A modern (1850) depiction of the first medieval settlers arriving in Iceland

A settler is a person who has migrated to an area and established permanent residence there, often to colonize the area. Settlers are generally people who take up residence on land. However, Canadian First Nations people often refer to all non-natives as "settler peoples", or "settler populations".^{[citation needed]}

Historical usage[link]

In almost every real historical case, settlers live on land which previously belonged to long-established peoples, known as indigenous people (often called "natives", "Aborigines" or, in the Americas, "Indians"). This land is usually settled against the wishes of the indigenes, and then controlled, defended and expanded by force, or it is bought or leased from indigenous people on terms highly favourable to the settlers, sometimes under a treaty (e.g. the Treaty of Waitangi in New Zealand). In some cases (such as Australia), the legal ownership of some lands is contested much later by indigenous people, who seek or claim traditional usage, land rights, native title and related forms of ownership or partial control.

The word "settler" was not originally usually used in relation to unfree labour immigrants, such as slaves (e.g. in the United States), indentured labourers (such as in Colonial America),^[1] or convicts (such as in New York, 1674–1775; Australia 1788-1868).

In the figurative usage a "person who goes first or does something first", also applies to the American English use of "pioneer" to refer to a settler, a person who has migrated to a less occupied area and established permanent residence there, often to colonize the area, first recorded in English in 1605.^[2] In United States history it refers to those people who helped to settle new lands.

In this usage, pioneers are usually among the first to an area, whereas settlers can arrive after first settlement and join others in the process of human settlement.^{[citation needed]} This correlates with the work of military pioneers who were tasked with construction of camps before the rest of the troops would arrive at the designated camp site.

More recently descendants of these immigrants may argue that they have as much right to use the word "settler" as the descendants of free immigrants.

A family of Russian settlers in the Caucasus region, circa 1910

In Imperial Russia, the government invited Russians or foreign nationals to settle in sparsely populated lands.^[3] These settlers were called "colonists". See, e.g., articles Slavo-Serbia, Volga German, Volhynia, Russians in Kazakhstan.

Although they are often thought of as traveling by sea — the dominant form of travel in the early modern era — significant waves of settlement could also use long overland routes, such as the Great Trek by the Boer-Afrikaners in South Africa, or the Oregon Trail in the United States.

Anthropological usage[link]

Anthropologists record tribal displacement of native settlers who drive another tribe from the lands it held, such as the settlement of lands in the area now called Carmel-by-the-Sea, California where Ohlone peoples settled in areas previously inhabited by the Esselen tribe (Bainbridge, 1977).^[4]

Modern usage[link]

Early North American settlers from Europe often built crude houses in the form of log cabins.

In the Middle East, Israelis who live in areas captured during the Six-Day War, which were later claimed by the Palestinian Authority and Syria, are termed "settlers". Some historians and scientists maintain that Palestinians are descended mostly from Arab settlers in Palestine, after the Caliphate conquered the area in the 7th century. However, both Israelis and Palestinians claim partial descent from peoples who lived in the region in prehistoric times. In present day Israel, a majority of Israeli-Jews are descendents of Jews who lived in Muslim countries, not Europe. In addition to Israeli settlers in the Middle East, Arab settlers have moved in large numbers to ethnic minority areas, such as Iraqi Kurdistan and northwest Syria to offset large Kurdish and other minority concentrations there. In North Cyprus, Turkish settlers have been brought into the territory since the 1970's to increase ethnic Turkish influence there.

Other usages[link]

• Settlers in hypothetical societies, such as on other planets, often feature in science fiction or fantasy fiction and/or video games.
• Mascot for Texas Woman's University, more specifically there called the "Pioneer."

Causes of emigration[link]

The reasons for the emigration of settlers vary, but often they include the following factors and incentives: the desire to start a new and better life in a foreign land, personal financial hardship, social, cultural, ethnic, or religious persecution (e.g. the Pilgrims, Mormons and Zionists), political oppression, and government incentive policies aimed at encouraging foreign settlement.

