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Denise Crosby is known by fans for her role as Lt. Tasha Yar on one of the most popular TV series ever, Star Trek: The Next Generation. Denise also co-starred alongside Fisher Stevens and Jennifer Tilly in the Fox series Key West and has played recurring roles on NYPD Blue, The X-Files, Mad Men, and Lois and Clark: The Adventures of Superman. She has guest starred in numerous TV series, most recently Dexter, Crossing Jordan, and Bones. Denise also plays Captain Susan Sallinger on the acclaimed series Southland. Join us in welcoming Denise to Minnesota!
More information:
Denise Crosby Website
Internet Movie Database
Wikipedia
Catherine Asaro’s science fiction books combine interstellar travel, hard-core math, political intrigue, physics, and romance. She gets the science part of her fiction legitimately; she is a boffin-with-papers (Ph.D., Chemical Physics, Harvard). Other works in her bibliography are in the genres of fantasy, suspense, and non-fiction research. Asaro is a member of SIGMA, a think tank of science fiction authors.
Catherine has 2 music CDs out. One of these is the result of her Diamond Star project; combining a novel and CD to tell the same story (a part of the Saga of the Skolian Empire series). The lyrics on the CD are mostly by Asaro, the music is mostly by the rock band Point Valid.
More information:
Catherine Asaro Website
Wikipedia Page
Rob Callahan is a professional purveyor of made-up stories about the way we really are. His works of fiction include the novel Hellbound Snowballs and the short story collections, Grave Whisperer and Damaged Goods. He has written and performed two award-winning spoken word shows, Idiosynchronicity and The Last Ditch (co-written with Allegra Lingo), and he regularly joins the Minneapolis entertainment troupe The Rockstar Storytellers on stage. His nonfiction has graced the pages of Secrets of the City, Salon.com, l’etoile Magazine, Cracked.com, and Livestrong.com. He is also a part-time contributor to several magazines published by Tiger Oak Publications.
More information:
Rob Callahan Website (may be down...)
Ban These Books
Facebook
Note: books by our Author Guests of Honor will be available for sale at David Christenson’s table in the Dealers’ Room.
Jon Sloan is a local cartoonist who has been writing, drawing, and promoting his comic Sa-Bom Jim since 2004. His works has also appeared in a number of other collaborative publications such as Muscles & Fights, Uptown Girl Presents, The City Pages Comix Issue (2008), SuperfantasticaComix, and the upcoming Germ Warfare. Jon is a member of The International Cartoonist Conspiracy. He has taught Cartooning and Comics workshops at two local libraries, and has been a guest creator at FallCon and SpringCon.
More information:
Sa-Bom Jim
MarsCon and the MarsCon Art Show welcome Twin Cities artists Aric and Kim Stewart as our first official “Three Dimensional Artist” Guests of Honor. Both Aric and Kim Stewart are accomplished in creating beautifully fused-glass and wire wrapped-pendants, circlets, bracelets, necklaces, earrings and more. Each piece is a one-of-a-kind and each one is handmade. This husband-and-wife team creates “items for all budgets and tastes” using semi-precious stone, Swarovski Crystal and fused glass.
More information (including photos):
S.R.S Mythic Designs
DementiaRadio.org is sponsoring COG’s appearance at MarsCon 2012. Huge thanks, guys! Let’s see… Rock, Earth, Oblivion… why, that’s our theme…
Deep within their secret lair, four mad scientists and one smart-alecky robot are hatching an evil plot: TO ROCK the EARTH into OBLIVION! Lights, chaos, action! More than just virtuosity of musicianship, dazzling and oft bewildering visual effects, sensational representatives of mad science, The Consortium of Genius are an industrial-strength powerhouse featuring up to ten cerebral miscreants who jolt their audience into staggering submission. The resulting evil brainchild is part musical showcase, part sketch comedy, and all hi-tech magic.
More information:
Consortium Of Genius
MarsCon Dementia
DementiaRadio.org
The Omega Podcast is a Doctor Who themed podcast created by two brothers, Wendell and Wes, in Southeast Minnesota. Alternating between audio and video episodes, the hosts review Doctor Who episodes, discuss news, and interview guests from throughout the universe. The podcast, which began in March 2010 and has over 60 episodes, has interviewed guests like Lynne Thomas, Paul Cornell, and Toby Hadoke. The Omega Podcast has listeners throughout the world including the UK, Australia, Canada, Germany, France, and Spain and has appeared on BBC Southeast Today.
