Missoula's Science Fiction & Fantasy Convention

MisCon 38: the Dark Forest, May 24 - 27, 2024 Missoula, Montana

Geek Discussion Guests, Pros, and Panelists

MisCon 38

Discuss anything and everything related to science fiction, fantasy, or horror. This includes Opening and Closing Ceremonies and 2 kinds of panels: 1. Panelist led discussions of topics, and 2. Group discussions of topics. Come have fun talking about cool stuff.

Eekie and Snow Cosplay
Eekie and Snow Cosplay

Montana natives Eekie and Snow are ready to help you create and conquer the costumes of your imagination. Eekie has been an active performer for 6 years and a costumer for 10 years: crying and sewing her way through many an event and creation. She specializes in cosplay that can be worn for performance purposes whether it be for dance, music, or LARP as well as thermoplastics and EVA foam armor. Snow has been an active costumer and prop builder for 4 years. She specializes in working with thermoplastics, craft/EVA foam, and electronics to bring an otherworldly flair to the design. They have been a team for the past 6 years and look forward to sharing their passion with you.

About Eekie and Snow Cosplay

Brian Alterowitz

Brian has been running and playing RPGs for almost 30 years, and has been running games almost exclusively online for the last four. He has spent about nine years overseas on three different continents, where he has developed a specific set of skills, most of which are only useful in an office. He does however have a passing familiarity with security and surveillance operations which are sometimes necessary for his work.

About Brian Alterowitz

Justin Barba
Justin Barba

Justin Barba came to his first MisCon as a freshman in high school in 1991 (it was MisCon 6!). It was held at what is now the Wren Missoula, just a block from the Holiday Inn. Little did he know that years later he would end up agreeing to help work the hospitality room for MisCon 21. Then he took on managing the writer's workshop, then MisCon Operations, Vice Chair, then Chair. Now he spends all his time planning MisCon, trying to be a good person/husband/father.

About Justin Barba

Mary Beth Barba
Mary Beth Barba

Mary Beth is a member of Dark Moon Fusion, a local Missoula Bellydance Troupe. She used to work in MisCon's Art Show, and for the past few MisCons has been helping out at the Info Desk in the Atrium.

About Mary Beth Barba

Carol Berg
Carol Berg

Former software engineer Carol Berg (aka Cate Glass) never expected to become an award-winning author. But her seventeen epic fantasy novels have won national and international awards, including multiple Colorado Book Awards and the Mythopoeic Fantasy Award. She’s taught writing in the US and Canada and received reader mail from the slopes of Denali and beneath the Mediterranean. All amazing for one who majored in math and computer science to avoid writing papers. Her newest novels are Cate Glass’s fantasy adventure Chimera novels from Tor Books, most recently A Conjuring of Assassins. Carol/Cate lives in Colorado at the foot of the Rockies, and on the internet at www.carolberg.com.

About Carol Berg

Chris Blazer
Chris Blazer

Chris has long helped make MisCon happen, especially working in costuming.

About Chris Blazer

LJ Bonham
LJ Bonham

LJ Bonham is a freelance author, novelist, publisher, magazine editor and publisher, and film producer who lives in the northern Rocky Mountains. Credits include: Sector 21, Shield of Honor, The Debt, Wolves of Valhalla, numerous short stories, and many non-fiction articles.

About LJ Bonham

Michael Brugger

Michael Brugger is an award winning Digital Artist and Clinical Engineer who lives and works in the Upper Left Coast. An avid gamer and and watcher of B movies who loves Fandom and all its aspects.

About Michael Brugger

Jinx Chadwick
Jinx Chadwick

Jinx is a local cosplayer just wants to talk about nerdy stuff and cosplay who has been cosplaying for about 7 years. They have been involved in much of the Missoula cosplayer scene from competing in the MisCon costume contest, attending Zootown Tea, to performig in Cheeky Geeky Vaudville

About Jinx Chadwick

Clay Cooper
Clay Cooper

An Army brat, Clay Cooper earned his Eagle Scout at 16 and graduated high school in Frankfurt, Germany.

He did a 4 year stint in the US Air Force as a mechanic on F-117 Stealth Bombers, then joined the US Army. He retired as an Infantry Platoon Sergeant First Class. He served on various combat deployments and peacekeeping missions on 4 continents.

He studied energy technology at the University of Montana. His interests include urban gardening, re-purposing things, and firearms. He gives panels at conventions as a modern armed combat advisor, specializing in helping writers and GMs make their stories more realistic.

About Clay Cooper

Katie Cross
Katie Cross

Katie Cross grew up in the mountains of Idaho, where she still loves to play when she gets the chance.

Her mission is connect women with their best selves, to seek the divine in each one of us, and to prove that we can love ourselves—and accomplish all—despite opposition.