The colony concerned is sometimes controlled by the government of a settler's home country, and emigration is sometimes approved by an imperial government.

See also[link]

• Category:Settlers
• Squatter
• Indigenous people
• Settler colonialism
• Virgin Lands Campaign
• Phoenix Islands Settlement Scheme
• Transmigration program
• Israeli settlement
• Naturalized TRNC citizens
• Sooners
• Lebensraum
• Green March

References[link]

Wil Wheaton
Wheaton in May 2011.
Born	Richard William Wheaton III (1972-07-29) July 29, 1972 (age 39) Burbank, California, United States
Occupation	Actor, writer
Years active	1982–present
Spouse	Anne Prince (m. 1999)
Children	Two stepsons, one adopted[1]
Website
wilwheaton.typepad.com

Richard William "Wil" Wheaton III (born July 29, 1972) is an American actor and writer. As an actor, he is best known for his portrayals of Wesley Crusher on the television series Star Trek: The Next Generation, Gordie Lachance in the film Stand by Me and Joey Trotta in Toy Soldiers. As a writer, he is best known for his blogs Wil Wheaton Dot Net and WWdN: In Exile.

Early life[link]

Wheaton was born in Burbank, California, to Debbie (née O’Connor), an actress, and Richard William Wheaton, Jr., a medical specialist.^[2][3] He has a brother, Jeremy, and a sister, Amy. Both appeared uncredited in the episode "When the Bough Breaks" of Star Trek: The Next Generation.^[4]

Career[link]

[edit] Star Trek and early career

Wheaton made his acting debut in the 1981 TV film A Long Way Home, and his first cinema role was as Martin Brisby in the 1982 animated film The Secret of NIMH, the movie adaptation of Robert C. O'Brien's Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH. He had a minor role in the 1984 movie The Last Starfighter. He first gained widespread attention in 1986 as Gordie Lachance in Stand by Me, the film adaptation of Stephen King's The Body. In 1991, he played Joey Trotta in the film Toy Soldiers.

From 1987 to 1990, he appeared in the role of Wesley Crusher on Star Trek: The Next Generation throughout its first four seasons.

Although his Star Trek character, and by extension Wheaton himself, was disliked by a vocal group of Trekkies during TNG's first run, he commented about his critics in an interview for WebTalk Radio:

Later, I determined that the people who were really, really cruel – like the Usenet weenies – really are a statistically insignificant number of people. And I know, just over the years from people who've e-mailed me at my web site and people who I've talked to since I started going to Star Trek conventions again in the last five years, that there are so many more people who really enjoyed everything about the show, including my performance, including the character.^[5]

After leaving Star Trek, Wheaton moved to Topeka, Kansas, to work for NewTek, where he helped to develop the Video Toaster 4000, doing product testing and quality control.^[6][7] He later used his public profile to serve as a technology evangelist for the product.^[8] Wheaton said this was a period of growth in his life, and living out of Los Angeles helped him deal with anger issues. He came back to Los Angeles, attended acting school for five years, then re-entered the acting world.^[9][10]

Wheaton's popularity among Star Trek fandom is covered in a number of web comics. ArcaneTimes of March 25, 2005 offers a sympathetic position.^[11] Something Positive presents a range of opinions as part of the storyline Mike's Kid.^[12] Abstruse Goose tries to distinguish between the character and the actor.^[13]

He was a contestant on a 2001 episode of The Weakest Link featuring Star Trek actors as contestants to win money for a charity each had chosen.

[edit] Post-Star Trek

In the late 1990s, Wheaton appeared in several independent films, including the award-winning The Good Things, in which he portrays a frustrated Kansas tollbooth worker;^[14] it was selected Best Short Film at the 2002 Deauville Film Festival. He received the Best Actor award at the 2002 Melbourne Underground Film Festival for his performance in Jane White Is Sick & Twisted.

