Program Participant Biographies, Continued

Pamela Freeman

Pamela Freeman is an Australian author of books for both adults and children. Most of her work is fantasy but she has also written science fiction, mystery stories, family dramas and non-fiction. Her first adult series, the Castings Trilogy (Blood Ties, Deep Water and Full Circle) is being published globally by Orbit books. Blood Ties came out earlier this year and Deep Water, just out in Australia, will appear in the US and UK in October/November.

Freeman grew up in Sydney, Australia, and now lives there with her husband and son. She is a full time writer (when she's not being a mum) and teaches writing part-time at the Sydney Writers' Centre (both face to face and online). She started writing as a scriptwriter of children's programs at the Australian Broadcasting Commission, which, she explains, is "Australia's version of the BBC but, alas, without making Dr Who." Her first short story was published in 1990 and her first book (The Willow Tree's Daughter) in 1994. She has also earned a Doctor of Creative Arts degree. Her thesis questioned why monarchy is the default political structure for so much fantasy fiction.

Freeman has worked in bowling clubs, engineering firms, television stations, museums, law enforcement, universities, and occupational health companies. She was awarded a Churchill Fellowship to study the management of internal witnesses (whistleblowers) in law enforcement, and has studied or worked with many law enforcement agencies, in Australia, Canada and the US. Said Freeman, "Ask me about the FBI sometime - or the Mounties! I know a lot about corruption and how it happens, and a bit about how to stop it."

She is best known in Australia for the junior novel Victor's Quest, an associated series, the Floramonde books, and an historical novel, The Black Dress, which won the NSW Premier's History Prize in 2006. Pamela's children's books have also been shortlisted for the NSW State Literary Awards, the Children's Book Council Book of the Year Awards, the Koala Awards and the Wilderness Society Environment Awards. She said, "I think a book should be like a good meal: rich, satisfying and memorable."

Pamela's websites are: www.castingstrilogy.com (adults) and www.pamelafreemanbooks.com (kids).
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Pat Blair

Pat Blair, who writes under the name of P.L. Blair, is a native of Tyler, Texas. She received an AA degree in journalism from Tyler Junior College, a BA degree in journalism (minor in government) from Texas Woman's University in Denton, then returned to her hometown, where she worked for the Tyler Morning Telegraph and Courier-Times for five years.

She later moved to the Texas coastal area, before moving to Sheridan, Wyoming, in January 1985. She remained primarily in newspaper work (although interspersed with jobs as a secretary, radio station office manager and ad writer) until this year (June, in fact), when she left newspaper work entirely in order to pursue her bliss as a freelance writer.

Blair is a member of the Range Writers and Wyoming Writers Inc. She received a 2008 Wyoming Writers Western Horizons Award, which honors writers of successful first books.

"I've always been drawn to science fiction and fantasy," Blair said. "Working for newspapers, covering everything from government meetings to murder trials, I would reach the end of the day with an overdose of reality. Science fiction and fantasy were my means of escape."

Blair began writing fantasy novels in the early 1990s. She found her publisher for "Shadow Path" in early 2007 in the guise of a friend who had a longtime dream of establishing a publishing company in Sheridan.

"Shadow Path" is Blair's first novel in her "Portals" series and the first book published by Studio See. Blair's second book, "Stormcaller," was published this year, and her third book in the series, "Deathtalker," is scheduled for a release this fall.

Blair's "Portals" series, set in the not-too-distant future, is based on the premise that the world of Humans and the world of Magic have always co-existed, separated by gateways - the "Portals" - which are now open, allowing movement between the two worlds. Her two main characters are detectives with the Corpus Christi Police Department.

"It is perhaps the result of a lot of reading of fantasy, myth and folklore and watching way too many CSI shows on TV," Blair said.

She lives in Sheridan with Shilo, an adopted basset hound and two adopted elderly cats. Blair is a strong advocate of adopting animals, either from breed rescue organizations or local animal shelters.
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Peter Ahlstrom

Peter Ahlstrom was born and raised in the Dayton, Ohio area and now lives in Los Angeles. He graduated from Brigham Young University with a B.A. in Linguistics, minoring in English and astronomy.

