Guests
Bonnie Burton
San Francisco-based author Bonnie Burton writes about everything from Wookiees to mean girls. Best known for her Star Wars crafts and drawing books, Bonnie’s geektastic books include: The Star Wars Craft Book (Del Rey/Random House), Draw Star Wars: The Clone Wars (Klutz Books), You Can Draw: Star Wars (DK Children), and Star Wars: The Clone Wars: Planets in Peril (DK Readers).
In addition to her Star Wars books, she recently wrote a teen girl advice book on how to deal with mean girls while not becoming one called Girls Against Girls: Why We Are Mean To Each Other and How We Can Change (Orange Avenue Publishing). The book features helpful advice written for teen girls, as well as advice from female celebrities such as Tegan from Tegan & Sara, Jane Wiedlin from The Go-Go’s, and Hannah Aitchison from L.A. Ink.
Bonnie’s ground-breaking first book is an anthology of stories and essays from prominent bloggers, and interviews on why they blog, called Never Threaten To Eat Your Co-Workers: Best of Blogs (Apress). Her writing also appeared in the comic book anthology The Girls’ Guide to Guys’ Stuff (Friends of Lulu) as well as Wired, SFX, Bust, Craft, Star Wars Insider, Geek Monthly and Organic Gardening magazines. She works for Lucasfilm as a Senior Editor at Starwars.com.
When Bonnie’s not writing books or making Chewbacca sock puppets, she’s answering questions about ghost hunting, weird candy, troll dolls and bizarre warning labels on her vlog “Ask Bonnie” which can be found on Youtube.
Learn more about Bonnie Burton on her site: www.grrl.com
Follow her on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/bonniegrrl
Marian Call
Photo Credit: Brian Adams
Marian Call is a trained composer and a spunky self-taught singer based out of Anchorage, Alaska. Her songs are eclectic and diverse, funny and light on their feet, powerfully honest, and grounded in the human experience. Call’s compositions are half study and calculation, half improvisational instinct, and always full of unexpected musical twists and turns. She has written pieces by commission for film projects and events, and she has been known to write songs on dares or to surprise devoted fans.
Her live shows have been loudly applauded nationwide in homes, quiet coffee shops, noisy bars, churches, radio stations, bookstores, and concert halls, in and out of Alaska. In only eight months she went from a relative unknown to playing the main stage at several of Alaska’s summer festivals. Marian released her first two albums plus fourteen singles in only fourteen months during 2007 and 2008. She is nearing completion on a new two-volume project titled Something Fierce.
Marian was born into a family of musicians and artists, and she was raised on a steady diet of Bach, Beethoven, Joni Mitchell, Tower of Power, and Ogden Nash in her hometown, Gig Harbor, Washington. Over twenty-odd years she has performed with chamber choirs, jazz combos, early music groups, rock bands, a gospel choir, and experimental music ensembles, and all of these influences (and more) meet and mingle in her own writing. She completed her bachelor’s degree in composition and vocal performance at Stanford University in 2004. After graduation, she spent two years pouring coffee, waiting tables, and listening to good music in Anchorage coffee shops, slowly learning about the craft of songwriting through osmosis and eventually through practice. Marian plans to travel and tour as much as possible, including the upcoming 49>50 fan-coordinated tour of the entire United States, but she remains committed to the development of a great arts scene in Anchorage. Marian looks forward to collaborating with friendly musicians, writers, visual artists, and filmmakers from all backgrounds.
Jane Espenson
Jane Espenson was a crucial member to the Battlestar Galactica writing and producing team. Additionally, she was the executive-producer and co-writer of the Emmy nominated Battlestar Galactica webisodes and an Executive Producer of the spin-off series Caprica.
Espenson grew up in Ames, Iowa where she watched too much television, and at age 13 attempted to write an episode of M*A*S*H. She studied linguistics at UC Berkeley and while still in graduate school submitted spec episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation, thereby wedging her tiny foot into the last open door of show business. After winning a Disney Writing Fellowship, she accepted a staff position at Buffy the Vampire Slayer, followed by a year as co-executive producer of Gilmore Girls. She is a co-creator of Syfy’s Warehouse 13 and has written for Angel, Firefly, The O.C., Dollhouse, Game of Thrones, Torchwood: Miracle Day, and Caprica, a Battlestar Galactica spin-off. Espenson currently writes for ABC’s Once Upon a Time and is a co-writer and the producer of the original web-series, Husbands.
