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Whedonistas book cover
Whedonistas
A Celebration of the Worlds of Joss Whedon by the Women Who Love Them
2011
First Published
3.89
Average Rating
198
Number of Pages
In Whedonistas, a host of award-winning female writers and fans come together to celebrate the works of Joss Whedon (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Firefly, Dollhouse, Doctor Horrible's Sing-Along Blog). By discussing the impact of Whedon's work, their involvement with his shows' fandoms and why they adore the worlds he's created, these essayists aim to misbehave in Whedon's rich, fantastical worlds. Essay topics include Sharon Shinn (Samaria series) and Emma Bull (Territory) elaborating on the perfection of Firefly, Jeanne Stein (the Anna Strong Chronicles) revealing Buffy's influence on Anna Strong, and Nancy Holder (October Rain, The Watcher's Guide) relating on-the-set tales of Spike menacing her baby daughter while Riley made her hot chocolate.Other contributors include Seanan McGuire (October Daye series), Elizabeth Bear (Chill), Catherynne M. Valente (Palimpsest), Maria Lima (Blood Lines), Jackie Kessler (Black and White), Mariah Huehner (IDW Comics), Sarah Monette (Corambis), and Lyda Morehouse (AngeLINK Series). Also featured is an exclusive interview with television writer and producer Jane Espenson.
Avg Rating
3.89
Number of Ratings
250
5 STARS
33%
4 STARS
34%
3 STARS
24%
2 STARS
8%
1 STARS
1%
goodreads

Authors

Caroline Symcox
Author · 2 books
Caroline Symcox is a curate at St Mary's Church, Amersham. She is the published author of several science fiction short stories, and is married to TV writer Paul Cornell.
Mariah Huehner
Mariah Huehner
Author · 4 books

I'm a writer, editor, artist and story lover. I've written the New York Times Bestselling True Blood: All Together Now GN and edited The Last Unicorn. Other writerly titles: True Blood: The French Quarter, Servant of the Bones, Illyria: Haunted, Angel, and contributed to Whedonistas. I've edited books like Fables, Lucifer, The Sandman: Endless Nights, and Death: At Death's Door, and Womanthology. I'm a big old geeky nerd who loves talking about stories and storytelling. Hope you like my work!

Teresa Jusino
Teresa Jusino
Author · 1 books

Teresa Jusino is a native New Yorker and a proud Puerto Rican, Jewish, bisexual woman with ADHD. For over a decade, Jusino was a pop culture journalist, her work appearing in outlets like Tor.com, Jezebel, Latina Magazine, Teen Vogue, and The Mary Sue, where she was an editor from 2015-18 and is currently a contributing writer. Jusino has done development work at Topple Productions and written two one-act plays which have been produced by the L.A-based theater company, Force of Nature Productions. In 2018, Jusino launched Pomonok Entertainment, a production company that produces stories across multiple mediums in service of their unhoused neighbors. Pomonok has produced theater, podcasts, and filmed content. Jusino was a Finalist for the AMC One-Hour Pilot Competition at Austin Film Festival in 2022, a 2021 Disruptors Fellow, and is repped at Heroes and Villains Entertainment. She lives in Los Angeles with her production sound mixer wife, who would like to inform the world her job title is "Production Sound Mixer," not "sound guy." Please adjust your job postings accordingly.

Jody Wurl
Jody Wurl
Author · 1 books
I'm a public librarian as well as a fan of the science fiction, fantasy and horror genres and graphic novel format. I have an essay published in the collection Whedonistas: A Celebration of the Worlds of Joss Whedon by the Women Who Love Them.
Maria Lima
Maria Lima
Author · 6 books

