Here are biographies of some of the fantastic people who are in Pi-Con's programming.

Ryan Alexander
Ryan Alexander is an ex-pat unrepentant geek who makes a living bending computers to the will of others. He's been swimming through in the pluralities of fandom for a quarter of a decade now, and it hasn't killed him yet, so there you go. At the very least there must be some survival traits worth gleaming in there somewhere.
Inanna Arthen
Inanna Arthen is the author of Mortal Touch and The Longer the Fall, the first two novels in The Vampires of New England Series. She owns By Light Unseen Media, an independent press devoted to vampire literature.
Hugh Casey
Hugh Casey is an actor, writer, independent filmmaker, and long-time fan of science fiction, fantasy, and horror. He is the head of Parents Basement Productions, has two short films available online ("Teddy's Big Escape" and "Young Geeks In Love"), and is currently working on his next project. He served two terms as the president of the Philadelphia Science Fiction Society (2001-2003), and in 2003 was chairman of its annual conference, PHILCON. He is very active and well-known in the Philadelphia area fan community. He currently lives in King of Prussia, PA, where he spends most of his time plotting eventual global domination when he isn't being distracted by shiny objects. Potential stalkers can find him at his blog: hughcasey.livejournal.com.
Patricia M. Cryan

Her slogan is "Bookseller By Night - Really Tired Person By Day". Patricia M. Cryan is, by turns, a retailer who never sleeps, a walking library of children's literature, a fan of hard science, harder science fiction, and literary horror tales, and a freelance editor who makes strong folk cry at regular intervals.

She serves as General Partner for Mike's Comics - http://www.mikescomics.com - a mail order and Internet company established in 1976, which carries full-cast audio productions, science fiction and fantasy books and collectibles, comic books and graphic novels, roleplaying game supplies, fantasy greeting cards, and much, much more. She has been active in bookselling since 1987 and is a member of The New England Children's Bookselling Advisory Council. Her most current literary project involves editorial work on THE EDGECLIFF STORYBOOK; an excerpt can be found at http://www.edgecliffabbey.com.

Please feel free to drop by http://booksellerbynight.wordpress.com. It's lonely out in space.

Keith R. A. DeCandido
While attending a science demonstration as a high school student, Keith R.A. DeCandido was bitten by a radioactive editor, giving him powers far beyond those of mortal wordsmiths. He has used these talents to perpetrate 30 novels, 7 novelizations, 12 novellas, 28 short stories, 5 comic book scripts, and any number of essays, reviews, interviews, etc. — and that's just through to the end of 2008. Most are in the realm of media tie-ins: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (Blackout, The Deathless), Command and Conquer (Tiberium Wars), CSI: NY (Four Walls), Farscape (House of Cards), Spider-Man (Down These Mean Streets), StarCraft (Nova, the forthcoming Spectres), Star Trek (most recently Klingon Empire: A Burning House and A Gutted World in Myriad Universes: Echoes and Refractions), Supernatural (Nevermore, Bone Key), World of Warcraft (Cycle of Hatred), and many more. He also novelized Joss Whedon's Serenity and all three Resident Evil films, and 2008 and 2009 will see some comic books with his name as writer from PaperCutz, IDW, and TokyoPop, among others. As an editor, Keith has assembled many anthologies, most recently Doctor Who: Short Trips: The Quality of Leadership for Big Finish. Keith is also a brown belt in Kenshikai karate and a devoted fan of the New York Yankees. Find out less at his web site at DeCandido.net or read his inane ramblings at kradical.livejournal.com.
Michelle Driscoll
Michelle Driscoll, a pervy pansexual pagan-leaning polyamorist, is a bit more nerd than geek. She serves on the Board of the BDSM group The Society as a Member at Large, and facilitates a monthly Polyamory/BDSM discussion group at The Society's Space in Hartford, CT. She recently fled academia kicking and screaming while writing her dissertation on American Transgender Literature, and so she is excited to finally be reading books for pleasure again. She is said to have an evil twin in Barfleet named Barbie Q. Saucy.
Genevieve Iseult Eldridge
Genevieve Iseult Eldredge was born in rural New England and grew up dreaming of fantastic lands and faraway places. As the only girl in a neighborhood of boys, she found her best friends were those created by her own imagination. Now, after all those years of dreaming, she is finally putting to paper her own novel of epic high fantasy. Her most recent publication, "Taken," is featured in Blood Surrender, an anthology of vampire erotica edited by Cecilia Tan.
Terry Franklin
Terry Franklin is a writer of science fact and science fiction. He is also a political activist in Western Massachusetts on issues of human liberty; over the past year winning a First Amendment case against the Amherst Town Government, and a Fourth Amendment case at UMass. He is currently the Campaign Chairman for Keith McCormic's state senate bid.
Judy Gentry

