Seanan McGuire

Seanan McGuire has been a fixture of the West Coast filk scene since the mid-nineties. This is true but boring. Also true, also boring: Seanan sings, writes songs, plays guitar very badly and hence very rarely, and has a tendency to wander away without warning. At least one convention has instated a "Guests of Honor to be supervised at all times" rule after having her, which she considers entirely unfair: she came out of the desert eventually, and she didn't even bring a rattlesnake.

Seanan is…interesting.

True and less boring: Seanan was Toastmistress at OVFF in 2005. Her concert eventually became her first album, Pretty Little Dead Girl, which was pretty cool. She's released four more albums since then: Stars Fall Home, Red Roses and Dead Things, Wicked Girls, and Creature Feature. was the first single-artist filk album ever to be nominated for a Hugo Award, in the Best Related Work category. It didn't win, but it was there, and that's amazing.

Seanan is an author. Her first book, Rosemary and Rue, was released in September 2009, and a genuinely horrifying number of works have followed, under both her name and the name "Mira Grant." Between her two identities, Seanan has traveled all over the world, and gotten lost in all sorts of interesting places.

When not filking or writing, Seanan is happiest at Disney Parks, watching horror movies, and wandering into haunted attractions, which she considers to be the pinnacle of human achievement. She is rarely more in her element than when being pursued by a masked man with a chainsaw.

Seanan's website is www.seananmcguire.com, and her Twitter is @seananmcguire. She knows many of you already, and is looking forward to meeting all the rest.

She's even promised to leave the chainsaw at home.

Toastmaster: W. Randy Hoffman

As your Toastmaster for OVFF 33, W. Randy Hoffman will announce the convention's people, events, and general shenanigans. He won't be as toastily entertaining by himself as he would've been if his late singing partner Kira Heston had been able to join him, but he'll do his crusty ol' best.

Randy's been in fandom since 1989; the first general SF con that he loafed around at was Marcon here in Columbus. That was also the first time that he ever wrote a song or sang in a filk circle, but he didn't land butter side down in filking until four years later, when he decided that some college friends of his needed a better audience for their nerdy band. (You might know those guys as Ookla the Mok.)

Since then Randy's recorded five party platters (or rather, albums), both as a solo act and as part of the duo Partners in K'Rhyme with his aforementioned and much-missed partner Kira. He has also spread sweet music across many (time)slices by running the music track at Confluence in Pittsburgh for 22 years. In Mundania, he edits documentation for business-intelligence software deployed by the U.S. Department of State; don't ask him to arrange a visa for you, but he might be persuaded to fix you a finger sammich.

Editor's Note: Our original Toastmaster for OVFF 33 was the duo Partners in K’Rhyme. Sadly, Kira Heston passed away on September 30, 2016. Besides performing with Randy, she was also past president of PARSEC, Pittsburgh's premier Science Fiction and fantasy organization.

Honored Listener: Harold Feld

Harold Feld: Discovered Filk about 30 years ago and -- even when FAFIAted from fandom generally by work and other mundane concerns -- has always tried to keep connected to filking. Harold has been a semi-professional storyteller, a practitioner of the bardic arts in the Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA) and was Interfilk Guest at Gafilk in 2009. You can mostly find Harold at cons along the Northeast I-95 Corridor, SCA events in the Kingdom of Atlantia, and every year at Pennsic.

Mundanely, Harold is a lawyer who does telecom, tech and copyright policy as Senior Vice President of a non-profit organization called Public Knowledge based in Washington D.C., and occasionally teaches a class for advocates on the power of storytelling in public advocacy.

Interfilk Guest: Mike Briggs- In Memoriam

Mike Briggs, the husband of best-selling author Patricia Briggs died unexpectedly early in the morning on January 23, 2017, according to posts to her website and Facebook page.

He acted as a research assistant for his wife’s books. Patricia Briggs writes the Mercy Thompson urban fantasy series.

“It is with a very heavy heart that I write of the passing of one of the finest men I have ever known,” Patricia Briggs’ assistant posted to Facebook.

He ran the couple’s horse farm and kept the Patricia Briggs website up to date, in addition to acting as a research assistant. He previously worked as a chemist, biologist and “computer nerd,” according to the Patricia Briggs website.

- Annette Cary, Tri-City Herald