Carrie and Katie Goldman
Carrie Goldman is the author of Portrait of an Adoption, a blog that has drawn over 450,000 views just since November 15, 2010 and receives several thousand unique views per day. The blog is hosted by ChicagoNow, an online community owned by The Chicago Tribune. Goldman writes about issues related to adoption and parenting.
Goldman is writing her first book, The Littlest Jedi, an exploration of bullying prevention that will be published by Harper Collins.
Goldman received her B.S. from Northwestern University and her M.B.A. from the Kellogg School of Management. She was a commercial banker with Bank One, now JP Morgan Chase, from 1998 to 2004 and happily worked on financial presentations.
Goldman and her husband Andrew adopted baby Katie in 2003. The life-changing process of building a family served as the catalyst for Goldman’s transition away from the world of finance and into the world of the arts. She founded her own company, Artwork By Carrie, and entered the art show and gallery circuit. Through her award-winning oil paintings, Goldman expresses her emotions about the beauty, sadness and joy unexpectedly found in life.
Goldman lives in Evanston with her husband and three young daughters, of whom Katie is the oldest.
You may remember reading about Katie in November 2010 and her experiences being bullied at school by first-grade boys because she carried a Star Wars water bottle. The boys repeatedly picked on Katie in the lunch room, telling her Star Wars was for boys only. GeekGirlCon feels for these young boys, who do not yet know that Geek Girls exist and that we are everywhere. GeekGirlCon applauds Katie’s courage in declaring her love of Star Wars and believes that the force is strong with this one!
Nancy and Belle Holder
Nancy Holder’s Wicked saga, co-written with Debbie Viguié, has appeared on the New York Times bestseller list, and been optioned by DreamWorks. She has also written dozens of episode guides, novels, short fiction, and essays in the Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Smallville, Firefly, Saving Grace, and other “universes.” She has a new essay in Whedonistas: A Celebration the Worlds of Joss Whedon by the Women Who Love Them. She is also the writer on Moonstone’s Domino Lady comic book.
Belle Holder’s application to exhibit at the San Francisco Maker Fair (May 21 and 22) has been approved, and she will attend. She was a contestant on American Inventor, and placed in the kids’ division at the Bubonicon masquerade dressed as a Stormtrooper photographer. She is currently participating in the San Diego City Science Fair, presenting her findings on cockroach navigation. She is crossing her fingers that she makes it and passes to State. She is also involved in gaming, costuming, model rocketry, filmmaking, and comic books.
The Holders have sold two short stories to DAW about a magical time-traveling mouse named Lightning Merriemouse-Jones. The team appears at SF cons, and signs as a team for charity in the San Diego Comic-con’s California Browncoats booth.
Chase Masterson
Actress, producer, and singer, Chase Masterson broke into the biz with a role on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine as “Leeta”, a Dabo girl in Quark’s bar. First intended as a four-line character, Leeta became an integral part of the DS9 cast and her role extended into a five-year story arc. Chase is also recognized for her reoccurring television work on General Hospital, playing opposite Bruce Campbell in the first Sci-Fi (before it was Syfy, mind you) original movie Terminal Invasion, playing Sabrina Loyd’s sister on Sliders and hosting SciFi Entertainment. Additionally, Chase is known as being the featured guest star in the Emmy-Award winning episode of ER that broke records for prime-time television with 49-million viewers when it first hit the air.
Some of her film work includes Stephen King’s Sometimes They Come Back For More, the award-winning, Marina and her most recent film, Yesterday was a Lie. She was also the executive producer for Through Your Eyes, a feature length documentary about the world’s only deaf-blind triplets.
