Dee Volpe
Cosplay Collective
DeeDee Designs

Dee is a costume designer, replicator, educator, and Cosplayer. She has been costuming for and attending conventions for over 20 years. As an artist all of her life, she became fascinated with costuming early on and developed the skills to turn her dream into a full time job. While specializing in armor and prop making, she is also a seamstress and was awarded a scholarship to Costume College West. She teaches classes on foamsmithing, thermoplastics, and general costume design. She is a mentor for local and regional Cosplayers. She has been a judge at many cosplay contests on the con circuit and local events.

Nancy Arch
Cosplay Collective
Unique for Geeks

Nancy has been Cosplaying and participating in the theatrical arts since her early years of school. She is a renowned DIY Cosplay genius, particularly within the realm of repurposing old clothes/costumes/household items for new costumes. Nancy is extraordinarily and purposefully experienced in cosplaying on a budget, ensuring that this is a hobby in which anyone can partake. She is a mentor for many Cosplayers in Middle Tennessee and the gentle guiding hand that leads newcomers to become involved in the convention and Cosplay scene. She is a master crafter, making props and unique geek and nerd-centric items for charity.

Dee and Nancy, seeing a need within our community, founded a non-profit organization: Cosplay Collective.

It is an ever-growing Middle Tennessee cosplay group with a simple mission; Using creativity to bring positivity back into our communities. Cosplay Collective consistently accomplishes this by making appearances at local hospitals, assisted living facilities, local charity events, all at no charge. Their annual holiday toy drive has raised over $8,000 in toys and donations over the last 5 years! All gifts are hand delivered to the children’s unit of Tri-Star Children’s Hospital, (a part of Centennial hospital) in Nashville, TN every winter holiday season.
Furthermore, Cosplay Collective is integral in supporting Cosplayers in several ways: they assist each individual person during the initial foray into Cosplay, consistently help teach new skills, create social events, and promote not only the Cosplay community, but positivity within. Cosplay Collective originated the ‘Cospitality Suite,’ which provides conventions an extraordinarily creative team on hand throughout the day, along with all materials needed for repairing Cosplays at no charge to the Cosplayer. They frequently host and present panels and workshops covering numerous topics, customarily moderated by Dee, while Nancy holds down the Vendor fort.

Born in 1968, I discovered fishing shortly after walking, a boon, considering I lived in South Florida. After a brief move to Kentucky, my family trekked back to the Sunshine State. I had the good fortune to attend high school in idyllic upstate New York, where I learned about a mythical substance known as “Seasons”. After two or three failed attempts at college, I bought a bar. That was fun because I love beer, but, then, I eventually met someone smarter than me (a common event), and, in this case, she married me and convinced me to go back to school–which I did, with enthusiasm. I earned a Master’s Degree in History and rediscovered my love for writing. My novels explore dark fantasy, immortality, and the nature of love as we know it. I live near Nashville, Tennessee, with the aforementioned wife, son, and herd, and, when I’m not writing, I teach history, grow wildly enthusiastic tomato plants, and restore my 1967 Mustang.

If you’ve made it this far, you’re probably a little like me. I love books, and by extension, writers. I wonder what makes them tick, and where they came from, so I read their bio to get some insight into where the stories that transport me originated.

For me, it started in Florida, because that’s where I was born and raised, with occasional jaunts to Kentucky, and New York, and then back to South Florida. I live in Tennessee now and love it. I think like a Florida kid (hate shoes, wish I could fish every day) but hold on to the good years I spent in Upstate New York, where I enjoyed a lot of firsts. First car, girlfriend, broken heart, speeding ticket—a lot of the things we look back on happened there, so in a sense, I’m a child of two or possibly three cultures. The United States is a big place, and being in different areas shaped me in unique ways, of which I’m eternally thankful.

Along the way, I fell in love with dragons, and science fiction, and fantasy—Anne McCaffrey is my favorite writer, and her books are still one of the purest joys in my life. Books were my harbor, a place to vanish when I didn’t feel good enough for the world around me. At nearly fifty years old, I still have flashes of that sensation, but as a father, husband, and college professor, it goes away when I realize (to my horror) that I’m actually the adult in the room.

A secret that no one told me is this: We still think like we’re kids running on the beach until the day we die; only the world around us changes.

I’m okay with that.

We have a herd of rescued animals, and I will absolutely pull the car over for a wooly bear caterpillar. Or a turtle. Or frog. You get the picture.

I love the depths of history. It colors my novels, adding texture and vision. The past is alive, and it’s a driving force in the stories I write. Need a villain? Open a history book. Need a hero? The same. You’ll never run out of stories to write, and I haven’t yet. I’m at ten novels and counting, with no end in sight.

I travel to meet people, eat, and pet dogs in foreign countries. I also find used bookstores when I’m abroad, because they’re filled with wonders. Trust me—old books are even better when their path has been wholly different from my own.

On a more personal note, I enjoy cheesy Hallmark movies with princesses and tolerable acting, love coffee, giraffes, dragons, and have a lifelong relationship with pie. We’re never breaking up. My patient wife and caring son are, in a word, indispensable, and without them, these books don’t happen.

Send coffee. I’ll be writing. I don’t sleep much. Who could, with so much to see?