This popular Doctor Who podcast has recently added another co-host, Liz from Wisconsin, and are looking forward to recording more episodes in 2012.
More information:
The Omega Podcast
St. Paul science fiction and fantasy writer, S.N. Arly has had short stories featured at FearsMag.com, a limited edition DragonCon 2000 chapbook, several issues of Tales of the Unanticipated, and most recently the WolfSongs anthology. She has received two honorable mentions from the L. Ron Hubbard’s Writers of the Future contest. She is a member the local critique group Guts and Rocks. Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/S.N.Arly1?ref=name
2007 Guest of Honor
Eleanor A. Arnason is an American author of science fiction novels and short stories. Her work often depicts cultural change and conflict, usually from the viewpoint of characters who cannot or will not live by their own societies’ rules. This anthropological focus has led many to compare her fiction to that of Ursula K. Le Guin. She lives in Minnesota. Eleanor is the author of five published novels, and a number of poems and short stories. She has received both the James Tiptree, Jr. award for “gender-bending SF,” and the Mythopoeic Society’s Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for the novel, A Woman of the Iron People, the Spectrum Award (for “Dapple”) and the HOMer Award (for “Stellar Harvest”). Also the Minnesota Book Award for Ring of Swords. Her earlier novels are: The Sword Smith, To the Resurrection Station, and Daughter of the Bear King. Her short stories include “The Warlord of Saturn’s Moons” (which has been reprinted several times), “The Lovers” (a preliminary nominee for awards in 1996), “Ace 167,” “The Hound of Merin,” and many others which have appeared in Orbit, New Improved Sun, Tales of the Unanticipated, Xanadu, A Room of One’s Own, New Women of Wonder, The Norton Book of SF, and other places.
Ruth Berman has published fiction and poetry in many magazines and anthologies, including science fiction, fantasy, general, and literary publications. She is one of the co-authors of Autumn World by Joan M. Verba et al., and has written articles on sf/fantasy for many journals. Books she edited: Dear Poppa (MN Historical Society), The Kerlan Awards in Children’s Literature (Pogo Press), Sissajig and Other Surprises (short fantasy by Oz author Ruth Plumly Thompson). She is a longtime Twin Cities fan. Read more at www.tc.umn.edu/~d-;lena/RuthBermanPage.html
Cynthia Booth is a published poet and playwright presently living in Hibbing, Minnesota.
Roy C. Booth hails from Bemidji, Minnesota, and is a published author, game designer, comedian, poet, journalist, essayist, screenwriter/doctor, but is mostly known as an internationally award winning playwright with 49 plays published to date with over 650 productions of his work in 25 different countries on every continent save Antarctica. His most recent projects include the dramatization of Brian Keene’s bestselling paranormal suspense novel, TERMINAL, various book deals in horror, fantasy, dark poetry, and theatre, as well as various ongoing genre-based television/film deals. A recent interview by Horror World on Roy’s writing style and upcoming published work can be found at www.horrorworld.org/interviews.htm. Roy can also be found on MySpace, Facebook, and at www.roycbooth.com.
Haddayr an essayist and fantasy writer with pieces in places such as The Minnesota Women’s Press, Strange Horizons, and Ideomancer. She is also an ad copywriter, an obsessive bicycle commuter, and a folkie: She folk dances, studies Irish Gaelic, plays the bodhrán (with her three sisters if she can get her hands on ‘em), and listens to traditional music. She is a member of two writing groups and feels very lucky to be an SF/F writer in the Twin Cities. www.copleywoods.com/haddayr
2008 Guest of Honor
Naomi Kritzer is the author of three fantasy novels in her “Dead Rivers” series: Freedom’s Gate (2004), Freedom’s Apprentice (2005), and Freedom’s Sisters (2006), and short fiction in Realms of Fantasy, Strange Horizons, and Tales of the Unanticipated. Naomi recently completed a children’s fantasy novel in which a ten-year-old Minneapolis girl notices that no one else can see one of the houses on her block. www.naomikritzer.com
Craig Lang is a UFO and anomaly researcher with Minnesota MUFON, the local chapter of the Mutual UFO Network. He investigates sighting and encounter reports in the Twin Cities and surrounding areas. Craig is a Certified Hypnotherapist, with the National Guild of Hypnotists. His “day job” is as a computer engineer, working with a medical electronics firm in the Twin Cities. Mr. Lang has been interested in astronomy, ET life and UFOs since childhood. He is the author of two nonfiction books on UFO abduction, The Cosmic Bridge and The Other Side of the Sky, The Cosmic Bridge Companion. He is an amateur radio operator (KC0ZH), and also dabbles in writing science fiction. websites: www.craigrlang.com and www.thecosmicbridge.com.