He has worked as a voice actor in many original series, video games and anime, which started as young Martin Brisby in The Secret of NIMH when he was 10 years old. His most noteworthy credits include the roles of Aqualad in the cartoon Teen Titans, the voice of radio journalist Richard Burns in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas,^[15] Kyle in the Nickelodeon cartoon, Kyle + Rosemary, Himself and various other characters on both Family Guy and Seth MacFarlane's Cavalcade of Cartoon Comedy, the second Blue Beetle, Ted Kord, on Batman: The Brave and the Bold in the episode "Fall of the Blue Beetle!", Yakumo in Kurokami: The Animation, Menma in Naruto, Hans in Slayers Evolution-R and Aaron Terzieff in Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn.

Wheaton has performed improvisational and sketch comedy at the ACME Comedy Theater in Hollywood. He has a traveling sketch comedy/improv troupe called "EarnestBorg9" that performs science fiction-related comedy at conventions.

Wheaton at San Diego Comic Con 2010

He appeared as himself in a skit on nerdcore rapper MC Frontalot's album Final Boss attempting to be a rapper, whose rhymes only involved shellfish. He later collaborated with Frontalot on "Your Friend Wil", a track from the album Zero Day on the subject of Wheaton's Law. Wheaton and Frontalot have both appeared at the Penny Arcade Expo (PAX).

From September 2006 to September 2007, he hosted a Revision3 syndicated video podcast called InDigital along with Jessica Corbin and veteran host Hahn Choi.

Wheaton's more recent acting work includes guest appearances on the November 23, 2007 episode of the TV series Numb3rs, and the October 22, 2008 episode of the series Criminal Minds. He has also appeared in Internet presentations, including a cameo in a comedy sketch ("Lock Out") for LoadingReadyRun ^[16] (and a reprise of the same the following year in CommodoreHustle 4), and the May 30, 2008 episode of the Internet series Gorgeous Tiny Chicken Machine Show.

Wheaton appears in seasons three, four and five of the web series "The Guild" as Fawkes, the leader for a rival guild known as Axis of Anarchy.^[17] He also appears in seasons two, three and four of the TV series Leverage, as rival computer hacker Colin "Chaos" Mason, antagonist to Leverage team hacker Alec Hardison.

He appeared in "The Creepy Candy Coating Corollary" (2009), the fifth episode of the third season of the situation comedy The Big Bang Theory, playing a fictionally antagonistic version of himself, as the focus of Sheldon Cooper's ire for not having attended a Star Trek convention at which his appearance was scheduled.^[18] He later appeared on the show in episodes "The Wheaton Recurrence", which involves a bout at a bowling alley,^[19] and "The 21-Second Excitation" at a screening of Raiders of the Lost Ark. Wheaton returned in Season Five of The Big Bang Theory in the episode "The Russian Rocket Reaction".^[20] In it Leonard gets invited to Wheaton's house-party and Sheldon is angry because of this. However, his conflict with Wheaton is brought to an end when Sheldon turns up to the party and Wil gives him a signed Wesley Crusher action figure which Brent Spiner opens, causing Sheldon to put Spiner on his list of "Mortal Enemies". He also makes an appearance in the episode "The Stag Convergence" as a guest to Howard's bachelor party.^[21]

Wheaton has done the reading for the audio CD of Peter and Max: A Fables Novel by Bill Willingham, which was released on December 8, 2009.^[22] as well as the audio CD of Ready Player One written by Ernest Cline.

Wil is one of the three headline acts of the w00tstock shows, appearing in nearly all of them when his filming schedule has allowed.

Starting in the July 23, 2010 episode, Wheaton has appeared in a recurring, guest-starring role on Eureka, playing Dr. Isaac Parrish, the head of the Non-Lethal Weapons Lab at Global Dynamics and a thorn in Fargo's side.^[23]

Writing[link]

Wheaton runs his own weblog, Wil Wheaton Dot Net.

