FenCon XV - September 21-23, 2018 |

Guests of Honor


Larry Niven Guest of Honor (Wikipedia) (larryniven.net) Larry Niven has written fiction at every length, and speculative articles, speeches, television scripts, graphic novels, and a couple of comic book universes. His interests include science fiction conventions. role playing games, comics, filk singing, yoga, hiking, racquetball, saving civilization, and making a little money. Larry attended Cal Tech but flunked out after discovering a book store jammed with used science fiction magazines. After a summer as a gas station attendant, he applied himself at Washburn University and graduated in 1962 with a B.A. in mathematics with a minor in psychology. Larry's first published story ("The Coldest Place") appeared in Worlds of If in December 1964. His fiction has won the Hugo Award five times, the Nebula for Best Novel, the Ditmar twice, and too many other awards to list here. He met Marilyn Joyce Wisowaty at the New York Worldcon in 1967 and they married on September 6, 1969.
Marian Call Music Guest of Honor (Marian Call) Marian Call’s music has a way of getting its claws in you. Her style, aptly described as “acoustic joy jazz” by one of her fans, pairs folk and rock with classical and gospel influences. The result is an eclectic, warm, wonderfully listenable repertoire bound together by powerful songwriting and personality. Call’s compositions are half study and calculation, half improvisational instinct. The lyrics are full of triple rhymes, twists and turns. Call cites among her influences Joni Mitchell, They Might Be Giants, and Dr. Seuss; her work evokes comparisons to contemporary artists Regina Spektor and Ingrid Michaelson. Call’s songs are funny and light on their feet one moment, tragic and powerfully honest the next, and deeply grounded in the human experience. Often inspired by popular culture, she has written songs about Shark Week, reality shows, TV series like Firefly and Battlestar Galactica, Jane Austen, the Mars Rover, and Neil Gaiman’s Sandman. “Great art inspires more art as a response. It always has,” says Call. “So I’m drawn into songs about the popular stories that resonate with our culture. I want to put my finger on why we like them, on what matters about those themes and characters right now.” Call’s live concerts are unlike any other songwriter's, and she is most often compared to other artists noted for their uniqueness and whimsy — songwriters such as Joni Mitchell, Regina Spektor, Ingrid Michaelson, and Amanda Palmer. Marian Call releases music and tours under her own power without label support, and her crew of loyal fans has supported her through ten years of intensive travel and recording.
Aislinn Burrows and Carmen Bryan Fen Guests of Honor (SoonerCon) (Future Society of Central Oklahoma) (Facebook) Carmen Bryan and Aislinn Burrows are the nerd girl pairing of a young Gen-Xer and an old Millennial. You can tell because they both still listen to vinyl and don’t have cable. They stay pretty busy running SoonerCon in Oklahoma City and geeking out with fellow fans. Volunteering is legit fun you guys! They are also pretty deep into their Pathfinder and other RPG campaigns, so it works. Aislinn is the convention chair for SoonerCon and has been volunteering since its reboot in 2006. She holds an associate degree in diversified studies and works in marketing and public relations at Oklahoma City Community College. Her fandoms span a large cross section of SF media and she considers herself a Girl Friday type and NPR junkie. Find her on Facebook, out and about, writing sometimes, or working on con stuff with her crack team of Nerf hoarders. Carmen works in commercial retail and is SoonerCon’s AV Chair. She is one of the original seven founders of the Tornado Alley Roller Girls roller derby team, skating as Homicide #187 from 2007 to 2009. She enjoys composing electronic music in her spare time and is an avid horror fan. She hopes to catch a spaceflight in her lifetime. You can usually find her chilling and coloring somewhere. Aislinn and Carmen were married in 2013. They are proud aunties and like to get out the vote. It is their tremendous honor to be invited as Fan Guests at FenCon this year, because it’s their home-away-from-home con and one of their Horcruxes. They live with their fur family in a small house filled with books, oddities, art, warmth and joy. (Photo: JSJ Photography)
Travis Lewis Artist Guest of Honor Coming Soon!
Marianne Dyson Science Guest of Honor (Marianne Dyson) Marianne Dyson was one of NASA’s first female flight controllers, the subject of her memoir, A Passion for Space. After NASA, she turned to writing about space for adults and kids. She is currently coauthoring a second children’s book with Buzz Aldrin for NatGeo. Her SF collection, Fly Me to the Moon, includes all her Analog stories except "Europa’s Survivors" (in the March/April 2017 issue). All sales via her website will help her recover from Harvey.
Martha Wells Special Workshop Guest (Martha Wells) Martha Wells has written many fantasy novels, including The Wizard Hunters, Wheel of the Infinite, the Books of the Raksura series (beginning with The Cloud Roads), and the Nebula-nominated The Death of the Necromancer, as well as YA fantasy novels, short stories, and non-fiction. She has had stories in Black Gate, Realms of Fantasy, Stargate Magazine, Lightspeed Magazine, and in the anthologies Elemental, Tales of the Emerald Serpent, The Other Half of the Sky, The Gods of Lovecraft, and Mech: Age of Steel. She has also written media tie-ins for Stargate Atlantis and most recently Star Wars: Razor's Edge. The last book in the Books of the Raksura series, The Harbors of the Sun, was released in July 2017 by Night Shade Books. All Systems Red, the first novella in her SF series The Murderbot Diaries, was released by Tor.com in May 2017 and is a nominee for the Philip K. Dick Award. The next three novellas in the series, Artificial Condition, Rogue Protocol, and Exit Strategy, will be published in 2018.
Timothy Griffin Toastmaster (GriffinEd) Tim Griffin is an award-winning teacher, musician, and storyteller with four albums out and more coming. When not filking or toastmastering, he runs an educational nonprofit called GriffinEd, using music to teach science, math, history, and other subjects to grades K-8th online for free. Laugh and learn with fun, effective (really!) songs about bugs, boogers, and particle physics at www.GriffinEd.org. Tim lives in La Cañada, California with a strong woman, a boy genius, and a large tribe of animals.