Judy Gentry is a long time con goer, and through the years she has been a panelist at 2Pi Con and other Cons. Judy has also tried her hand at writing SF as well, and had two stories published.

At mid life Judy has finally decided what she wants to do when she grows up! The idea came to her on a bitter cold Winter day in 2006. As she waited for the bus, she became truly aware of the homeless people shuffling by her. They had no place to go and no protection from the cold. She would use her limited knitting skills to help homeless people. Judy called her idea Warmer Winters and gathererd together a few women to knit hats and scarves. Warmer Winters has grown from those few women to more than 80 volunteers, many of whom are boys and men.

Judy lives in Leominster with Megan, her wife of 21 years, their cat Thor, dog Kekko, and tubs full of yarn. Her e-mail is jt (dot) silver (at) verizon (dot) net. The website for Warmer Winters is warmer-winters.info.

Mario di Giacomo
Mario is a long-time devourer of fantasy & science fiction, ranging back to the days when his parents kept him quiet by shoving Danny Dunn books under his nose. He's been making a pest of himself in online fora for over two decades, having written both fiction and the occasional column. One day, he hopes to be published.
Harknell

Harknell is the webmaster and tech-guru of the Onezumi Studios family of websites, but fans know him best for his literary contributions to the Onezumi.com news posts and the Harknell.com support community for artists. He occasionally contributes ideas to Onezumi's popular webcomic, and implemented the www.Harknell.com community. This includes a web-based online drawing program (Oekaki) that members of the community use for free. He is currently developing the AWSOM.org (Artist Website: Setup, Options, Markup) web development portal, which is a website devoted to making it easier for Artists and Webcomic creators to set up an art or comic portfolio website without the hassle of learning programming code. Using the blog software Wordpress, and custom designed AWSOM plugins for art/comic galleries, News Announcements, and Archive display, anyone can get a site up and running in no time.

He currently lives near New Brunswick, NJ, where he shares an art studio with Onezumi and a lot of old video games.

Sara M. Harvey
Sara M. Harvey, Pi-Con Guest of Awesome 2007 and recipient of the best marriage proposal EVER, hails from Nashville, TN these days, but she's lived in California, New York, and many places in between. Her debut novel, called A Year and a Day, is considered by many to be her "love letter to New York City." She also has short fiction published with Circle Dark Publishing and has a horror novella due out in early 2009 with Apex Books. Sara has a master's degree in costume history and teaches fashion design at the International Academy of Design and Technology. She shares her life with her fiance and fellow author, Matt, and their two dramatic dogs, Guinevere and Eowyn.
James Hatton
James Hatton is the creator of the minimalist webcomic In His Likeness (www.inhislikeness.com), a three time a week look into what the Gods think of humanity and each other. A mixed look at pop culture and mythology done in such a way where all characters are represented by dots. He currently is working on a webcomic anthology as well as his next IHL based project.
Elaine Isaak
Elaine Isaak dropped out of art school after two and a half years to found Curious Characters, designing original stuffed animals and small-scale sculptures, and to follow her bliss: writing. Now she divides her time between business and writing, and being a mother of two. Her debut fantasy novel, The Singer's Crown, came out in 2005 from Eos Books, with sequel, The Eunuch's Heir, published in fall of 2006. She also writes the Lady Blade column about fantasy writing at AlienSkinmag.com. Visit www.ElaineIsaak.com to read sample chapters and find out why you do not want to be her hero.
Michael Kabongo

