young son. Visit her Web site at www.melissasenate.com.
J. Mira Seo received her Ph.D. in 2004 from Princeton University and is currently a visiting assistant professor at Swarthmore College. Her research centers on literary and ethical characterization in Latin literature.
Maggie Shayne is the New York Times bestselling, award-winning author of more than 40 novels, ranging from stories about Witches, vampires, psychics and ghosts, to bone-chilling, edge-of-your-seat romantic suspense and beyond. She has also written for CBS daytime dramas “Guiding Light” and “As the World Turns.” One of Maggie’s novels, Eternity, has been optioned for film. She is a working, modern-day Witch who, in dull moments, wonders aloud, “Why don’t the Charmed Ones just put the potion into a spray bottle instead of wasting all those cute little glass vials?” Maggie’s new romantic suspense novel Darker Than Midnight goes on sale in November. Visit her on the Web at www.maggieshayne.com.
Plagued for many years by ill health, Mary-Ann Shearer embarked on a personal quest for a common-sense approach to health and well-being. Her intensive studies into nutrition and a natural lifestyle over nearly 30 years led her to develop a simple yet highly effective program that produced unimagined levels of health and vitality. The first to benefit were her family and friends, but after several years of one-on-one consultations, she wrote the book The Natural Way: A Family’s Guide to Vibrant Health (now in its 21st reprint) to help meet the growing demand for her time and knowledge. Since then, Mary-Ann has helped many thousands of people to understand and correct their diet-related problems, thereby building a valuable database of case studies that backs her ongoing research. Mary-Ann has also published two recipe books (The Natural Way: Recipe Book 1 and The Natural Way: Recipe Book 2), each a compilation of more than 300 recipes developed during her popular cooking demonstrations. Her books have been runaway bestsellers, outperforming all other natural health titles in southern Africa. Healthy Kids: The Natural Way was released at the end of 2001 to wide acclaim. Perfect Weight: The Natural Way was released in August 2003 and has had record sales to date. Take Control, written by both Mark and Mary-Ann Shearer, was released in May 2005 and is set to match the extraordinary sales records of its predecessors. Further books are in the pipeline, including a full-color recipe book on healthy entertaining and a definitive reference work entitled The A–Z of Natural Health. Together with her husband, Mark, Mary-Ann runs seminars on “Finding the Balance,” “Take Control” and “Sex, Drugs, and Cinnamon Rolls,” subjects covered in detail in their book Take Control. She also contributes to numerous magazines and journals on an ongoing basis. Mary-Ann has, over the years, addressed many diverse groups of people throughout the world, from farmers’ wives in the heartland of South Africa, to professional medical people in Houston, Texas. She is in demand as a motivational speaker and regularly addresses groups at business seminars, schools, churches and various associations such as the Cancer Association. She also appears frequently on national television and radio and had her own slot on national talk radio for many years. Mary-Ann visits the U.K. and the U.S. regularly, where she is fast becoming a speaker in demand. Technikon South Africa (now part of Unisa—one of the biggest correspondence universities in the world) has approved her Natural Health and Nutrition Course, and more than 650 students have enrolled worldwide. Mary-Ann’s aim is to show that it is fun and easy to be healthy, and it is this philosophy that inspires her many projects. She and her husband Mark have developed a unique range of whole food products for the retail market. They run their business from Stellenbosch in the Cape. She sends out a regular free e-mail newsletter. Mark and Mary-Ann also film an entire three- to four-hour monthly Digimag, a digital magazine on DVD that can be ordered online or by fax. This service can be accessed on her Web site www.mary-anns.com.
Josepha Sherman is a fantasy novelist, folklorist and editor, who has written everything from Star Trek novels to biographies of Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos (founder of Amazon.com) to titles such as Mythology for Storytellers (M. E. Sharpe, Inc.) and Trickster Tales (August House). She is the winner of the prestigious Compton Crook Award for best fantasy novel, and has had many titles on the New York Public Library Books for the Teen Age list. Most current titles include Star Trek: Vulcan’s Soul: Exodus with Susan Shwartz, the reprint of the Unicorn Queen books from Del Rey and the forthcoming Stoned Souls with Mercedes Lackey, for Baen Books. She is also editing The Encyclopedia of Storytelling for M. E. Sharpe. For her other editorial projects, you can check out www.ShermanEditorialServices.com. When she isn’t busy writing, editing or gathering folklore, Sherman loves to travel, knows how to do Horse Whispering and has had a newborn foal fall asleep on her foot.
John Shirley is the author of numerous novels and books of stories, including the novels Cellars, Wetbones, City Come A-Walkin’, Eclipse, A Splendid Chaos and the recent Bram Stoker Award–winning Black Butterflies from Leisure. He was one of the original cyberpunk writers with William Gibson, Rudy Rucker and Bruce Sterling. He was coscreenwriter of “The Crow” and has written scripts for television series and cable movies. He was lead singer and songwriter for various bands including the punk band SadoNation, the post-punk band Obsession (Celluloid records) and the post-cyberpunk band The Panther Moderns. MP3s of his work are to be found through links at the fan-created Web site www.darkecho.com/JohnShirley. His blog is at www.johnshirley.net. His new novels for Del Rey books are Demons and Crawlers.
Gena Showalter is the prolific author of sexy paranormal romances, fun contemporaries, an alien huntress series and young adult novels. For more information about Gena and her books, you can visit her Web site at www.genashowalter.com, her blog at www.genashowalter.blogspot.com and her MySpace page at www.myspace.com/genashowalter.
Elaine Shpungin, Ph.D., is the director of the Psychological Services Center, an outpatient community and mental health clinic and the training site for doctoral students in the clinical/community program in the Department of Psychology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She shares House’s knack for reading people quickly, but usually manages to speak her mind with slightly more tact and diplomacy.
Joel N. Shurkin is currently Snedden Chair in Journalism at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. He is former science writer at the Philadelphia Inquirer and at Stanford University, was founder of Stanford’s science journalism internship program, and a freelance writer. He has written nine published books. He was a member of the team that won a Pulitzer Prize for covering Three Mile Island for the Inquirer. He is based in Baltimore.
Frank Sibila (pseudonym) is educated to degree level and started FakeAlibi.com in 2005. The company has served more than 7,000 clients and operates a global stable of 700 undercover agents willing to take casework at a moment’s notice. With 10,000 registered users and an average of 20,000 visitors a month to FakeAlibi.com, business is booming, and keeping a low profile is no easy task for Frank. Frank lives in the U.K.
Robert Silverberg is the author of dozens of science fiction novels and more than 500 short stories. He is a many-time winner of the Hugo and Nebula awards and in 2004 was designated a Grand Master, one of 21 named so far, by the Science Fiction Writers of America.
