history

When I got to Swarthmore in the Fall of 1978, I was surprised there wasn't already a Science fiction club. Apparently there'd been an SCA chapter here recently, called the Canton of the Ivory Tower. --(JH) [Jim Huang]

The Canton of the Ivory Tower was a small group of medaeval groupies and friends. It was put out of its misery after Spring, 1978 when one of the more active members did not return and the national and/or regional SCA lost our charter. -- (CLA) [Tina Anderson]
I can't remember the specific catalyst for getting the club started, but somehow five of us, who lived in Pittenger and Palmer, decided to do it. We were me and my roommate (Jack Eckert), Barbara Need and her roommate (Alice Macneal), and Scott Cowger, who lived down the hall from me. We knew we needed to do an all-campus mailing. We needed to come up with a name. The only part of it that I remember is looking through a dictionary to find a "W"--the acronym appeared almost immediately. --(JH) [Jim Huang]
I just remember being in Jim & Jack's room discussing names (I kept pushing for a two "L" SWILL with Spook as our mascot). I think Jim presented SWIL as sort of a done acronym, we just had to find the words to fit. We then decided on titles for ourselves: Jim was the Right-Handed Person; Jack, the Heir Apparent (he never took much of a role in this); Scott, the Undersecretary of Overstatement (or Oversecretary of Understatement, I've forgotten which); Alice, Keeper of the Keys to the Dungeon; and I was Lord High Executioner and Minsitra of the Treasury (I think it was Jim who proposed Mistress). There was some discussion over whether I should be Lord High--it was felt that no one should have a title indicating highest rank. But i have never considered myself by any other title. I was Executioner because I collected axes (in later days I "executed" by tickling) and I was Treasury because I kept track of my own $. The irony is that when we went to the college for recognition, they insisted that we have real titles I was not named treasurer. I was named chairperson of the board (due to Liz Nieman). I protested, preferring chairman (or even chair). However, I had no duties and no authority. --(BHN) [Barbara Need]

SWIL has done many great and wonderful things, but I would like to set the record straight about two things it didn't do. SWIL did not start the Cordwainer Bird Library & it did not start the Pterodactyl Hunt The Cordwainer Bird was founded by Carl Fristrom before SWIL was born. The second librarian was David Fristrom, who was a SWILnik. The misconception arose, and at a SWIL meeting which the old guard SWILniks had neglected to attend, Shoshana [Soshanna Green] was elected Librarian. Once the confusion was cleared up, David agreed to name Shoshana as his successor. I think it has been a SWIL position ever since.
The Pterodactyl Hunt was begun by members of the folk dance club. I have few details about the first hunt, although I was stopped by some folk dancers who wanted to know which way the pterodactyl had gone. The next day there was a paper mache pterodactyl in Dupont Science Library. I think it wasn't until the second year that there was anything besides a completely imaginary pterodactyl. --(JGJ) [Jennie Jacobson]

There seems to be a large gap in the anecdotal history between the founders and me, Swil co-president, 1989. I don't think there were many innovations in SWIL's activities in the 1986-1990 period, but some things worth mentioning would include SWIL's acquisition of the George Hurliman Memorial Library--the SWILRoom--in Hal-hal-Hallowell Basement (you want housing??). Lest it should ever be forgotten how George got its name, it was like this--The room didn't have a name its first year. Then it was decided that since the library had a name, the room should too. Hurliman was chosen in honor of Eric Hurliman, SWIL non-member who had to leave Swat the year before. I think Julie Love suggested the name. George was chosen because we wanted to name it George (and hug it and squeeze it). The 10th-year reunion, was held in the fall of 1988, which was when this "history book" was started. During one of the "SWIL should be a SF organization and do SF things" swings (SWIL seemed to have an identity crisis about whether it was fundamentally an SF club or a more generally alternative social organization about every two years), we started an SF discussion table at dinners. It was bi-weekly and ran for about one year. After that year, I, with a lot of help from Jed H. in particular, organized a student-run course in SF with Abhe Blum as faculty sponsor. Most of the people who had been regulars at the discussion table took or audited the class. Our schedules were so crazy we met from 7:30 to 10:30 or 11 on Sunday nights in Keven Katz & Diana Shelloolds's apt. in the Swarthmore apts. It was a lot of fun & gave me the chance to read SF intensively during the academic year, but it did in the SF discussion table. We all had enough talking at the class. I should probably put a syllabus in the SWIL archives & some notes in case anyone wants to try to put a class together again. --(CJC) [Chris Cobb]

