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Adam-Troy
Castro
Guest of Honor
(Adam-Troy Castro) (Patreon) Adam-Troy Castro’s checkered life has included stand-up comedy, cartooning, phone sales, a brief flirtation with boomerangs, and a stint as a silent figure in a darkened wall niche, quietly watching the riders go by in an amusement park house of horrors. made his first non-fiction sale to Spy magazine in 1987. Mostly, though, he’s been a writer. His twenty-sevenbooks to date include multiple short story collections, four Spider-Man novels, three novels about his profoundly damaged far-future murder investigator Andrea Cort, and six middle-grade novels about the dimension-spanning adventures of young Gustav Gloom.
Adam’s works have won the Philip K. Dick Award and the Seiun (Japan), and have been nominated for eight Nebulas, three Stokers, two Hugos, one World Fantasy Award, and, internationally, the Ignotus (Spain), the Grand Prix de l’Imaginaire (France), and the Kurd-Laßwitz Preis (Germany). His most recent release was the audio collection My Wife Hates Time Travel And Other Stories (Skyboat Media), which features thirteen hours of his fiction, including the new stories “The Hour In Between” and “Big Stupe and the Buried Big Glowing Booger.” Adam lives in Florida with his wife Judi and a trio of chaotic paladin cats.
For more information, and many links to stories available as both text and podcasts, check out Adam’s website and his Patreon page.
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Jodi
Krangle
Music Guest of Honor
(Jodi Krangle Music) (Voiceovers and Vocals) Jodi Krangle has been a singer since before she learned to talk and a voice actor since 2007. She works with clients from major brands all over the world doing commercials and narrations in industries like health care, charities & non-profits and the hospitality/travel market. Her weekly podcast, Jodi's Silver Linings, is an attempt to help fellow creatives be kinder to themselves through personal musings and interviews with folks other creative people might find inspiring. In 1994, she met two fellow creatives (Allison Durno & Debbie Ridpath Ohi) and they formed the Filk band, Urban Tapestry. They put out one tape, two CDs and one DVD together and guested at conventions across North American and Europe. They’ve also won several Pegasus awards, both separately and together.
Jodi was an early adopter of the internet and created an award-winning songwriting resource website called The Muse’s Muse in 1995. It helped her learn a lot about SEO.
In 2015, she put out her own album of jazz, blues and traditional tunes ( Time Will Tell – co-created with UK musician, Chris Conway) and she sings every year at the GAFilk Banquet in Atlanta, GA with a nine-piece jazz/swing/filk band called Play It With Moxie.
To top it all off, she loves comics, D&D, Firefly & Doctor Who.
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Renee
Babcock
Fen Guest of Honor
Coming Soon!
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Chaz
Kemp
Artist Guest of Honor
(Chaz Kemp) (Patreon) Chaz Kemp has amassed quite a list of talents, including acting (he won an Emmy for voiceover work), playwriting, directing, song writing, singing, drumming, fencing, and cat herding (you should see his scars). He has now decided to settle down in the suburbs of Denver with his wife, a changeling from the court of the Morrigan who goes by the mundane name of Carolyn Kay. Together they’re working on bringing the world of Ashelon to life through stories and an oracle deck. You can find Chaz’s art across the globe on magazine and book covers, album art, role-playing game manuals, convention posters and badges (including this year’s), logos, clothing, tattoos and more.
If you’d like to support Chaz’s artistic endeavors please visit the Ashelon booth in the dealer’s room, check out his art in the Art Show, or head on over to Patreon and throw some of your hard earned dollars his way.
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Benjamin
C.
Kinney
Science Guest of Honor
( Benjamin C. Kinney) ( Twitter) Benjamin C. Kinney is a SFF writer and a 2018 Hugo Award finalist as assistant editor of the science fiction podcast magazine Escape Pod. His short stories have appeared in Strange Horizons, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Diabolical Plots, and many other magazines and anthologies. You can find him and his work at the links above.
As the neuroscientist Benjamin Philip, he leads the Neuroscience & Rehabilitation laboratory at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. His lab studies how the brain controls movement, and how those brain mechanisms change after changes in the body. His primary focus is how the brain’s hemispheres interact to produce handedness, and how we can alter that process to help people with injuries to their dominant hand. His research involves neuroimaging, neuromodulation, and behavioral techniques to study people with nerve injuries or amputations. He no longer creates cyborg monkeys, after too many nights in graduate school giving them Prozac.
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Maurice
Broaddus
Toastmaster
Coming soon!
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