John David Sinclair, Ph.D., received his B.A. and M.A. from the University of Cincinnati and his Ph.D. from the University of Oregon.
Dr. Sinclair has had a long and distinguished career in alcohol research. In 1967 he discovered the Alcohol Deprivation Effect, a phenomenon that became accepted as a primary concept in addiction research. While still a graduate student, he discovered evidence for the connection between opiates and alcohol drinking, publishing several papers in the prestigious journal Nature. Soon after, he was the first to demonstrate that alcohol drinking resulted in positive reinforcement for laboratory animals. These findings were published in several issues of Nature. Dr. Sinclair’s discovery of Pharmacological Extinction means that alcohol and other addictions (e.g. cocaine and gambling) can now be cured.
Dr. Sinclair is Chief of Prevention and Treatment of Addictions at the Department of Mental Health and Alcohol Research, National Public Health Institute in Helsinki, Finland. He has published over 300 scientific journal articles and four books, and is listed in “Who’s Who in the World,” “Who’s Who in Science and Technology” and “Who’s Who in Medicine and Healthcare.” Dr. Sinclair lives in Finland and has four daughters.
Bradley H. Sinor has had three collections of his short stories published: Dark and Stormy Nights, In the Shadows and Playing with Secrets (co-written with his wife Sue). His latest fiction can be found in the anthologies Space Cadets, The Grantville Gazette, Places to Go, People to Kill, Ring of Fire 2, and Houston, We Got Bubbas. He has also seen his nonfiction appear in a variety of magazines and anthologies such as Stepping through the Stargate and The Cherryh Odyssey. Visit his Web site at www.zettesworld.com/Sinor/index.htm.
Karen Siplin was born in Brooklyn, N.Y., and received her Bachelor of Arts degree in film production from CUNY’s Hunter College. Her first novel, His Insignificant Other, was published in Serbia in June 2004. Her second novel, Such a Girl, was a Main Selection of Black Expressions Book Club in 2005. She has worked as a telephone operator at the Four Seasons Hotel in New York City and as a celebrity personal assistant. Visit her at www.karensiplin.com.
Media junkie Susan Sizemore is the author of numerous novels and short stories, ranging from historical romance to epic fantasy. She has an affinity for vampire fiction, basketball, coffee canines and movies with explosions. For more information, Susan’s Web site address is susansizemore.com.
Robert N. Skir grew up in Oyster Bay, Long Island. His love of all things fantasy, science fiction and horror led him to make animated films at 14, latex masks at 16, and write short stories throughout high school. He majored in English at the University of Virginia and earned a master’s degree in screenwriting at UCLA. He has written many episodes of animated television, including “Beetlejuice,” “X-Men,” “Batman” and “Superman,” and has served as story editor and written on “The Mask,” “Extreme Ghostbusters,” “Godzilla” and “Transformers: Beast Machines.” His short story “Singularity Ablyss” was published in the 2005 anthology Transformers: Legends. He has taught Animation Writing at UCLA.
John C. Smith has a master’s in celestial mechanics (the motion of heavenly bodies) and has spent more than twenty years at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., designing missions to explore the planets. He has worked on successful missions to Venus, Earth and Mars and has been part of the Cassini/Huygens mission to Saturn and Titan for 16 years. He is the designer of the four-year “tour” of the Saturn system that began in 2004 and recently contributed to the design of a two-year extended mission through 2010.
Peter A. Smith is currently working as a visiting professor and research associate at the University of Central Florida, while pursuing his Ph.D. in modeling and simulation at the same university. He was formally trained as a computer engineer and has spent much of his career working with serious games and simulations as a contractor with SAIC and the U.S. Navy. He is also the community manager for the Serious Games Initiative and a blogger for the initiative Web site as well as the Second Life Insider.
Kevin Smokler is the editor of Bookmark Now: Writing in Unreaderly Times (Basic Books), which was a San Francisco Chronicle Notable Book of 2005. His writing has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, Fast Company and on National Public Radio. He lives in San Francisco and is currently at work on a second book.
Molly Snodgrass, M.A., is a freelance writer and the study coordinator for the Longitudinal Assessment of Manic Symptoms (LAMS) study in the Psychiatry Department at the Ohio State University. Molly earned her B.A. in English and psychology and her M.A. in English at Indiana University. She has taught at both Indiana University and the University of Texas at San Antonio. She is pursuing a Ph.D. in clinical psychology.
Laurel Snyder the editor of Half/Life: Jew-ish Tales from Interfaith Homes (Soft Skull 2006), and the author of Daphne & Jim: A choose your own adventure biography in verse (Burnside Review Press) and a forthcoming book for children, Inside the Slidy Diner (Tricycle Press). She also edits the award-winning Webzine Killingthebuddha.com, and her country music writing has appeared in No Depression, Harp, Paste and the UTNE Reader. She lives in Atlanta.
According to the baby book compiled by his mother, Bill Spangler wrote his first fan letter to a television show while he was in elementary school. (The show? “Romper Room.”) These days, his fan letters are being published by BenBella Books in volumes such as Farscape Forever and Star Wars On Trial, as well as this one. He has also written articles about pop culture for national magazines and original comic-book stories based on science fiction TV shows such as “Alien Nation” and “Quantum Leap.” Bill and his wife Joyce live in Bucks County, Pa., with two ferrets and a dog. Bill would like to thank his wife, Jon Plante, and Kathy Morrow for their help in pulling this essay together on a relatively tight schedule.
Catherine Spangler is the author of the award-winning Shielder series, futuristic romances that are literally out of this world. The latest book in the series, Shadow Fires, was a 2005 RWA RITA finalist for best paranormal book. Coming next is a dark and edgy paranormanl Sentinel series, set on current-day earth. Catherine grew up in Alabama and now resides in Texas with her husband and a menagerie of animals. You can visit her Web site at www.catherinespangler.com.
Norman Spinrad is the author of some 20 novels and 60 stories published in 14 languages, including Bug Jack Barron, The Iron Dream, He Walked Among Us and Mexica. He has also written feature films, television programs and songs. He is also a journalist, film critic, literary critic and political commentator. He has been a radio talk show host, vocalist, literary agent and president of the Science Fiction Writers of America and World SF. He grew up in New York, has lived in Los Angeles, London, San Francisco and Paris, and traveled widely in Europe, less so in Latin America and Asia.
Michael Spivey, Ph.D., is full professor of cognitive science at the University of California, Merced, and author of The Continuity of Mind. He received his B.A. in psychology from the University of California, Santa Cruz, and his Ph.D. in brain and cognitive sciences at the University of Rochester.
