Program Participant Biographies, Continued

Steve Rasnic Tem

Steve Rasnic Tem was born and raised in the hills of southwest Virginia. He has a BA in English Education from VPI and an MA in Creative Writing from Colorado State, is a past winner of the Bram Stoker, International Horror Guild, British Fantasy, and World Fantasy Awards, and has been a professional author for more than 25 years. His most recent novel is a collaboration with wife Melanie Tem, The Man on the Ceiling (Wizards' Discoveries). November 2009 will see a solo novel, Deadfall Hotel, "a literary exploration of the roots of horror in the collective unconscious told through the story of a widower who takes the job of manager at a remote hotel where the guests are not quite like you and me, accompanied by his daughter and the ghost of his wife." Also coming next November is a collection of collaborations with Melanie Tem, In Concert (Centipede Press). Some of his 250+ published short stories are collected in the volumes City Fishing (Silver Salamander) and The Far Side of the Lake (Ash-Tree Press). New short stories will be appearing soon in Asimov's, Dark Discoveries, Albedo One, and in the anthologies Polyphony 7, Phantoms, Portents, Peter Straub's Poe's Progeny, and Ellen Datlow's Poe: New Tales Inspired by Edgar Allan Poe. His fiction has been compared to the work of Franz Kafka, Dino Buzzati, Ray Bradbury, and Raymond Carver, but to quote Joe R. Lansdale: "Steve Rasnic Tem is a school of writing unto himself."

Tem works days as a technical writer and has also taught writing (including a week at the Odyssey writing workshop). He's an adoptive father of four, and a grandfather. In his spare time from writing, what little there is, he plays with animation and visual art.
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Tillie Fong

Tillie Fong was born in Sacramento, California to parents who emigrated from China. She's the oldest of three children, with a sister and a brother, and Cantonese (a Chinese dialect) was her first language. She grew up in California, getting a bachelor's degree in political studies and women's studies from Pitzer College in 1982. She also spent a semester at Nanjing University in China during junior year, studying Chinese language, history and politics, then went to graduate school for two years at University of California, Berkeley (1984-1986), studying journalism with a minor in Asian Studies.

Tillie has been working at the Rocky Mountain News as a general assignment reporter since September 8, 1987, and covered such major events as the Columbine High School massacre, the G8 Summit, Pope John Paul II's visit to Denver and the Hayman Fire. She will also be involved in the news coverage of the Democratic National Convention in Denver this summer. She has received awards for breaking news stories from the Colorado chapter of the Society for Professional Journalists (SPJ) and in Best of the West competitions.

Tillie is an avid science fiction and fantasy reader, and also likes to watch shows and movies in those genres. She is also involved in costuming and started SG-14 a Stargate costuming and propmaking group in Colorado in 2003. She is still the team leader for SG-14, which is putting on the Stargate Boot Camp at Denvention. She played Honor Harrington, one of David Weber's characters, in a panel with Weber at MileHiCon last year. "I'm a huge fan of the Honor Harrington books," she says.

Tillie also has the obligatory writer's cat, Orion (who actually adopted her, rather than vice versa). He likes to sit on her papers while she reads and on her journal while she writes. Unlike other cats, he does leave her laptop alone.

Tillie has kept a journal since junior high school but didn't start writing for publication until high school, when she joined the California High School Student Lobby in my senior year in high school. She would analyze bills being considered by the California state legislature and write about them for the lobby's newsletter, which was circulated to all the high schools in the state. She became a student activist while in college, and started writing opinion pieces/commentary for one of the college newspapers, The Collage, which served all five of the Claremont colleges. While she was at graduate school, she also began writing for the Daily Californian, the school paper for University of California, Berkeley. She never really wrote fiction, preferring to read fiction but write non-fiction.
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Alan Stewart

Alan Stewart discovered SF while in primary school, and fandom at University, and has never left since. His first convention was Aussiecon 2. He then became involved with the Melbourne Science Fiction Club and was Secretary for over 20 years straight.