Peter has been involved in science fiction and fantasy since his teens in the late Eighties, joining a writing group that included author Diann Thornley. He became interested in editing in college, where he was editor of BYU's science fiction/fantasy magazine The Leading Edge.

His path, he says, led him to manga and anime, where he's been everything from fan to editor and judge of the Rising Stars of Manga competition. Currently an editor for TOKYOPOP, he handles English editions of graphic novels from Japan, Korea, and Germany. Prominent series in his care have been .hack//G.U.+ and .hack//XXXX, Rave Master, Strawberry Marshmallow, Ai Yori Aoshi, and CLAMP no Kiseki. His favorite is Dazzle, known as Hatenkou Yugi in Japan, and one of his newest series is J-Pop Idol. He's also written English adaptations for GetBackers, DearS, Jing: King of Bandits, and the last two .hack//Another Birth novels.

In addition to a sharp eye for detail, Peter possesses mad unicycle-riding skills.
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Phil Foglio

Phil Foglio was born and grew up in New York State, then attended the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts. He did a lot of fanzine work while in college. He won the Hugo Award for Best Fan Artist back in 1977, and is still waiting for the wealth and unlimited power he was told this would bring.

In the meantime he has made a career as a writer and artist because he liked the idea of commuting fifty feet to his office. Over the years he has worked in the fields of science fiction, comics and gaming. He now lives in Seattle with his wife and two children. In addition to the Hugo, he's won a few awards, including an Inkpot and several Web Cartoonists' Choice Awards, but mostly he gets nominated for things and loses graciously. "No, really," he says.

His current project is the comic book series Girl Genius, which he works on with his wife, Kaja. His hobbies include travel, gardening and waiting.

Photo by Kaja Foglio
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Pierre & Sandy Pettinger

Pierre and Sandy Pettinger have attended conventions since 1981, and have been costuming since 1982. Their first competition costume was completely forgettable and they rarely admit to it. Their first award came in 1986 at Confederation, the World Science Fiction Convention in Atlanta, GA.

They were two of the founding members of the Midtheyst Costumer's Guild, one of the first chapters to join the International Costumers' Guild after its creation. (The Midtheyst chapter has since merged with the St. Louis Chapter). Pierre served two terms as Vice-President and three terms as president of the ICG.

Since, Sandy has served two terms as the ICG Corresponding Secretary. For costumers, Sandy says, "CIAWOL – rather than FIAWOL."

After leaving the Presidency, Pierre took on the role of ICG Parliamentarian and has served in that capacity to the present day. Recently, he also took on the role of the ICG's official Archivist. Pierre says, "First of all, have fun!"

The Pettingers have won many awards in costume competitions, including four Worldcon Best in Show awards. They have also judged many masquerades at all levels of competition. They were co-chairs of Costume-Con 10 and Pierre has been co-chair of Costume-Cons 24 and 25. They received the International Costumers' Guild Lifetime Achievement Award in 2000, and were the masquerade directors at ConJose, the 2002 Worldcon.
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Richard Chwedyk

Richard Chwedyk is a lifelong Chicagoan. He was educated in the city's public school system (which is to say, not much at all), Columbia College Chicago and Northwestern University, where he received an M.A. in English in 1988. His bibliography can be traced as far back as 1975, but sf readers will find little of interest until 1986, when he entered a story in a contest sponsored by ISFiC and Windycon.

His first "pro" sale appeared in the November 1990 issue of Amazing Stories ("A Man Makes a Machine"). The novelette "Last One Close the Door" appeared in the February 1993 issue of Amazing. His dark fantasy novelette, "Surfaces" (Space and Time #83, Winter 1994) received an honorable mention in that year's Year's Best Fantasy and Horror anthology. "Auteur Theory" was his first appearance in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, (July 1998), but his better-known appearances in that magazine began with "The Measure of All Things," which involved the bioengineered toys called saurs who live in a sort of rescue home after they have been abandoned or discarded. "Measure" was reprinted in the Hartwell/Cramer-edited Year's Best SF 7 (Eos Books, 2002). It was shortlisted for both the Sturgeon and Nebula, and missed the Hugo ballot by a handful of votes

His Nebula winner, "Bronte's Egg," a follow up to "Measure," first appeared in the August 2002 F&SF, and made both the Hugo ballot and the Sturgeon shortlist. The novella was reprinted in Nebula Awards Showcase 2004. (Roc Books, 2004).

