Akkana Peck is a programmer and writer who has been involved with the open source community for over two decades. She has contributed code to Mozilla, GIMP and a variety of other projects. She's also involved in education and advocacy groups and is one of the "Tres Chix" LinuxChix coordinators. Akkana is also the author of "Beginning GIMP: From Novice to Professional" and has written an assortment of tutorials for Linux Planet and other sites, including her own site, http://shallowsky.com.