Between 2001 and fall 2004, he operated a message board, known as "The Soapbox" or "Paracosm", as part of the blog site. Two collections of writings taken from postings to the message board have been published, titled Boxer Shorts (ISBN 1-932461-00-0) and Boxer Shorts Redux (ISBN 1-932461-03-5).

He contributes regularly to the Los Angeles-based Metroblogging site. In June 2005, he became that month's featured Tech writer for the SuicideGirls Newswire.^[24] He had a monthly column, entitled "Wil Save," in the Dungeons & Dragons-based magazine Dungeon; in May 2005, he ceased writing it. From January 2005 to October 2006, he wrote a column for The Onion AV Club about early video games, called "Games of Our Lives." On December 12, 2008, he returned to his role as Geek in Review editor,^{[clarification needed]} with his editorials being published every second Wednesday of the month.

Wil Wheaton (left) meets Tim O'Reilly at the 2003 booksigning of Dancing Barefoot at Powell's in Portland, Oregon.

In spring 2003, he founded the independent publishing company Monolith Press and released a memoir entitled Dancing Barefoot. Monolith Press was "founded on the idea that publication should not be limited by opportunity."^[25] Most of the entries are extended versions of his blog entries. Dancing Barefoot sold out three printings in four months.

In winter 2003 Wheaton signed to publisher Tim O'Reilly with a three-book contract. O'Reilly acquired Dancing Barefoot, and published his extended memoirs, Just a Geek, in summer of 2004. He has since written about his bitterness regarding how the book was marketed, believing it was pitched as a Star Trek book when he intended it as more of a personal memoir.^[26]

In February 2009, Wheaton released Sunken Treasure: Wil Wheaton's Hot Cocoa Box Sampler. As a chapbook, it contains several small extracts of various different projects, including two short stories from Ficlets, an ACME comedy sketch, and a Criminal Minds production diary. Instead of using traditional publishing, Wheaton decided to self-publish using Lulu Publishing, something he has continued to do with all his publications since. Since publishing with Lulu, he has made all of his books available as both paperbacks and digital downloadable files.

Later that same year, Wheaton released Memories of the Future: Volume 1, a humorous critique of the first thirteen episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation. Memories features a review of each episode, as well as an account of Wheaton's own experiences with and memories of that episode.

Closing up 2009, Wheaton published "Happiest Days of Our Lives", and his son, Ryan, contributed by writing the afterword.

Wheaton has also recorded several of his non-self-published books as downloadable audiobooks. These include Just a Geek, The Happiest Days of Our Lives, and his Criminal minds diary from Sunken Treasure. He also released excerpts of Memories of The Future: Vol 1 as free podcasts.

Politics[link]

Wheaton described himself as a liberal in 2005.^[27] In September 2006 he criticized George W. Bush's plan to permit torture of unlawful combatants: "Shame on President Bush. Shame on his Republican allies in Congress."^[28]

A column that he wrote for Salon.com in 2005, The Real War on Christmas, attacked commentators like Bill O'Reilly and detailed his arguments with his conservative parents over current political matters.^[27] Wheaton's parents were very offended by the article, and he posted a lengthy apology on his site and an interview in which his parents clarified their political views.^[29]

On August 24, 2007, he gave the keynote for the yearly Penny Arcade Expo, which was subsequently made available online.^[30] He stepped in following a public battle between the formerly-scheduled keynote debate participants, noted anti-games activist Jack Thompson and Hal Halpin, the president of the Entertainment Consumers Association (ECA). Much of Wheaton’s address focused on the debate over violence in video games. He also gave the keynote at PAX East 2010 in Boston, MA.

