Biographies

Emily Almond is a freelance writer who happens to have a full-time job as an Electronic Projects Coordinator at a university in Atlanta, Georgia. A regular attendee of Dragon-Con, an annual sci-fi convention, you will find her there this year trying to sell her comic books and scripts featuring female superheros. She also divides her time between her partner, dog, cat and bicycle, but not in that order.

Cathleen Conway is a Chicago writer, editor and literary critic living in East London. She spends her time playing bass, listening to discolicious-yet-atrocious manufactured British pop, missing American Coca-Cola and shouting obscenities at the TV during Buffy the Vampire Slayer repeats.

Brian Joseph Davis is a Toronto-based artist and filmmaker who is often asked to leave parties after defending Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon as the ultimate expression of western culture.

Happily living in Vancouver BC, Jenny Fry probably works more than she should being a librarian with two jobs. She has written articles for Soapboxgirls.com.

Joy Helton is a twenty year-old college student in Portland, who likes reading and making zines and comic books. Besides Buffy, some of her other big obsessions are The Muffs, Two Ton Boa, Sleater-Kinney and the sun, which, sadly, she rarely sees.

Doretta Lau likes stuff. A lot. First it was hockey. Then it was music. Now it’s books. Whatever it is, she just can’t get enough. Why, she’s not just obsessive, she’s obsessive compulsive. She washes her hands over fifteen times a day and thinks seriously about buying a protective mask to wear on the subway in New York.

Sam Macklin is the co-editor of Smart Cookie Publishing. Few people appreciate his drawings.

Frayn Masters looks a lot like your best friend’s girlfriend. You can find other samplings of Masters’ writing in/on: pindeldyboz.com; monkeybicycle.net; surgeryofmodernwarfare.com and two of her short stories appear in Little Engines #4. She’s also got a couple of screenplays if you’re interested. Are you? She sure hopes so.

Jim Munroe, 30, has written three science fiction novels and does a CD-ROM zine called Novel Amusements. His video game column in Toronto’s alt-weekly eye is called “Pleasure Circuit.” His website (www.nomediakings.org) is home to his projects as well as many do-it-yourself articles on movie and book making. He lives with his wife in Toronto’s Annex neighbourhood above an ice cream shop and an income tax office, which would be convenient except that he’s a vegan who does his own taxes.

Emmanuel Raymond is a student at LSU and is currently planning to decide on a major. He is a level 28 fanboy and is constantly earning EXP.

Pollyanna Rhee lives and amasses student loan debt in New York.

Rachel Rivera’s exciting career as a human being began in Austin, Texas, in 1985. Since then, her life has taken place in San Antonio. These two locales represent the two cities most likely to be voted out of the state of Texas for their citizenry’s lack of enthusiasm for cowboy hat/boot-stomping/git along li’l dawgie culture. She played her first video game at the age of three, subscribed to her first comic book at ten, grew her first full-blown obsession at thirteen and hasn’t looked back since.

Kris Rothstein is a writer and editor in Vancouver where she lives with a cute English boy and a tiny mental kitty. She is the founder of Smart Cookie Publishing.

Kate St.Claire was born in suburban London and raised in upstate New York. In her spare time, she plays in pop bands (most recently The Lollies) and writes ‘rock novels.’ You can find more of her illustrations here. Sometimes she answers email and sometimes she doesn’t.

Kevin Sampsell is a writer and small press maverick living in Portland, Oregon. His writing has appeared in a variety of venues such as 3rd Bed, Little Engines, Punk Planet, Minima, The Stranger, McSweeney’s, Bridge, Gut Cult and Identity Theory. He is a member of Haiku Inferno, an action-word-supergroup. His most recent book is A Common Pornography.

Kym Shank is a 23 year-old woman who lives in the suburbs of Richmond, Virginia. She enjoys writing slash as well as drawing anything from Harry Potter to Stephen King fan art. She’s a huge Pink Floyd fan and if you asked her what she ate for lunch, she couldn't tell you. Visit www.digikym.com for more of her work.

Erin Stanley is a recent graduate of the Emily Carr Institute of Art & Design. She lives in Vancouver where she enjoys making clothes, watching and working on horror films, reading and drinking beer. Last year she toured the west coast in a performance art piece where she played half of an ass.

Margaret C. Sullivan is an aspiring novelist and the webmistress of Tilneys and Trap-doors, a website inspired by her love of Jane Austen’s novels. She also helps run horatians.org, a community for fans of the Horatio Hornblower books and films. She lives in the suburbs of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and wishes it were a great deal closer to Bath.

Cecilia Tan is a freelance writer living in the Boston area. She writes about all her passions, which include gourmet food, erotica and baseball. She has a black belt in tae kwon do and is the founder and editor of Circlet Press, Inc. Find out more at www.ceciliatan.com.

Bethany Wiegmann was born, raised and lives in Virginia. She is in college studying for a degree in criminal justice. She has been a fan of J.R.R. Tolkien since she was five years old and her mother read her The Hobbit. She occasionally writes pieces for her own enjoyment like the lembas bread recipe, which appears on theonering.net, a Lord of the Rings fan site.

More of Kyan Wing’s artwork can be found online.

Brad Yung has been called the Godfather of Irony. He wrote and drew the weekly comic strip Stay As You Are until his screen-writing career started to take off.