Sally D. Stabb, Ph.D. is an associate professor of counseling psychology at Texas Woman’s University, where she trains therapists, teaches and does research with a focus on diversity, gender, emotion, sexuality and other fun stuff. She is a licensed psychologist. Outside of work, her passions include travel, world dance, music, food, scuba, reading and playing Scrabble. Sally lives with her sig-o of eight plus years, his kids and one insane Jack Russell terrier (is there any other kind?).
Keris Stainton is a freelance journalist who has written for publications as diverse as CosmoGIRL!, Mslexia, Scarlet, Practical Parenting and The Daily Express. She also co-edits women’s fiction reviews and news site Trashionista (www.trashionista.com). Thanks to confiscation of her precious “Gilmore Girls” DVDs, she has finally finished a novel and is hoping it will be published … one day. Keris lives in Lancashire, England, with her husband and 3-year-old son. You can almost always find her at www.keris-stainton.com. (If she’s not there, check the TV room or the kitchen.)
Jewel Staite has been in the film and television industry since the age of 5, when she began modeling for Sears in exchange for clothing. Aside from playing Kaywinnit Lee “Kaylee” Frye in “Firefly” and “Serenity,” Jewel’s recent roles have included Teddy Blue in “Cheaters” and guest parts on “Wonderfalls” and “Dead Like Me.”
Charlie W. Starr teaches English, humanities and film at Kentucky Christian University in Eastern Kentucky where he also makes movies with his students and family. He writes articles, teaches Sunday school and has published three books, one on Romans, the second a sci-fi novel called The Heart of Light, and his third book, Honest to God, was released by Navpress in the summer of 2005. This anthology is the fifth Benbella Book to which Charlie has contributed. He enjoys writing, reading classic literature, watching bad television and movies of every kind. His areas of expertise as a teacher include literature, film and all things C. S. Lewis. Charlie describes his wife Becky as “a full-of-life, full-blood Cajun who can cook like one too.” They have two children: Bryan, who wants to be the next Steven Spielberg, and Alli, who plays a pretty mean piano.
Allen Steele encountered “Star Trek” when he was 8 years old, when one of his sisters gave him James Blish’s first novelization of the series as a Christmas present. Because the show’s first season wasn’t aired in his hometown of Nashville, Tenn., he didn’t actually see an episode of “Star Trek” until a year later. Since then, he has become a Hugo-winning science fiction writer with a dozen novels and four collections of short stories to his credit. His most recent novels are the Coyote trilogy: Coyote, Coyote Rising and Coyote Frontier. He lives in western Massachusetts with his wife and two dogs.
Keith Stern has produced some of the most popular biographical Web sites on the Internet. Since 1997 he has been collaborating with Sir Ian McKellen on the actor’s autobiographical Web site, McKellen.com. He has also produced official Web sites for Lynn Redgrave, Sean Astin, Andy Serkis, Spinal Tap, the film “Gods and Monsters” and others for movie stars and movies. Stern started in the music business as a musician followed by several years with Warner Bros Records in field promotion, public relations, A&R and IT. In 1979 in Charlotte, N.C. he transformed the Milestone into a showcase punk rock/new wave music venue and in 1981 with Ben Clark, he opened a larger venue, Viceroy Park. As an independent promoter, he produced many early concerts for punk/new wave acts including R.E.M., The Ramones, The Go-Go’s, Iggy Pop, Bow Wow Wow and Joan Jett. His screenplay “Freezing Time” will be filmed in 2009, starring Andy Serkis (Lord of the Rings, “King Kong”). Keith currently lives in Beverly Hills, Calif.
Greg Stevenson is Professor of Religion and Greek at Rochester College. After writing on archaeology and the Book of Revelation, he decided to spend valuable research time listening to music and watching television. Since then he has written on U2, Christianity and Hollywood, and “Buffy the Vampire Slayer.” His book Televised Morality: The Case of Buffy the Vampire Slayer was nominated for the Mr. Pointy award by Slayage.
Alison Stine is the author of a poetry chapbook, Lot of my Sister (Kent State University Press, 2001), winner of the Wick Prize. Her poetry and prose have appeared in The Paris Review, The Kenyon Review, Poetry, The Antioch Review, Tin House, The Beloit Poetry Journal, Gulf Coast, Black Warrior Review, Crab Orchard Review, Fugue, Hayden’s Ferry Review and others. Her awards include scholarships from the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, an Academy of American Poets Prize and two Pushcart Prize nominations. Formerly the Emerging Writer at Gettysburg College, she is currently a Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford University, where she is completing her first novel.
Robert Stokes is a novelist, playwright and former journalist with Newsweek and Life magazines who served in Army Intelligence in the l960s in West Germany. Stokes is collaborating with Martin Kaiser on a memoir entitled Odyssey of an Eavesdropper: The King of Electronic Countermeasures, to be published by Carroll and Graf in 2005.
After decades of intensive textual analysis, literary historians have finally reached a consensus that Heroes Die, Blade of Tyshalle, Caine Black Knife, the Barra & Co. novels, Star Wars: The New Jedi Order: Traitor, Star Wars: Shatterpoint and Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith were in fact not written by Matthew Woodring Stover at all, but by another man of the same name.
Kevin M. Sullivan is a writer and a teacher (M.A., English: Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages). He’s taught English in the United States and English, linguistics and humor studies in Japan. He’s also presented and published English-teaching research, paraphrased and indexed idioms for a vocabulary textbook (Impact Words + Phrases, Longman Asia, 1997) and written humor pieces. English alone couldn’t satisfy his language passion, so he’s been seeing seven others on the side, including Mandarin. A few languages took out restraining orders, but they’ve worked things out.
Supernatural.tv is one of the biggest “Supernatural” sites on the Web, offering news updates, episode guides, multimedia and a forum of over 25,000 committed posters.
Heather Swain is the author of two novels, Elliot’s Banana and Lucious Lemon, and the editor of Before: Short Stories About Pregnancy. Her fiction and nonfiction have appeared in literary journals, Web sites and magazines. She lives in Brooklyn, N.Y., with her husband, two children and dog.
Shanna Swendson’s first job out of college was in the public information office at a medical school, and while she didn’t know a real Dr. House, she did have to work with the personifications of a few of his more interesting traits (to put it nicely). Now she’s primarily a novelist, the author of Enchanted, Inc., Once Upon Stilettos and Damsel Under Stress. She’s also contributed to Flirting with Pride and Prejudice, Welcome to Wisteria Lane, So Say We All and Perfectly Plum, and she still does the occasional bit of medical writing. Visit her Web site at www.shannaswendson.com.
