Staff and Contributors

Geekquality is a project fueled by Feelings™, late night snacks, and Google docs. The founding editors & contributing staff are a great bunch, and they do this all out of the love in their hearts. None of us get paid to write this site; in fact, we all have full time jobs, school, and family obligations, and somehow we still manage to carve out time to consume the media that we then discuss on the site, to write our posts, record the podcast, and help build this community. Find out a little more about the Geekquality staff and contributors here.

CO-FOUNDING EDITORS

Tanya, Managing Editor
1985: Tanya first saw Star Wars: A New Hope, after which there was no turning back; Ray Bradbury, science museums and repeat viewings of Flight of the Navigator and Neverending Story followed shortly after. While in college, and working at a library and an uber-hip video rental store, she realized that critical media analysis CAN coexist with her unabashed fondness for all types of pop culture. Tanya is interested in discussing portrayal of cultural stereotypes and gender roles, as well as learning from people with unique perspectives and talents. She has a soft spot for a good bank heist movie and 80s flicks, loves cooking, and will pet (almost) every dog she meets.

Lois Payne, Social Media Editor
Lois’ claim to nerd fame is that she grew up watching DBZ and Ranma ½ in Spiderman’s hometown. She is a wordslinger for hire and an enthusiastic consumer of TV, films, and books – and the Internet, of course. Lois is interested in the proper representation of racial and sexual minorities in nerd culture and will bring down the ban hammer on misogyny and racism within its fan base. While rejecting the notion of “cred” within geekdom, she is particularly curious about how cultural, socioeconomic, and ethnic backgrounds bring geeks to the fold. Lois isn’t one to hold back her critique of fan-fiction that’s unimaginative, rapey, or just plain Mary Sueish, but she is most likely to support consensual and somewhat functional ‘shipping. When not reflecting on how watching Lady Oscar and Ranma ½ at a tender age quite possibly influenced her views on sex and gender identity, or quietly weeping about the fate of the Starks, Lois can be found live-blogging horror movies and writing critiques on women in East Asian (mostly Korean) cinema.

Elyse, Contributing Editor
Elyse has been an enthusiastic geek girl for as long as she can remember, and she remembers Castlevania II: Simon’s Quest. Though her stats started out poorly (growing up a self-hating Special Snowflake fangirl will do that), like countless Pokemon before her, she evolved into a veritable pillar of attitude, strength, and feminist thought. She spends way too much of her time thinking about movies, TV, books, games, pop culture and how they affect our social consciousness. She knows Han shot first and she likes it that way.

Moxie Munroe, Contributing Editor
Once upon a time there was a girl named Moxie, born to a long and distinguished line of Freaking Awesome Nerds (FANs, as it were). They were all very different, but they all loved her and supported her just the same, instilling in Moxie a great love of storytelling and character. As she got older, that love grew and grew: so much so that, when it came time to be a part of the Real World, she could think of nothing she wanted more than to be a storyteller, any way she could. Learning more about the subject, she began to despair as she discovered that within the great wide world of Storytelling there were so few characters like herself, Mama Munroe, or all of her beloved friends and family. So, that is how she found herself here, slaying the dragons of Inequality with naught but skill, a well placed quip, and a head full of dreams. When she is not slaying dragons, Moxie also enjoys watching food television and preparing for the Zombie Apocalypse.

CO-FOUNDERS (RETIRED)

Alice Marie
The three words everyone wants to hear – “I’m the Doctor” – got Alice started on this winding road to geekdom, from a wee child watching classic “Who” on PBS and reading YA sci-fi classics like The Giver and A Wrinkle In Time, to a politically driven young woman, putting together zines and attaching herself to different causes. It wasn’t until the end of a hazy period, when in 2009 her life got turned upside down in the best way possible, that Alice suddenly found herself independent and in need of a nurturing community. It is through sites like Jezebel and a network of friends on Tumblr that she has grown as a geek, a feminist, and a fighter for equality and intersectionality in media.

Jen R. L. Disarray
Jen was introduced to Star Trek: The Next Generation at an impressionable young age and was strongly encouraged by her Trekie mother to watch every episode no less than twice. In her awkward adolescent years, she harbored a pre-teen fascination with all things Arthurian, played every adventure-style computer game she could get her hands on (to this day remaining fond of maddening text-based mazes), and she would regularly clear her schedule for Mystery Science Theater 3000 and Red Dwarf marathons on PBS. Nowadays, Jen finds herself fused to her laptop at a molecular level, keeping a personal blog and regularly contributing to an even bigger and shinier one. She lurks, comments, and makes obscure Doctor Who references on all manner of fandom and feminist websites… Maybe even yours?