Oh, one other thing. Somewhere along the way between '86 and '88, Live Chess changed from "a fun thing to do once in a while" to a traditional even for SWIL to stage during orientation to attract freshfolk and during Parent's weekend to entertain parents. The best costume effort I remember was when Jim Deane was a White Knight. He purchased, cut, and hollowed a coconut for his stead. --(CJC) [Chris Cobb]

Ed Bernstein made a great black [flaming] queen once, too. --(Julie Love)

There were a few times during our reign (we were the "Kings of the Club," remember) when we devised games to be played among Swilfolk, starting at meetings, but continuing on during the week(s). It'll take several viewpoints to tell the full story of DVS's [ David VanStone] "The Game"--there were two teams competing to discover cubes hidden around campus, using as clues "descriptions the cubes had given of what they could see or hear from their location." I'd rather talk about another game, that I helped run with DVS. We wanted something where people were trying to give information to exactly one other person while trying to hide it from all the other players. We ended up giving all the players slips of paper with a single word on it, simple like "drain" or "abrupt." Exactly two people received any one word (an even # of people played), and their task was to find out who shared their secret word, without anyone other than their secret learn the word. You got a certain number of points for discovering who your partner was, but lost a certain number for every other person who learned your word. We gave no other rules, letting it be up to the players to decide what kind of strategy to use and what info to reveal. As I recall, the game proved not very popular; only six or so played long enough to find their partners. I think it might have gone better with more rules about what kinds of questions you could ask about people's words, or perhaps as a two-hour rather than multi-week game.... If anybody wants to try playing again, let me know! --JM [Jim Moskowitz]

During our (my and Ed's) reign, SMOS (the Secret Master of SWILdom) attempted to convince us that he/she/it/they did in fact exist. I received numerous notes (most short and with a spelling mistake) declaring coups and warning against attempts to discover the identity of the note-sender. A few copy cat notes also surfaced, designed much more snappily and in an aesthetically pleasing manner. I report with confidence that SMOS never wrested control from us, and our rule was absolute.--Andy (not--AP)[Andy Perry]

I would like to add that we were NEVER bodily threatened and there was NO question of the election being rigged and it was probably just a coincidence that the SMOS's only competition for the '91 presidency left the country. But I had a good time filling out the forms and playing with the little pencils.

I was co-pres with Andy in '90. Shortly after our reign ended, I found this book in the SWILFiles and thought I'd get some more people to sign it in. I like traditions.
The only tradition I can think of is this: Chris and Laura and Laura and Chris crowned us with the same newspaper hats with which they were crowned with. We, then, crowned Jeff (SMOS) with the same crowns (both of them). This is a tradition I hope will continue, and if people can't find Andy, Jeff, & me, they can just crown whoever's president that year.--Ed [Bernstein]

Those crowns were made at the last minute by Susan Ruff for John Halbert's & my inauguration. --JEH [Jed Hartman]

What I would like to know is when the attendance list became an artform and when the Swilnews became as much entertainment as news. The one real innovation that I think Chris, Laura, Chris, and I introduced was e-mail Swilnews. "Save a tree, get your Swilnews electronically." LA--[Laura Almasy]

One of the more memorable incidents during my time in SWIL (at least through June '91) occurred at the first reunion in '88. I had been on campus for about 7 weeks and so didn't know nay alums at all. I was wearing a Blake's 7 t-shirt on Friday, and Ellie Weiss told me that one of the alums was going to love that shirt. That evening as we gathered in Parlors I was mainly lurking in the corner keeping out of the way when a large group of people from Boston came in. After a couple minutes Ellie tapped Shoshana on the shoulder, pointed at me and said, "look at his shirt." Shoshana took one step to the left to get a clear view, looked at the shirt, yelled, "Oh, you're wonderful!" and threw herself at me to the great amusement of everyone else and to my great amazement. --(JDH) [Jeff Hildebrand]