Dean Takahashi is a columnist in the business section of the San Jose Mercury News and author of The Xbox 360 Uncloaked: The Real Story behind Microsoft’s Next-Generation Video Game Console, launched in May 2006. He also wrote Opening the Xbox: Inside Microsoft’s Plan to Unleash an Entertainment Revolution. He currently writes a tech commentary and gadget review column for the newspaper of Silicon Valley. He also podcasts and blogs on video games for the Mercury News via Dean & Nooch on Gaming. For most of his 18 years as a journalist he has written stories about technology and has won several awards. He has written about the video-game industry for 10 years and the semiconductor industry for 12 years. When he has time, he’s an avid gamer. He lives in the suburbs of San Jose, Calif. His favorite game is Halo.
Chuck Tate, Ph.D., is an assistant professor of psychology at California State University, Bakersfield. Like the Batman, he has a rarely seen alter ego who is gregarious and witty, but in reality Dr. Tate is obsessed with research and spends much of his time in his cave-like office plotting his next set of studies.
Ian Tatersal is a curator in the Division of Anthropology at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. His research is in paleoanthropology and lemur biology, and he is the author of some 20 books including Becoming Human (Harcourt Brace, 1998), Extinct Humans (with Jeffrey Schwartz: Westview Press, 2000), The Monkey in the Mirror (Harcourt, 2002), and the forthcoming New Oxford World History, Vol 1: Beginnings to 4000 BCE (Oxford University Press) and Human Origins: What Bones and Genomes Tell Us About Ourselves (with Rob DeSalle: Texas A&M University Press). He lives in Greenwich Village, N.Y.
Robert B. Taylor is a pop-culture writer living in Pittsburgh. He’s a Marvel Comics boy at heart but will argue passionately that “Batman Begins” is the best superhero film ever made. He contributed the essay “The Captain May Wear the Tight Pants, But It’s the Gals Who Make Serenity Soar” to the Smart Pop anthology Finding Serenity: Anti-heroes, Lost Shepherds, and Space Hookers in Joss Whedon’s Firefly. His TV column runs weekly in The Herald, the newspaper of record for Rock Hill, S.C. You can find him online at www.robert-b-taylor.com.
Valerie Taylor is a mom and writer whose novels include The Mommy School and How to Marry the World’s Best Dad. Jane Finocharo is a fifth-grader and budding pop culture maven. They live in Cincinnati with their family and their TiVo.
Francine Terry, M.D., M.P.H., is a lifelong science fiction reader, more recently a writer on topics bridging science fact and fiction and a speaker on hard science topics at many science fiction gatherings. In the “real world,” she works as an emergency physician in Cleveland, operates a small farm with her husband Steve Brownfield and is the founder and chief operating officer of an animal welfare nonprofit, AlterPet Inc. Her science writings have appeared in science fiction publications in both Ohio and Colorado and in national publications such as the Starfleet Communiqué and the UFPI Universal Translator. She and Dr. Howard Scrimgeour, DVM, comprise the “Paradox (pair of docs) Traveling Science Show,” frequently seen presenting biological topics to science fiction fans at Marcon and Toronto Trek. In her spare time, she reads scientific journals, seeking fact-out-of-fiction discoveries to share with fellow fans.
Nancy Tesler was born in Worcester, Mass., and received a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Carnegie Mellon University. After a career as an actor and a hiatus to raise three children, she began writing for the stage, TV and the financial community. Her second career as a biofeedback clinician helped pay the bills when, single again, and inspired by the overwhelming urge to do someone in, she turned to writing murder mysteries. She is the author of five Carrie Carlin Other Deadly Things novels. She has just completed a standalone novel of romantic suspense and is currently working on the first of new mystery series. Ms. Tesler lives in Tenafly, N.J.
Kim Thiboldeaux is the president and CEO of the Wellness Community and the former director of patient relations for oncology and transplant at Hoffmann-LaRoche, Inc. She lives in Washington, D.C.
David Thomas founded the International Game Journalists Association (www.igja.org) to help support the quality and professionalism of game journalism. He also teaches courses on the history of digital media, critical videogame theory and human environments at the University of Colorado. For more information, see buzzcut.com.
Evany “I’m a Susan” Thomas writes the “Desperate Housewives” recaps for Television Without Pity. She’s also the author of The Secret Language of Sleep: A Couple’s Guide to the Thirty-Nine Positions, the “Tyrolian Harvest” sausage basket catalog in McSweeney’s Issue 17, plus a variety of articles (covering everything from rare cars to soothsayers) for a variety of Web sites (including MSN, Webmonkey, Breakup Girl and The N). More about her writing, history and day-to-day activities can be found at Evany.com.
George C. Thomas III is a professor of law and Judge Alexander P. Waugh Sr. Distinguished Scholar at Rutgers University, Newark, where he teaches criminal law and constitutional criminal procedure. He has a law degree from the University of Iowa and a doctorate in law from Washington University in St. Louis. He is the author of books on double jeopardy, on Miranda v. Arizona (with Richard Leo) and on the law of criminal procedure (with Joshua Dressler). He is also the author of over 50 articles and essays appearing in major law journals.
Rob Thomas is the creator and executive producer of the critically acclaimed drama “Veronica Mars.” Thomas also produced and created the short-lived television series “Cupid,” wrote scripts for television shows “Dawson’s Creek” and “Space Ghosts” and the film “Drive Me Crazy,” and has written several novels for young adults.
If 15 years of film work hasn’t driven James out of the industry, nothing will. He’s tried everything—writing, effects, directing, production assisting, editing, you name it. Sometimes he feels like he’s meant to be there, and sometimes he doesn’t. Years and years of “Stargate,” a doomed season of “Kingdom Hospital,” “Warriors of Virtue” and countless TV movies and series. Who knows what the future will hold… .
Mark W. Tiedemann is the author of Mirage and Chimera, both in the Asimov’s Robot Mystery series; Compass Reach (part of the Secantis Sequence), for which he earned a nomination for the Philip K. Dick Award; and Remains. He has also contributed to the Smart Pop book The The Anthology at the End of the Universe.
The Anthology at the End of the Universe
Kathleen Tracy is an entertainment journalist for such magazines as Film News International, Globe and TV Week and is the author of The Girl’s Got Bite, The Real Story of Ellen DeGeneres and The Secret Story of Polygamy. She lives in Sherman Oaks, Calif.
Karen Traviss is a New York Times bestselling author of military science fiction whose critically acclaimed Wess’har novels have been nominated for the Philip K. Dick and Campbell awards. She also writes Star Wars novels for Lucasfilm, where she explores the same themes of identity, species, and political and personal corruption. A former defense correspondent, and TV and newspaper journalist, she has also served in the Royal Naval Auxiliary Service and the Territorial Army. She lives in Wiltshire, England. You can visit her Web site at www.karentraviss.com.
