#gm berrow

More news out of the wastes:

Guest announcement time! Try to imagine, like, six siren emojis accompanying this sentence.

“Six of us?!” - The Dazzlings, probably

At last check, we had announced three VIP guests and one community guest for TrotCon 2017, right? Well, get ready to bump up the numbers in both of those columns.

Like, quite a bit. Today’s a doozy, particularly on the community guest side. Let’s waste no more time.

First and foremost: once again, we’re pumped to have G.M. Berrow coming out to TrotCon!

This marks the third straight year we’ve brought Berrow to TrotCon, which is a testament to the amount of high praise we receive about her from you guys at the end of each year. Might as well keep this party going, right?

Berrow, for the uninitiated, first became involved in the My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic universe as the author of the chapter books published by Little, Brown and Co., including “Princess Luna and the Festival of the Winter Moon,” Twilight Sparkle and the Crystal Heart Spell” and more. That’s a role she continues to hold today, but in addition, she’s also worked as part of the TV series’ writing staff. Berrow has also worked as part of the crew on TV shows such as Law & Order: SVU and The Good Wife.

Cool stuff, eh?

So, she joins a group of folks we’re already enormously excited about: M.A. Larson, Peter New and Lee Tockar. We’re digging this list, y’all. Hope you are too.

OK, community guests. Deep breath, because there’s a lot of ’em.

That said, like G.M. Berrow, many of these are return guests. Again: we like them, they don’t seem to hate us, you’ve had nothing but great things to say about them AS guest. Git some.

Actually, funny story: we announced TheBronyCritic last year within the same announcement as G.M. Berrow. How about that? Anyway, yes, TheBronyCritic will be returning to TrotCon 2017 after first attaining community guest status with us last year. He’s one of our local boys, a critic and analyst who creates videos reviewing the MLP TV series as well as audioplays, fanfiction readings and more.

We’re also proud to welcome back ChocolatePony, known also as SouthParkTaoist, who’s best known in the fandom for some fantastic artwork, tarot cards and pony card games who also offers some of the coolest MLP-related panels you’ll see on this or any continent. He’s also recently published a book entitled The West Point of the West and hosts a Zootopia-related podcast called Zootopia Minute. You know how we feel about Zootopia here at TrotCon HQ, so we’re sold. Soooold.

In the same returning-guest vein, welcome back TJ Carson to TrotCon 2017! He’s been with us for the last few years as well, as the moderator of multiple ask blogs on Tumblr including Ask Pirate Dash, Ask Mic Boom and more. This is his fourth year as a guest here. FOURTH. That’s crazy, yeah?

We’ve got some new folks to announce, too. Welcome the podcast Pony 411 to TrotCon 2017!

Pony 411 has been helmed by hosts Nemesis Prime and Alca7raz for multiple years now, presenting frequent episodes that tackle the MLP fandom from all sides, from the TV show to its comics and everything in between. They’ve been featured as part of Ponyville Live for a few years as well. Come hear them talk about podcasting — the dos and don’ts, how they got started, the history of a podcast that’s been around for almost five years now.

They join Harmony Studios as our community guests announced so far for 2017, and we’re far from done announcing folks, no worries.

Sound like fun? Cool! Come on out to TrotCon 2017, which will be held July 14-16, 2017, at the Crowne Plaza Columbus North in Columbus, Ohio!

Registration is open until June 25th!

You’ll know her from wearing multiple hats around the My Little Pony universe, and we’re pleased as punch to have her back: please welcome GM Berrow to TrotCon 2016!

Berrow perhaps first became known to folks in the fandom as the author of the My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic chapter books published by Little, Brown and Co., including “Twilight Sparkle and the Crystal Heart Spell,” “Princess Luna and the Festival of the Winter Moon” and much more. She has since transitioned into writing for the Friendship Is Magic TV series beginning with season five.

In addition to her work with My Little Pony, Berrow has also ghostwritten for multiple book series generally of the young adult/children’s variety, and has worked as part of the crew on TV shows such as Law & Order: SVU and The Good Wife.