Agent, bibliophile, geek and general troublemaker. Michael Kabongo, aka Onyxhawke, has an education in history and psychology which explains why he has spent most of his life in one form of sales or another.

http://people.tribe.net/onyxhawke

http://onyxhake.livejournal.com/profile

Katherine Kane

Psychic, Reiki Master, teacher, bard, collector of useful skills and eclectic knowledge, and student of the Universe, Cathy's mission is to help people find and live their best and brightest dreams. She has over 37 years of experience in the field of metaphysics.

Sean Kane a.k.a. Starwolf
A Witch, Shaman, Psychic, and Metaphysical Engineer with over 35 years of experience, Starwolf brings an unusual slant to subjects both mundane and esoteric.
Gene Kannenberg Jr.
Gene writes about comics on topics ranging from cartoonists like Winsor McCay, Art Spiegelman and Chris Ware, to comics lettering, to Charles Atlas, to Peanuts and more. He's published essays and reviews in The Comics Journal, Hogan's Alley and The International Journal of Comic Art as well as in other periodicals, overpriced academic volumes and his Ph.D dissertation. A previous chair of the International Comics Arts Festival, Gene maintains Comicsresearch.org.
Debra Killeen

Debra Killeen spent 15 years working as a pharmacist. She never found the right fit. Then, having reached her limit with managed "care," she transitioned careers into clinical research and writing novels.

After receiving the requisite rejections from a number of agents and publishers, An Unlikely Duke was picked up by Helm Publishing and was published April 2007. A Prince In Need will be released in June 2008. The series will run for a total of five novels. Duke recently won first place for YA fiction in ReaderViews Literary Awards.

Debra resides in Chapel Hill, where she shares a home with her sister and five exceptional cats � Mandy, Scott, Finn, Isis and Osiris. More information is available at Debra's website, www.myrridia.net, and Debra can be contacted at debra (dot) killeen (at) myrridia (dot) net.

Katherine Kline
Someone who isn't quite normal and doesn't fit in a geek subtype, she works for MIT Lincoln Laboratory doing very geeky things. Her office features Lego space shuttles, and she spends most of her day thinking about rocket science. It's a nice way to live.
K. A. Laity
K. A. Laity is co-creator with artist Elena Steier of the comic Jane Quiet, which follows an occult investigator. The first issue debuted March 2008. Laity is also the author of Pelzmantel: A Medieval Tale (2003) and the 2008 short story collection Unikirja [Dreambook] inspired by Finnish mythology, for which she has already won a Finlandia Foundation grant and the Eureka Short Story Fellowship. In addition, she writes on medieval literature and culture, modern paganism, film, comics, fantasy and horror while a full-time faculty member at the College of Saint Rose in Albany NY. www.kalaity.com
David Larochelle
David Larochelle grew up in the D.C. area but moved up to Cambridge in 2004 where he currently resides. His involvement with fandom began when he joined the William & Mary Science Fiction and Fantasy Club (SKIFFY). He served as Vice President and was named Senator for Life upon gradation. He works in information security and is the coauthor of Splint an Open Source tool for detecting security vulnerabilities in C programs. When he is not working, he spends his time with his girlfriend.
Shira Lipkin
Shira Lipkin is the writer of cult proto-comic Shayara (www.shayara.com/drupal) and experimental web-based short-short story system Wind Tunnel Dreams (shadesong.livejournal.com/tag/wind+tunnel+dreams), among other things. Some of those other things have sold to ChiZine (chizine.com) and Electric Velocipede (electricvelocipede.com). She's a geek of many stripes and a prolific and well-read blogger. Interests include raising kids in fandom, cyberfunded creativity, cyberpunk, golden-age SF, neuroscience, quantum theory, and long walks on the beach. She lives in Boston with her husband, daughter, and the requisite Writer's Cats. Get your daily fix at shadesong.livejournal.com!
Mike Luoma
Mike Luoma is a science fiction and comic book author, a podcaster, an artist, a musician and a radio announcer from Burlington, Vermont. Mike releases Vatican Abdicator, the third novel in his "Vatican Assassin" Science Fiction Trilogy, this summer. The books are also available as free audiobooks (read by Mike) at Podiobooks.com Mike also releases Issue #3 of his four issue comic book mini series "Panthea Obscura" with artist Juan Carlos Quattordio this summer. Luoma is the writer and artist behind the critically acclaimed non-fiction comic Holy Shit: Or... Pat Robertson Is The Anti-Christ, and he released a "Digitally Remastered" Second Edition earlier this year. A singer and songwriter as well, Mike performs original folk tunes as "Brother Zag". Mike Luoma's online home is at http://glowinthedarkradio.com.
Joy Marchand
Joy Marchand holds a B.A. in Classical Studies from the University of the Pacific. She lives in Salem, Massachusetts, where she takes photos of urban decay, odd signage, and the occasional roadside shrine. Joy's poems and short stories have been featured in the Elastic Book of Numbers, Modern Magic, Time for Bedlam, Polyphony 5, Interfictions, Talebones, Apex Digest, and Interzone, among others. Joy's work in progress is a dark fantasy novel set on historic Route 66. Please visit her website at www.joymarchand.com.
Joseph McGee

