The Pegasus Awards

	Valerie Housden IF SAM HoF

Pegasus Awards
Award	Year	Category	Song
	2020	Best Space Song	Following In Valentina's Footsteps

 

Pegasus Nominations
Year	Category	Collaboration	Song
2016	Best Exploration Song		Following In Valentina's Footsteps
2015	Best Classic Filk Song		Following In Valentina's Footsteps
2015	Best Performer	The Cast of 'Before the Dawn' at Loncon 2014
2008	Best Classic Filk Song		Following In Valentina's Footsteps
2007	Best Performer	n'Early Music Consort

 

Valerie Housden grew up singing: solo, or with younger siblings or in various school and/or church choirs. She started playing the guitar at the age of fourteen, and eventually graduated to doing solo floor spots at folk clubs until Real Life ™ got in the way. She went to her first SF convention in 1981 and finally found the filkroom in 1986. She hasn't looked back since…

Valerie was on the concom for the first, second and sixth British filkcons, was GoH at Decadence, the tenth British filkcon, in 1997, and Fan GoH at Sferacon, the Croatian National SF con, in 2000. As well as guitar, she plays banjo, various recorders, and she can shake or bash things with the best. She also plays in the band, Cosmic Trifle (with the late Zanda Myrande, Chris O'Shea and Silke Kovàr), which was GoH at FilkCONtinental in 2004. In 1995 she organised a programme item for Obliter8, the 1996 British filkcon, and found she had set up a choir, the n’Early Music Consort or nMC for short, which at the time of writing (2020) is still going strong, having won Sams for their filkcon performances in 2013 and 2019. Her solo album "Lady in Veils" was released in 1990. A number of her songs have won British Filk Awards/Sams: "Catsblood" won the Best Serious Song Award in 1991, and the following have won the Filk Gold Sam: "Following in Valentina's Footsteps" in 2000, “Robinton” aka “Eulogy for a Harper” in 2010, and “Afraid of the Dark” in 2014. In 2004 she was inducted into the Filk Hall of Fame.

Valerie was one of the main “conspirators” in “Before the Dawn”, the shared world filk saga, and in 2009, played the role of the Magdalene in the production mounted for AXXIdental, the twenty-first British filkcon. In 2014 she produced and directed the more ambitious production for Loncon 3, the London worldcon. In the process she somehow ended up playing the Beggar as well.

Valerie has a YouTube channel. Following in Valentina's Footsteps, as performed at the 2017 Worldcon in Helsinki, can be found at youtu.be/Db9NEPFjpis.

She is married with two cats, and wishes it to be known that she hasn’t grown up yet. She doesn’t adult very well.

 

 

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