• Filament Book CLub •

A 1979 Princeton University summa cum laude graduate, she founded Shadow Lawn Press in 1983 to package and agent books, software, audio cassettes, and CD-Rom titles that are generally distributed by publishers under their own trademarks. Currently a director and executive editor of UFO Magazine, she also manages the magazines subscription services and advertising departments.

Nancy was the editorial director of Idea Source Guide, a magazine for the premium industry, from 1972 through 1974. In 1980 she published her first novel, Cleaning House, at Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Cleaning House has been translated into six foreign languages and has been published in nine countries.

As a nonfiction author, Nancy has written two cookbooks: Cheaper and Better (Harper & Row) and Zapcraft (Ten Speed Press), both of which have enjoyed multiple printings and a healthy afterlife on the web. To promote them, Nancy has made television appearances on the CBS "Morning Show," "Live with Regis and Kathy Lee," "People are Talking" in New York, Philadelphia, and Boston; "AM Los Angeles," "AM Northwest," in Portland, and "Kelly & Company" in New York.

William J. Birnes

Filament Books CEO and co-founder, Bill is a New York Times best-selling author, the publisher of UFO Magazine, and a New York literary publishing agent who has written and edited over twenty-five books and encyclopedias in the fields of human behavior, true crime, current affairs, history, psychology, business, computing, and the paranormal.

Recently, Bill completed a textbook for Academic Press on the corporate psychology of police task-force personnel involved in long-term multi-jurisdictional investigations of serial and sexual homicides. As a literary agent and book producer, his recent best-seller on The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and Wall Street Journal lists was The Black Dahlia Avenger (Arcade, 2003). His previous bestseller as an author was The Day After Roswell in 1997. On Labor Day, A&E broadcast the movie, "The Riverman," based on the book, The Riverman that Bill wrote with detective Bob Keppel about how serial killer Ted Bundy helped police track the Green River Killer Gary Ridgway.

As publisher of the nationally distributed UFO Magazine, editor of The UFO Encyclopedia published by Pocket Books, and co-author, with the nation’s top radio talk-show host, George Noory, of A Worker In The Light, Dr. Birnes has added to his list of publications in the UFO/Paranormal field, which include: The Day After Roswell, Unsolved UFO Mysteries, The Haunting of the Presidents, and, as a fiction writer, with George Noory, the forthcoming Nero Blaze: The Time Being at Tor/Forge.

Garth Conboy

Garth most recently served as the General Manager and Vice President Software Engineering for the Gemstar eBook Group. In this position he was responsible for the operation of the division: platform and server engineering, quality assurance, content acquisition, content operations, content engineering, and customer support.

Garth led the Platform, Content Tools and Content Engineering groups for the Gemstar eBook Group. Garth is inventor or co-inventor of seven issued eBook patents; technologies include: cryptography and secure content distribution, eBook UI, resource/database dynamic conversion for cross-platform applications, and optimal paginated document presentation. Garth previously held the position of Vice President of Software Engineering at SoftBook Press.

Prior to the eBook effort, Garth founded Pacer Software and served as its CEO guding it to a successful acquisition. Following the acquisition of Pacer Garth served as Engineering Director for NetManage, a leading supplier of networking and connectivity solutions.

Matt Halferty

West Point graduate, Army officer, inventor, and president of his own communications technology company, Tekkeon, Matt is also a Filament Books co-founder and Chief Operating Officer and director of sales services.

Matt was formerly on the Board of Directors of Internet start-ups iBachelor.com and MobilContact.com, and has brought his experience as an entrepreneur to Filament Books. In addition, Halferty has produced television commercials for Tekkeon and is currently the executive producer of "Cadet," a documentary-reality series at Hearst Actuality Television.

John Rivlin

John most recently served as the Senior Vice President of Technology for Gemstar-TV Guide. In this role he was responsible for the technology teams responsible for Gemstar-TV Guide products including: the TV Guide Magazine, the TV Guide Channel, www.tvguide.com, TV Guide Interactive Back Office and a wide variety of corporate systems. Prior to that role he was responsible for the design, development and operations of the Gemstar eBook server platform. John previously held the post of Vice President, Software Systems at Softbook Press.

Prior to joining SoftBook Press, John founded and managed Fusion Software which specialized in software development and licensing. Fusion developed a wide range of products including: the editor for Collabra Share, an award winning collaboration product acquired by Netscape; Software Dispatch, a secure CD based software distribution system for Apple Computer; Windows and Macintosh reference implementations of Kerberos for Cygnus Solutions; and Teton Data System's STAT!-Ref medical library.

John is co-inventor and patent holder of a system to provide secure electronic book delivery. He is also a co-inventor of a patent-pending system to provide offline catalog shopping on an electronic book.

John holds an undergraduate engineering degree from Cornell University.