Joseph McGee is the bestselling author of horror and suspense novels and short stories. It has been said that Joseph McGee "is the next Dean Koontz!" and some of his work as already been compared to Clive Barker. His next novel, Snow Hill, will hit stores this Summer, that will start a chain reaction of book signings and conventions appearances, starting mid-August, and spanning several months in promotion for Snow Hill, which is being called "darkly delicious."

And the following people had this to say about Snow Hill:

"Finally...a chill in the spine of horror." - Eric Enck critically acclaimed co-author of Snuff

"Joseph McGee's star is on the rise. Snow hill is filled with nail-biting twists... Do yourself a favor. Hurry up and read this guy!" -Joe McKinney, critically acclaimed author of Dead City.

To learn more about his work, please visit www.josephmcgee.net or visit him on MySpace.

Jennifer Melchert
Jennifer Melchert, when not busy with her duties as liaison between our galactic ant overlords and the puny earth-humans, lives quietly in upstate New York as a mild-mannered secretary. Her hobbies include embroidery, reading, video games, and medieval re-enactment. She is generally attended upon by a husband and stepson, a princess, some assorted boyfriends, an invisible velociraptor, and three cats.
Onezumi
Onezumi's rather unconventional web-based comic strip is located at Onezumi.com and is updated three times a week. Besides featuring her comic artwork the site hosts art creation tutorials, business tutorials, and video tutorials. She has also recently started a new blog site at Onezumiverse.com where she talks about all things Metal, funny animals, stupid videos, and has large galleries filled with her non-comic artwork and photos. Her interactive community forum site, that features a free web-based Oekaki art creation program and areas for art critique and website development, is located at Harknell.com; her self-produced store is located at OnezumiStudios.com.
KT Pinto
Bio: Paranormal Romance Writer Extraordinaire!
website: www.ktpinto.com
livejournal: ktpinto.livejournal.com
myspace: www.myspace.com/ktpinto
facebook: www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1010851511
Dr. James Prego
James Prego, ND. is a practicing Naturopathic Doctor on Long Island, NY. He is also an adjunct professor of Biology at Touro School of Health Sciences. He received his Doctorate from Bastyr University, Kenmore WA, in June of 2004. As a board member of the New York Association of Naturopathic Physicians, Dr. Prego is working to add New York to the list of licensed states for Naturopathic Doctors. Dr. Prego has given talks, written articles, and been a guest on radio shows, discussing naturopathic medicine, children's health, detoxification, and other health-related topics. Dr. Prego has been a guest at conventions such as I-Con, where he has been on panels discussing xenobiology, health in space, life extension, fusions of biology and technology, and how natural ways of healing can fit in a sci-fi/high-tech world. To learn more about Dr. Prego, and what naturopathic medicine is, you can visit www.doctorprego.com.
David Sklar
David Sklar's novella Shadow of the Antlered Bird is now available as an e-book from Drollerie Press (assuming all has gone according to schedule since this bio was written) and will appear in print in 2009. Other published works range from poetry in Wormwood Review to "parting shots" in Knights of the Dinner Table. Past Pi-Con Guest of Awesome Sara Harvey called David's work "wild and fantastical and so very intriguing." Poet Allen Ginsberg has described Sklar's trousers as "the most medieval-looking pair of dungarees I've ever seen." For more information, see davidwriting.com.
Cecilia Tan