Robert Tuchman is the founder and president of New York-based TSE Sports & Entertainment, a global leader in sports and entertainment promotion. He is a contributing writer for ESPN.com and has been featured in publications including the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, the New York Times, BusinessWeek, Entrepreneur and Southwest Airlines Spirit magazine. A frequent guest on “Your World with Neil Cavuto,” Tuchman has appeared on CNN, BET and on the “CBS Morning News.” He resides with his wife Amy in the Upper West Side in Manhattan.
Catharine Tunnacliffe grew up in Ottawa, was educated at Cambridge University in England and currently resides in Toronto, Canada. She is a freelance film and culture critic for various publications, and is heard regularly on CBC radio. She is also the associate publisher of the alternative newspaper Eye Weekly.
Brad Turk is a successful businessman, a self-made millionaire by age 30, who was able to “retire” by age 36. Getting his start as a successful hip-hop recording artist, he moved on to become one of the nation’s top salespeople for MCI Telecommunications. He’s moved on to create successful businesses such as Global Business Solutions, Inc., Self Made Records, Inc. and Heat Wave Tanning. He has recently launched companies including TellBrad.com, MyMusicSite.com and MeetingExpressO.com and has inked a deal for a reality television show, “Street Battle.”
Harry Turtledove is an escaped historian who writes alternate history, science fiction, fantasy and historical fiction. One of the—many—reasons he flunked out of Caltech almost 40 years ago was that he read The Lord of the Rings obsessively instead of doing his calculus homework. He hasn’t quite done the same with His Dark Materials, but he’s come much too close.
Barry Vacker is a professor of media theory at Temple University in Philadelphia. His writings explore the models of utopia and dystopia that are shaping the postmodern world; influenced by Sartre, McLuhan and Baudrillard, he recently completed the book manuscripts Utopia and Nothingness and Media and Nothingness. Vacker’s writings have critiqued the utopian and dystopian themes represented in the Big Bang, the Millennium Dome, the Twin Towers, the Gaia hypothesis, the Guggenheim-Bilbao, Burning Man, Fight Club, Las Vegas, Death Valley, Fahrenheit 9/11, New Orleans, Coke Zero, chaos theory, cyberspace and many others (www.barryvacker.net). Not limited to writing, Vacker co-organized a symposium that was one of earliest telecasts on the internet in 1996; he questioned the meaning of “The Matrix” with Anderson Cooper on CNN in 2003; and he wrote and directed the experimental film “Space Times Square,” which will be released in Fall 2006. Vacker earned his Ph.D. from The University of Texas at Austin in 1995.
RITA award-winning author Evelyn Vaughn (who writes her Western historical romances as Yvonne Jocks) has published 17 novels and a dozen fantasy short stories. She also teaches literature and creative writing for Tarrant County College, in Texas. When neither writing nor teaching … oh, who are we kidding? She’s almost always writing and teaching. And watching TV (being an addict). It helps her rest up from the writing. And the teaching. She loves to talk about her writing (and TV), whether that’s attractive or not. Check out her Web site at www.evelynvaughn.com
J.C. Vaughn is an expatriate adopted Texan living near Baltimore. He is the co-writer of the comic books 24, based on the hit Fox TV series, and Shi. He is the creator of McCandless & Company, and is also the creator of S.F.P.D., which first appeared in 2002’s acclaimed Comic Book Legal Defense Fund benefit book, More Fund Comics. His short story “The Flight” was selected for the 2001 Breaking Boundaries anthology, and he made his film acting debut in the award-winning short “Some Trouble of a SeRRious Nature” in 2002. Vaughn is the author of more than 500 articles and columns in the collectibles field and serves as executive editor of Gemstone Publishing, where he works on such projects as The Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide, Hake’s Price Guide To Character Toys, Overstreet’s Comic Price Review and the weekly Scoop e-mail newsletter.
Debbie Viguié is the author of several books including Scarlet Moon, the Wicked series and Charmed: Pied Piper. Her book Midnight Pearls, a retelling of the little mermaid fairy tale, is on the ALA 2005 Popular Paperbacks for Young Adults list. Debbie lives with her husband Scott, and when she is not busy writing indulges her love of travel and theme parks.
Irene Vlachos-Weber is a lecturer in psychology at Indiana University. She received her B.S. from Colorado State University and is completing her Ph.D. in clinical psychology at Indiana University. Irene has received several teaching awards, including a 2005 Student Choice Award for Outstanding Faculty.
Kelley Walters earned a double B.A. in technical writing and psychology from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, in 1989, and an M.A. in spirituality from Holy Names College in Oakland, Calif., in 1996. There she studied with well-known spiritual writers such as Matthew Fox, Carol Lee Flinders, Thomas Berry and Joanna Macy. She is a features writer for the alternative newsweekly Chattanooga Pulse, and sits on the Board of Directors of the Chattanooga Writers Guild. Kelley lives with her husband, Michael Kull, and their pets Coco, Clare and Grace, in Chattanooga, Tenn.
Logan Ward has written for many magazines, including National Geographic Adventure, Men’s Journal, Popular Mechanics, Southern Accents and Cottage Living. He lives with his wife Heather and their children Luther and Eliot in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley.
Ian Watson has written SF full time for the past 30 years, from The Embedding (1973) to Mockymen (2003), in which aliens adopt human guises. Sometimes he himself adopts the guise of H. G. Wells at SF conventions, which exonerates him from any naughty conduct—see www.ianwatson.info. A year’s work with Stanley Kubrick in 1990 led to screen credit for screen story for “A.I. Artificial Intelligence,” subsequently directed by Steven Spielberg. Ian lives with a black cat in a tiny village in rural England. His tenth story collection, The Butterflies of Memory, is due in the fall 2005 from PS Publishing.
Lawrence Watt-Evans published his first novel The Lure of the Basilisk at age 24, and has since written more than 30 novels, more than 100 short stories, more than 150 published articles and contributed to several previous Smart Pop titles. He has been an active member of Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America since 1982 and also belongs to Novelists Inc. He was a 1987 nominee for the Nebula Award for short story and a 1988 winner of the World Science Fiction Society’s Hugo Award for best short story. He has been a full-time writer and editor for more than 25 years, and has also worked as an instructor of Viable Paradise on Martha’s Vineyard, and at the Writer’s Center in Bethesda, Md.