I write dead people...no really. I'm a writing geek with one foot in the real world and the other in the make-believe. Sometime before the Revolution, I was born in Matanzas, Cuba, to a family of voracious readers and would-be writers. In 1961, when it was clear that the situation wasn't going to change, my family emigrated to the United States, where I then discovered the magic of books...loads of books. Starting with the public library, followed by the Scholastic book sales in elementary school, then on from there. As a child, storytelling was part of our family dinner hour, when my father, who dreamt of becoming a writer, spoke of heroes, heroines and battles royale. In this was mixed a love of both fictional and non-fictional worlds, of history and splendor, dragons and them that slayed 'em. It's no wonder that I grew up composing stories. The writing bug didn't get much of a workout in real life, however, as the corporate life only drew on my journalism degree as I cranked out marketing copy, feature stories and book reviews. The fiction muse kept calling and in the spring of 2005, was finally fed as my first published short story, "The Butler Didn't Do It" was published in Chesapeake Crimes I and garnered an Agatha Award nomination for Best Short Story. In 2007, my first novel, Matters of the Blood, debuted from Juno Books, then, an imprint of Wildside Press. Blood Bargain, 2nd in the Blood Lines series came out November, 2008. In January 2009, Juno Books became an imprint of Pocket Books, a division of Simon & Schuster. The Blood Lines series is reborn again as Pocket re-releases the first two books in September & October 2009, followed by Blood Kin in November. In my day job, I work for an interactive Web agency in the DC area. In the rest of my life, I'm a writer, a fangrrl and as always, a voracious reader.

Catherynne M. Valente
Catherynne M. Valente
Author · 60 books

Catherynne M. Valente was born on Cinco de Mayo, 1979 in Seattle, WA, but grew up in in the wheatgrass paradise of Northern California. She graduated from high school at age 15, going on to UC San Diego and Edinburgh University, receiving her B.A. in Classics with an emphasis in Ancient Greek Linguistics. She then drifted away from her M.A. program and into a long residence in the concrete and camphor wilds of Japan. She currently lives in Maine with her partner, two dogs, and three cats, having drifted back to America and the mythic frontier of the Midwest.

Jeanne C. Stein
Jeanne C. Stein
Author · 5 books

Jeanne C. Stein is an American Urban Fantasy author living in Colorado. She now lives in Colorado, but was raised and educated in San Diego, which is the setting for her contemporary vampire fantasy. Jeanne is active in the writing community, belonging to Sisters in Crime both nationally and in San Diego and Los Angeles. She also belongs to Horror Writers of America, RWA and Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers. She was named RMFW’s Writer of the Year for 2008 an honor given to a writer who has contributed to the organization as well as achieved success in publication. She writes the blog "Biting Edge" with Mario Acevedo at : http://www.biting-edge.blogspot.com/

Lyda Morehouse
Lyda Morehouse
Author · 6 books

Lyda Morehouse writes about what gets most people in trouble: religion and politics. Her first novel Archangel Protocol, a cyberpunk hard-boiled detective novel with a romantic twist, won the 2001 Shamus for best paperback original. Apocalypse Array was awarded the Special Citation of Excellence (aka 2nd place) for the Philip K. Dick award. This author also writes paranormal under the name Tate Hallaway.

Seanan McGuire
Seanan McGuire
Author · 152 books

Hi! I'm Seanan McGuire, author of the Toby Daye series (Rosemary and Rue, A Local Habitation, An Artificial Night, Late Eclipses), as well as a lot of other things. I'm also Mira Grant (www.miragrant.com), author of Feed and Deadline. Born and raised in Northern California, I fear weather and am remarkably laid-back about rattlesnakes. I watch too many horror movies, read too many comic books, and share my house with two monsters in feline form, Lilly and Alice (Siamese and Maine Coon). I do not check this inbox. Please don't send me messages through Goodreads; they won't be answered. I don't want to have to delete this account. :(