He supported Barack Obama in the 2008 Presidential Election^[31] and opposed Proposition 8, calling it "nothing but hate and discrimination".^[32]

Games[link]

In 2003, Wheaton mentioned his love for the game of poker on his blog. The following year, he began writing more extensively about his poker-playing experiences, including stories about playing Texas hold 'em tournaments locally and in Las Vegas. Eventually, he worked up to regular play, including a run at the 2005 World Poker Tour Championships. On June 23, 2005, Wheaton accepted an invitation to join Team PokerStars.^[33] He went on to play in that year's World Series of Poker and was the guest speaker for the 2005 B.A.R.G.E Banquet. In June 2007, he announced he would no longer be on Team Pokerstars due to changes in the U.S. legal system that would cause poker sites to have to focus on European and Asian markets^[34] and held a farewell Pokerstars tournament on June 5, 2007, which he titled So Long and Thanks for All the Chips.^[35]

Wheaton is a Dungeons & Dragons player,^[36] and played during the PAX 2010 and PAX 2011 events using the 4th edition rules. Wheaton, along with webcartoonists Jerry Holkins and Mike Krahulik of Penny Arcade, and Scott Kurtz of PvP, played in front of a live audience. The game was hosted and recorded by Wizards of the Coast with Chris Perkins as the dungeonmaster.^[37]

Comic book[link]

Wil Wheaton made a guest appearance in the comic book PS 238. He appears as himself, but with the power of telekinesis. A PS 238 teacher, Alloy, is his adoring fan.

Wheaton's debut comic book "The Guild: Fawkes" which he wrote alongside Felicia Day was released on May 2012.

Audiobooks[link]

Wil Wheaton narrates many audiobooks, including Ready Player One by Ernest Cline^[38], "Fuzzy Nation" by John Scalzi^[39] (and other Scalzi works), and "Byways" part of METAtropolis: Cascadia by Tobias Buckell^[40].

Wheaton's law[link]

During his keynote speech at the 2007 PAX (Penny Arcade Expo), Wheaton made a note about sportsmanship when playing games online. It has since become known as Wheaton's rule or law, which states "Don't be a dick!"^[41] This was intended to apply to life in general, not just online gaming.^[42]

A revision of Wheaton's law is an expansion by comics artist and writer Bill Willingham, which states: "Don't be a dick, but it's okay to play one on TV."^[43]

Personal life[link]

Wheaton was roommates with Chris Hardwick for some time.^[9][44] They met at a showing of Arachnophobia in Burbank, California.^[9]

Wheaton married Anne Prince in 1999. They and Prince's two sons from a previous relationship, Nolan and Ryan, live in Arcadia, California.^[45] When Ryan was 19, he asked Wheaton to legally adopt him, which he did.^[46]

Wil Wheaton has been friends with writer and radio-host Lazlow Jones, as revealed in The Lazlow Show in several episodes in both anecdotes from the hosts and in Wil's participation as a guest.^{[citation needed]}

Filmography[link]

Television[link]