She’ll be making her second appearance at TrotCon; we also welcomed her in 2015, and y’all said you had a blast hanging out with her, so, you know, why mess with a good thing?

OK, so let’s run down the list now… GM Berrow, John de Lancie, Thom Zahler, Heather Breckel and Ingrid Nilson. Miss anyone? No? OK, cool.

Oh, right, except for our amazing community guests, which is already a fairly stacked lineup in our modest opinion, including Pixelkitties, TJ Carson, ILoveKimPossibleALot, ChocoPony and Wiggles. Woo!

Eh, what the heck, let’s add three more.

First, a double feature: welcome Jitterbug Jive/BaldDumboRat and Jestre DeRama to TrotCon 2016!

Jitterbug Jive is the creator of the Lovestruck Derpy and Discord Whooves Tumblrs, and has been the fan voice of Derpy Hooves in multiple videos, including the popular Doctor Whooves and Assistant series. Panels? Check. Artist table? Also check. And he’ll be doing it all with Jestre DeRama, who voices The Doctor in the Doctor Whooves and Assistant series and has his own list of awesome blogs, including BubbleBerryAnswers, AskMadDoctorWhooves and more.

Additionally, we’re excited to have back TheBronyCritic. The Ohio native returns to TrotCon for a fourth time, bringing along his brand of My Little Pony episode reviews, audioplays, fanfic writing and much more. This is always a favorite of ours, so you’ll want to come out and see what’s up.

Whew. OK. Four guest announcements in one day. Think we’ll call it quits.

Hardcover boxed sets of various My Little Pony books by G.M. Berrow and Perdita Finn appear for pre-order on Amazon: - My Little Pony Best Friends boxed set - Equestria Girls boxed set

We've got some very unfortunate news for everyone attending PonyCon AU this year. We were advised recently by Cathy Weseluck that due to sudden and unforeseen circumstances, she will regrettably no longer be able to attend the convention in Surfers Paradise. She is immensely disheartened and disappointed by this unavoidable decision, understands fully the disruption and disappointment for all of us that this may cause, but assures us if there were any way at all the situation could be rectified, she would do so.

We are deeply saddened that our attendees will be unable to meet her in person, and she has assured us that she is equally upset that she won’t be able to meet the attendees who have come to see her.

Despite the sad news, it’s not all doom and gloom. Cathy still wants to make an appearance and talk to everyone that has come up to Queensland for the weekend, and she’ll be stopping by via Skype on the Saturday and Sunday during the guest panels to answer some questions and talk about her voice acting career. Cathy will also be participating in a VIP question time on the Saturday evening.

Are you ready for some TrotCon guest announcements?

We can't hear you!

No, really, we can't hear you over how excited we are to be bringing G.M. Berrow to TrotCon for the very first time!

G.M. is the author of numerous tomes from the My Little Pony world, including multiple Friendship is Magic chapter books ("Twilight Sparkle and the Crystal Heart Spell" and "Rainbow Dash and the Daring Do Double Dare" among them) and even the Daring Do Adventure Collection -- co-authored, naturally, with A.K. Yearling.

But not only that -- she's also a new addition to the MLP:FIM writing staff, with the fruits of her labor hitting your pretty little TV screens once season 5 rolls around.

In addition to her work in the world of pony, she's also dabbled in "Law and Order: SVU," "The Good Wife" and more.

G.M. will be coming to us from Brooklyn, New York, the raddest borough in New York City. Go say hi and tell her you're excited to see her this July; she's at @gmberrow on Twitter.

If you want to hang with her and many others at TrotCon 2015, now's a superb time to book your visit. Weekend badges for TrotCon are $35 through Jan. 10, at which point they'll bump up to $45. In the interest of saving $10, don't delay! Of course, multiple tiers of sponsor badges -- some of which will get you the chance to meet G.M. Berrow and our other VIPs -- are available now.