Renaissance, Dead Can Dance, and the Drovers.
Candice Night, Ani DeFranco
A farm in the hills of northwest chicagoland. A farm of 20 acres, 12 head of sheep plus a ram. I want to be able, someday to keep my own sheep so that I can go from sheep to wool to spinning wheel to needle to finished work completely on my own. Someday...
One could say that she was born with a love of music in song and story. Her mother, an accomplished pianist and newspaper editor, gave her the opportunity to tickle the ivories at the tenderest age, finding her way through dissonence into harmony, and from symbol to written verse. The panda-ladened, warm and more than slightly fuzzy recesses of her shortness churned out and set free her first original piano piece at 17. Lizzie, in all her silliness, began her first novel at 15, and her second at 17. Neither of which ever went anywhere because.... ooh, look! SHINY!
Lizzie began her life in fandom as most geeks do: with her nose in a book. Reading anything she could get her mitts on, she became enamored with Star Wars novels and Sailor Moon, working in a bookstore for the purpose of the employee discount. She wrote basic websites to supplement her income in college, where she discovered the wonderment of Renaissance reenactment.
As a member of the shire Cuilcolum in Indiana, she took up archery to serve the good King Peter, though she never managed her way to Pennsic War. She ran as gopher and cook's hand as the Shire became official, preparing everything from bread to tables to hair to suit the Queen's favor. She also found her passion for music renewed in the form of Madrigals. As part of the local group that served the Crown, she became a short-lived soprano of the realm. But alas, the Fates decided once more that relocation was in order, so off she trod to that most windy of cities, Chicago.
There are so many proverbs in this world that say something to the tune of,"Life begins at *insert round number age here*." For Lizzie, life began in a city, a city filled with kindred spirits and new notions on what life IS. There, through the the hands and hearts of so many lovely souls, she found her voice once more. a voice that carried her off to that most hallowed of grounds for all those with a love of whit and whimsy: a Science Fiction Convention. Who knew? Dragged into the fray by the effervescent bard SJ Tucker, she was press ganged into that most accepting group she had ever known: filk. And through it, a strange man in tie dye....
And so our heroine had fallen onto the path of a filker of....interesting repute. Eric Coleman was a funny filker in more than one way, and he was due on stage at Capricon in just a handful of months. He asked our intrepid heroine to join him on stage to sing. After she stopped shaking, she agreed, and they began their first endeavour to tread the boards together. Granted the shaking began anew before she even entered the room and didn't stop until well AFTER the two had successfully pulled it together, but who's counting?