• Meat Puppet (1980)
• A Long Way Home (1981)
• The Shooting (1982)
• Highway to Heaven (1985)
• St. Elsewhere (1986)
• The Defiant Ones (1986)
• Long Time Gone (1986)
• Family Ties (1987)
• Young Harry Houdini (1987) (ABC)
• The Man Who Fell to Earth (1987)
• Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987–1994)
• My Dad Can't Be Crazy... Can He? (1989)
• Family Double Dare (1990)
• Monsters (1990)
• The Arsenio Hall Show (1991)
• The Last Prostitute (1991)
• Star Trek 25th Anniversary Special (1991)
• Tales from the Crypt (1993)
• It Was Him or Us (1995)
• Mr. Stitch (1995)
• The Outer Limits: "The Light Brigade" (1996)
• The Love Boat: The Next Wave (1998)
• Diagnosis: Murder (1998)
• The Day Lincoln Was Shot (1998)
• The Flintstones: On the Rocks (2001)
• The Invisible Man: Perchance to Dream (2001)
• Twice in a Lifetime Episode 22 "The Choice" (2001)
• Weakest Link (2001) (Star Trek-themed edition)
• Beat the Geeks (2002)
• A&E Biography: "Eclipsed by Death – The Life of River Phoenix" (2002 - narrator)
• Walking the Tracks: The Summer of "Stand by Me" (2002) (Stand by Me documentary)
• Arena (2002) (also as writer)
• Favorite Stars: Then & Now (2003)
• Book of Days (2003)
• The Screen Savers (2003, 2002)
• Call for Help (2004)
• Teen Titans (2004–2005) (voice of Aqualad)
• Super Robot Monkey Team Hyperforce Go! (2005) (voice)
• CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (2005)
• I Love the '80s 3-D (2005)
• I Love Toys (2006)
• Legion of Super Heroes (2006) (voice of Cosmic Boy)
• Ben 10 (2007) (voice)
• Ben 10: Alien Force/Ben 10: Ultimate Alien (voice of Mike Morningstar/Darkstar)
• Numb3rs: "Graphic" (2007) (as Miles Sklar, 1 episode)
• What I Learned From the Movies (2007)
• Batman: The Brave and the Bold (2008) (as Blue Beetle/Ted Kord)
• I Love the New Millennium (2008)
• Criminal Minds (2008) (Episode "Paradise" as Floyd Hansen/Wayne Dryden)
• Kyle + Rosemary (2008) (voice)
• Family Guy (2009 & 2010) (voice) (Episodes "Not All Dogs Go to Heaven" and "Partial Terms of Endearment", as himself and a protester)
• Naruto (2009) (voice of Menma)
• Kurokami: The Animation (2009) (voice of Yakumo)
• Seth MacFarlane's Cavalcade of Cartoon Comedy (2009) (voice)
• The Big Bang Theory (2009–2012) ("The Creepy Candy Coating Corollary", "The Wheaton Recurrence", "The 21-Second Excitation" , "The Russian Rocket Reaction" and "The Stag Convergence" as himself)
• Leverage (2009-2012) ("The Two Live Crew Job" (2009), "The Ho Ho Ho Job" (2010), and "The Last Dam Job" (2012) as Chaos)
• Slayers Evolution-R (2010) (voice of Hans)
• Naruto Shippuden: The Movie (2010) (voice of Taruho and Shizuku)
• Eureka (2010) (Season 4) (as Dr. Parrish)
• Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn (2011) (Episode 3: "Ghost of Laplace") (voice of Aaron Terzieff, Additional Voices)

Movies[link]

• The Secret of NIMH (1982) (voice)
• Hambone and Hillie (1983)
• The Last Starfighter (1984) (scenes deleted from film but included as DVD extra)
• The Buddy System (1984)
• Stand by Me (1986)
• The Curse (1987)
• She's Having a Baby (1988) (uncredited cameo)
• Toy Soldiers (1991)
• December (1991)
• The Liars' Club (1993)
• Pie in the Sky (1996)
• Boys' Night Out (1996)
• Mr Stitch (1996)
• Trekkies (1997)
• Flubber (1997)
• Tales of Glamour and Excess (1997)
• Fag Hag (1998)
• Foreign Correspondents (1999)
• The Girls' Room (2000)
• Deep Core (2000)
• Python (2000)
• Speechless... (2001)
• The Good Things (2001)
• Jane White is Sick and Twisted (2002)
• Fish Don't Blink (2002)
• Star Trek Nemesis (2002) (briefly; extended scene deleted but appears as DVD extra in some regions)
• Book of Days (2003)
• Four Fingers of the Dragon (2003)
• Neverland (2003)
• Americanizing Shelley (2007)
• Star Trek (2009) (voices various Romulans)^[47]

Internet video[link]

Video games[link]

• Crimson Skies: High Road to Revenge (2003) (voice)
• EverQuest II (2004) (voice)
• Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (2004) (voice)
• Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon 2 (2004) (voice)
• Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Lockdown (2005) (voice)
• Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter (2005) (voice)
• Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2 (2006) (voice)
• Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories (2005) (voice)
• Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories (2006) (voice)
• Grand Theft Auto IV (2008) (voice)
• Fallout New Vegas (2010) (voice of Robobrain)
• DC Universe Online (voice of Robin)