The Anthology at the End of the Universe
Flirting with Pride & Prejudice
Mapping the World of the Sorcerer's Apprentice
Len Wein is the co-creator of Wolverine and the New X-Men. He is a former editor in chief of Marvel Comics, Disney Comics and Top Cow Comics, as well as a senior editor at DC Comics. His previous work includes The All-New, All-Different X-Men Masterworks; The Untold Legend of Batman; and Wonder Woman: Gods and Mortals. He lives in Woodland Hills, Calif.
Robert Weinberg lives in Oak Forest, Ill., a suburb of Chicago, and is the author of 16 novels, 15 nonfiction books and dozens of short stories. As an editor, he’s compiled over 150 anthologies. Bob’s a two-time winner of the World Fantasy Award and has won two Bram Stoker Awards, given by the Horror Writers Association, of which he is also a member. He’s perhaps the only horror writer ever to serve as the Grand Marshal of a rodeo parade.
Robert G. Weiner first became interested in Johnny Cash when he saw the Grateful Dead perform “Big River,” and he sought out the original version. He bought a tape of “Cash’s Greatest Hits,” which he quickly wore out. In 1986, on his way to a Public Image Limited concert in Dallas, he read Cash’s autobiography, Man in Black, and on the trip back, he read Cash’s novel about St. Paul, Man in White. He is co-author of The Grateful Dead and the Deadheads and editor of Perspectives on the Grateful Dead. Weiner’s articles about Lubbock and gospel music appear in West Texas Historical Journal and the East Texas Historical Journal. He published the article “Atomic Music: Country Conservatism: Folk Discontent” in On the Culture of the American South, edited by Dennis Hall, and the “Cowboy Songs in Nature” in The Cowboy Way, edited by Paul Carlson. He most recently has book chapters in The Gospel of Superheroes and Landscape of Hollywood Westerns. He has graduate degrees in history and information science and is currently a reference librarian at the Mahon Library in Lubbock, Texas. Special thanks go to Emily Smith; her work in interlibrary loans made this essay possible. Also, thanks to Texas Tech University staff. Currently, Weiner can be seen in the music documentary “Lubbock Lights”; see www.lubbock-lights.com for more information about this film. Weiner also wrote the Johnny Cash article featured in the Guide to United States Popular Culture, edited by Ray and Pat Browne.
Nancy S. Weinfield, Ph.D., is a developmental psychologist and an assistant professor in the department of psychology at the University of Virginia. She received her Ph.D. from the Institute of Child Development at the University of Minnesota in 1996. Her research focuses primarily on parent-child relationships, attachment and the strategies individuals use to cope with emotional pain, thus making her a natural fan of Joss Whedon’s work.
Howard Weinstein sold his first story at age 19 (the animated “Star Trek” episode “The Pirates of Orion”). His fiction credits include six Star Trek novels, three “V” novels, 60 Trek comics and “Safe Harbors” in the Deep Space Nine: Tales of the Dominion War short story anthology. His nonfiction books include Puppy Kisses Are Good For The Soul & Other Important Lessons You & Your Dog Can Teach Each Other and a biography of New York Yankees baseball star Mickey Mantle. Howard has written articles and columns for the New York Times, Baltimore Sun, Newsday and Starlog Magazine.
Kevin Weisman makes regular appearances on “Alias” as Marshall J. Flinkman and has also had recurring roles on “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” “Felicity” and “Roswell.” He is a founding member of the award-winning Buffalo Nights Theatre Company. He lives in Los Angeles.
Martha Wells is the author of seven fantasy novels, including Wheel of the Infinite and the Nebula-nominated The Death of the Necromancer. Her most recent novels are a fantasy trilogy beginning with The Wizard Hunters and The Ships of Air. The last volume, The Gate of Gods, will be published by HarperCollins Eos in November 2005. She also has a media tie-in novel, Stargate Atlantis: Reliquary, coming out from Fandemonium in December 2005. She has sold short stories to Realms of Fantasy and Black Gate, and her books have been published in eight languages, including French, Spanish, German, Russian, Italian, Polish and Dutch.
Sarah Wendell is a transplanted Pittsburgher currently living in the New York metropolitan area. By day she’s mild-mannered and heavily caffeinated. By evening she dons her cranky costume, consumes yet more caffeine and becomes Smart Bitch Sarah of Smart Bitches, Trashy Books. The site specializes in reviewing romance novels, examining the history and future of the genre and bemoaning the enormous prevalence of bodacious pectorals adorning male cover models. Sarah has B.A.’s in English and Spanish from Columbia College of South Carolina. She is a member of the Romance Writers of America, and a big, big fan of Fabio.
Michelle Sagara West doesn’t watch much television these days because she’s still in mourning for “Firefly.” That said, she watches the DVDs on a semiregular basis and has traumatized other new viewers by forgetting to mention that the series was cancelled when she loans the set out. She can talk about “Firefly” for hours on end. And sometimes, she talks to the right people (see, editor). She is also a novelist who has eight published novels as Michelle West and four novels originally published as Michelle Sagara, which will be reprinted by BenBella Books, one every six months, starting in September 2005.
Scott Westerfeld is the author of five science fiction novels for adults and three sets of books for young adults, including Midnighters and Uglies. Born in Texas, Westerfeld splits his time between New York City and Sydney, Australia.
Ken Wharton is a physics professor at San Jose State University. He is also the author of the science fiction novel Divine Intervention, along with a handful of short stories. For his fiction, Ken has been a finalist for the John W. Campbell award for best new writer, the Philip K. Dick award and the Nebula award.
Stephanie Whiteside recently graduated from the George Washington University with a B.A. in political communication, where she learned the fine art of procrastination by watching “Gilmore Girls” and knitting when she should have been writing papers. Stephanie currently lives in Northern Virginia with her cats Fred and Padma, and spends her time watching more TV than is probably healthy, writing, and attempting to convince the government to give her a job. In the meantime, she teaches knitting and is cleverly disguised as a responsible adult.