To set the record straight on the origins of SMOS, the idea arose from a comment Ed Bernstein made one night while we were talking about SWIL. HE said that he was considering running for the presidency with a SMOF for the the co-president spot. I was amused by the idea and began to plan. In December '89, Ed and Andy ran for president while Nao Parkhurst and I ran as token opposition. Due to another round of the SWIL as SF club vs. SWIL as social group debate the token opposition gathered a non-token number of votes but Ed and Andy were elected. Over Winter Break I wrote up a whole bunch of notes from "The Secret Master of SWILdom" and sent them off occasionally, normally to Andy. A couple factors worked out to my advantage in keeping people mystified. I had used my parent's HP LaserJet to print the notes and when Josh Smith, the resident computer expert, looked at it, he promptly declared that it couldn't have been printed on the Macs on campus since the font wasn't a Mac font. Thus people couldn't figure out how it was done in the first place. The second factor was my ability to recover from my own stupidity. I had sent a message to Andy in a college mail envelope that had my name on it. Andy promptly assumed that I was responsible. To cover this I got a bunch of c.m. enveloped from the mail room and each additional message seemed to come from a different person. (One time I sent Andy a message "from Ed" while Ed got a virtually similar one "from Andy.") So when I was elected president in Dec. '90 (beating David "Leaving the country" Randall and Lord Julius's goat) I promptly revealed myself as SMOS and took that as my title. --(JDH)[Jeff Hildebrand]

(I also helped confuse the issue by sending fake SMOS notes, & there may have been other copycats as well)--JEH [Jed Hartman]

When I joined SWIL, it was somewhat smaller then it is now and somewhat more flagrantly bizarre than it became. The text of the original blurb for the student directory of college organizations proves this as does the custom that arose that year (SWIL's second): since we were small, and meetings shifted from one Sharples reserved room one week to another the next, we felt it necessary to put up a sign--but since often no pen or tape were available on a Sunday morning, we developed a substitute for both: We held an unfolded napkin up to the door and wrote "SWIL" on it in SAGA ersatz maple syrup. We were careful to wash the door after each meeting.... --Dave Szent-Gyorgyi '83

If SWIL had...
At one point we counted among our membership the editor of the Phoenix, the person who did WSRN's technical work, a member of student council as well as its secretary, a number of the people who knew how to use the PR1ME...and probably more. We came pretty close to taking over the college! --Dave Szent-Gyorgyi

I forgot to mention that we had already taken over a dorm--Ashton house was 1/3 SWIL or so! [--Dave Szent-Gyorgyi]

It's odd to hear Dave talk about "the people who knew how to use the PR1ME," as if that was something unusual. By the time I got here in fall '85, of course, the PR1ME was a pretty major part of campus life (and then it left before I did....)
One thing that became popular among some SWILfolk my freshman/sophomore year, involving the PR1ME, was writing "co-stories." These were stories written by multiple people, taking turns, in someone's account, & then e-mailed out to lots of people. I think the first one was "Doberman," written by Elliot Moreton and Perry Dees and maybe Jim Moskowitz, about a visit to Perry's house when a large doberman almost ran off with Elliot's(?) foot. I think Elliot and I wrote one called "BCC," about a (fictitious?) attempt to "lunk" (="spelunk"; i.e., explore steam tunnels & basements) the BCC during a party. The earlier co-stories had plots, the later ones tended to just evaluate "pure style" as an art form (I never liked these as well as the ones that did have plots). People used to leave interesting files in their accounts & other people would take study breaks by reading them.
On a Swarthmorean rather than purely SWIL topic, yesterday in the Crum a current student told me the Crumhenge appeared "in the early '70's," and was put up by students. Well--students, maybe. But the "early '70's"?!!! Crumhenge was not here when I arrived in the fall of 1985. It appeared mysteriously sometime in the spring of 1986. --Diana Stiefbold