After graduating as a Chemical Engineer, he has lived in Melbourne, Australia, and currently works as an editor for Pearson Education. A couple of years ago he was in the top 50 rated tournament Scrabble players in Australia.

He edits fanzines including Thyme which was a Hugo nominee and Ytterbium (an ANZAPA zine). He won the Ditmar Award for fanzine editing 1990, 1995 and 1997 and the William Atheling Jr. Award for SF criticism 1997. He has had over 50 poems professionally published, mainly SF or fantasy themed.

Alan was Bid Chair for the Australia in '99 bid, and is on the board for the 2010 bid. In 1991 he was the FFANZ delegate to New Zealand, and in 1994 the DUFF delegate to North America where he attended Conadian.
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Alexis Glynn Latner

According to an analysis done in 2005, Alexis Glynn Latner is the seventh most published woman fiction author in the 75-year history of Analog Science Fiction magazine, originally called Astounding Stories. Besides novelettes and short stories in Analog, her stories have appeared in Amazing Stories and Sorcerous Signals and the anthologies Bending the Landscape: Horror and Horrors Beyond 2 - Stories of Strange Creations. Her science fiction novel Hurricane Moon was published by Pyr in July 2007. "Science fiction used to be called the literature with a sense of wonder," she says, "and that was because scientists found wonder in the universe. They still do, and and my science fiction reflects that."

She holds a B. A. in linguistics from Rice University and an M. A. in systematic theology from the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California. From 2004 until 2007 she was the South-Central Regional Director of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. In 2008, she is the vice president of the Houston, Texas writers' group The Final Twist. Besides speculative fiction, she does editing, writes magazine articles about science, technology, and aviation, and teaches creative writing through the Glasscock School of Continuing Studies at Rice University. She works in Rice University's Fondren Library. For fun and real-life adventure, she flies sailplanes and ride with friends in small power planes as often as possible.
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Anton Strout

Fantasy author Anton Strout was born in the Berkshire Hills mere miles from writing heavyweights Nathaniel Hawthorne and Herman Melville and currently lives in historic Jackson Heights, New York (where nothing paranormal ever really happens, he assures you).

Dead To Me is the first of four books in his humorous urban fantasy series featuring psychometric investigator Simon Canderous. Deader Still, book two in the series, will be on sale February 24, 2009. He is also the author of The Fourteenth Virtue in the DAW anthology The Dimension Next Door and The Lady in Red in Pandora's Closet. Two other short stories will be appearing in future DAW anthologies City Fantastic and Zombie Raccoons.

He also has worked for Penguin Group USA for the past decade in their paperback sales department.

In his scant spare time, he is a writer, a sometimes actor, sometimes musician, occasional RPGer, and the worlds most casual and controller smashing video gamer. He currently works in the exciting world of publishing and yes, it is as glamorous as it sounds.
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Bill Higgins

Bill Higgins has had a long career in Pharticle Pysics at Lermi Fab, the Smatom Asher located in the Chiburbs of Sucago. He works on Sadiation Rafety there, where they make Kions, Paons, Neuons, and Mutrinos, as well as plenty of Manty Atter. Lermi Fab had the biggest Smatom Asher in the world. There was going to be a bigger Smatom Asher, but it never bot guilt. It was called the Superconducting Supercollider.

Anyway, Bill is fascinated by Shocket Rips such as Pranetary Plobes, Loon Manders, and Shace Sputtles. Sometime you may see him give one of his Shide Slows about this. He is married to Helley Kiggins, a Pseautiful Bychologist who also Blays the Panjo. In his spare time, Bill likes to read Fience Sciction and play the Uritone Bakulele. He hopes one day to become a Fig Bame Nan.
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Blind Lemming Chiffon

Blind Lemming Chiffon (it is a real name, just not on his driver's license, which is OK because he doesn't drive) is a Denver-area musician, parodist and blues comedian. A multi-instrumentalist who dabbles occasionally in filk, he was an Interfilk guest at FilkOntario in 2004. He is half of the Denvention 3 music programming committee. His first con was Penulticon 1, 1976; his first Worldcon was Seacon, 1979.

