Bonnie Burton

Bonnie Burton (born July 12, 1972) is a San Francisco-based author, journalist, comedian, actress, and show host. She is best known for arts & crafts books like The Star Wars Craft Book, and appearances on web series including Geek DIY on Stan Lee's World of Heroes YouTube channel, Ask Bonnie, Wil Wheaton's TableTop, and Felicia Day's Vaginal Fantasy Book Club. She is the former Senior Editor and Social Media Strategist at StarWars.com for Lucasfilm and was staff writer for Star Wars Insider magazine for 10 years. She works as a freelance writer with a specialty in writing about topics for young child and teen audiences.

Early life Burton was born and raised on a farm in Dodge City, Kansas, to a mom who was a librarian and a father who was a farmer and animal medical salesman.

Influenced by both the rural area and activities of her childhood like Sunday School, 4-H, and kindergarten—and supported by her mom who let her convert her playroom into a craft room—Burton created arts and crafts projects from the time she was young, cultivating a lifelong passion for making things. Burton also started writing as a young girl. At seven years of age, after a poem about the town was published in the Canadian paper, The Western Producer, she began submitting her writing to essay contests, which she often won. During college Burton did a lot of do it yourself self-publishing through an active blog called GRRL, arts & crafts, and things like chapbooks.

In 1996, Burton worked a senior web editor at @Home Network, which became Excite@Home, then as a website editor for AOL's Winamp music player. From 2003 to 2012, Burton worked at Lucasfilm where she was Senior Editor and Social Media Strategist at StarWars.com for Lucasfilm.

While at Lucasfilm she was also a staff writer for Star Wars Insider magazine. In 2007, Burton contributed a chapter to the sequential art anthology, The Girls' Guide to Guys' Stuff: An Anthology of Comics by Women for Friends of Lulu called "A Star Wars Fan Boy Field Guide."

Burton was an early adopter of blog writing, publishing a personal blog called Grrl.com since before April 1996. As an author, Burton got her start creating collection of new-to-the-time blogs, co-editing the 2004 book Never Threaten To Eat Your Co-Workers: Best of Blogs with Alan Graham for Apress. With a foreword by techblogger Doc Searls, Never Threaten is a cross-section collection of this new form of writing online accompanied by interviews with the bloggers that provide context to the writing. Projects originated from craft posts Burton wrote on StarWars.com from 2004 onwards on a weekly and then monthly basis, with the best projects selected for the book.

2009's Girls Against Girls: Why We Are Mean to Each Other and How We Can Change, Burton discusses the issue of bullying and abuse between girls, including its causes and advice on how to cope. Burton outlines the physical and chemical explanations for mood swings that can cause seemingly irrational behavior in teenage girls and offers advice for managing relationships with 'mean girls.' Burton shares how readers can recognize these habits and behaviors in themselves and make changes to improve their relationships and stop perpetuating the cycle. The book draws upon interviews with Go-Gos guitarist Jane Wiedlin, Mystery Science Theater 3000 writer and actress Mary Jo Pehl, tattoo artist Hannah Aitchison, Tegan Quin of the band Tegan and Sara, artist Elizabeth McGrath and singer/artist Jessicka from the bands Jack Off Jill and Scarling.

2010's Star Wars, the Clone Wars: Planets in Peril for DK Publishing focuses on the newest worlds from the Clone Wars universe, and how they are being affected by fighting. 2016's Crafting with Feminism: 25 Girl-Powered Projects to Smash the Patriarchy includes craft projects that are focused on empowering young girls and features a foreword by Felicia Day.

In October 2017, Burton released the book, J.K. Rowling's Wizarding World: Movie Magic Volume Three: Amazing Artifacts.

Television From 1994 through 1996, Burton hosted the Denver alternative music video program "Teletunes" (on PBS affiliate KBDI-TV/Channel 12). After moving to San Francisco, she hosted the San Francisco music video show "Subculture."

Burton created, produces and hosts a comedy show called Geek DIY on Stan Lee's World of Heroes YouTube channel. In this show she crafts with her guests, who have in the past included Grant Imahara, members of Team Unicorn, Wil Wheaton, Clare Kramer, Javier Grillo-Marxuach, Robin Thorsen, America Young and more.

Burton has appeared twice on Wil Wheaton's show TableTop. In 2012, she appeared on a two part episode to play the role-playing game, Fiasco; in 2015 she played Geek Out!.

Burton guest starred in the "Social Traumas" episode of Felicia Day's show The Guild.

She also starred with Andy Richter and Brendan Coyle in the animated short Batman: Year Minus Two by comedy writer Rob Kutner.

Additional work Burton is a long-time fan of Bettie Page. In 1990, during her freshman year of college, Burton was at a comic book store and a clerk there she was friendly with told her she looked like Bettie Page, who Burton didn't know anything about. During the 1990s, as a continuation of her interest in Page and the subculture and images she portrayed, Burton performed with the fetish performance dance and club kid troupe called Uzi, which was part of the community of the fetish store of the same name in Denver. In 2011, Burton appeared in Wil Wheaton's geek variety show w00tstock in San Francisco and San Diego. In 2016, she performed at SF Sketchfest.

Personal life A long-time resident of San Francisco, Burton moved to Los Angeles in 2018 where she now resides. In August 2010, Burton married R2-D2 at Star Wars Celebration V.

Filmography TV and web series 1998: Ask Bonnie – Producer, Director, Writer, Host 2011: The Guild – Episode: "Social Traumas" 2012: Geek DIY (Stan Lee's World of Heroes) – Producer, Writer, Host (12 episodes) 2012: TableTop (Geek & Sundry) – "Fiasco, Part 1 & 2" 2012–2016: Vaginal Fantasy Book Club – Writer, Host (54 episodes) 2014–2016: CNET CraveCast – Host (20 episodes) 2015: TableTop (Geek & Sundry) – "Geek Out"

Honors and leadership 2007: Inducted as an Honorary Member of the 501st Legion of Imperial Stormtroopers by the League of Extraordinary Troopers 2009: Wired – 100 Geeks You Should Be Following On Twitter 2017: SYFY Advisory Council

Works and publications