Cecilia Tan transcends time, space, gravity, and cultural norms in her line of work: erotic science fiction," according to the San Francisco Weekly. Susie Bright calls her " simply one of the most important writers, editors, and innovators in contemporary American erotic literature." Tan always considered herself a writer, but her career took off in 1992 when she self-published a chapbook of three kinky science fiction stories entitled Telepaths Don't Need Safewords--and thus Circlet Press was born.

Since that time she has written four more books of erotic science fiction/erotica, Black Feathers (HarperCollins, 1998), The Velderet (Circlet, 2001), Edge Plays (EAA E-book, 2006), and White Flames (Running Press, 2008). She has also edited numerous erotica anthologies including Sex In The System (Thunder's Mouth Press, 2006), Blood Surrender (Blue Moon Books, 2005), Cowboy Lover (Thunder's Mouth Press, 2007), and many, many others, including over forty anthologies for Circlet Press. Her stories, essays, and articles in have appeared in dozens of magazines and anthologies including Best America Erotica, Best Lesbian Erotica, Best Women's Erotica, Playboy Online, The Mammoth Book of New Erotica, On A Bed of Rice, Dark Angels, Penthouse, Ms. magazine, Asimov's, Nerve, Gothic.net, Fenway Fiction, Periphery, and many more.

Kat Toomajian
Kat Toomajian is General of the 3Pi-Con Not-So-Voluntary Volunteer Corps, and she should be considered armed (and legged) and dangerous. Kat is fond of the color pink, saying the most inappropriate things imaginable, teh intarwubs, reading, ball pits, the SCA and other assorted and sundry things. She can be found dancing around various areas of the con with ribbons in her hair, a swirly skirt on her hips, stompy boots on her feet and determination in her eyes. Con-goer beware of this seemingly innocent short person. In the words of Kat herself: "I see absolutely no reason that I can't be dangerous and pretty at the same time."
Tom Traina
Tom is an avid sci-fi movie fan and former database monkey. He escaped Code-Monkey-dom by going to law school, and by the time this booklet reaches you, Tom will have hopefully passed the Massachusetts Bar Exam. His geekier interests are law, ethics & politics, both speculative and real-world, intellectual property, cyberlaw, bioethics, neuroethics, and geek law generally.
Jeff Warner
JeffWarner is: a president emeritus of the Science Fiction Forum, a co-founder of I-con and Albacon, a guerilla panelist at Worldcon, remotely responsible for the death of Lastcon, Program Operations for Arisia, unsolicited advisor for 1, 2, and 3Pi-con, a published writer, and has been everything from gofer to guest at SF Conventions since 1976. Despite all this he denies repeated allegations of SMOFdom.
Eric Weimer
Gamer, Computer Programmer and Geek Extraordinaire. Host of Nikebound.com. He's been gaming since the mid 80's, pen and paper. Can't carry a tune in a bucket, and don't ask him to! Interested in every kind of gaming system, including storytelling and diceless role playing games. Member of the Society for Creative Anachronisms since 1994.
Vicky Weimer
Gamer, Crafter, co-host of Nikebound.com, and filk singer. Been gaming pen and paper style for 28 years, video gaming for 30 years, and pc gaming since 1990. Taught myself to code in Basic back in 1976 (and have forgotten more about it than I remember at this point) and been involved in a love-hate relationship with computers ever since. Member of the Society for Creative Anachronisms since 1985, mostly involved in costuming and jewelery making.
Morven Westfield

