1998 Program Participants
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Steven R. Boyett
Treks Not Taken
Steven R. BoyettSteve is the author of Ariel, The Architect of Sleep and The Gnole (with illustrator Alan Aldridge).  His shorter works have appeared in literary, science fiction and horror magazines, as well as newspapers and comic books.  Most recently he completed the screenplay for Toy Story 2: Collector's Edition for Pixar/Disney.  The parody Treks Not Taken is due from HarperCollins this summer.  Steve's fiction is known for its irreverence, intelligence, iconoclasm and other impressive words beginning with the letter I.  He lives in Burbank, California, where he drinks gallons of coffee, types 110 words per minute and waves his arms around a lot.

Paul Cotcher
Star Trek Modelling How-To Workshop III
Paul is the president of a local Atlanta chapter of the International Plastic Modeling Society (IPMS).  Paul and his club, the Northmen, are active in scale modeling and the promotion of the hobby.  The Northmen are made up of several different modelers and interests.  They meet weekly to show off their latest projects, discuss techniques and review new products.

Paul personally has been interested in science fiction all his life, and while the Star Wars trilogy is his favorite "universe," he still is very interested in Star Trek.  Paul has been modeling most of his life, with short breaks for his later high school and college years.  He has won awards at every major modeling show held around the southeast and has won at each of the past three IPMS regional conventions, including a first place in the Sci-Fi division at the 1997 regionals.

While Paul can argue "treknology" with you all night, he is more concerned with having fun with the hobby and acknowledges that Sci-Fi modeling is about being creative and not having a historical benchmark to judge against.

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Ed Cox
Artist Showcase
Ed has painted over fifty boxtops for the Ertl Company's line of Star Wars and Star Trek scale models in the last two years and recently had his boxtop art on display at the 20-year anniversary of Star Wars at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC.  He was recently artist guest of honor at Visions '97 in Chicago and guest artist at several others this year.  He has taught airbrush at night school for the local board of education and has had "how-to" articles published in airbrush trade magazines.
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Robin Curtis
An Hour with Robin Curtis
Robin Curtis as Lt. SaavikRobin came to the Star Trek fold with a difficult task: to pick up the mantle of Lieutenant Saavik after it had been dropped by Kirstie Alley.  This she did with considerable skill, bringing a grace and understanding to the character, as she joined with David Marcus (the late Merritt Buttrick) in Star Trek: The Search for Spock.  Robin reprised the role briefly in Star Trek: The Voyage Home.  During The Next Generation's final season, Robin once more joined the Federation universe, this time as a renegade Romulan, Tallera, in the two-part episode "The Gambit."  More recently, her association with television science fiction has continued with an appearance in the first season of Babylon 5 as Kalika, the representative of the League of Non-Aligned Worlds, and in 20th Century Fox's Space: Above and Beyond.

Away from science fiction, Robin has appeared in numerous television series, including Dream On, Herman's Head, Night Court, Macgyver and Johnny Bago.  She also appeared in General Hospital as Carol Pulaski.  Her film credits include Dark Breed, Ghost Story, Ground Zero, No Man's Land, Unborn II and Hexxed.  She also co-starred in the television films LBJ, Showdown and In Love with an Older Woman.

In addition to acting, Robin has done over 75 commercials, including campaigns for American Express, PaineWebber and International Coffees.  Away from the cameras, she enjoys wide-ranging hobbies which include cooking, gardening, pottery, computer games, travelling, romance, women's issues and her family.