Larry Niven

Guest of Honor

(Wikipedia) (larryniven.net) Larry Niven has written fiction at every length, and speculative articles, speeches, television scripts, graphic novels, and a couple of comic book universes. His interests include science fiction conventions. role playing games, comics, filk singing, yoga, hiking, racquetball, saving civilization, and making a little money. Larry attended Cal Tech but flunked out after discovering a book store jammed with used science fiction magazines. After a summer as a gas station attendant, he applied himself at Washburn University and graduated in 1962 with a B.A. in mathematics with a minor in psychology. Larry's first published story ("The Coldest Place") appeared in Worlds of If in December 1964. His fiction has won the Hugo Award five times, the Nebula for Best Novel, the Ditmar twice, and too many other awards to list here. He met Marilyn Joyce Wisowaty at the New York Worldcon in 1967 and they married on September 6, 1969.

Marian Call

Music Guest of Honor

(Marian Call) Marian Call’s music has a way of getting its claws in you. Her style, aptly described as “acoustic joy jazz” by one of her fans, pairs folk and rock with classical and gospel influences. The result is an eclectic, warm, wonderfully listenable repertoire bound together by powerful songwriting and personality.

Call’s compositions are half study and calculation, half improvisational instinct. The lyrics are full of triple rhymes, twists and turns. Call cites among her influences Joni Mitchell, They Might Be Giants, and Dr. Seuss; her work evokes comparisons to contemporary artists Regina Spektor and Ingrid Michaelson. Call’s songs are funny and light on their feet one moment, tragic and powerfully honest the next, and deeply grounded in the human experience.

Often inspired by popular culture, she has written songs about Shark Week, reality shows, TV series like Firefly and Battlestar Galactica, Jane Austen, the Mars Rover, and Neil Gaiman’s Sandman. “Great art inspires more art as a response. It always has,” says Call. “So I’m drawn into songs about the popular stories that resonate with our culture. I want to put my finger on why we like them, on what matters about those themes and characters right now.”

Call’s live concerts are unlike any other songwriter's, and she is most often compared to other artists noted for their uniqueness and whimsy — songwriters such as Joni Mitchell, Regina Spektor, Ingrid Michaelson, and Amanda Palmer. Marian Call releases music and tours under her own power without label support, and her crew of loyal fans has supported her through ten years of intensive travel and recording.

Aislinn Burrows and Carmen Bryan

Fen Guests of Honor

(SoonerCon) (Future Society of Central Oklahoma) (Facebook) Carmen Bryan and Aislinn Burrows are the nerd girl pairing of a young Gen-Xer and an old Millennial. You can tell because they both still listen to vinyl and don’t have cable. They stay pretty busy running SoonerCon in Oklahoma City and geeking out with fellow fans. Volunteering is legit fun you guys! They are also pretty deep into their Pathfinder and other RPG campaigns, so it works.

Aislinn is the convention chair for SoonerCon and has been volunteering since its reboot in 2006. She holds an associate degree in diversified studies and works in marketing and public relations at Oklahoma City Community College. Her fandoms span a large cross section of SF media and she considers herself a Girl Friday type and NPR junkie. Find her on Facebook, out and about, writing sometimes, or working on con stuff with her crack team of Nerf hoarders.

Carmen works in commercial retail and is SoonerCon’s AV Chair. She is one of the original seven founders of the Tornado Alley Roller Girls roller derby team, skating as Homicide #187 from 2007 to 2009. She enjoys composing electronic music in her spare time and is an avid horror fan. She hopes to catch a spaceflight in her lifetime. You can usually find her chilling and coloring somewhere.

Aislinn and Carmen were married in 2013. They are proud aunties and like to get out the vote. It is their tremendous honor to be invited as Fan Guests at FenCon this year, because it’s their home-away-from-home con and one of their Horcruxes. They live with their fur family in a small house filled with books, oddities, art, warmth and joy.

(Photo: JSJ Photography)

Travis Lewis

Artist Guest of Honor

Coming Soon!