Bibliography[link]

• Dancing Barefoot (ISBN 0-596-00674-8) (2003)
• Just a Geek (ISBN 0-596-00768-X) (2004)
• Stories of Strength (ISBN 1-4116-5503-6) (2005; contributor)
• The Happiest Days of Our Lives (ISBN 0-9741160-2-5) (2007)
• Sunken Treasure (2009)
• Memories of the Future Vol. 1 (2009)

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Wil Wheaton

• Wil's Typepad weblog - aka WWdN: In Exile
• Wil's Reddit weblog - Posts about various topics he chooses to join discussions in.
• Wil's website - Wil Wheaton Dot Net
• Wil Wheaton at the Internet Movie Database
• Wil Wheaton at AllRovi
• Wil Wheaton at Memory Alpha (a Star Trek wiki)
• Wil Wheaton at the Open Directory Project
• Wil Wheaton at Anime News Network's Encyclopedia

Jane Espenson
Jane Espenson in September 2006.
Born	(1964-07-14) July 14, 1964 (age 47)[1] Ames, Iowa, USA[2]
Occupation	Writer, producer
Nationality	American
Genres	Science-fiction, situation comedy, serial drama
www.janeespenson.com

Jane Espenson (born July 14, 1964) is an American television writer and producer.

She has worked on both situation comedies and serial dramas. She had a five-year stint as a writer and producer on Buffy the Vampire Slayer and shared a Hugo Award for her writing on the episode "Conversations with Dead People". Between 2009-2010 she served on Caprica, as co-executive and executive producer for the television series. In 2010 she wrote an episode of HBO's Game of Thrones, and joined the writing staff for season four of the television program Torchwood, which aired on Starz across Summer 2011 in the US. She is currently working as a consulting producer and writer on ABC's 2011 series Once Upon a Time, and has co-written and produced her first independent original web series with co-creator Brad Bell, entitled Husbands, which premiered at HusbandsTheSeries.com on Sept. 13, 2011.

Early Life and Career[link]

Espenson grew up in Ames, Iowa.^[3] As a teenager, Espenson found out that M*A*S*H accepted spec scripts without promise of payment or future work. Though she wasn't an established writer at the time, she planned to write her first episode. She recalls, "It was a disaster. I never sent it. I didn't know the correct format. I didn't know the address of where to send it, and then I thought, they can't really hire me until I finish junior high anyway."^[2] While Espenson was studying computer science and linguistics as graduate student at University of California, Berkeley, she submitted several spec scripts for Star Trek: The Next Generation as part of a script submission program open to amateur writers; Espenson has referred to the program as the "last open door of show business."^[3]

Her next break was in 1992 with a spot in the Disney Writing Fellowship,^[2] which led to work on a number of sitcoms, including ABC's comedy Dinosaurs and Touchstone Television's short-lived Monty.^[4] In 1997 she joined the staff of Ellen as a writer and producer.^[2] After a year, Espenson decided to switch from comedic to dramatic writing and applied for a position at Buffy the Vampire Slayer.^[5]

Work[link]

[edit] Buffy the Vampire Slayer

In 1998, Espenson joined Mutant Enemy Productions as executive story editor for the third season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Espenson wrote or co-wrote twenty-three episodes, starting with "Band Candy" and ending with Buffy's penultimate episode, "End of Days." After her role as an Executive Story Editor, she was promoted to a Co-Producer in season four. In the fifth season she was promoted again to a producer. She took up the role of supervising producer in the sixth season and was promoted once more to a co-executive producer in the final season.

She wrote episodes both humorous (e.g. "Triangle" and "Intervention") and serious (such as "After Life"). Espenson and Drew Goddard co-wrote the seventh-season episode "Conversations with Dead People," for which they won the Hugo Award for Best Short Dramatic Presentation in 2003.^[6]

In addition, Espenson is credited as the writer or co-writer of the following Buffy episodes:

She also co-/wrote several comic book stories for Tales of the Slayers, Tales of the Vampires and Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight, the one-shots Jonathan and Reunion and the limited series Haunted.

