Workshop Description:
What’s the deal with fan fiction? What about cosplay and comic book conventions? When did being geeks and nerdy become cool? What’s the story behind cosplay and Fandom? How you can create a geek character for your book?
Val will answer all these questions when you join her on a 2-week quest to learn about all things fandom and she bets you’ll discover you have a bit of a fandom geek and you may not even know it! Val will take you on a journey so you learn what the buzz is about cosplay. Learn descriptions of what a typical convention is like, and how to discover your inner geek for your character creations.
Instructor Bio:
Val has a Bachelor of Arts with Honors from Wichita State University, focusing on ancient and medieval history. She has one year of Master’s study under her belt as well and finishing it is on the bucket list. Her undergraduate honors thesis was on the Macedonian and Ptolemaic attempts at divine ascendance through their own hubris and later adoption of Egyptian culture. She has a deep-seated interest in Alexander the Great and Macedonian studies. She also focuses on ancient Egypt, Greece, Roman Britain, Medieval Britain, and Renaissance Italy. She fervently reads anything she can find on the Tudor dynasty. She is a former historical reenactor with two museums, Old Cowtown Museum in Wichita, KS, and Pawnee Bill Museum and Buffalo Ranch in Pawnee, OK. Her family has been re-enactors since she was a small child, focusing on the fur trade era of American history. She is also known to haunt Renaissance Faires and has served in a couple of courts. History is more than a passion with Val. It’s a way of life.