If she's not writing, you can find her traveling, adventuring with her kiddos, trail running with her husband and vizla dogs, or curled up with a good book and a cup of chai.

About Katie Cross

Jayel Draco

Jayel Draco (he/they) is a multi-disciplinary visual artist and storyteller. Along with Lynsey G, he is the co-founder of Oneshi Press. As the co-creator of the epic sci-fi-fantasy series Children of Gaia (COG), he wrote and illustrated COG: The Great Nations of Rendaraia and co-illustrated COG: War & Horses. He has also worked on several short COG comics, with many more COG projects lined up. He’s the co-creator and illustrator of both Tracy Queen and PACK, two comic book series written by Lynsey G. He is the writer, designer, and lead illustrator of the zom-com caper comic book Mr. Guy: Zombie Hunter.

About Jayel Draco

Nicole Edington
Nicole Edington

Nicole wears many hats in the convention. During the con you'll find her managing the Green Room, but she also is on the Film Festival, Programming, Game Day, and Room Party teams.

About Nicole Edington

Kyle Elliott
Kyle Elliott

Kyle Elliott, a Seattle native, has been building gaming communities for the last decade online as well as off. His latest accolades include Volunteer of the Year for Paizo Publishing, and the first Campaign Service Coin Award. Professionally he has worked in the gaming industry as both an in house QA tester for AAA video game titles, and as a marketing and Kickstarter guide for the tabletop gaming industry. Chances are, you have pledged to at least one of the Kickstarters he has worked for.

Kyle served in Israel as a combat medic and designs, operates, imports, and wholesales fireworks from China, which has allowed him the chance to travel extensively throughout Asia.

About Kyle Elliott

Manny Frishberg
Manny Frishberg

Manny Frishberg has been making up stories since he first stared out a window. He spent the first half of his life learning how to write them and the second half learning what to write about, He is now spending the third half of his life making up stories, just like when he was eight years old.

About Manny Frishberg

Julie Frost

Julie Frost is an award-winning author of every shade of speculative fiction. She lives in Utah with her family--six guinea pigs, three humans, a tripod calico cat, and a "kitten" who thinks she's a warrior princess--and a collection of anteaters and Oaxacan carvings, some of which intersect. She enjoys birding and nature photography, which also intersect. Her short fiction has appeared in Monster Hunter Files, Writers of the Future, The District of Wonders, StoryHack, Unlikely Story, Stupefying Stories, and many other venues. Her novel series, "Pack Dynamics," is published by WordFire Press. She whines about writing, a lot, at http://agilebrit.livejournal.com/

About Julie Frost

David Gerrold
David Gerrold

David Gerrold is the author of over 50 books, hundreds of articles and columns, and over a dozen television episodes. He is a classic sci-fi writer that will go down in history as having created some of the most popular and redefining scripts, books, and short stories in the genre.

TV credits include episodes from Star Trek ("The Trouble With Tribbles" and "The Cloud Minders"), Star Trek Animated ("More Tribbles, More Troubles" and "Bem"), Babylon 5, Twilight Zone, Land Of The Lost, and Logan's Run.

He has won both Hugo and Nebula awards for his fiction.

About David Gerrold

Gail Glass
Gail Glass

Gail is a retired recreational therapist who has done con costuming for 20 years as well as workshops on healing dance.

About Gail Glass

James Glass
James Glass

Jim won the Golden pen award of wotf in 1991, has published ten novels and over sixty stories in magazines and anthologies. He is a retired physics professor and dean. His most recent novel, SYNTHS, came out in November of 2018.

About James Glass

Tony Gregori
Tony Gregori

professional comic book artist and illustrator

About Tony Gregori

Robert Grey

A member of the multiple award winning Sakura Rangers. Robert helped start the organization and has led them to over a dozen awards and hosted multiple events/conventions. Most recently he's hosted Cosplay and Skit contests at Sakuracon and Kumoricon as well as guested at Montana's own OokiiSoraCon.

About Robert Grey

Jeff Grubb
Jeff Grubb

Jeff Grubb is an author of novels, short stories, comics, and is an RPG and video game designer. Grubb worked on the Dragonlance campaign setting under Tracy Hickman, and the Forgotten Realms setting with Ed Greenwood. His written works include The Finder's Stone Trilogy, the Spelljammer and Jakandor campaign settings and contributions to Dragonlance and the computer game Guild Wars 2. He now works at Amazon Game Studios.

About Jeff Grubb

Michael Hodges
Michael Hodges

“Michael Hodges is a novelist and internet personality. He’s reached 70 million people on Meta platforms since July 2022, eclipsing most TV shows in annual viewership. His nature thriller “The Puller” was optioned for film by legendary movie producer Sonny Mallhi.”