STAFF

Mace, Production Coordinator (aka Whicha! whip cracker) & Proofreader
Mace was born into the right kind of house: Star Trek and PBS on the TV, Douglas Adams and Ursula Le Guin in the bookcases, and an Atari. Winning a gold award for her 4th grade science fair project started her down the nerdy path that eventually lead her to a degree in chemistry. She wasted at least a year of her life to Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, and to this day spends a lot of time thinking about Kashyyyk and Wookies in general. When she’s not reading, editing, or sciencing, she’s a principal dancer in a Flamenco troupe.

Rick G, Staff Writer
Twenty-five years ago, Rick set off on a quest to defeat seven evil fanboys, each more powerful than the last.  After a series of epic battles across far-flung, whimsical locales, he emerged triumphant, having discovered that the power was deep inside him all along.  It was a moment of glory on par with getting past the hover-bike level in Battletoads, possibly even more so. Since then, he has waited for a new challenger to appear, honing his skills alongside a small, persistent dog in San Francisco, and hoping that his skills have not faded with time.

Jeff, Staff Writer
Jeff is a Texan, a comic book dork, and a general sci-fi nerd who is engaged in happily educating his teen-aged daughters on the value of brightly illustrated story books where shit blows up, while they educate him on vegetarianism.  He writes elsewhere on the web and about soccer (his other obsession), and you can follow his exploits on Twitter.

Kiri Moth, Designer
Kiri Moth is a Bay Area-based illustrator, knitter, and science geek. Inspired by nature, Art Nouveau, and sci-fi artists like John Jude Palencar, Kiri has worked on album art (Rosin Coven), book design (2011 Nebula Award nominee Mechanique: A Tale of the Circus Tresaulti, by Genevieve Valentine), and even logos and store murals for an urban bee keeping supply shop, Her Majesty’s Secret Beekeeper. You can say Hello to Kiri on her blog.

GUEST CONTRIBUTORS

Athena
Athena is a Chinese-English part-time geek living in New York City, concerned with feminism, TV, food, and other such serious things. She can be found at Suga Butta.

Eri Catocala
For lack of any greater calling, Eri bides her time listening to others and absorbing stories and snippets from just about any medium she can find. She can be found wandering the sprawling prairies and abandoned factories of her failing mid-western town, or mumbling on Tumblr.

Gray
Gray is a queer social justice advocate living in the SF Bay Area, who muses on pop culture and disturbs the peace on her Tumblr.

Hilary
Hilary is a full-time student, but still manages to find the time to nerd out about television, comics and video games.

Jazmine
A Houston, Texas native and a New Orleans transplant. She works in non-profit communications when she isn’t obsessively checking Twitter and Tumblr for all things social justice, geeky, and pop culture.

Karly
Karly is a geek who works at a bookstore in the Midwest, where she obsesses over sci-fi/fantasy books and TV with her coworkers, and spends the other time thinking about LGBT rights and representation in media. You can follow her on Twitter, where she live-tweets all the TV she’s watching and some other important things.

Krista
Krista is a proud cat enthusiast who spends a majority of their free time crafting and watching horror films, with occasional breaks for DC cartoons. They earned their MA in Popular Culture at BGSU and a BA in history from UW-Green Bay. They are currently in school again for a secondary education license. Their primary focuses are queer identity and mental illness representation in television and film.

Marena
Marena is a Social Justice & Human Rights Masters student whose research examines Indigenous language revitalization, issues affecting NDN Country presently and historically, and social justice issues in the production and consumption of popular mass media. You can find her on Tumblr and Persephone Magazine.

Miranda
Miranda is a Filipino Australian with a Texan accent who’s used to having confused strangers wonder where she’s from. She likes terrible puns, melting cheese on everything, and long walks by the beach while discussing comic book costumes. She is as tall as the smallest member of the bear family. She can be found on Tumblr.

MK McFadden
MK is a black nerd currently living in the NYC area who writes and directs movies, is extremely enthusiastic about food, and moonlights as an amateur pop culture historian. She can be found reblogging and musing on a variety of subjects on her Tumblr.

Nicole Wander
An enthusiastic geek who loves sci-fi and comic books, Nicole also has a background in education policy and psychology. Some of her other writing can be found at ScienceFiction.com and you can say hello to her on Twitter.

Sylvia
Sylvia is a student teacher by day and an aspiring nerd critic by night. She can be found on Tumblr.