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Peter David
An Hour with Peter David
Peter has written nearly two dozen novels and hundreds of comics books, including The Incredible Hulk, Spider-Man, Star Trek, Aquaman, X-Factor, Sach & Violens, Soulsearchers & Company, The Atlantis Chronicles, Dreadstar, Wolverine and The Phantom. Peter has written several popular Star Trek novels including Q-Squared, Q-in-Law, Vendetta, A Rock and a Hard Place, The Rift, Imzadi and The Siege, which have spent a combined six months on the New York Times Bestseller List.  His other novels include Knight Life, Howling Mad, the Psi-Man and the Photon adventure series and novelizations of Batman Forever, The Return of Swamp Thing and The Rocketeer.  He has written several episodes of the acclaimed television series Babylon 5 and is screenwriter of the award-winning science fiction film spoof Oblivion.  His television series, Space Cases, was co-written with Bill "Lennier" Mumy.  He also writes a weekly column, "But I Digress..." for the Comics Buyers Guide.  This is Peter's fifth year on TrekTrak.
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Leslie Fish
Star Trek FilkSing V
If there's one name that's practically synonymous with "filk" (fandom's own folk music), it's Leslie Fish.  Leslie has written literally hundreds of songs covering almost every subject, from the space program ("Hope Eyrie"), to Star Trek ("Banned from Argo") to urban life, history and space fantasy ("Carmen Miranda's Ghost"), as well as writing music for poems by authors from Rudyard Kipling on up to contemporary fantasy writers.  Leslie is also a fine performer, guitarist and storyteller.  Her professional writing credits include the novel A Dirge for Sabis with C. J. Cherryh, a number of stories in Cherryh's Merovingen Nights anthology, and a story in an anthology inspired by one of her songs ("Carmen Miranda's Ghost Is Haunting Space Station Three").  In addition to being a bard, Leslie is an anarchist (really) and has worked as everything from a gun-runner to a dominatrix.
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Jerry Garrison
Treks Not Taken
A local musician and published composer, this is Jerry's third appearance on TrekTrak.  He has been the accompanist and arranger for several choral groups and his compositions have been performed by many choral organizations throughout the world.  His composition "Keep Alive the Flame" recently premiered at the Various Voices Musical Festival in Munich, Germany.  Jerry is currently employed as a computer specialist.
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Daniel Greenberg
Star Trek Interactive Gaming
Deep Space Nine: The Verdict
Star Trek Authors' Showcase
Star Trek: Voyager: The Verdict
Daniel wrote the interactive screenplay for the computer game Star Trek: Starfleet Academy, starring members of the original series.  He co-designed Star Control 3 and worked on many other computer games, like the AD&D game Al Qadim, the Genie's Curse.  He's written dozens of RPG titles for games like Vampire, Werewolf, Mage, Wraith, AD&D, Star Wars and many others.  His games, which include the Malkavian Clanbook, the Giovanni Chronicles: The Last Supper, Children of the Inquisition, Elysium, Rage Across New York, Digital Web, Umbra, Tatooine Manhunt and Who Watches the Watchmen have been popular and critical successes, winning the RPGA and the GAMA/Origins awards.  He also writes on technology issues for publications like the Washington Post and Digital Video magazine.
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Harry Knowles
www.startrek.com
A self-professed "film geek" and movie fanatic from Austin, Texas, Harry started his movie news site www.aint-it-cool-news.com in April 1996.  Quoted in everything from Variety to The New York Times, Harry has inspired his own media watch.  He rubs shoulders with an army of anonymous sources in the film industry with code names like Rorschach and the Brussels Babe -- in actuality, everyone from hairdressers to executive assistants.  They feed the "Ain't It Cool News" with hundreds of industry tidbits each week: casting decisions, location scouting items, post-production nightmares and what went down at the test screening -- the kinds of things that studio executives like to keep secret.  "I want to be a journalist, filmmaker and ruler of the known world," says Harry.  "I'm 25.  I stuck the shovel in cyberground and said, 'My foundation is here.'  We all start somewhere, this is where I begin."
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Dirk Loedding
Court-Martial!
Dirk has been an avid Star Trek fan since he saw his first episode back in the early '70s, shortly after returning from living in South and Central America.  He has been to many conventions, starting way back in 1981, when he attended the Atlanta Fantasy Fair, and has been to at least one convention every year since then... and has the badges to prove it!  He's also been a very devoted Babylon 5 fan, since before the pilot even aired, thanks to the magic of BBSs and Usenet.  From 1994 onwards, Dirk has been running a mailing list consisting of compilations of posts from the creator and executive producer of Babylon 5, J. Michael Straczynski.  He's also been running mailing lists for Babylon 5 viewers, so they can keep up with when Babylon 5 is on.  This is Dirk's second year of running the Babylon 5 programming track for Dragon*Con.  Dirk is currently employed as a programmer/analyst for a large telecommunications firm.  He's been married for nearly six years, and he and his wife are expecting their first child in mid-September, mere weeks after Dragon*Con.
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Dave McConnell
Star Trek FilkSing V
Dave has been active in fandom since 1968 and is Dragon*Con's Director of Filk Programming.  He co-authored with Ken Kessler his first filksong, What Do You Do with a Drunken Hobbit?, in 1972.  Dave was the rhythm guitar player for the all-filk band Timelines, which he founded in 1993 and who released an album, Timelines Takes Flight, in 1994.  This is Dave's third filk performance on TrekTrak, having performed with Timelines at the very first TrekFilk four years ago and again with Leslie Fish last year.
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Tim McKenny
Deep Space Nine: The Verdict
Star Trek: Voyager: The Verdict