Another novelette featuring the saurs, "In Tibor's Cardboard Castle," appeared in the October/November issue of F&SF. A fourth saur story, and several more, have been promised by the author ever since. Fans of the small blue theropod, Axel, alas, are still waiting but, with any hope, not for too long.

The saur stories have been translated into Hebrew for the Israeli science fiction magazine The Tenth Dimension and "Measure" was translated into Italian.

Recent short fiction includes "The Button" (Tales From the Red Lion, Twilight Tales, 2007), "Where We Go" (Visual Journeys, Hadley Rille Books, 2007) and "The Ambiguities (Hell in the Heartland, Annihilation Press, 2008).

Along with his short fiction, Chwedyk has written a fair amount of sf and sf-related poetry. "A Few Kind Words for A. E. Van Vogt" was reprinted in Year's Best SF 8. (Eos Books, 2003). "Rich and Pam Go to Fermilab and Later See a Dead Man," in Strange Horizons in 2003, was a Rhysling Award nominee.

No books. No collections. Yet. Rumors of novels come and go. A thirty-year stretch in the newspaper business keeps him busy and anxious.

Since 1991, Chwedyk has taught short story writing and moderated a number of critique-style workshops at local conventions and worldcons.

For the past thirty-one years he has been married to poet Pamela Miller – a pretty steady gig and a good one at that. Their home, as one would expect, is a chaos.

Photo by Delphyne Joan Hanke-Woods
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Robert Reed

Robert Reed was born in Omaha, Nebraska, and then in a bid to change his surroundings, he moved fifty miles to Lincoln. Some readers know him as the author of Marrow and its sequel, The Well of Stars. But he might be better recognized for nearly 200 short stories, novelettes and novellas, including last year's Hugo Award winning, "A Billion Eves."

A degree in biology and a stint as a poorly paid factory laborer made him ready for his life as a writer. Reed is a regular contributor to two of the old warhorse magazines. Coming stories include a novella entitled "Truth" that will be published in the Oct/Nov Asimov's SF, and a possibly true story called "The Visionaries" that will appear in The Magazines of Fantasy and Science Fiction. Also on the horizon are Jonathan Strahan's Godlike Machines with a Marrow-universe novella entitled "Alone," which will reveal a mystery or two, and Extraordinary Engines: The Definitive Steampunk Anthology which will offer up "American Cheetah," in which Abraham Lincoln endures another hard day.

The author continues to live in Lincoln, now with his wife, Leslie, and their daughter, Jessie. There are also two cats, several hundred fish, and a gigantic male bullfrog that considers the backyard to be his own paradise. "I garden badly, I run slowly," he adds. "Why any of these subjects should interest anyone, I don't know."
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S. M. Stirling

S.M. Stirling was born in France in 1953, to Canadian parents -- although his mother was born in England and grew up in Peru. After that he lived in Europe, Canada, Africa, and the US and visited several other continents.

He graduated from law school in Canada but had his dorsal fin surgically removed, and published his first novel (Snowbrother) in 1984, going full-time as a writer in 1988, the year of his marriage to Janet Moore of Milford, Massachusetts, who he met, wooed and proposed to at successive World Fantasy Conventions. In 1995 he suddenly realized that he could live anywhere and they decamped from Toronto, that large, cold, gray city on Lake Ontario, and moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico. He became an American citizen in 2004.

His latest books are In the Courts fo the Crimson Kings, from Tor, and The Scourge of God, from ROC books. His hobbies mostly involve reading -- history, anthropology, archaeology, and travel, besides fiction -- but he also cooks and bakes for fun and food. For twenty years he also pursued the martial arts, until hyperextension injuries convinced him he was in danger of becoming the most deadly cripple in human history. Currently he lives with his wife Janet, also an author, and the compulsory authorial cats.
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Steven D. Howe

Dr. Steven D. Howe is currently the Director of the Center for Space Nuclear Research (CSNR) in Idaho Falls, ID. The CSNR is engaged in facilitating research and education of nuclear technologies for space exploration. Prior to this position, he was a staff member in the Thermonuclear Applications group of the Applied Physics Division (X Division) at the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL). In this position, he investigated the importance of energetic nuclear reactions in modeling the weapons physics of a nuclear device.