Chase’s accomplishments on the screen are complimented by her stellar vocal talent. Film Score Monthly described Chase as a jazz-singer that “slides comfortably between Streisand, Judy Garland and Billie Holiday”. She has currently released four albums and often performs for the U.S.O.
A self-professed geek, who was ostracized growing up, Chase now gets her geek on with a love of Doctor Who and has admitted to not only have visited the TARDIS console of the 8th Doctor, Paul McGann, on multiple occasions, but to having to be dragged from the Dr. Who exhibition in London after closing. It’s okay, Chase, you’re in good company. We totally understand.
Trina Robbins
Award-winning herstorian and writer Trina Robbins has been writing graphic novels, comics and books for over thirty years, ever since she produced the first all-woman comic book, It Ain’t Me, Babe, in 1970. Her subjects have ranged from Wonder Woman and the Powerpuff Girls to her own teenage superheroine, GoGirl!, and from women cartoonists and superheroines to women who kill. She is considered the expert on the subject of early 20th century women cartoonists, and is responsible for rediscovering many brilliant but previously-forgotten women, including Golden Age Fiction House cartoonist Lily Renee, and the great Nell Brinkley. Her full-color book, The Brinkley Girls: the Best of Nell Brinkley’s Cartoons from 1913-1940 (Fantagraphics), published in April, 2009, was nominated for an Eisner award and a Harvey award. She has lectured everywhere from England’s Oxford University and the Library of Congress to New York’s Museum of Sex.
Some other books by Trina: in 2010: a 3-book graphic novel series, The Chicagoland Detective Agency (Lerners Books), and a 2-part Honey West comic book (Moonstone Press). In 2011: Tarpe Mills and Miss Fury (IDW) and more graphic novels, including a graphic biography of Lily Renee.
Greg Rucka
Photo Credit: Linnea Osterberg
Greg Rucka is a The New York Times bestselling author of over a dozen novels and literally hundreds of comics. In addition to his award-winning work for Marvel and DC, he is the creator of several properties published through Oni Press, including Stumptown, Black Magick, Queen & Country, and Whiteout, the last of which was made into a feature film by Dark Castle Entertainment, starring Kate Beckinsale. His work has been optioned several times over, and he serves as a creative and story consultant in television, film, and electronic entertainment.
He lives in Portland, Oregon, with his wife and family, and is currently at work on his latest novel, Alpha, due to be published in 2011 by Mulholland Books, and imprint of LittleBrown.
Gail Simone
Gail Simone, creator of the Women in Refrigerators List – which subsequently raised awareness of the treatment of women in comic books – has written Simpsons comics for Bongo, Killer Princesses for Oni Press (with co-creator and artist Lea Hernandez), and a Rose and Thorn limited series for DC Comics.
In 2003 she took over DC’s Birds of Prey title. Under her direction Birds of Prey became one of DC’s steadiest selling and most critically acclaimed books.
In 2007 she took over writing duties on Wonder Woman. Additionally, Simone’s commitment to creating diverse casts of characters led her to win a Glyph Comics Award for Best Female Character in Thomasina Lindo—one of the lead characters in Welcome to Tranquility—a creator-owned comic published by WildStorm. Simone has also worked on a reboot of Gen¹³ for WildStorm and All-New Atom for DC Comics.
She has also done work in scripting for television and film based on comics including an episode of Justice League Unlimited and early drafts of the Wonder Woman animated direct to DVD feature film (2009).
She recently returned to writing the Birds of Prey series for DC Comics and can be followed on Twitter or her Tumblr, Ape in a Cape.
Jen Van Meter
Jen Van Meter is best known as the writer of the Hopeless Savages comics and graphic novels from Oni Press, collected in a 2010 omnibus edition, Hopeless Savages: Greatest Hits. Other recent work includes a Black Cat miniseries–”Trophy Hunters”– a Liberty Belle/Hourman co-feature that ran in JSA: All-Stars 2-11 and Black Lightning: Year One. Van Meter is currently working on a new volume of Hopeless Savages material and has stories forthcoming from both Marvel and Dynamite, including a Red Sonja one-shot called “Break the Skin,” due out in April 2011.