Guest Speakers

Peter E. Blau, BSI, (“Black Peter”) discovered the world of Sherlockians in 1948, attended his first meeting of the BSI in 1958, received his Investiture in 1959, and now is a consulting geologist and free-lance journalist, and the secretary of the BSI. He first contributed to the Baker Street Journal in 1968, revived the Red Circle of Washington in 1970, won the Morley-Montgomery Award for the best article in the BSJ in 1974, and for more than forty-five years has edited and published a Sherlockian and Doylean newsletter ("Scuttlebutt from the Spermaceti Press").
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​Barbara Rusch, BSI, ASH, MBt, is invested in the Baker Street Irregulars as “The Mazarin Stone” and the Adventuresses of Sherlock Holmes as “The Emerald Tie-Pin.” She has served the Bootmakers of Toronto for forty years in multiple capacities and is vice-chair of the Friends of the Arthur Conan Doyle Collection, where she serves on the editorial board of its publication, The Magic Door, and chaired the 2011 conference, “ACD: A Study in Scandal.” She has contributed to numerous Sherlockian journals and anthologies, and her play, The Crossing: Three Authors in Search of a Character, was published in 2019 by the Friends and the Toronto Public Library Foundation. Barbara collects, exhibits and lectures on Sherlock Holmes, popular culture in the age of Victoria and the legacy of its printed heritage, which she came to appreciate as founder and president of the Ephemera Society of Canada and editor of its journal for seventeen years. She is listed in Canadian Who’s Who and is the recipient of a Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal for her contributions to Canadian royal heritage and Sherlockian, ephemera, and Holocaust studies. In 2021 she received an ACD Society award for Poetry and Fiction for her pastiche, "The Consulting Detective and the Literary Agent: The Untold Tale." Barbara is married to fellow Sherlockian Donny Zaldin.
​Rob Nunn, BSI, ASH (“Elementary") 

Rob Nunn is a fifth grade teacher from Edwardsville, IL, and is the recipient of The Beacon Society's Beacon Award for recognition of his work in the classroom involving Sherlock Holmes. He is the Gasogene of The Parallel Case of St. Louis and oversees the Holmes in the Heartland weekend.  He co-edited The Finest Assorted Collection: Essays on Collecting Sherlock Holmes and The Monstrum Opus of Sherlock Holmes and is the author of The Criminal Mastermind of Baker Street.  His writings have also appeared in The Baker Street Journal, The Sherlock Holmes Journal, The BSI Manuscript Series, and other publications.
​Glen Miranker, BSI (“The Origins of Tree Worship”) After co-founding and/or serving in executive positions at several Silicon Valley start-ups, Glen Miranker was invited by Steve Jobs to join Next Computer in 1990 and Apple Computer in 1996. For most of his tenure at Apple, he ran hardware development and served as Apple’s Chief Technology Officer (Hardware), retiring in 2004. Long a bibliophile, Miranker now devotes himself to book collecting, lecturing and assisting special-collections departments and boards at such institutions as the Houghton Library of Harvard University, the Toronto Reference Library (Toronto), the Harry Ransom Center (University of Texas, Austin) and the Newberry Library (Chicago), among others. He also collects and lectures on the history of cryptography and is a director of the National Cryptologic Foundation (Fort Meade, Maryland).
​Timothy Johnson, BSI (“Theophilus Johnson”) is Curator of Special Collections & Rare Books and the E. W. McDiarmid Curator of the Sherlock Holmes Collections for the University of Minnesota Libraries. In these capacities he oversees the University Libraries main rare book collection and over 150 special collections, including the world’s largest gathering of material related to that most famous consulting detective, Sherlock Holmes. Tim has an undergraduate degree in history and graduate degrees in Library Science and Theological Studies. His previous experience includes work as a reference/instructional services librarian, medical librarian, library director, and director of archives. He is a member of the Norwegian Explorers of Minnesota, Hounds of the Baskerville (sic), The Fourth Garrideb ("The Lumber-room of His Library”), 44th Street Pondicherry Lodgers, and an honorary member of the Sound of the Baskervilles. When he's not reading, Tim likes to tinker with model trains, listen to music, or spend time outdoors.
​Marino C. Alvarez,  BSI (“Hilton Soames”) is professor emeritus at Tennessee State University and was a senior research scientist at the Center of Excellence in Information Systems. He received his M.A. and Ed.D. degrees from West Virginia University. He is co-author of The Art of Educating with V Diagrams, (Cambridge University Press), The Little Book: Conceptual Elements of Research, (Rowman & Littlefield), and A Professor Reflects on Sherlock Holmes, (MX Publishing, London). Alvarez is co-editor of Education Never Ends, (BSI Press). He is the recipient of the Association of Literacy and Researchers Laureate Award and the A.B. Herr Award, and the only recipient of both the Teacher-of-the-Year and Distinguished Researcher-of-the-Year Awards at Tennessee State University. Professor Alvarez was inducted into the Bruce High School Hall of Fame and the West Virginia University College of Education and Human Resources Hall of Fame and is the recipient of the WVU Distinguished Alumnus Award 2019.