Catherine Lundoff is an award-winning author and editor from Minneapolis. Her recent books include the short fiction collection A Day at the Inn, A Night at the Palace and Other Stories (Lethe Press, 2011) and the forthcoming novel Silver Moon: A Wolves of Wolf’s Point Novel (Lethe Press, 2012). She is the editor of Haunted Hearths and Sapphic Shades: Lesbian Ghost Stories (Lethe Press, 2008) and the co-editor, with JoSelle Vanderhooft, of the anthology Hellebore and Rue: Tales of Queer Women and Magic (Lethe Press, 2011). In her other lives, she's a professional computer geek and teaches writing classes at The Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis. Website: www.catherinelundoff.com.
Rebecca Marjesdatter is a past winner of the Rhysling Award for Speculative Poetry. Her work has appeared in Tales of the Unanticipated (TOTU), The Magazine of Speculative Poetry, the anthology Women of Other Worlds, and Asimov’s. She is the current Poetry Editor of TOTU. She lives in Minneapolis with too many cats.
Michael Merriam is a speculative fiction writer and editor living in Hopkins, Minnesota. His novellas have been published as stand-alone books by Carina Press and Sam’s Dot Publishing. He has also edited an anthology for Sam’s Dot Publishing. He has sold short fiction and poetry to a variety of magazines, including Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine, Bards and Sages Quarterly, and Three Crow Press.
2002 Guest of Honor
Lyda Morehouse leads a double life. By day she is the science fiction author of the award-winning AngeLINK series. At night she transforms into the best-selling vampire romance writer, Tate Hallaway, author of the Garnet Lacey series and the young-adult vampire princess of Saint Paul series. As Lyda she’s won the Shamus (a mystery award) for Archangel Protocol, and came in second for the Philip K. Dick award for Apocalypse Array. She’s just finished a prequel in the AngeLINK series called Resurrection Code, which will be coming out later this year from Mad Norwegian Press. Tate has been busy as well. 2010 will see the publication of the last of the Garnet books: Honeymoon of the Dead, as well as the first of the vampire princess books, Almost to Die For. She lives in Saint Paul with her partner of twenty-four years, seven year-old son, four cats, two gerbils and a multitude of fishes.
R. Thomas Riley, an active member of ITW, is an internationally published author (print/digital media) living in the distant lands of North Dakota. His short story collection, The Monster Within Idea (2009-2011) was published by Apex Publications. If God Doesn’t Show (co-written with John Grover) will be published by Permuted Press in 2012. The Flesh of Fallen Angels (co-written with Roy C. Booth) will be published by Grand Mal Press in 2012 and Diaphanous co-written with Roy C. Booth is available now on Kindle. The Day Lufberry Won It All was adapted to short film by Frosty Moon Omnimedia in 2010. Riley is also the co-founder of KOTANORTH Films.
