Cosplayer, artist, fan, and glorious harbinger of chaos, Jenna loves all things geeky. Combining twin passions of psychology and nerdity, she enjoys seeing what new ideas can be found in exploring and sharing fandom.
Author: ravenchair (Page 5 of 14)
Randall Hayes, “your friendly neighborhood neuroscientist,” studied stroke patients and built computer models of sea slugs’ neural networks before getting involved with teaching and science communication for the public. His first podcast, VSI: Variation Selection Inheritance, was funded by the National Science Foundation through the Beacon Center for the Study of Evolution in Action. He’s written probably three books’ worth of blog posts over the past decade, and for four years he was a science columnist for The Intergalactic Medicine Show. More recently he’s been publishing articles in Utopia Science Fiction, ParABnormal Magazine, and Trollbreath Magazine, among others. Even more recently he’s been publishing fiction with Lackington’s Speculative Fiction, The Storyletter, and Illustrated Worlds. Updates and fresh fiction are available at his free newsletter Doctor Eclectic, randallhayes.substack.com.
Morgan Hazelwood writes from her lair in Northern Virginia and collects rejection letters. Her short story “Just a Hike In The Woods” was published by the Dark Recesses webzine in January 2022. She’s shared “Writing Tips & Writerly Musings” since 2015, first as a blogger, and then as a vlogger and podcaster. These days, she mostly does productivity sprints every Sunday on her YouTube and Twitch channels, eats snacks, and binge reads paranormal gay romances.
Long-time Virginia convention icon and full-time purveyor of chaos, Sean Heare is back at RavenCon with his trivia game Alien Peril and his award-winning wandering room party. Armed with a rolling cooler of Lou Ann’s infamous Jell-O shots and other mysteries best left undisclosed, Sean brings the perfect mix of humor, intellect, and an uncanny ability to make deadpan sarcasm look effortless.
By day, Sean swaps his party hat for a serious one: he’s got a Juris Doctor from American University and graduate chops in Counterintelligence, Cybersecurity, and Emerging Technology. As the Information Director for National Security Counselors—a nonprofit dedicated to prying open the vaults of secrecy—Sean’s technical advice helps their attorneys keep the national security world on edge.
Formerly a casual conspiracy theory aficionado, Sean now dedicates himself to combating misinformation, one implausible rabbit hole at a time. Want to chat about the eschaton, singularities, or whether we’re all just NPCs in someone’s simulation? Sean’s your guy.
If Sean has a new book it will be out in December 2025.
Harry Heckel started writing role-playing games as a freelancer in the ’90s and never looked back. Today, he co-authors two series of novels as Jack Heckel and co-authors Warhammer 40k books as Lee Lightner. He can usually be found at RavenCon carrying a stuffed dragon named Magdela. He’s also Vice-President of the Virginia Writers Club. You can find him at HarryHeckel.com.
Hiphopmcdougal is the brainchild of Julian Biggs and Charlie Hodgson. They decided to take their shared love of video games, cryptids, Weezer, and pizza, mix it all up, then rap and sing about it over everything from classic hip hop beats to mariachi music. Over the last fifteen years they have released three full-length albums, four EPs, and numerous singles. All of their music can be found on Spotify and Bandcamp.
Uncle Grayhawk originally hails from south-central New Jersey (not far from Philly) and is a former professional theater technician who now makes a living as a senior Windows admin for a secret branch of the federal government that resides within the walls of NOAA.
Or something like that.
More than forty years ago, Uncle Grayhawk opened a Christmas present to find a blue and white box sporting a picture of a dragon, bearing the title of “Dungeons & Dragons”. This jump-started a long time love affair with TTRPGs, with much of his time spent in the DM’s chair. In the early 90s, he was introduced to fan conventions and began volunteering, mostly in the realms of gaming, Security/Public Safety, and Operations.
Now, nearly three decades later, Uncle Grayhawk has served on the demo teams for several game companies, helped run more conventions than he cares to remember, amassed what can only be described as a ridiculous number of board games and TTRPGs, and acquired an equally absurd repertoire of stories that he uses to entertain and educate. He has contributed to a few RPG supplements, playtested several board games, and dabbled in podcasting. He holds a BA in Communications & Theater Arts from McDaniel College, is the parent of two adult geeks, and runs a weekly online D&D game.
You can find his ramblings on the web here: linktr.ee/unclegrayhawk.
RVA Katana started innocently with the acquisition of a Song Dynasty replica sword for JC Kang’s Epic Fantasy Bookstagram photo shoot, and exploded into a brick-and-mortar sword shop with nearly 400,000 social media followers.
David Keener is an author, editor, and public speaker who lives in Northern Virginia with his wife and two, oops, three, inordinately large dogs. He writes SF, fantasy, and mystery but loves mashing up his favorite genres in new and unexpected ways, as seen in books like Jonelle Crosse and Road Trip. He is the editor of two anthologies, Fantastic Defenders and Fantastic Detectives. He is a founding member of the Hourlings Podcast Project, covering writing-related topics. David also frequently speaks at conventions, where he often conducts writing workshops.
Pamela K. Kinney gave up ignoring the voices in her head and has since written horror, fantasy, science fiction, a children’s picture book, poetry, and paranormal nonfiction. Her horror short story, “Bottled Spirits,” was runner-up for the 2013 WSFA Small Press Award. Her poem, “Dementia,” (HWA Poetry Showcase, Vol. VII) received a mention in Best Horror of the Year, Vol. 13. Her children’s faerie picture book, Christmas Magic, took second place in the “Children’s-Holidays” category of the BookFest Awards, Spring 2024. In 2024, she had a story and a poem in The Haunted Zone, a charity horror anthology; a story published in the horror anthology, Vinyl Cuts; a story in Halloweenthology: Witches’ Brew; and a poem in the Terror at Miskatonic Falls anthology. Also, her YA dark fantasy novel, (first in the Moon Ridge, Virginia trilogy) Demon Memories, was released October 15, 2024. She is currently working on a new nonfiction book for Schiffer Publishing about ghosts/cryptids/UFOs around the Appalachian Trail, as well as the second book in her Moon Ridge, Virginia trilogy.
Pamela and her husband live with one crazy black cat (who thinks she should take precedence over her mistress’s writing most days). Along with writing, Pamela has acted on stage and film and investigates the paranormal for episodes of Paranormal World Seekers for AVA Productions. She is a member of Horror Writers Association, Virginia Writers Club, and James River Writers. Learn more about her at PamelaKKinney.com.
