Toastmistress: Lee Martindale
For ConTemporal’s Toastmistress, writer, editor and publisher Lee Martindale, 2012 marks a milestone: 20 years in the business. Since her first professional sale to Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Snows of Darkover anthology, Lee’s stories have appeared in numerous other anthologies and venues, including Turn The Other Chick, Witch Way To The Mall, and Fangs For The Mammaries (all edited by Esther Friesner), three volumes of MZB’s Sword and Sorceress series, Warrior Wisewoman 2 (edited by Roby James), Catopolis (edited by Janet Dever-Pack & Martin Greenberg), and Low Port, edited by Sharon Lee & Steve Miller. Lee has also edited two anthologies of her own, Such A Pretty Face and The Ladies of Trade Town, and is the owner of HarpHaven Publishing.
When not slinging fiction, Lee is a Named Bard, a Lifetime Active Member of SFWA (where she serves on the Board of Directors), a fencing member of the SFWA Musketeers, a member of the SCA, and a popular guest at science fiction conventions all over the country. She and her husband George live in Plano, TX, where she keeps friends and fans in the loop at http://www.HarpHaven.net.
Imperial Anti-Piracy Squadron (I.A.P.S.)
The Imperial Anti-Piracy Squadron (I.A.P.S.) is a multinational force, currently comprised of a Zeppelin wing and a company of Sky Hussars. It operates as the enforcement group for the International Anti-Piracy Treaty. Its most famous ships are the SMS Zepherus and SMS Halcyon, captained by Kapitan von Grelle and Marrakesh Thibodeau, respectively; the most prominent of the Sky Hussar officers is Graf Georg von Ziger.
Its representatives — commonly members of the Zepherus and Halcyon — are regular sights at all sorts of gatherings, usually on the lookout for new threats to Imperial shipping and security. They also — oddly incongruous with their usual violence — offer educational seminars and, of course, host their ever-popular Airship Mixers (home to the most happening discotheque this side of the Himalayas.)