Someone told me it [Crumhenge] was new at the Orientation bonfire 9/86 --JEH[Jed Hartman]

DVS's game with cubes, that Jim mentioned earlier, was played my freshman year. There were two (?) teams, each a thieves' guild (?), trying to help an evil sorcerer collect one cube of each of 4 colors using clues about their locations. Bhadrika (Julie Love) & Perry & I were on one team; I don't remember who else. our guild held secret planning meetings inside Tarbles in Clothier, which was then under construction. Most of the players, I guess, were paying at least some attention to their classes; I was a freshling and more interested in exploring the campus than doing academic work, so I found several cubes. Somehow, I persuaded our guild that I should store our cubes. Unbeknownst to them, though, the "good wizard" (also DVS!) had secretly contacted me & asked me to prevent the cubes from falling into the hands of evil. So, I hid the cubes in my room and set my roommate (not in SWIL) to guard the door. Bhadrika (well, Julie Love, then) had also decided, on her own, to try to do something similar, but we didn't realize that so she wasn't able to get to the cubes. In the end, our guild had cubes of all four colors (I think), but the evil wizard did not get them--Good triumphed!
Either in that game or another, you could "kill" people by tying bits of red thread to clothing that they were wearing (or to clothing that they would later put on). Some people had fun with that, but some got kind of stressed out by it. --Diana Stiefbold

A word of explanation: "Liz's meatloaf," referred to in that early Activities writeup, was Liz Neiman's cat, who she wanted kept strictly secret--we needed a codeword. --Dave Szent-Gyorgyi

SWIL provided my first encounter with an honest-to-Ghod pro. The Department of English Literature, the Cooper Foundation [I think], SWIL, and some other groups [I think], invited Ursula LeGuin to read in the Friend's Meeting House--and to our immense delight and surprise, she accepted our invitation to eat lunch with us, and also came to Bond to talk to us about writing. She read from The Compass Rose in the Meeting House and though I have forgotten the lunch [I was listening to the author of a number of my favorite books, after all!], I do remember her advice given in Bond: Don't write to earn a living, if you want to avoid compromising your writing when an editor wants to change it; and, if you do do it as a full time vocation, treat it as such: sit at your desk from 9 'til 5 and work!
She was really nice to us and the time she spent pleased us all the more because she doesn't do fanac.... --David Szent-Gyorgyi