An award-winning investigative reporter, Glenna Whitley specializes in writing about crime and the legal system. A staff writer for the Dallas Observer since November 2003, she’s been executive editor and senior writer for D Magazine and a feature writer for the Dallas Morning News. Whitley’s freelance work has appeared in numerous magazines and newspapers, including Texas Monthly, Penthouse, Glamour, Redbook, Ladies Home Journal, More, New York Times, Town & Country and many more. She is co-author with B. G. Burkett of the acclaimed nonfiction book Stolen Valor about the Vietnam War, published in 1998. The subject of three segments for TV newsmagazine “20/20,” including one that won a CINE Award, Stolen Valor received the 2000 William E. Colby Award for writing on military affairs at Norwich University. The subject of hundreds of stories in magazines and newspapers, Stolen Valor is now in development as a TV series. Her story “Crazy White Mother,” published in the Dallas Observer, received the prestigious Texas Headliner’s Award for investigative journalism in 2003, her third such award. The judges said: “This is a remarkable example of hard-digging reporting on an elusive subject, delivered in a fast-moving narrative form that tells an amazing tale with color and clarity.” In addition, “Crazy White Mother” was a finalist for the 2003 Eugene S. Pulliam National Journalism Writing Award. Whitley’s story “Evil Eyes,” the saga of serial killer Coral Eugene Watts published in June 2003 by the Dallas Observer, was featured in an anthology of the best writing from alternative newspapers published by Penguin in 2005. Another story was included in D Magazine’s Dallas: The 30 Greatest Stories Ever Told, published September 2004. Whitley has received numerous awards for investigative reporting on criminal affairs from the Texas Bar Association, the Dallas Bar Association, the Dallas Press Club and the City and Regional Magazine Association. A graduate of Texas A&M University, Whitley lives in Dallas with her husband Peter and two sons, Eric and Andrew.
One of the more opinionated people in an industry of opinionated people, Rick Klaw is perhaps best known for the popular column “Geeks With Books” in SFSite. Geek Confidential: Echoes From the 21st Century, a collection of his critical essays, reviews and other observations was published in 2003 by MonkeyBrain, Inc. His writings have appeared in the Austin Chronicle, Weird Business, The Big Book of the Weird Wild West, Gangland, Michael Moorcock’s Multiverse, Science Fiction Weekly, Nova Express, Electric Velocipede, KongisKing.net, Conversations With Texas Writers and other venues. Klaw lives in Austin, Texas, with his wife, a cat and an enormous collection of books. He is a frequent guest at conventions, where he can be seen nattering on about apes and pop culture.
Jack Williamson was born in Arizona Territory in 1908. He moved to New Mexico by covered wagon in 1915, and still lives there. A retired professor of English at Eastern New Mexico University in Portales, he still teaches a course there every spring semester. He has been publishing science fiction since 1929, with an output of 55 novels and many shorter works. His new novel, The Stonehenge Gate, is out this year. One section of it, “The Ultimate Earth,” won the Hugo and Nebula Awards. He has published H. G. Wells: Critic of Progress, an academic study of Wells’ early science fiction.
Connie Willis has won six Nebula and six Hugo Awards (more than any other science fiction writer) and the John W. Campbell Memorial Award for her first novel, Lincoln’s Dreams. Her novel Doomsday Book won both the Nebula and Hugo Awards, and her first short-story collection, Fire Watch, was a New York Times Notable Book. Connie was born on December 31, 1945, in Denver. She married physicist Courtney Willis in 1967 and has one daughter, Cordelia. They live in Greeley, Colo.
Leah Wilson graduated from Duke University with a degree in culture and modern fiction and is currently senior editor at BenBella Books in Dallas. Leah is the editor of Perfectly Plum: Unauthorized Essays on the Life, Loves, and Other Disasters of Stephanie Plum, Trenton Bounty Hunter and the co-editor on Coffee at Luke’s: An Unauthorized Gilmore Girls Gabfest and Serenity Found: More Unauthorized Essays on Joss Whedon’s Firefly and Serenity.
Robert Charles Wilson’s works include the Hugo Award nominees Darwinia and Blind Lake. His The Chronoliths received the John W. Campbell Memorial Award, and he has also won the Philip K. Dick Award and Canada’s Aurora Award; several of his novels have been New York Times Notable Books. His latest novel is Spin, in which the Earth itself is projected four billion years into the future.
Award-winning author Lois Winston is not a doctor, nor does she play one on TV. Instead, she writes humorous, cross-genre contemporary novels, often drawing upon her extensive experience as a consumer crafts designer for much of her source material. Her first book, Talk Gertie to Me, a combination chick-lit/hen-lit/romantic comedy with a touch of the paranormal, was released in 2006. She follows that up in 2007 with Love, Lies, and a Double Shot of Deception, a mom-lit romantic suspense. When not writing or designing, Lois can be found trudging through stacks of manuscripts as she hunts for diamonds in the slush piles for the Ashley Grayson Literary Agency. Visit Lois at www.loiswinston.com.
A Phi Beta Kappa, summa cum laude graduate of Boston College with a degree in history, Jill Winters has taught women’s studies as well as numerous workshops for aspiring writers. She is the author of five novels, including Lime Ricky, Just Peachy, Raspberry Crush and Blushing Pink. Her books have topped the Barnes & Noble Bestseller Lists and Book Sense’s Top Ten and her debut novel, Plum Girl, was a finalist for the Dorothy Parker Award of Excellence. Jill has also contributed essays to the anthologies Flirting with Pride and Prejudice, Welcome to Wisteria Lane and Coffee at Luke’s. You can visit her online at www.jillwinters.com.
Coffee at Luke’s: An Unauthorized Gilmore Girls Gabfest
Michael Wolff, Ph.D., is currently a faculty member in the psychology department at Penn State University, where he teaches undergraduate and graduate psychology courses and is a staff psychologist at the Penn State Psychological Clinic. He received his B.S. from Penn State University, his master’s in counseling psychology from Antioch New England Graduate School and his Ph.D. in counseling psychology from Penn State University. His research interests include psychotherapy processes (alliance, relationship, therapist factors, etc.) and their impact on outcomes.
Brad Wolgast (who received his Ph.D. from Temple University) learned the basics of group dynamics under the stress of the outdoors as a backpacking guide in New Mexico, and later across the country. He thought he had struck research gold when an adviser recommended he use a survival analysis for a research project. Not knowing this statistical method, he said, “No problem, I analyze that show every week. But how do we use that for a research project?” Well, now we know. Brad would like to thank the hardworking Daniel Strunk, Ph.D., without whom this wouldn’t have been written, and his two favorite “Survivor” fans, Henry and Claire.
Naomi Wood was born and raised in Congo (formerly Zaire). After years of feeling apologetic about her taste in books, she suddenly has been caught up in the popular-culture vanguard, which astonishes her. She teaches children’s and adolescent literature and Victorian studies at Kansas State University, where she is an associate professor of English. She has published articles on a range of fantasy and magic realist authors including George MacDonald, Lucy Lane Clifford, Charles Kingsley, C. S. Lewis, Philip Pullman, Virginia Hamilton and others.
