a bio?

[cos]

I signed up to be on some panels at Arisia this year. I don't know for sure which panels they'll approve and which ones they'll put me on, but the ones I want most are a poly panel, and these two LJ panels that I proposed. I'm supposed to write a short "bio" they could put in the panelist blurbs section of the program booklet (500 character limit). What do I write?

Are these like the silly blurbs you see in community theater play programs, or background relevant to the panels, or random info about the person? I'm stuck about how to start. Comment some suggestions for me? Or if you want, write a whole proposed mini-bio I could use if I like it.

Comments

[points.livejournal.com]

Happy post b-day. ;)

As for bios, depends if you're looking to be informative, or silly. Or maybe both? The ones I've seen that stuck with me either gave very concise information on why the person speaking was qualified to speak, or talked about being raised by wolves.

[surrealestate.livejournal.com]

I guess that means you've never browsed the bios in a con program book. :)

In any case, it can literally say anything you'd like. Also, silly blurbs are not a "community theater" thing. Some do it, some don't. Some of any set of groups-that-do-bio-blurbs have folks who do them silly.

Sometimes I've made mine relevant to the panels I was doing, but for the past couple of years, my panel make-up has been such that I had no interest in saying why I was qualified for them specifically, so I just write a bit about me and include some silliness.

[cos]

I have but I don't remember them much.

[superfinemind.livejournal.com]

It's the impression you want anybody who reads the con participant bios-- not necessarily having attended your panel or met you or anything-- to know about you. Find a con book and look at the bios. ^_^ Some of the Arisia ones are boring, some are entertaining, some are in between. Ideally, though, it should probably be an accurate reflection of you.

[cos]

Accurate, huh? I'm not sure if I'm boring or entertaining :)

[firegryphon.livejournal.com]

That's a good piece of advice and the exact advice I'd have given you. having never gone to Arisia, but arranged a few conferences and such - this is always what we ask from people on our panels. (and in some cases what we had to write for them when they didn't do them)

[superfinemind.livejournal.com]

...A simple format that I like-- the one that a magazine I like uses-- is to have about three sentences. Except in a few cases of people making themselves look boring, it goes: name, qualification, affiliation (ie, a mathematician might have, "[name] is a professor of mathematics at X university."); something interesting and on-topic (ie, "His favorite thing about math is that he can use it everywhere."); and something relevant but silly or funny (ie, "He hasn't yet found fractals in his tea leaves.").

This wasn't the best example ever, but maybe it'll help?

[cos]

I think it will help, even if I don't follow the template. Thanks.

[missionista.livejournal.com]

Quick bio:

There are only 753 people in the world. Cos knows all of them. If you want to know more about him, ask one of the 753. Or ask Cos, he's friendly.

[listgirl.livejournal.com]

Wow, you so win! that's the best description of cos I've ever heard.
(although the last bit I might replace "he's friendly" with "he's the friendly one with hair"

[missionista.livejournal.com]

Thanks! And I could totally grok that editorial change.

[cos]

*laugh*

Any special reason for 753?

[missionista.livejournal.com]

No, it just seemed like a fairly random sort of number, and it sounds high, but is still not so high that you couldn't know all 753...Feel free to use this if you like it, and change the number to your heart's content.

[cos]

It's definitely not too high, or I wouldn't be constantly chafing at the edge of LJ's 750-friend limit :) (though if you take out communities and duplicates and such, there are only about 580 distinct people on my friends list, and I haven't met about 20 of them)