He is still working on his first CD, and is the founder of his own religion of one, Secular Dolphinism, which he maintains has something to do with Flipper. He's Lemmo on RecMusicFilk, Lemmozine on LiveJournal and his website is http://www.blindlemmingchiffon.com/

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David Boop

Denver-based author David Boop is a single dad and returning college student. Dave was a journalist before turning to fiction. He's published a dozen short stories and written two short films. His stories have appeared in magazines like Tales of the Talisman and SF Trails and in the anthologies Wondrous Web Worlds and Space Pirates. A fixture on the convention circuit, he's spoken at such literary gatherings as Mile High Con, Coppercon and Norwescon. His novel, She Murdered Me with Science, debuts at Denvention3.

General interests include noir, Mayan history, and the blues. He enjoys watching anime and playing Go.
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David A. Rozansky

David A. Rozansky is the publisher of Flying Pen Press LLC, a Denver-based small press that is giving flight to great books. He is a freelance writer, editor and publisher whose experience in publishing goes back to 1989.

Rozansky has been reading science fiction enthusiastically since he first learned to read, and has been playing role-playing games since 1973. He was the president and league director of the Adventure Role Playing League. He has professionally written more than one million words under his byline, and has published Rocky Mountain Air Traveler and American Cabby Magazine. He was also a bush pilot in Central America. David is originally from Denver, where he currently lives.

Mr. Rozansky is seeking writers and novelists. His company is seeking novels and anthologies, particularly science fiction, fantasy, romance, mystery, Western, thriller, horror, and contemporary fiction. Flying Pen Press is also seeking writers for game books and books about games, for its game-book imprint; it is especially interested in role-playing-game books and books about poker. Mr. Rozansky is interested in publishing new writers as well as established authors.

Rozansky noted, "I am currently involved with the publication and promotion of the Flying Pen Press Summer of Science Fiction." Three titles were published this spring: Trials of the Warmland by Gaddy Bergmann, Seventh Daughter by Ronnie Seagren, and Dragon Ring by Lettie Prell. Four more books will premiere at Denvention: She Murdered Me with Science by David Boop, Space Pirates edited by David Lee Summers, Irreconcilable Differences by James R. Strickland, and Of Dice & Pen edited by Fred Poutre.
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Elizabeth Moon

Elizabeth Moon grew up in south Texas and started writing at an early age. She attended Rice University, earning a degree in history, then joined the Marines, serving on active duty from 1968-1971. Following that she went for a second degree, this time in biology, from the University of Texas at Austin. She did graduate work in biology at the University of Texas in San Antonio.

Moon has written 21 novels, two of which she co-authored with Anne McCaffrey (part of the Planet Pirate series). Other books include several popular series: the current Vatta's War group, the conclusion of which (Victory Conditions) came out earlier this year and is her most recent published book; the Serrano Legacy, and the trilogy The Deed of Paksenarrion, plus its prequels.

She has been a finalist for both the Hugo (Remnant Population) and the Arthur C. Clarke Award (The Speed of Dark, which won the Nebula Award). In 2007 she won the Robert A. Heinlein Award for her body of work. She has had over 30 shorter works in magazines and anthologies, most recently, Moon Flights (Nightshade Books,2007).

Moon now lives in a small central Texas town with her husband, two horses, a cat, and a John Deere tractor named Bombadil.

Besides writing, her other interests include classical music, prairie restoration, wildlife management, horses, Renaissance-style fencing, nature photography, and biomedical science. Among her favorite things are dark chocolate, fresh herbs, the color red, steam trains, and summer rain.
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