Prior to the position in X-Division, Steven was the Program Element manager of the Reactivity and Compression element in the Nuclear Weapons Stockpile Stewardship Program at the LANL. As such, he managed research funding in nuclear science to support the nuclear weapons effort in the Lab. Steven was also a senior advisor to the Division Leader of the Los Alamos Neutron Science Center (LANSCE). LANSCE has been a major research facility at LANL that comprises a high-intensity, 800 MeV proton beam for a variety of applications.

While working at LANL for almost twenty three years, he developed new programs for the Laboratory in the areas of advanced space propulsion, space exploration technologies, bio-medical instrumentation, defense programs, nuclear systems, and hypersonic flight. He was the Laboratory's project coordinator of the nuclear propulsion effort, team leader of the gas core nuclear rocket project, project manager for the Zero-gee Float Zone Furnace, and Design Physicist for the Villita nuclear test. The program development activity required both an understanding of new front-edge technologies and the ability to communicate the potential of these technologies to potential sponsors.

Steven is also currently the CEO and co-founder of the Hbar Technologies, LLC based out of West Chicago, Il. Hbar Power is a wholly owned subsidiary of Hbar Technologies. As such, he has been involved several grants: 3 Phase I grants from the NASA Institute of Advanced Concepts, 1 Phase II grant from NIAC, a Phase I and Phase II SBIR grant from NASA, and a seedling grant from DARPA.

In addition to his regular activities, Steven has published the novella, Wrench and Claw, in Analog magazine and Honor Bound Honor Born, which detailed the possible development of the first commercial base on the Moon. In addition to over fifty technical papers published worldwide and his published fiction works, Dr. Howe has appeared in numerous television programs about space and rocketry. His television credits include: "Living and Working in Space," the Futures Channel, PBS and Sci-Fi channel; "Mission to Mars," Ultra Science, The Learning Channel; "Rocketships," Discovery Channel (June ‘98); "Rockets in Space," Wingspan (August ‘98); and "Voyage to the Milky Way," PBS, (May '99).
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Steven Silver

Steven H Silver is a Chicago-area fan. An active con-runner, he served as programming chair for Chicon 2000 and has chaired two Windycons as well as founded and chaired Midwest Construction, a con for conrunners, and served as ombudsman for the 2005 Nebula Awards. He is currently working publications for the Chicago in 2012 Worldcon bid and is the chair of the 2010 International Space Development Conference.

Silver founded the Sidewise Award for Alternate History in 1995, which means that over the past decade plus he has read more good (and, alas, bad) alternate history than nearly anyone else on the planet. He urges alternate historians to stay away from the Civil War and World War II. He has also served on four Nebula Award juries.

Silver became news editor for SF Site in 2002, where he has been posting reviews and other articles since 1995, when the web was a wee little thing. He also reviews for Tangent On-line (when it is on-line), The Fix, and a variety of other places, both electronic and print. His writing has earned him eight Hugo nominations in the Best Fan Writer category, including one this year. He is editor of the annual 'zine Argentus, which this year received its first Hugo nomination. Silver has also edited three anthologies for DAW Books: Wondrous Beginnings, Magical Beginnings, and Horrible Beginnings. He is currently editing two volumes of stories by Lester del Rey for NESFA Press. In addition, Silver is publisher and editor of ISFiC Press, which will release an anthology of military science fiction in November.

Besides all this, Steven does find time for a private life, which he spends with his wife, Elaine, and his two daughters, who are very upset he is going to Denvention and leaving them behind. There are rumors that he also holds down a day job. He notes, " I have a Master's in Medieval History, which is a highly useful and lucrative field, which is why I've worked as a technical writer and in other jobs since earning my degree."

Just weeks before Denvention, Steven received word that he had sold his first short story to a professional market. "Bats in Thebayou" is scheduled to appear in 2009 in the anthology Zombie Raccoons and Killer Bunnies.

Photograph by Elaine Silver
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