Nancy Holder
Nancy Holder
Author · 94 books

Nancy Holder, New York Times Bestselling author of the WICKED Series, has just published CRUSADE - the first book in a new vampire series cowritten with Debbie Viguie. The last book her her Possession series is set to release in March 2011. Nancy was born in Los Altos, California, and her family settled for a time in Walnut Creek. Her father, who taught at Stanford, joined the navy and the family traveled throughout California and lived in Japan for three years. When she was sixteen, she dropped out of high school to become a ballet dancer in Cologne, Germany, and later relocated to Frankfurt Am Main. Eventually she returned to California and graduated summa cum laude from the University of California at San Diego with a degree in Communications. Soon after, she began to write; her first sale was a young adult romance novel titled Teach Me to Love. Nancy’s work has appeared on the New York Times, USA Today, LA Times, amazon.com, LOCUS, and other bestseller lists. A four-time winner of the Bram Stoker Award from the Horror Writers Association, she has also received accolades from the American Library Association, the American Reading Association, the New York Public Library, and Romantic Times. She and Debbie Viguié co-authored the New York Times bestselling series Wicked for Simon and Schuster. They have continued their collaboration with the Crusade series, also for Simon and Schuster, and the Wolf Springs Chronicles for Delacorte (2011.) She is also the author of the young adult horror series Possessions for Razorbill. She has sold many novels and book projects set in the Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Saving Grace, Hellboy, and Smallville universes. She has sold approximately two hundred short stories and essays on writing and popular culture. Her anthology, Outsiders, co-edited with Nancy Kilpatrick, was nominated for the Bram Stoker Award in 2005. She teaches in the Stonecoast MFA in Creative Writing Program, offered through the University of Southern Maine. She has previously taught at UCSD and has served on the Clarion Board of Directors. She lives in San Diego, California, with her daughter Belle, their two Corgis, Panda and Tater; and their cats, David and Kittnen Snow. She and Belle are active in Girl Scouts and dog obedience training.

Sharon Shinn
Sharon Shinn
Author · 38 books

I’ve been writing stories and poems since I was eight years old. My first poem was about Halloween: "What is tonight? What is tonight?/Try to guess and you’ll guess right." Perhaps this inauspicious beginning explains why it took me till I was in my thirties to sell a novel. It occurred to me early on that it might take some time and a lot of tries before I was able to publish any of my creative writing, so I pursued a degree in journalism at Northwestern University so I’d be able to support myself while I figured out how to write fiction. I’ve spent most of my journalism career at three trade and association magazines—The Professional Photographer (which, as you might guess, went to studio and industrial photographers), DECOR (which went to frame shop and art gallery owners), and BizEd (which is directed at deans and professors at business schools). My longest stint, seventeen years, was at DECOR. Many people don’t know this, but I’m a CPF (Certified Picture Framer), having passed a very long, technical test to prove I understood the tenets of conservation framing. Now I write about management education and interview some really cool, really smart people from all over the world. I mostly write my fiction in the evenings and on weekends. It requires a pretty obsessive-compulsive personality to be as prolific as I’ve been in the past ten years and hold down a full-time job. But I do manage to tear myself away from the computer now and then to do something fun. I read as often as I can, across all genres, though I’m most often holding a book that’s fantasy or romance, with the occasional western thrown in. I’m a fan of Cardinals baseball and try to be at the ballpark on opening day. If I had the time, I’d see a movie every day of my life. I love certain TV shows so much that knowing a new episode is going to air that night will make me happy all day. (I’m a huge Joss Whedon fan, but in the past I’ve given my heart to shows all over the map in terms of quality: "Knight Rider," "Remington Steele," "Blake’s 7," "Moonlighting," "The Young Riders," "Cheers," "Hill Street Blues," "X-Files," "Lost," "Battlestar Galactica"...you can probably fill in the gaps. And let’s not forget my very first loves, "The Partridge Family," "Here Come the Brides" and "Alias Smith & Jones.") I don’t have kids, I don’t want pets, and all my plants die, so I’m really only forced to provide ongoing care for my menagerie of stuffed animals. All my friends are animal lovers, though, and someone once theorized that I keep friends as pets. I’m still trying to decide if that’s true.