There are so many great things about SWIL for me--acceptance of differences, similar interests, but mostly (for me) the shared desire to PLAY. It had been years since I'd found other Cosmic Encounter Enthusiasts or New Games enthusiasts. If I wanted to design a game (treasure hunt, weird-game-at-Sharples, whatever), I could almost definitely find 5-15 others who'd be willing to try it, too.
It's the playfulness and willingness to try something new (or something weird, unusual, bizarre, "Breaking tradition") which I miss most. --David "DVS" VanStone
Playing games is something I closely associate with SWIL--Some I learned & played at SWIL parties/events, others just with SWILfolk elsewhere (These were usually played on train rides, esp. going into Philly to TLA). Here are some:
Passing Patterns: One person, "It", hands a small object (e.g., a pen) to another in the group and says, "This is a ______," where blank = a noun (not "pen") fitting the pattern. That person passes the pen, calling it something & It tells them if they're right (if it fits the pattern). The goal is to figure out the pattern. (Sample patterns: what you call the pen must start with the reciever's first initial, or you can pass anything to a person of the same gender.)
Question Patterns: "It" leaves while the group picks a pattern for their answers. "It" returns and asks questions, trying to figure out the pattern. (some patterns: each answer starts with the next letter of the alphabet, or you lie whenever your legs are crossed.)
Questions: lifted from _Ros. & Guild. are Dead_ (by Tom Stoppard), you converse, speaking only in questions.
Words of just one Part: Converse using only mono-sylabic words.
Words of just one Part in which one must ask and not say things: self-explanatory. (played at the Halloween Party)
Names: You tape the names of famous/or fictional characters on each person's back; everyone mingles, asking yes or no questions to figure out who they are.
Pruee: In a large group, one person is secretly named pruee (draw cards, whatever). You turn out the lights and mill around, stopping each other to ask "Pruee?" If they answer "pruee," you keep looking. If they say nothing, that's the pruee, (or one attached). You link up & remain silent. The group coagulates quickly.
Doubles: You wrap a candy bar in multiple layers of tape & paper. Sitting in a circle, one person dons winter hat, scarf, & mittens and tries to unwrap the package (no teeth!). A set of dice moves around the circle, rolled by each person. When someone gets doubles, they get the hat, scarf, mittens, & package. (*The dice continue around). The winner is the one who opens the candy (& anyone who is nearby, if you use M&M's). --Julie Love
Neil Ottenstein may have been known as Ghod-Emperor during meetings, but otherwise he blended in pretty well as a normal student (with a hell of a comic book habit). Despite his conservative demeanor, he was the president of SWIL and he got a lot of calls & visits from SWILfolk. One day, a hallmate left a note on his door saying "One of your friends claiming to be Isaac Asimov called." Well, Neil had called Asimov to inquire about the possibility of his speaking on campus and he had left a message with his name and number on Asimov's answering machine. Asimov "Himself" returned the call and was unable to convince the hallmate that he was actually Isaac Asimov. (Neil did eventually catch up with Asimov, but he was too expensive.) --Sherry Hartenstine Levi

SWIL's Halloween Masquarades:
I founded this tradition accidentally as a freshman. At my second meting, I asked whether SWIL had a Halloween party. People looked surprised. "A group like SWIL should have a Halloween party," I pressed on, boldly, "--a costume party!"
"Fine idea, you're in charge," said Jim Huang authoritatively.
"What--?!?"
And enough people have enjoyed themselves every year to perpetuate the SWIL Halloween party.
As a psychologist, I think the Party functions well for SWIL because it comes early in the school year providing a social occasion for people to get to mingle outside of meetings and making it necessary to SWIL to be a little ((and she does mean little--JEH [Jed Hartman])) organized right away in the school year --Sherry Levi