Morven Westfield is the author of Darksome Thirst and the stand-alone sequel, The Old Power Returns, which combine vampires, geeks, and witches in modern New England. She is on the advisory board of Broad Universe, the Webmaster for New England Horror Writers, and a member of the International Order of Horror Professionals. Married with one cat, she lives in Massachusetts with her husband, a pragmatist who is mildly amused by his wife's interest in things that go bump in the night.

By day, Morven is a technical writer who enjoys productivity gadgets and other high-tech toys. A chronic consumer of podcasts, she recently started her own, "Vampires, Witches, and Geeks" (morvenwestfield.podbean.com), a series of brief podcasts on -- yep -- vampires, witches, and geeks.

Alan Wexelblat
Alan Wexelblat is a copyfighter, polyamorist, and social commentator, who used to write about virtual reality and published an online reviewzine for fantasy and science fiction books. He maintains a secret identity as the father of two small active boys and an interaction designer for financial software.
Michael Whitehouse
Michael Whitehouse is a game store owner, a founder of Pi-Con, founder of a Rocky cast, and driving instructor for people with special needs. In his spare time, he sometimes has time to drink half a can of soda before he returns to work. His particular interests lie in finding ways to build communities around him and studying the social and economic trends that most people ignore as background noise. He got into panels because he is dating the Program head and because he knows some stuff about some things.
Connie Wilkins
An active member of SFWA, in recent years she has written and edited more in the erotica genre, usually as Sacchi Green. Besides a long list of publications, she has also co-edited three lesbian erotica anthologies (one a Lambda Award finalist). She also has a specfic anthology she has solo edited scheduled for October, Time well Bent: Queer Alternate History. That one is unfortunately too late for Pi-Con, but she also has stories in a couple of recent specfic anthologies including Cecilia's Best Fantastic Erotica.
Aradia Willard
Aradia has a degree in Equine Facility Management and is the President of the Greenfiled Public Library Anime Club. She is an avid costumer and "wants to move back to Kansas despite its political standings."
Trisha J. Wooldridge
Trisha J. Wooldridge is a freelance writer and editor with experience ranging from Dungeons & Dragons Online to animal rescue public relations. She rounds out her non-fiction career with articles on food, wine, horses, and teaching, as well as band interviews with Voltaire, Within Temptation and Nightwish. As an editor, she has worked on business books, novels, and online education courses. Trish's first love is fiction, however, and her first published fiction piece is available in the Bad-Ass Faeries 2: Just Plain Bad anthology. Find out more at anovelfriend.com
Phoebe Wray
Phoebe Wray is a long-time nonfiction writer who has begun to publish in the specfic field, with stories in Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Mag, Farthing, Fables.org, chizine and now has a novel, JEMMA7729, just released from EDGE. A horror story will be included in Backless, Strapless and Slit to the Throat: A Femme Fatale Anthology later this spring. She's the Chair of the Broad Universe Motherboard and teaches in the Theatre Division of The Boston Conservatory. She lives in a small town outside of Boston with three cats.
Tom Wysmuller
Tom Wysmuller forecasted weather at Amsterdam's Royal Dutch Weather Bureau after studying meteorology at NYU and Stanford. Selected for a NASA internship, he worked throughout NASA before, during, and after the moon landings. He worked at Pratt and Whitney and held insurance industry executive positions. His Polynomial Regression algorithm is embedded in every high-end Texas Instruments calculator sold today. He lectures worldwide on the SCIENCE needed to understand Global Warming.
Drew Van Zandt
Drew is the engineering department of a small electronics design company in New Hampshire. His interests include reading, aikido, science, inline skating, robotics, indoor climbing, Linux, dancing, and being that long-haired guy wearing all black.