A frequent convention attendee, Tim has appeared on TrekTrak panels for all five of its years.  He is the commanding officer of the IKV Nemesis chapter of the Klingon Assault Group and is the longest-serving member of that organization in Atlanta.  Tim is also a member of the infamous "Nitpickers' Guild" and a contributor to The Nitpickers' Guide for Next Generation Trekkers, Volume 2.  As an actor, Tim has appeared on stage in productions ranging from Romeo & Juliet to Sweet Bird of Youth.  He has also been a member of the UGA dramatic improv troupe "Brief Encounters."
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Bill Ramsey
How to Play Klin Zha
Bill, a.k.a. "Major QorToq vestai-Chang," has been a fan of Star Trek since the early 1970s and has been attending small conventions such as GenCons and the Euro GenCon since the late 1980s.  He is a member of the International Federation of Trekkers (IFT) and the Klingon Assault Group, for which he is currently the Quadrant Fencer (Quadrant Marine commander) for its Dark Phoenix Quadrant (Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia and Florida) in the Dark Moon Fleet (Eastern seaboard and southeastern U. S.).  The Klingon Imperial Marine Force provides security for many conventions in the south.  Bill has been a gamer since the days of Chain Mail, which predates Dungeons & Dragons.  He is a Masters-ranked Dungeon Master and a player with the RPGA, and was the Regional Director for the RPGA East Anglia U. K.
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Patty Ritz
How to Play Klin Zha
Patty is the Commanding Officer of Clarksville, Tennessee's IKAV Dragon's Sword.  This is her first appearance on TrekTrak.
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Josepha Sherman
Star Trek Authors' Showcase
Josepha is a fantasy and science fiction writer, folklorist and storyteller.  Her fantasy novels include The Shining Falcon (Avon, 1989), winner of the Compton Crook Award; Child of Faerie, Child of Earth (Walker, 1992), an ALA Best Book and a New York Public Library Book for the Teen Age; the national bestseller Castle of Deception (with Mercedes Lackey, Baen Books, 1992); A Strange and Ancient Name (Baen Books, 1993), a New York Public Library Book for the Teen Age; Windleaf (Walker, 1993), an ABA Pick of the List, a Junior Library Guild Selection and a New York Public Library Book for the Teen Age; the national bestseller A Cast of Corbies (with Mercedes Lackey, Baen Books, 1994); Gleaming Bright (Walker, 1994), a Junior Library Guild Selection; the national bestseller The Chaos Gate (Baen Books, 1994); King's Son, Magic's Son (Baen Books, 1994), a New York Public Library Book for the Teen Age; The Shattered Oath (Baen Books, 1995), a Nw York Public Library Book for the Teen Age; Forging the Runes, the sequel to The Shattered Oath (Baen Books, 1996); a dark urban fantasy novel, Son of Darkness (Roc Books, 1998); a Xena book, Everything I Needed to Know in Life I Learned from Xena, by Gabrielle, "translated from the Athenian Times" (Pocket Books, 1998); and a Highlander novel, The Captive Soul (Warner Aspect, 1998).  In addition, she co-authored with Susan Shwartz the national bestselling Star Trek novel, Vulcan's Forge, together with the audio script for the novel, read by Leonard Nimoy.  Josepha's folklore titles are all from August House:  A Sampler of Jewish-American Folklore (1992), Rachel the Clever and Other Jewish Folktales (1993), Once Upon a Galaxy (1994), Greasy Grimy Gopher Guts: The Subversive Folklore of Children (with T. K. F. Weisskopf, 1995), Trickster Tales (1996), and Merlin's Kin: Tales of the Hero Magicians (1998).  Nonfiction works include First Americans (Smithmark Publishers/Portland House, 1988), and Puerto Rico (Marshall Cavendish, 1999), as well as two articles on fantasy writing commissioned by The Writer.  Forthcoming in mid-1999 will be a new Star Trek title, Vulcan's Heart.  Josepha has sold over 125 short stories and articles to books and magazines, and has written for the animated television show Adventures of the Galaxy Rangers.  In addition, she's done storytelling for all ages and lectured on folklore, fantasy and science fiction across North America, including speaking engagements at the Library of Congress and American Folklore Society conferences.  She's an active member of The Authors Guild, SFWA, the American Folklore Society and the SCBWI, as well as a fan of all things SF, equine, computer-oriented, aviation and of the long-suffering ("wait till next year, or possibly this year!") New York Mets.
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James J. Simonelli
Star Trek: Our Modern Mythology?
In his profession, Jim develops and presents training courses for Business and Systems Analysis, as well as Methodology Implementation and Project Management.  He is a collector of the Star Trek videotapes and Decipher Cards and is fairly well read in Latin and Greek mythologies.
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Tonya Spanks
Classic Trek:  Gone and Forgotten?
Tonya is the Chief of Security for the USS Republic and has been a member of Starfleet Atlanta for over four years.  She perfected the recipes for Romulan Ale, Klingon Bloodwine, Ferengi Bug Juice and her latest concoction, Nelix's Super Nova.  Born two months before the airing of the very first Star Trek episode 32 years ago, Tonya has been a resident of Atlanta all her life and has enjoyed Dragon*Con for the last six years.
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Jeff & Susan Stringer
Caution!  Speed Bumps A Head!
Jeff and Susan StringerAs a team, Jeff and Susan have been costuming since 1986, but as individuals, they go way back.  Jeff began costuming as an "adult" in 1979 with the Darth Vader costume he and his mom put together from so much sheet plastic, black fabric and his now two-decade old Don Post Vader helmet.  Jeff discovered science fiction conventions in 1982 and has been involved ever since.  Susan has been costuming and attending cons since 1980 and has been the guiding force in Jeff's life for nearly twelve years.  Jeff says there is "damn near nothing" she can't sew together, and she drafts patterns from scratch.  Jeff and Susan opened Beauty and the Beast Custom Costumes in Chattanooga, Tennessee in September 1989, and Susan has been its primary creative force for the past nine years.  Visit them on the Internet at www.cdc.net/~stringer.