SWIL's adopting the Pterodactyl Hunt:
The 1983 Oktoberfest Committee had a lot of trouble getting volunteers to run the events, even though they extended the deadlines and pleaded for volunteers. Nobody seemed interested in running the Pterodactyl Hunt even though a modest amount of funding was available for it. At that point, one of the issues in SWIL was, how do we have a higher profile on campus? How do let those people who don't attend SWIL know that we exist? How do we show the campus that we are useful and therefore deserve to be funded? The Pterodactyl Hunt seemed the appropriate sort of even for a SWIL service project--so I volunteered to organize it that year with support from the group. We didn't necessarily plan to run the P.H. forevermore at that point. The next year, as Oktoberfest approached, people began to say, "Are we going to organize the P.H. again this year?" and there were eager volunteers once they found out what a Pterodactyl Hunt was--Eric Knapp, Ben Fulves, & Perry Dees. And if a group does something twice in 2 years at college, its a tradition. --Sherry Levi
Playing and Gaming:
As long as I've know SWIL (since Fall '81) it's been a great place to meet people who refuse to take the world seriously. The first few years I was in SWIL, there was a very busy network of role playing games (A.D. & D. (multiple), Runequest, Melee...). There seems to be a resurgence of RPGs every few years. I played in three extensive games at the same time (i.e., different days of the week) during my freshman year. One game ran weekly for all four years & had players from every class that was at campus when we we. Then, when we graduated, I married my dungeonmaster. In 1984 & later, elaborate treasure hunts were organized by DVS and Julie Love (Bhadrika), Matt Katinsky, Jed Hartman, & Laura Almasy. It would be irresponsible of me to omit the mention of _HACK_ on PR1ME and then on the SUN computers, as HACK absorbed a lot of man-hours from SWILfolk in 1985-6(ish). And of course, games on Parrish Lawn, like Pretzel. --Sherry Levi
6/5/92: Much as I wish it were otherwise, I don't think I ever ran a treasure hunt. Participated in several, though. Also, Debbie (sp?) How & (I think) Morgan Mitchell ran one once which involved all sorts of impossible clues & inaccessible areas of campus.
Hack was more popular in '86-'87, I think. Bridge was a big deal then too. SWIL being an argumentative bunch, there were acrimonious debates about people not being available for socializing because of games....
Chris Cobb ran a modified D&D game all four years, & it's still going 2 years after graduation.
Then there was The Game (a name Laura later reused in the event that won her the title "Master of the Straight Face"). a file that showed up in the SWIL computer acct. one day signed "The Supreme Being." It was intended to be a freeform RPG, with players appending their characters' actions to the file, but it got out of hand and fell apart after a semester or so. (This was in '87 or '88). I still have copies of the files.
I'd love to see writeups from the members of the second student-run sf class (spring '92), as well as people who took Tom Blackburn's old sf class (DSG, maybe?).
I want to write about story reading, the Valentine's Day Massacre, BEM, SWAPA, speakers (Lloyd Alexander & Samuel R. Delong), & lots of other stuff, but it'll have to be another time. --JEH [Jed Hartman]
Oh, two quick additions:
1. I've been told the Pterodactyl Hunt's first year there were signs put up all over campus: Come to the Pterodactyl Hunt, Crum Meadow, such & such a time. Lots of people showed up but nothing happened. The following year SWIL took it on.
2. The attendance lists DVS showed me from '85-'86 or earlier had people signing their names in odd ways as part of SWILnews. When John H & I took over, we mostly phased out attendance, usually putting only a set of initials. my semester as sole president, I started passing around a sheet to sign, reinstituting an old idea. As for e-mail SWILnews, it was C&L&L&C who made the concept widespread. but I did distribute at least one or 2 copies electronically during my reign....
Anyway, gotta go. ---Jed [Hartman]
It seems that there has been a lot of things that need to be mentioned since June '92. Recent SWIL history seems to be missing from this account. For starters, the George C. Hurliman Memorial Library is no more. It was converted, along with the rest of Hallowell basement, into dorm rooms a while back (not sure how long...). Now, there is a room on the third floor of Tarble (betcha didn't know there was a third floor of Tarble, did you?) that is the George C. Hurliman Memorial Library Memorial Library. Again, George for short.
In recent history, Lord Julius's Goat has been making bids for the presidency of SWIL. His campaign manager, Dan Wells, finally succeeded in the Fall of '95. LJG was elected president of SWIL, with the Triumvirate (Joe Robins, Fred Bush, Stephanie Dyrkacz) as the presidents pro tempore. LJG retired later in the semester. --Joel McNary
More SWIL history...