About Michael Hodges

Andrea Howe
Andrea Howe

Andrea Howe has been a professional editor since 1997, starting on her college newspaper. Since then, she has worked on hundreds of projects including novels, newsletters, textbooks, corporate documents, and children's books. Notable texts include several Dragonlance novels and Brian Rathbone's Dawning of Power series. She's happy to be back at MisCon after a pandemic-induced absence. If you see her in the halls, feel free to say hi.

About Andrea Howe

Luke Hutson
Luke Hutson

Luke Hutson is a professional Game Master, Improv comedian, and technology teacher. He teaches Game and Animation Design for middle schoolers in the Coeur d'Alene Idaho area. He runs games with Black Shield Productions and on his own. You can see him perform with the Improv Co-Op, he also teaches improv and drama for grades 3rd-8th. He also does the Alone at the Table Podcast discussing movies and weird theories about them.

About Luke Hutson

Stephanie Jagielow

Stephanie is a local cosplayer and nature photographer who loves to crochet and read fantasy adventures.

About Stephanie Jagielow

Paul Jenkins
Paul Jenkins

Paul Jenkins is a British born comic writer who lives in Atlanta, GA. He began his career at Mirage Studios working on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Jenkins has written some of the biggest characters for Marvel and DC Comics, including Spider-Man, Batman, Incredible Hulk, Wolverine, and Hellblazer. He is best known for reviving The Inhumans as part of Marvel Knights and creating the Sentry for Marvel Comics. He also writes for video games on hits like The Darkness, Incredible Hulk, and God of War.

About Paul Jenkins

James Jones
James Jones

Head of a magical family, Lord Alden Blackhand is a performing magician, historian and master machinist. When not on stage or performing mystifying close-up magic, Alden is busy manufacturing and designing mechanical wonders. Metalworking, blacksmithing, gunsmithing and inventors’ prototyping are his fields of specialization, from hand-cut gears to unique structures of precision detailed steel. Decades of experience ranging from massive machines to delicate silversmithing allow Alden to design and build tools, weapons and costume accessories that make metal dreams become real. (Check out his clockwork wings!)

About James Jones

MaryAlice Jones
MaryAlice Jones

Magician, writer, costumer and general herder of cats, kids and mystic beings, Madame Azira brings a perspective born from years of experience in many fields.
Performing with Jones Family Magic, Azira explores the eerie and mysterious with a magical and sometimes dangerous flair.

About MaryAlice Jones

Sir. James Jones
Sir. James Jones

Jones family and Timeless Magic co, provides magic shows, side-shows, and variety style entertainment to all of Montana and the surrounding area.

Together with our sister company, Sound Geeks DJ and Sound, Jones family magic and timeless magic team is dedicated to providing top quality shows and jaw dropping feats! We perform at private parties, corporate events, fundraisers, and just about anywhere our talents are appreciated.

www.facebook.com/SoundGeeksdj
Www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=604144553057203&tsid=0.9939258735022249&source=result

About Sir. James Jones

Tess Langston
Tess Langston

Tess Langston is the creator and owner of ShadowCast Studio where she self publishes her online graphic novels, creates graphic designs, traditional and digital art. She graduated from the University of Montana with a B.F.A in Media Arts Animation and was awarded the Outstanding Senior Award in her field. Since 2012 she has been publishing her work professionally including a short comic for Apostrophe magazine, 'Anime Asylum' on some-stories.com,'Coffee Ghost' shorts, and is currently working on her newest work 'Legend Catcher' at legendcatcher.com. On stage she has been known to do standup comedy for Cheeky Geeky Vaudeville and short skits with fellow performers.

About Tess Langston

Rebekah Leib
Rebekah Leib

Rebekah Leib is a medievalist & historical re-creationist specializing in the Norse Viking era & Bronze Age Scythian cultures.

About Rebekah Leib

Cait May
Cait May

Cait May is an illustrator, Balti-Moron, purveyor of poisonous plants, and absolute super nerd. She is obsessed with cryptozoology, D&D, ghost stories, and all things that go bump in the night. She has worked with Dimension20, The Adventure Zone and Critical Role; and has been published in The Atlantic, Vengeful Ghost, and Cryptid Culture Magazine. Her graphic novel "Another Kind" debuted October, 2021. She wants to tell stories that appeal to all ages and help readers face the crazy world we live in using their personal superpowers.

About Cait May

Danith McPherson
Danith McPherson

Danith McPherson is often distracted from her writing by snowshoeing, kayaking, and star gazing. In keeping with her Scottish heritage, she is a kilt maker, and proudly wears McPherson tartan, especially at science fiction and fantasy conventions.