Kathryn Sullivan has been writing science fiction and fantasy since she was 14 years old. Having read her father’s collection of sf and fantasy, she started writing her own. The world set up in The Crystal Throne (available both electronically and in paperback) has been developing since then. Some of the short stories escaped into fan zines, print zines and ezines, but those are now together again in Agents & Adepts (available electronically and in paper). When not writing, Kathryn is Distance Learning Librarian at Winona State University in Winona, MN, and coordinator of the Library’s webpages. kathrynsullivan.com
Jason D. Wittman lives and works in Minnesota. In addition to having fiction published in SCIFI.COM, the hardcover anthology The Best of Baen’s Universe 2006, and Tales of the Unanticipated, he also has two games, Tile Chess and Spooks, both published by Steve Jackson Games. www.sff.net/people/jasondwittman
Tyler Erickson started pursuing magic at the age of 15. He has entertained people from every walk of life and under every circumstance: Private Parties for celebrities such as Garrison Keilor and Family, Manufacturing Conventions, Trade Shows, Store Openings, Ritzy Costume Balls, and the list goes on. He’s also appeared in Industrial Films as an “Expert Manipulator” for Mervyn’s, StoneArch Creative and Media Loft. Since starting his school TylerTeach, he has taught hundreds of different magicians from around the world. He won the coveted International Brotherhood of Magicians “Magician of the Year” award in 2000, 2001 and 2002. He has many First Place medals from their Presidential Competition, both in the Stage and Close-Up categories. In 2003, Tyler was made a member of FFFF, an exclusive invitation-only convention for sleight-of-hand artists, considered by many to be the pinnacle honor that can be bestowed in the international magic community. In July 2011, Tyler did a 3 week lecture tour of Europe.
Black light whip cracking with a steampunk twist. Robert Dante, the “World’s Fastest Whip”, will be returning to MarsCon for an out of this world performance. This 3-time Guinness Book of World Records holder has electrified MarsCon in the past with his theatrical blend of dark fantasy and circus. You will be mesmerized. Dante is also recipient of the Brian Chic Whip Artistry Award, he offers private whip lessons, and he is the author of Let’s Get Cracking! The How-To Book of Bullwhip Skills. More info at bullwhip.net.
The Feng Shui Ninjas are Dave Stagner, John Kentner, Justin Hartley, and Tami Murck. But the band is way more than the sum of its parts. The four singer/multi-instrumentalists draw from every music we have ever heard (whether we like it or not!), and synthesize it into sounds that feel both new and ancient, like the music you didn’t realize you have been hearing all your life. www.fengshuininjas.com
Guitarist/Composer Scott Keever performs original music that blends Triphop, Arabic/North African pop, Funk, Bhangra, Swamp Blues, Ambient Electronica, Guitar Looping, Tribal Rhythms and elements of Soundtrack Music into one incandescent fusion. For more info: www.reverbnation.com/scottkeever.
Ky Michaelson’s inventions are legendary. Ky has contributed to over 200 films, television programs and commercials. He also built the rockets for the movie October Sky. In 2004, Michaelson’s Civilian Space eXploration Team became the first amateur group to design, build and launch a rocket into space. Ky’s creations are the subject of a book currently in the publication process Motorbooks International. He is also developing a screenplay focused on his life and accomplishments. www.the-rocketman.com
2004 Guest of Honor
Baron David E Romm produced Shockwave, the Twin Cities radio program, for over 20 years, bringing a variety of strange and interesting material to the airwaves. Beyond his involvement with Shockwave, DavE has also been a fixture of Minnesota science fiction fandom for over a generation. He’s helped plan several conventions, done strange and often highly entertaining “micro-programming” events for local conventions, written mid-convention newsletters such as the Bozo Bus Tribune, interviewed guests of honor for his radio program, and of course has performed Shockwave live on stage during conventions. And yes, he is a real Baron of the not entirely fictitious country of Ladonia. romm.org
Raised in a family with Irish-German roots and strong intuitive abilities, the unseen world of angels, spirits, and lost souls has always been a familiar part of Annie Wilder’s everyday life. She is the author of two books, House of Spirits and Whispers, a true account of living in a haunted house, and Spirits Out of Time, a collection of true family ghost stories. Her third book, Trucker Ghost Stories, will be released by Tor/Forge in July 2012. Annie hosts haunted tea parties in her spirit-filled Victorian home nestled in a sleepy Mississippi River town in Minnesota. She has been a guest on the acclaimed radio program Coast to Coast AM with George Noory and appeared on the Biography Channel show My Ghost Story. Her ghost experiences have been featured in national print and online publications including FIRST for Women magazine and AOL.com. Annie’s home has been investigated by teams of ghost hunters, and visited by a number of prominent psychics including Linda Drake and Echo Bodine. For more info: AnnieWilder.com.
MarsCon 2012
March 9-11, 2012
Crowne Plaza Hotel and Suites
(Same hotel, different name)
3 Appletree Square
Bloomington, MN 55425
Questions about MarsCon: info
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If you are searching for the Marscon in Williamsburg, VA click here. They are worried about a 2012 Apocalypse too.
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