Guest of Honor: Cathy McManamon
Cathy started playing the family organ at the age of five and experimenting with notes and chords to write her first song when she was six. A few year later she taught herself guitar and joined her local church “folk” choir (guitars and tambourines and really dynamic music!) at ten and eventually became the director, composer, and arranger for the choir in her twenties.
During high school, Cathy had met some fellow sci-fi fans in her classes and for fun they wrote parodies of popular songs while hanging out in the music department at lunchtime and discussing time travel. She had no idea she was writing filk songs; didn’t even know such a genre existed until her husband, Pat, coaxed her down to a filk room at a Chicago convention in 2010. Though horribly nervous at first, she discovered that people liked the original songs she’d been writing for a few decades – though not typically filk at that time – and fell easily into the warmth of this filk family. Though she played circles and eventually concerts solo at first, she found great joy in collaboration with other musicians. She played drums with Toyboat for a decade, founded the Pegasus-winning band Random Fractions, ran filk tracks at a couple conventions, and continues to record solo work and appear as a guest on other people’s recordings.
Toastmaster: Cecilia Eng
Cecilia Eng has been a singer/songwriter since 1984 and has performed in England, Canada and across the US. She was inducted into the Filk Hall of Fame in 2013 and won two Pegasus Awards (Best Classic Filk Song for “Helva’s Song” and Best Composer/Writer) in 2022.
You can find her song lyrics blog and a calendar of international filk song circles and events (virtual and in person) at the Friends of Filk website at https://friendsoffilk.org. Friends of Filk and Filk Bytes together host monthly bardic filk song circles on Zoom. Check the Friends of Filk website calendar for information and how to get the Zoom links.
She is active in both the filk and folk communities and is an active member of the Portland FolkMusic Society where she has introduced filk music and filkers in their events online and in person. She has also performed at the Northwest Folklife Festival at the Seattle Center, WA in 2019 and 2024 as well as performing as one of the headliners at the 2021 Tumbleweed Music Festival in Richland, WA and has continued to bring filk to Tumbleweed ever since. She will be the featured Musical Guest at Philcon, November 22-24, 2024 at the Doubletree by Hilton, Cherry Hill, NJ.
Honored Listener: Pat McManamon
“You step onto the road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there’s no telling where you might be swept off to”
Just a few years ago, when Pat was in high school, his neighbor invited him to go to downtown Chicago for the weekend and attend a Science Fiction convention. It didn’t matter that the PSAT test was that Saturday morning because his friend mentioned there might be a chance to see an episode from the latest Doctor Who season direct from the UK.
Pat did take a few years off from attending conventions, but when his daughter mentioned an interest in writing he knew where to take her and started coming back to cons. He then rediscovered the little group of people who sang all night for fun, and he tempted his wife to come to a con and introduced her to this community.
Since Pat doesn’t perform but he was in the room listening, and can usually follow directions, he started offering to help do setup and teardowns. And that’s where you will find him today – offering to help, encouraging others to share their talents, but mostly just listening to all the amazingly talented people who are part of this community.
Interfilk Guest: Sean McGaughey
A performance by Sean McGaughey is hard to define.
Is he a singer-songwriter of wit and political insight?
Is he a children’s entertainer who gets children young and old to singing and dancing?
Is he a performer of humorous and satirical songs?
Is he an interpreter of the best in traditional and contemporary folk and country music?
Is he that guy over there in the duct-tape hat?
For decades, Sean McGaughey thought he was a folk singer songwriter with a fascination with nerdy themes such as jet cars, drones, robots and duct tape. In 2013 he discovered the world of Filk Music in 2013 and found an outlet for his nerdy and folky sides. Sean is a singer-songwriter, entertainer, podcaster, and elementary educator based in Simcoe County Ontario. Since 2013, he has been an active participant in the annual FAWM and 5090 songwriting challenges. For over 25 years he has performed throughout central Ontario.
He has released several albums of original music at seanmcgaughey.bandcamp.com
New Voices: Jenny Selig
Born under a crescent moon in Oakland, California, Jenny Selig grew up in Iowa and Kansas, where she studied poetry, theatre, and gender studies. An NYC-area resident since 2001, she now lives in Brooklyn with her husband (artist Dan Funderburgh) and three young and lovable rascals (two of whom are cats).
Jenny began playing ukulele in 2017 and quickly became creatively obsessed, collaborating with YouTube ukulele sensation Cynthia Lin to start the NYC Uke Squad and to help lead the annual 100 Days of Ukulele project (now in its 8th year). She started writing songs in 2018 and shares ukulele originals and covers, workshops and lessons in person and on Instagram, YouTube, and Patreon under the name @newukenewyork. Jenny discovered FAWM (February Album Writing Month) in 2023 and fell in love with that community and with FILK music as a genre. Her lyrical style is infused with a unique blend of “Midwest Nice” and memento mori.
After working in bookstores for several years, Jenny was lucky enough to stumble into a “day job” career in audiobooks. In this field, she is an occasional narrator but more frequent director, engineer, and editor. While most often found with ukulele or songwriting notebook (or both!) in hand, Jenny also loves to act, knit, read, bake, drink tea, and devour films and television shows (among other things, she is a passionate Twin Peaks devotee). She eats a lot of chocolate and a lot of cheese (but rarely together). Seen online at several Festival(s) of the Living Rooms and FilkOntario 2023, she was thrilled and honored to be invited to OVFF, which will be her very first in-person FILK festival.
She has too many plants.