Marianne Dyson

Science Guest of Honor

(Marianne Dyson) Marianne Dyson was one of NASA’s first female flight controllers, the subject of her memoir, A Passion for Space. After NASA, she turned to writing about space for adults and kids. She is currently coauthoring a second children’s book with Buzz Aldrin for NatGeo. Her SF collection, Fly Me to the Moon, includes all her Analog stories except "Europa’s Survivors" (in the March/April 2017 issue). All sales via her website will help her recover from Harvey.

Martha Wells

Special Workshop Guest

(Martha Wells) Martha Wells has written many fantasy novels, including The Wizard Hunters, Wheel of the Infinite, the Books of the Raksura series (beginning with The Cloud Roads), and the Nebula-nominated The Death of the Necromancer, as well as YA fantasy novels, short stories, and non-fiction. She has had stories in Black Gate, Realms of Fantasy, Stargate Magazine, Lightspeed Magazine, and in the anthologies Elemental, Tales of the Emerald Serpent, The Other Half of the Sky, The Gods of Lovecraft, and Mech: Age of Steel. She has also written media tie-ins for Stargate Atlantis and most recently Star Wars: Razor's Edge. The last book in the Books of the Raksura series, The Harbors of the Sun, was released in July 2017 by Night Shade Books. All Systems Red, the first novella in her SF series The Murderbot Diaries, was released by Tor.com in May 2017 and is a nominee for the Philip K. Dick Award. The next three novellas in the series, Artificial Condition, Rogue Protocol, and Exit Strategy, will be published in 2018.

Timothy Griffin

Toastmaster

(GriffinEd) Tim Griffin is an award-winning teacher, musician, and storyteller with four albums out and more coming. When not filking or toastmastering, he runs an educational nonprofit called GriffinEd, using music to teach science, math, history, and other subjects to grades K-8th online for free. Laugh and learn with fun, effective (really!) songs about bugs, boogers, and particle physics at www.GriffinEd.org. Tim lives in La Cañada, California with a strong woman, a boy genius, and a large tribe of animals.

Program Participants

Rhonda Eudaly | Generic Radio Workshop | Shanna Swendson |

Rhonda Eudaly (Rhonda Eudaly) Rhonda Eudaly lives in Arlington, Texas where she's ventured into several industries and occupations for a wide variety of experience. She's married with dogs and a rapidly growing Minion© army. Her two passions are writing and music, which is evident in her increasing horde of writing instruments. Rhonda has a well-rounded publication history in fiction, non-fiction, and script writing. Check out her website for her latest publications and downloads (Photo by Bobby Hitt)
Generic Radio Workshop (Generic Radio Workshop) Generic Radio Workshop has been around longer than the Golden Age of Radio lasted -- a little over thirty years. They started with the Texas Broadcast Museum and have performed at festivals, conventions, and yes, on the radio. They use as much vintage equipment as possible for that "old time radio" feel. Plus, many of their sound effects devices are hand-built, following period designs. While they've made a few concessions to modern technology, their core practices follow radio's Golden Age.
Shanna Swendson (Shanna Swendson) (Wikipedia) Shanna Swendson is best known as the author of the Enchanted, Inc. series from Ballantine Books, the YA steampunk fantasy Rebel Mechanics, and a variety of geeky pop-culture essays published by BenBella Books. She can occasionally be lured out of her writing cave by movies, promises of Doctor Who episodes, conventions, or new books calling to her from the library or bookstore. Or tea or chocolate (or tea and chocolate, but not chocolate tea).

Rhonda Eudaly

(Rhonda Eudaly) Rhonda Eudaly lives in Arlington, Texas where she's ventured into several industries and occupations for a wide variety of experience. She's married with dogs and a rapidly growing Minion© army. Her two passions are writing and music, which is evident in her increasing horde of writing instruments.

Rhonda has a well-rounded publication history in fiction, non-fiction, and script writing. Check out her website for her latest publications and downloads

(Photo by Bobby Hitt)

Generic Radio Workshop

(Generic Radio Workshop) Generic Radio Workshop has been around longer than the Golden Age of Radio lasted -- a little over thirty years. They started with the Texas Broadcast Museum and have performed at festivals, conventions, and yes, on the radio. They use as much vintage equipment as possible for that "old time radio" feel. Plus, many of their sound effects devices are hand-built, following period designs. While they've made a few concessions to modern technology, their core practices follow radio's Golden Age.

Shanna Swendson

(Shanna Swendson) (Wikipedia) Shanna Swendson is best known as the author of the Enchanted, Inc. series from Ballantine Books, the YA steampunk fantasy Rebel Mechanics, and a variety of geeky pop-culture essays published by BenBella Books. She can occasionally be lured out of her writing cave by movies, promises of Doctor Who episodes, conventions, or new books calling to her from the library or bookstore. Or tea or chocolate (or tea and chocolate, but not chocolate tea).

If you are interested in being a participant this year, please read our program participant guidelines before contacting us. We hope it will answer most of your questions. Thanks.