Jamie Craig
Author · 62 books

Jamie Craig is actually a pen name for the collaboration of authors Vivien Dean http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/... and Pepper Espinoza http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/... ABOUT JAMIE CRAIG Vivien Dean and Pepper Espinoza have been writing and publishing together as Jamie Craig since 2006. They have published with Juno Books, Samhain Publishing, Liquid Silver Books, and multiple titles with Amber Quill Press. Pepper Espinoza has been writing and publishing erotic romance since 2005. She grew up in Utah and lives there now, where the landscape and history provide a great deal of inspiration for her work. Besides writing, she enjoys playing video games, watching movies, and going to concerts. Vivien Dean returned to writing in 2005, and has published with Liquid Silver Books, Samhain Publishing, and Amber Quill Press. She currently resides in northern California with her husband and two children.

Jenn Reese
Jenn Reese
Author · 9 books

Jenn Reese (she/they) writes speculative fiction for readers of all ages. She is the author of Every Bird a Prince and A Game of Fox & Squirrels, an NPR Best Book of 2020, a finalist for the Andre Norton Award and the Mythopoeic Award, and winner of the Oregon Book Award. Her other publications include the Above World trilogy and numerous short stories and essays. Jenn lives in Portland, Oregon where she makes art, plays video games, and talks to the birds. —

Jackie Kessler
Jackie Kessler
Author · 9 books

Some kids want to grow up to be doctors, or movie stars, or political assassins. Me, I wanted to draw comic books. Not Archie comics, either—superhero comic books. Maybe it was all the heavily muscled guys in spandex… Around the time I was 15, I realized that as much as I enjoyed drawing (note that I’m saying nothing about the quality of those pics), it was a lot of fun putting words in the characters’ mouths. I didn’t know the term “fanfic” back then, but I started writing stories about the X-Men, Alpha Flight, and the Teen Titans. Didn’t do anything with those stories, other than horrify my mother. She asked why I couldn’t write nice stories, you know, about bunnies. Nope—me, I wanted to write about power. About magic. About hot guys in spandex. And about beating those guys bloody and senseless. (In retrospect, maybe I really did want to horrify my mother. Hey, not my fault. When I was a kid, I busted her doodling on the cover of New Teen Titans #6. Argh!) So maybe it’s ironic that the book I wound up writing had nothing to do with overly muscled men and everything to do with scantily clad women. (Well, temporarily scantily clad.) Oh, right, and demons. Previously, I was the fantasy editor for Wild Child Publishing. Along with working with terrific authors and editors, I’d been fortunate enough to interview a number of fabulous people for WCP, including Margaret Weis (I think Raistlin was my first crush). In case you’re wondering, I live in Upstate New York, along with my Loving Husband and two Precious Little Tax Deductions, two cats, and about 9,000 comics. (But actually, that number is now closer to 8,000, thanks to a flooded basement. Alas!)

Priscilla Spencer
Priscilla Spencer
Author · 1 books
At work, I'm an Art Coordinator for Dragonsteel Books. At play, I'm a recovering filmmaker, landscape photographer, fantasy cartographer, gluten-free baker, dog lover, travel bug, unrepentant shipper, and ardent proponent of the Oxford comma. You may have seen my live-action book trailers for Jim Butcher's "Peace Talks" and "Battle Ground!" I've lived all over, including Dallas, Philadelphia, NYC, and LA, but I'm now making my home in American Fork, Utah.
Elizabeth Bear
Elizabeth Bear
Author · 59 books
What Goodreads really needs is a "currently WRITING" option for its default bookshelves...
Sigrid Ellis
Author · 2 books
Sigrid Ellis is co-editor of the Hugo-nominated Queers Dig Time Lords and Chicks Dig Comics anthologies. She edits the best-selling Pretty Deadly from Image Comics. She is the flash-fiction editor of Queers Destroy Science Fiction, from Lightspeed Press. She edited the Hugo-nominated Apex Magazine for 2014. She lives with her partner, their two homeschooled children, her partner’s boyfriend, and a host of vertebrate and invertebrate pets in Saint Paul, MN.
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