Anne Gray
(December 4, 1974 – )
Anne "Netmouse" Gray is an American fan, smof, and fanhistorian. Her maiden name was Gay; she was previously married to Bill Murphy and used the name Anne K. G. Murphy in many fannish endeavors, but has gone by Anne K. Gray since she married Brian Gray in 2010, with whom she won TAFF that year as well. Also in 2010, Brian and Anne welcomed Rosie Gray into the world in August. Since Rosie had, in a way, taken the TAFF trip with her parents, some fen declared it to be the first known instance of having 2.5 TAFF delegates.
Born and raised in Ann Arbor, Michigan, Anne always read science fiction and fantasy, as did her mother and sister. Her father Eric L. Gay was a design engineer, so she was also up-to-date in science and engineering, and graduated from Community High with a 4-year math Award. During High School she worked on and off at the used book store the Dawn Treader Book Shop, under the mentorship of futurist Bryan Alexander. With his help, she taught Science Fiction Literature at Community High her senior year. She graduated in 1992 and also attended her first sf convention that year - Marcon 27, in Columbus Ohio.
At Grinnell College, Anne was a member of the Back Table, a tight-knit community of fans, gamers, etc. that overlapped substantially with the science fiction club. She was president of that club after Loki Dankmyer graduated and passed her the baton. As a member of that group, Anne first attended Minicon in 1993, following a young fannish newbie tradition known at the time as 'hamstering,' where you basically fit as many people as you could into a single hotel room. That year there were 13 from Grinnell in one room.
At her first Minicon, Anne met both Steven and Corwin Brust - One invited her to her first Minicon Music Party and kissed her goodnight when they parted. The other was on the Bridge on Sunday when she went looking to leave a message for his father - He took her back to the staff room and fed her. It is hard to say which one impressed her more positively. Anne was also very impressed by how organized things were on the Bridge, and subsequently became a regular volunteer at Minicon. After she graduated college, Anne helped manage the Minicon website, then got more involved as part of the bid committee for the highly contentious Minicon 34, for which she ran the Information Desk. The following year she ran Publications for Minicon 35. Minicon 35 Chair Geri Sullivan was a significant mentor to Anne, introducing her to fannish sensibilities, fanhistory, and fannish publications, as well as a general philosophy as to why and how to run fannish conventions.
In 1997, Anne was the youngest attendee at Smofcon 15, in Boston.
In 1999, Anne wrote to Cheryl Morgan, author and editor of the fanzine Emerald City, providing all the typos in the latest issue and offering to proofread it before publication next time. Cheryl took her up on that offer immediately. Anne stayed on as volunteer staff for the next five years, mostly as proofreader but also for a while as a reviewer of short fiction, and of one novel; Octavia Butler's vampire variant, Fledgling. Emerald City won the Hugo Award for Best Fanzine in 2004.
While Anne was very involved in Minicon, she lived first in Chicago, IL, where she worked in web design, and then in Waterloo, ON, Canada, pursuing her Master's degree in Systems Design Engineering. During that time she attended Smofcon 18, in Cocoa Beach, FL. An influential event at that Smofcon was that Anne met Tammy Coxen, who was to become Anne's second significant smoffish mentor.
Anne returned to Ann Arbor in 2001 and rapidly became involved in local fandom. She was a member of the Ann Arbor Science Fiction Association and their social arm, the Stilyagi Air Corps, ran Programming and served as assistant chair of ConFusion under Tammy Coxen, and chaired ConFusion XXX, 31 Flavors of ConFusion, and later Cryptic ConFusion. She was a member of Midfan, and edited their journal MidFanzine. She is a past president of the Science Fiction Oral History Association, whose primary archives remain in Michigan.
Anne has also been active in Penguicon, most often as a Guest of Honor liaison. She served as GoH liaison to Neil Gaiman at Penguicon 2 in 2004, and later that year at Mythcon XXXV and Noreascon 4 (not an official GoH, Neil was MC for the Hugo Awards; Anne managed his schedule in general for the weekend). Later she was also his GoH Liaison at Balticon 40 in 2006, and finally at the Montreal Worldcon in 2009.
When Tammy Coxen raised the notion of bidding to bring the NASFiC to Detroit, Anne was on board immediately, helping produce a bid flyer and website, and traveling to represent the bid at LoneStarCon 3, in San Antonio, Texas. Officially she was the Diversity Facilitator for Detcon 1 in 2014, but as Tammy acknowledged at closing ceremonies, Anne was really more of a Girl Friday, helping with anything that needed doing. A month after the con, Anne and her family moved to York, PA for a new chapter of life.
In August 2020, Anne became co-head, with Hafidha Acuay, of Programming for the Columbus in 2020 NASFiC. The all-virtual convention brought in attendees from 19 different countries. In 2021 she was the GoH Liaison to all five GoHs of the similarly virtual Capricon 41.
Anne and Brian Gray's TAFF Reports
Awards, Honors and GoHships:
- 2008 -- Apollocon 2008
- 2010 -- TAFF
External links[edit]
| Person | 1974— |
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