TITLES of VARIOUS SWIL non-MEMBERS

Jim Huang--Fearless & Charismatic Leader; A Man of Few but Really Nifty Miracles
Tina Anderson-- The Hammer [she called meetings to disorder]
Alice Macneal--Keeper of Keys to the Dungeon.
Barbara Need--Lord High Executioner (she collected axes)
Debbie Hollander--Minister of Foreign Affairs
Dave Szent-Gyorgyi--Duly Elected Self-Proclaimed Gang of Four (I got up at a meeting to protest a motion for no reason. I called out, "As a Self-Proclaimed gang of four, I protest." The idiots exacted their revenge by voting me the title. I actually filled three of four gang members, though one is forgotten.)
"Bookkeeper", since I was the one in charge of the list of books SWILniks offered to lend one another.
"Official Liaison to UPenn"--from the days when we tried to build ties with local collegiate SF clubs.
Sylvia Whiteside (now Rider)--Medium for Ambrose Beirce
Neil Ottenstein--Ghod-Emperor of SWIL. I [Dave SG] came up with the idea and someone else wrote it down in Fanspeak, adding the "h" (Neil didn't want to risk offense and chose to add the "h")
Dan Levi--Minister of Foreign Affairs & French Woman (chosen for amusement value)
Sherry Hartenstine (Now Levi)--Minister of Propaganda (now a cabinet position) I liked the overtones of "propaganda" as a name for my Public Relations role which involved publicizing SWIL-Sponsored events (making & placing posters) and generally attempting to make SWIL more visible on campus (for example, by taking on the Pterodactyl Hunt, which, see more below [above, now].
Laura Almasy--Master of the Straight Face (She ran a murder mystery game but didn't reveal 'til the end that she was the person running it. For not giving away that fact, despite multiple "Who could it possibly be?" musing sessions, Laura was awarded this title.)
jere7my tho?rpe--Dying Flutchman
Josh Smith--Official No-Fruit of SWIL
Dave Auer--Master of the Obvious
Nao Parkhurst--the Anonymous One (Naonymous), Cocurator of George & Birdwainer (or is it Precurator? Procreator? Copreator?)
Larry Miller--Most Fluorescent Object and Ambassador of Moist Towelettes
Megan Hallam--Most Honest Person this side of Detroit
Chaos Golubitsky--Cannibal Eggplant Avenger of SWIL
Hannah Schneider--Official Numerologist
JC Ravage--Secretary-Corporal of SWIL
Matt Fowles--Lord High Protector of SWIL
Abby Friedman--Keeper of Her Majesty's Royal Chariots
~Elliot Reed--Official Doormat of SWIL and Official SWIL Butler
BDan Fairchild--Minister of Sporks
Anna Lee--Assistant Administrator Lord Admiral of the Seas
Jackie Werner--Master, Mistress, and Dominatrix of Subtext
SWIL Presidents & their pseudonyms:

Jim Huang--Fearless & Charismatic Leader

Jennie Jacobson--Jennie, Riene; a.k.a. Jennie Wren; a.k.a. Jennie, Rien

Neil Ottenstein-- Ghod-Emperor

Jed & Shoshanna (Shumsky & Green)--Weyrleaders

Perry Dees--El Grande

Jim Moskowitz & DVS--Kings of Club

Jed Hartman & John Halbert--The Presidents who go Ping! (sem 1; rotating title sem 2)

Chris Cobb & Laura Almasy--The 4 Chris & Laura & Laura & Chris

Ed Bernstein & Andy Perry--Flash and Substance

Jeff Hildebrand--Secret Master of SWILdom

jere7my tho?rpe & Melissa Shaner--Queen Bondage & King Discipline (no fault of our own--our title was voted down and the new ones substituted. I'm Queen 'cos the crowns were mixed up. -j7y)

jere7my tho?rpe & Aaron Brockett--Once and Future Presidents

Lesley Tsina & Don Lehr--Literature and the Grotesque

Lesley Tsina & Don Lehr--James and the Giant Peach

Joe Robins, Fred Bush, Stephanie Dyrkacz--Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité

Erik Rosolowsky, Joe Robins, Melissa Binde--Abort, Retry, Ignore

Chaos Golubitsky, Kira Goetschius, Will Quale--Hlokk, Goll, and Skogul

Chaos Golubitsky & Kyla Tornheim--Cloak and Dagger

Abigail Friedman, Ben Newman, Amy' Marinello--Abby-Wan Kenobi, Ben Kenobi, and Queen Amy'dala

Amy' Marinello, Abigail Friedman, Robert McFarland--Heart of Gold, Heart of Stone, and Heart of Darkness

Callicles the Moose, benjamin r, george, ~Elliot Reed, BDan Fairchild--Ruly, Kempt, Sheveled, and Couth

Mark Handler, Nick Ward, J.C. Ravage--Mark of Death, Nick of Time, and Ravage of War

Mai Pucik, Mark Handler, Jillian Waldman--Tall, Grande, and Venti

Andrew Brown, Mai Pucik, Jillian Waldman--Iron Man, Iron Fist, and Iron Curtain

Eliza Blair, Jackie Werner, Finlay Logan--Ninja, Pirate and Robot