[edit] Battlestar Galactica and Caprica

Espenson joined the crew of Sci Fi's Battlestar Galactica (BSG) just after Battlestar Galactica: Razor, BSG's first television movie, was conceived.^[7] As one of BSG's co-executive producers, she has worked on every fourth season episode starting with "He That Believeth in Me"; she was also the writer of "Escape Velocity" and "The Hub" and co-wrote The Face of the Enemy webisodes. Prior to joining the show's staff she wrote one third season episode and co-wrote another. In August 2008, the Los Angeles Times broke the news that Espenson is the writer behind BSG's second television movie, The Plan,^[8] news confirmed in her writer's blog.^[9] In January 2009 it was announced that she had joined the spin-off series Caprica as co-executive producer and would take on showrunner duties midway through the first season.^[10] Espenson later gave up showrunning duties to focus more on writing.^[11]

[edit] Torchwood

In August 2010 it was announced that Torchwood creator, lead writer and executive producer Russell T. Davies had hired Espenson to write for the show's fourth series, Torchwood: Miracle Day to be broadcast in 2011.^[12] She later confirmed that she will be writing episodes 3, 5, 7 and co-writing episode 8 (with Ryan Scott)^[13] and episode 10 (with Davies).^[14] Prior to her involvement with Torchwood, Espenson had claimed to be a fan of the series, particularly the third series, "Children of Earth".^[15] To tie in with the launch of Torchwood: Miracle Day, Espenson and Scott collaborated on the Starz produced 2011 Torchwood webseries entitled Torchwood: Web of Lies, which stars American actress Eliza Dushku.^[16] Following the broadcast of each episode of "Miracle Day" on Starz, Espenson wrote a blog on AfterElton mixing her reaction to the episode with behind the scenes information on the devising process.^[17]

[edit] Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased) and Husbands

In January 2011, Entertainment Weekly announced that Espenson and fellow Buffy writer Drew Greenberg would be writing a pilot for Syfy's version of Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased).^[18] She told io9 that "The version we're proposing is quite different in tone and content from the original." She added "We took the basic premise of a Ghost Detective and his still-living partner and invented our own take on it."^[19] In 2011 she also co-wrote and produced her first independent web series, entitled Husbands, which revolves around the life of two newly married gay men.^[20] The series premiered Tuesday September 13, 2011.

[edit] Once Upon a Time

In May 2011, Espenson was brought on to the ABC fantasy series Once Upon a Time, as a writer and consulting producer.^[21]

Other[link]

Espenson has written episodes for several other television shows, including episode 4.17 ("Accession") of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, an episode ("Shindig") of Firefly, an episode ("The Gamble") of The O.C., and two fourth season episodes of Gilmore Girls. She has also worked on Angel, Tru Calling, The Inside, The Batman, Andy Barker, P.I., Jake in Progress, Dollhouse and is the co-creator of Warehouse 13.^[22]

Espenson is the editor of Finding Serenity: Anti-Heroes, Lost Shepherds and Space Hookers in Joss Whedon's Firefly (BenBella Books, 2005, ISBN 1-933771-21-6), a collection of non-fiction essays on the short-lived television show Firefly.

Linguistics studies[link]

Espenson studied linguistics as an undergraduate and graduate at University of California, Berkeley.^[3] She worked as a cognitive linguistics research assistant for George Lakoff,^[23] who acknowledged her work on the metaphorical understanding of event structure in English and credited her with recognizing the existence of the phenomenon of location-object duality in metaphors pairs.^[24] Lakoff also mentioned her year-long work on the "metaphorical structure of causation" in the acknowledgments section of Philosophy in the Flesh: The Embodied Mind and Its Challenge to Western Thought (1999, ISBN 0-465-05674-1).

Production credits[link]

Awards and nominations[link]

References[link]