W. Randy Hoffman

W. Randy Hoffman, a lifelong resident of Southwestern Pennsylvania, attended his first con and his first open filk at Marcon in Columbus in 1989. While there he wrote his first filk song (which, fortunately for humanity, has been lost to history) for which he was accompanied on guitar by a red-haired gentleman he never saw again.

After that he remained active in fandom, but didn't return to filk until he listened to a basement tape produced by his college buddies Rand Bellavia and Adam English and said, "Boy, these guys need an appreciative audience, and I know where they can find one!"

He accompanied said buddies to several open filks and filk concerts over the following two years and finally decided he liked the scene himself.

Since 1994 he has written dozens of mostly humorous filk songs, one of which even made Tom Smith laugh (a signal compliment!).

He's won several songwriting contests and has been running the filk programming at Confluence in Pittsburgh since 1999. He hopes to record an album Sometime Real Soon Now.