Her novels include the YA fantasy Blade of Mad Vision, adult fantasy Monarch of Lightning, and mystery novel Averted Vision. Her stories have appeared in The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror, Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, Amazing Stories, Revolution SF, & other places. Some of them are collected in Roar at the Universe. A second book of short stories, Through the Wall, will be out soon.

She's a member of the Science Fiction Writers

About Danith McPherson

Joshua Pate-Terry

About Joshua Pate-Terry

Kelsey Rocheleau
Kelsey Rocheleau

Kelsey, aka Small Maus, has been casually cosplaying since 2014. Maus was taught how to sew at the age of 5 by making cat toys with her grandmother. She loves to learn new crafts and hobbies, which has brought her to learn leather work, upholstery, and now her job at Kerr's Drapery shop. If she is not sewing she can be found hiking with her pup, Woola, or trying her best to playing computer games with her husband. Maus looks forward to meeting many new people at Miscon this year!

About Kelsey Rocheleau

D.L. Solum
D.L. Solum

D.L. Solum - I'm the author of the upcoming series: Persephone - A Tale of Darker Seattle.

I currently live in Seattle but will always be from Butte, Montana. I'm a lifelong collector of odd friends and odder hobbies, including – armoured medieval combat, fishing, hunting and computer games.

I run the South Seattle Fiction Writers Online group and am intermediate-level competent with the Scrivener program.

This latest obsession with writing Epic-Urban Fantasy is made possible via the encouragement and tolerance of my life-partner, Kate.

About D.L. Solum

Raye Squires
Raye Squires

Raye, otherwise known as Cryocaeruelo, is a Missoula-born and raised cosplayer, specializing in (and adoring) wigs primarily. A colossal nerd, he's joining Miscon38 as his 2nd time attending and he's excited to share his knowledge that he's acquired with cosplay and answer any questions thrown his way (especially about those pesky wigs!)

About Raye Squires

Patrick Swenson
Patrick Swenson

Patrick Swenson edited Talebones magazine for 14 years, and he still runs Fairwood Press, a book line, which began in 2000. A graduate of Clarion West, his first novel The Ultra Thin Man appeared from Tor. The sequel is The Ultra Big Sleep. He has sold stories to the anthology Unfettered III, Like Water for Quarks, and magazines such as Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Fantasy Magazine, Figment, and others. He runs the Rainforest Writers Village retreat every spring at Lake Quinault, Washington. He's been a high school teacher for 35 years. He lives in Bonney Lake, Washington with his son Orion.

About Patrick Swenson

Krista Wallace
Krista Wallace

Krista is a fantasy writer, musician, audiobook narrator, actor, podcaster, mother, Gran, lover of pie, dark chocolate, and fine single malt scotch. She hails from Port Coquitlam, BC, where she writes and records in a closet, and sings with the big band FAT Jazz, or her duo, the Itty Bitty Big Band. She is the author of the Gatekeeper fantasy series, Griffin and the Spurious Correlations, and short stories in Pulp Literature, Heart's Kiss, electricspec, and 49th Parallels. She can often be heard humming a tune, or tap dancing. Learn more at kristawallace.com.

About Krista Wallace

Jim Wright
Jim Wright

Jim Wright is a retired US Navy Chief Warrant Officer and freelance writer. He lives in Floridaa where he watches American politics in a perpetual state of amused disgust. He's been called the Tool of Satan, but he prefers the title: Satan's Designated Driver. He is the mind behind Stonekettle Station. You can follow him on Twitter @stonekettle, or you can join the boisterous bunch he hosts on Facebook at Facebook/Stonekettle. Remember to bring brownies and mind the white cat, he bites. Hard.

About Jim Wright

David Yake

David Yake is a lifelong Northwest Resident. Majoring in Zoology after a lifelong study of wildlife, habitat and their connections, he is currently an employee of the Washington Department of Ecology, Seasonal employee of the National Park Service and pursuing his Master's in Wildlife Sciences. Alongside these passions is a love for Worldbuilding, Game Design, Paleontology, Theater and Live Action Role Play making for a true Jack of All Trades lifestyle.

About David Yake

Lacy Zee
Lacy Zee

Lacy Zee is an international tattoo artist with over 25 years in the industry. She currently tattoos at Inked Expressions in Chattanooga, TN & at Blaque Owl Tattoo in Missoula. Her style ranges from realism and portraits to the exaggerated New Skool style. She also enjoys costuming, prop fabrication and cosplay.
Since 2011 Lacy has been plunging audiences into shock and awe as Vox Moxxi. Founder of The Illustrated Circus Burlesque and Sideshow and one of the founding members of The Cigarette Girls Burlesque, Vox brings classic and Neo burlesque to the stage with a sensual flare. But when Her Sexcelency Vox Moxxi graces you with her Sideshow burlesque acts... You'll never be the same

About Lacy Zee