Patricia Tallman
An Hour with Patricia Tallman
Patricia hails from a strong theatrical background.  Her father, an off-broadway director and her mother, a young actress, met in New York City, where he was directing.  They gave up their New York careers for a calmer life and returned to their native Illinois to await the arrival of their first daughter, Patricia.  Her father, now a successful businessman, supported his young family by selling hearing aids and making doughnuts, and he was a local deejay.  The lattermost pursuit led to Patricia's acting debut at the age of two singing "Bicycle Built For Two" on her father's radio show.  Although she went through phases of wanting to be everything from a vet to a nun to a dancer, by the ripe old age of fifteen, she had decided upon her career and was unshakeable in her resolve.

She began performing in summer stock at the Red Barn Theatre in Saugatuck, Michigan, doing ten shows in eleven weeks.  She was in every one of her high school's plays and spent every summer in professional summer stock.  She went on to earn her BFA from the theatrically acclaimed Carnegie Mellon University and worked her way through college performing eighteen musicals with the Pittsburgh Civic Light Opera.  In one landmark week, she was given CMU's Outstanding Achievement in Acting award and was named CMU's homecoming queen.

Immediately after college, Pat moved to New York City and landed a role in a long, successful run of an off-broadway show, Big, Bad Burlesque.  She performed in numerous shows in New York, but her favorite role was Rosalind, in the Riverside Shakespeare Company's As You Like It.  She was subsequently cast in a recurring role on the CBS soap opera The Guiding Light.  This led to roles on virtually every New York-based daytime serial.

Pat's good friend and stunt coordinator Danny Aiello, Jr., aware of Pat's physical agility, persuaded her to work stunts with him between acting jobs.  "It was great fun," Pat recalls.  "While my friends were waiting tables between acting jobs, I was able to earn my living in front of the camera.  I learned more about the film business than I ever learned in school!"  She's doubled such stars as Mimi Rogers, Joan Cusack and Laura Dern.  She has jumped off a cliff into the Rogue River in Oregon, jumped from one six-story building to another in New York City, hung from dinosaur bones for Spielberg and got hit by "Thing" driving a car in the Addams Family sequel.  A swordswoman supreme (she picked this up while at Carnegie), she was able to do her own swordfighting in Ring of the Musketeers.

It was at this time that an old CMU buddy and special effects wizard, Tom Savini, called Pat to audition for a George Romero film that he was working on called Knightriders, starring Ed Harris.  Pat was cast in a lead female role, which led to a longtime working relationship with Mr. Romero.  While in New York, she also worked with him on Monkeyshines with Janine Turner and a cult favorite, Tales from the Darkside.  After moving to Los Angeles on the advice of friends, she again worked with Romero on Creepshow II with George Kennedy.  She then starred in his remake of the cult classic Night of the Living Dead.

The move to L. A. proved to be a successful one; Patricia was cast as undercover cop Christy Russell on NBC's Generations and as an evil, sexy swashbuckler in Ring of the Musketeers, starring David Hasselhoff.  She was recently seen as Josie O'Reilly in Paramount's Sweet Justice.  In Benefit of the Doubt, she plays the alcoholic wife of Donald Sutherland and in Sam Raimi's Army of Darkness, she plays the "Horrible Hag" who terrorizes Bruce Campbell.

