"Robin Hobb" is a pen name for Margaret Lindholm Ogden, who has also written under the name "Megan Lindholm". She best known for the Elderlings novels, set in a complex and fully-realized fantasy setting with different modes of magic shaping the desitny of nations. The Soldier Son series is set in a fantasy western setting where a modern expansionist society is in conflict with competing aboriginal cultures, again each with their unique mystical traditions. Most of these books have appeared on Locus magazine's bestseller lists; the Elderlings books have collectively sold more than a million copies.

Margaret Astrid was born in California, spent some of her formative years on Kodiak Island in Alaska, and now lives in Tacoma, Washington. Her experience in Alaska with nature, wildlife, and native culture has strongly influenced some of her books, including the Farseer and Soldier Son trilogies. She began writing under the name Megan Lindholm in the early '80s, and has been writing as Robin Hobb since the mid-90s. She is a popular program participant at Norwescon and other conventions across the Pacific Northwest.

References

Robin Hobb's blog

Megan Lindholm's website

Wikipedia page

Frank Wu, Ph.D. is well known as an artist, author, illustrator, humorist, fan, and scientist. He has won the Hugo award for Best Fan Artist four times. His art has appeared on the covers and pages of many books, magazines, and fanzines. He collaborated with Jay Lake on the anthology Greetings from Lake Wu. Wu has written four scientific papers on genetics, as well as humor pieces for The Journal of Irreproducible Results. and elsewhere. He is a popular, charming, and generous contributor to fan organizations and conventions.

Brianna Wu describes her origin as being from an alternate universe, and then she grew up in Mississippi and attended the University of Mississippi majoring in journalism. She works as an illustrator and creates anime-style art for many publications. She is six feet tall and very thin, and draws many female characters who are tall and very thin. She and Frank live near Boston.

References

Frank Wu websire

Wikipedia page

Brianna Spacekat website

On the subject of extraordinary talent and a spirit of adventure, our Science GoH is going into space. Art Bozlee is in training to fly the XCOR Lynx, a commercial manned runway-launched near-orbit spacecraft. He will take us along with him through video and pictures, show and tell items, and his wealth of knowledge about the privatization of the space race. Art will take lots of time to log adventures with our team, and to share his exploits with us all.

References

XCOR Lynx pre-vis animation video

Chaz "Hazel" Boston-Baden has contributed a tremendous amount to southern California and Worldcon fandom for many years. Aside from wearing bear ears, he is best known as a convention photographer, collecting a vast amount of photographs at Hazel's Picture Gallery, taking photographs of over 9000 convention attendees (and other people) and activities dating back to the '90s, so many fans discover this site when they do egoscans on their favorite search engine. He has worked on many convention newsletters, and has also been webmaster for LACon III, Conucopia, LACon IV, as well as the main Westercon site, and Chaz was a well-recognized face bidding at parties for Los Angeles in 2006. Chaz is active in Loscon and LASFS, as well as building bridges with anime fandom and other groups. His website claims "fandom is just a hobby" but he is more active in his hobby than many who call fandom a "way of life".

References

Chaz Boston Baden's web site, mainly a link to his many other fannish websites and other activities.