Guest of Honor: Julie E. Czerneda

Julie E Czerneda

Canadian Julie E. Czerneda is an award-winning, best-selling author and editor. Her first SF novel, published in 1997, was A Thousand Words for Stranger (DAW Books).

A former biologist, she began writing professionally in 1985, contributing to over two hundred student and teacher resources, in all sciences, math, and career education.

For ten years, she owned a small press. Since turning fulltime to fiction, she’s published a dozen SF novels (DAW), numerous short stories, and has edited several SF and fantasy anthologies.

Czerneda has two books out in 2009, Ages of Wonder, a fantasy anthology co-edited with Rob St. Martin on the theme of lesser-used historical settings (March); and the conclusion of her Stratification trilogy, Rift in the Sky (July), prequels to Thousand.

A finalist for the Philip K. Dick Award (Distinguished SF) and the John W. Campbell Award (Best New Writer) (at the Australian Worldcon), Czerneda has already won four Prix Aurora Awards (Canada’s top honour), the Golden Duck Award of Excellence for Science and Technology Education, and made the preliminary Nebula ballot twice.

Active in the community, Czerneda has judged writing awards, conducted writers workshops, provided professional development for teachers and librarians across Canada and the US, and been a consultant on SF and education for Science News.

A sought-after speaker on scientific literacy, she received the Peel Award of Excellence in Education and is an Alumnus of Honour of the University of Waterloo. In 2008, Czerneda was awarded the Science in Society Award (Youth) for Polaris from the Science Writers Association of Canada.

In 2009, she will be Guest of Honour at ConScription, (New Zealand’s National Convention), guest at Conjecture ( Australia’s National Convention), and Master of Ceremonies for the World Science Fiction Convention in Montreal.

When not writing, editing, or enjoying such marvelous events, Julie dashes outside. She and her photographer husband (Roger Czerneda) divide their time between wilderness camping and mucking around the two acres of boreal forest and meadow they fondly call the backyard. (And if you wonder where her aliens come from, that would be a clue.)

Fan Guests of Honor: Catherine and Steve Scholz

Star Wars Crossed Lovers.

We like Star Wars. That’s how it all started.

We almost met at the premiere of Return of the Jedi. Catherine was Leia, Steve was Luke, we met mutual friends there, but not each other. It was another two years before we met properly, at a V fan club meeting (V for lizards, not vendettas – Ed.) Our first night out together was for the charity preview of Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, we were both both in costume. We were rapt to meet the stuntman Guest of Honour, but discovered later that he hated us because our costumes were far superior to his.

From 1985 onwards it was a plethora of conventions, previews, fanzines, costumes, parties, artwork, displays and films. Costumes included Star Trek (many times) as Klingon partners in crime, Star Wars (many many times) as matching Jedi, and various others.

Steve’s moments of glory include falling off the stage at Vampiricon during the masquerade, neglecting to turn up as a judge for a masquerade at Trekcon, and inviting most of the population of Balaklava to his 21st to witness the Batley Women’s Institute re-enactment of Nazi War Atrocities. In spite of all this, Catherine still married him, with a second ceremony held in costume as Han and Leia at a StarWalking convention.

1992 witnessed the greatest media convention of all time; HongCon, where along with some guy named Martin, Steve won numerous ASFMA awards for Steve and Martin’s Excellent Fanzine.

Steve and Catherine’s attempts to rule the universe have, thus far, been foiled repeatedly, because they usually involve large papier mache weapons of destruction and eating chips. A monument to this currently stands in their backyard in the form of a 20 foot high Martian fighting machine – from all reports they get along quite well with their neighbours.

They remain at large. Stay off the roads!

The works of Steve and Catherine can currently be seen on display at the Marion Megaplex cinemas, as well as the local Video Ezy store, where they have continued to create amazing and award winning in-store displays for the past 10 years or more.