Rick Workman is the criminalistics administrator for the Henderson, Nevada, Police Department. He manages the forensics laboratory, crime scene investigation section, and the evidence vault. He was previously a CSI with the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department. He has consulted for numerous “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation” episodes, was featured in Court TV’s “Forensic Files” “Las Vegas CSU, Thrill Killings” and in Lyon TV’s series “The Real CSI,” in London, England. Rick is a retired US Air Force Officer. He served in Desert Storm as the F-117A stealth fighter commander for maintenance and served as a Defense Nuclear Agency technical inspector. Rick is tasked with funding and building a forensic science center (crime lab with evidence vault). Monitor the progress of the project at www.nevadacsi.com
Ann Wortham is a native Texan who currently resides in the humidity of central Florida, land of tourists, Mickey Mouse ears and inadequate roads. She has been a fan of Stargate since the original movie and a devotee of all things science fiction since childhood. She worked for 22 years in the computer industry for AT&T, Lucent Technologies and IBM while spending her free time traveling and dabbling in nature and celebrity photography. She has a passion for reading, writing and publishing, and regularly writes online articles and conducts celebrity interviews for the Web.
John C. Wright is a retired attorney, newspaperman and newspaper editor. The spectacular unsuccess of these ventures drove him into science fiction writing. He presently works as a writer in Virginia, where he lives in fairytale-like happiness with his wife, the authoress L. Jagi Lamplighter, and their three children: Orville, Wilbur, and Just Wright. His works include The Golden Age (2002), Last Guardian of Everness (2004) and Nebula Award finalist Orphans of Chaos. His authorized sequel to A. E. van Vogt’s World of Null-A is called Null-A Continuum. His short fiction has appeared in anthologies and magazines, including Year’s Best SF 3 (David Hartwell, Ed.), Year’s Best Science Fiction (Gardner Dozois, Ed.), Year’s Best Short Novels (Johnathan Strahan, Ed.), The Night Lands (Andy W. Robertson, Ed.), Absolute Magnitude and Asimov’s Science Fiction.
Pop culture devotee Leigh Adams Wright is often teased about the size of her purse but, curiously, no one ever complains when they need a Band-Aid or a nail file. See her previous work in other Smart Pop anthologies Finding Serenity, Alias Assumed and Totally Charmed.
Larry Yaeger uses computers to solve hard and interesting problems, from flow fields over the space shuttle to special effects for “The Last Starfighter,” “2010” and “Labyrinth”; to providing a computer “voice” for Koko the gorilla; to developing the world’s first usable handwriting recognizer for second-generation Newtons and Mac OS X’s “Inkwell”; to evolving machine intelligence in an Artificial Life system called Polyworld. He teaches programming and Artificial Life at Indiana University, and plays videogames and reads and watches entirely too much science fiction. And is eternally grateful to Levi for putting up with him! www.beanblossom.in.us/larryy/.
A professional writer for more than 30 years, Yarbro has sold over 70 books (including her Saint-Germain vampire series) and more than 60 works of short fiction. She lives in her hometown—Berkeley, Calif.—with two autocratic cats. In 2003, the World Horror Association presented her with a Grand Master award.
Glenn Yeffeth is the editor of several anthologies in the Smart Pop series, including Anthology at the End of the Universe, Farscape Forever!, Five Seasons of Angel, Navigating the Golden Compass, Seven Seasons of Buffy, Taking the Red Pill and What Would Sipowicz Do? He lives in Dallas.
Award-winning, New York Times bestselling author Ruth Glick writes under the name Rebecca York for Berkley and Harlequin. The author of more than a hundred books, she loves writing paranormal romantic suspense. A rabid “Charmed” fan, she can’t wait to read the other essays in Totally Charmed.
Mary Frances Zambreno first became a friend of Narnia when her third grade teacher read The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe out loud to the class—and then mentioned that there were six other books in the series. Since then, she has become a teacher herself, earned a doctorate in medieval literature and learned to read six languages (including English). Currently, she teaches at a college in the Chicago area. Her YA fantasy novel A Plague of Sorcerers was named to the ALA’s list of Best Books for Young Adults in 1992; its sequel, Journeyman Wizard, was a New York Public Library Book for the Teen Age in 1994.
Vivian Zayas, Ph.D., is an assistant professor in the psychology department at Cornell University. She completed her Ph.D. (2003) at the University of Washington, Seattle. Her research examines the cognitive-affective processes that regulate behaviors within close relationships and which may affect the quality of relationship functioning and an individual’s mental health. Her research approaches the study of the individual and his or her relationships from a multilevel interdisciplinary perspective that integrates the study of attachment processes, research on executive control and self-regulation, and methodology and theory from cognitive psychology and cognitive neuroscience.
George Zebrowski’s more than 40 books include the Campbell Award winner for best novel of the year, Brute Orbits; the classic Macrolife and its companion Cave of Stars; various anthologies edited with Isaac Asimov, Gregory Benford, Jack Dann and Thomas N. Scortia; and the five volumes of the legendary Synergy series. His award-nominated short fiction has been collected in the Publishers Weekly-starred Swift Thoughts, in In the Distance, and Ahead in Time, and in Black Pockets (Golden Gryphon). A new edition of Macrolife (with an introduction by Ian Watson and an afterword by the author) has been published by Pyr, a division of Prometheus Books.
Sarah Zettel was born in Sacramento, Calif. Since then she has lived in 10 cities, four states, two countries and become an author of a dozen science fiction and fantasy books, a host of short stories and novellas, as well as a handful of essays about the pop culture in which she finds herself immersed. She lives in Michigan with husband Tim, son Alexander and cat Buffy the Vermin Slayer. When not writing, she drinks tea, gardens, practices tai chi and plays the fiddle, but not all at once.
Flirting with Pride & Prejudice
After majoring in, at various times, philosophy, anthropology, linguistics and physics, David Zindell graduated in 1984 from the University of Colorado with a degree in mathematics. All this proved helpful in his turn toward writing science fiction, a literature which he had always read and loved. An early story, “Shanidar,” won first prize in the Writers of the Future contest. Neverness, a novel set in the same universe, was nominated for the Arthur C. Clarke Award for best novel published in England and also nominated for the Campbell Award. A successor trilogy, A Requiem for Homo Sapiens, came next. He is presently working on the fourth book of Ea Cycle, a Grail quest to end all Grail quests. It is an exploration of good and evil, as well as a statement as to the possibilities open to humankind.
Lyle Zynda received his Ph.D. in philosophy from Princeton University in 1995. After spending a year teaching at Caltech, he took up his current position in the philosophy department at Indiana University South Bend (IUSB), where he is now associate professor. Dr. Zynda specializes in philosophy of science, philosophy of mind, cognitive science, epistemology, metaphysics and logic. He has published articles in internationally renowned journals such as Synthese, Philosophy of Science and Philosophical Studies. He also periodically teaches a course at IUSB called “Philosophy, Science and Science Fiction.”