She can be seen in a completely different light as the beautiful and gifted telepath Lyta Alexander in the pilot episode of Babylon 5, and as a regular on the show since then.  She has also appeared as the exotic terrorist Kiros in an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation entitled "Starship Mine."  The very busy Ms. Tallman can also be seen as the no-nonsense gadget genius Alshaine in the USA pilot Star Runners.

Meanwhile, Pat keeps her wits about her by keeping her roots in theater.  She is an organizing member of the Faculty Theatre Company and co-produced their first showcase production with Charles Nelson Reilly, her teacher and mentor, as director.

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Donny Velji
Star Trek: The Faltering Franchise
www.startrek.com
Deep Space Nine: The Verdict
Star Trek: Voyager: The Verdict
Donny was first introduced to the world of fandom in the summer of 1991 and since then has made the rounds to several conventions, including four Dragon*Cons.  Spinning out of those experiences, he found himself in the world of the Internet, where he became an avid websurfer and participant in chat rooms on IRC, speaking with members of fandom all over the world.  Donny doesn't maintain a web page of info, but he keeps his eyes open for the latest scoops and rumors concerning science fiction such as Star Trek, Babylon 5 and pro wrestling.  (Pro wrestling?!)  Donny is also the writer of the science fiction comic book The Guardians (coming to a comic store near you... as soon as it's published!).
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Wayne Walls
Star Trek: The Faltering Franchise
Deep Space Nine: The Verdict
Star Trek: Voyager: The Verdict
Wayne has written for Vault magazine and contributed pieces to The Wild Hunt amateur press association.  His past illustrious "Fan Boy" highlights include stomping John de Lancie in a Star Trek trivia contest, a costume contest as the Terminator in an ad campaign for WD-40 which he described as "less filling but tastes great," and, in more personal circles, his wedding, where he treated the guests to a showing of Return of the Jedi with his blushing bride in tow, still in the white dress.  But in all truth, his favorite show is The Big Valley.
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Eric L. Watts
Court-Martial!
Eric L. Watts, Dragon*Con Director of Star Trek ProgrammingEric has been an avid Star Trek fan since 1977.  He founded and was President of the United Federation of Trekkers in Columbia, South Carolina, the state's largest Star Trek fan club, from 1980 to 1988 and has been Dragon*Con's Director of Star Trek Programming since 1992.  Eric is a former member of the amateur press associations Apa Enterprise, Talking of Trek, GAPS, Atlapa and Dragon*Citings.  He has been a member of the amateur press association Imaginapa since 1980 and completed his eleventh term as its Central Mailer last summer.  Eric is the Editor & Publisher of The New Moon Directory, an annual index to amateur press associations, and is a member of both the Southern Bears and the Atlanta Gay Men's Chorus.  Eric holds an Associate in Arts in Visual Communications degree from the Art Institute of Atlanta and is currently employed as the Graphics Coordinator for a major industrial chemicals company in Marietta, Georgia.  He is also a graduate student at the Art Institute of Atlanta, enrolled in both their Associate in Arts in Web Site Administration and Bachelor of Fine Arts in Graphic Design degree programs.

Archie Waugh
Star Trek: The Faltering Franchise
Classic Trek: Gone and Forgotten?
Archie has been with TrekTrak from the beginning five years ago.  He is glad to be back in the heart of fandom, after having spent most of the last year helping his sister recover successfully from a bone marrow transplant for leukemia.  Filmmaker, columnist, modeler, graphic artist,  writer and actor, Archie's sci-fi film obsessions have led him to many interesting adventures in his life, from dining with Jonathan Harris (Lost in Space's Dr. Smith) to hiding Chase Masterson (Deep Space Nine's Leeta the Dabo Girl) in his hotel room.  A television director for a central Florida cable station, Archie still manages to find time to win awards for starring in stage musicals such as Chicago.

Marc Scott Zicree
Deep Space Nine: The Verdict
Marc has sold over ninety scripts, including scripts for The New Twilight Zone, Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Beauty and the Beast, Forever Knight and Babylon 5, plus he's worked on such series as Friday the 13: The Series and Beyond Reality.  In 1997, following a stint as a producer on the TNT series Lazarus Man, Marc met with executive producer David Peckinpah and was offered a job as a writer/producer on Sliders, following the series' move to the Sci-Fi Channel.  He is writing a series of fantasy books, the first of which is being cowritten with Barbara Hambly.

Boyett · Cotcher · Cox · Curtis · David · Fish · Garrison · Greenberg · Knowles · Loedding · McConnell · McKenny · Ramsey ·  Ritz · Sherman · Simonelli · Spanks · Stringer · Tallman · Velji · Walls · Watts · Waugh · Zicree
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