I am delighted to announce that Diane Turnshek is the new Eastern Regional Director for SFWA®. Diane will serve the remainder of Catherine Mintz's term, a bit less than a year of a three-year period.

Diane has been active in the science fiction community for years. The enthusiasm of finding others who love SF has inspired her in all aspects of the field. She has been instrumental in bringing new voices into our genres. For the past five years, she has hosted an online community of young writers, and she founded Alpha, a ten-day residency workshop for young people writing science fiction, fantasy, and horror. She also founded "Write or Die," the largest genre writing group in Pittsburgh. She has been program staff and run teen workshops at WorldCons, organized science programming for Confluence, and administrated the PARSEC contest for emerging writers.

Diane's fiction has appeared in *Analog Magazine* and on gourmet coffee, and has been nominated for the Sapphire Award. She was also was the editor of *Triangulation,* the first in a yearly series of SF anthologies by PARSEC Publishing. In her role as a teacher, she mentors students in the Master's Degree Program in Writing Popular Fiction at Seton Hill University. In addition, the multi-talented Diane teaches astronomy at both the University of Pittsburgh and St. Vincent College and hosts an astronomy lecture series at Allegheny Observatory. At home, she cares for her four sons, two cats, and a Welsh Springer Spaniel. Rumor has it that the cats also write science fiction, but no sightings of their work have surfaced to prove this claim.

It is my pleasure to welcome Diane to the SFWA® Board.

Catherine Asaro

Posted August 6, 2004