Rebecca Moesta
Rebecca Moesta Anderson was born Rebecca Sue Moesta on November 17, 1956, in Heidelberg, West Germany, to American parents. Shortly thereafter, her family moved to Darmstadt, where her father taught theology at a small seminary. Just before Rebecca's sixth birthday the family moved back to the United States and settled in Pasadena, California. She lived in Pasadena for the next seventeen years while she attended grade school, junior high, high school, and college. The fourth of five children (she has an older brother, two older sisters, and a younger brother) Rebecca began reading fantasy from the moment she could read. As early as second grade she remembers being an avid reader-even after bedtime when she would often sneak a book under the covers and read it, one line at a time, by the dim light of her electric blanket controls.
Rebecca's love of science fiction was influenced greatly by her father, a high school English teacher who holds advanced degrees in both English and theology. Rebecca also credits Mrs. Whitaker, the children's librarian at her public library, for steering her toward the types of books she enjoyed.
By the time she was ten, Rebecca had already integrated science fiction into her reading diet. Rebecca's mother, a nurse and a pragmatist, felt it her duty to introduce some reality into her daughter's life by sneaking biographies, adventures, and the occasional spy novel onto her reading stack. Though Rebecca fell hook, line, and sinker for these subversive tactics, she by no means abandoned her first love of fantasy and science fiction. She struck back by reading aloud from the works of George McDonald, C.S. Lewis, Lloyd Alexander, and others to her sisters, brothers, mother, father, grandmother, friends, dog -- anyone who would sit still long enough to listen.
Starting in her early teens, Rebecca dreamed of writing her own books, plotted them in her head, and gave them titles. On Saturday mornings, Rebecca and her sister Diane watched every sword, sandal, and sorcery movie ever made. And, whenever a new science fiction movie or television show debuted, Rebecca and her father were there to watch it. She was a Star Trek fan from day one.
Rebecca was not a Star Wars fan from day one. She was, however, a fan from day two. She was in college and looking forward to a summer break when her younger brother told her about a fantastic new science fiction movie she just had to go and see. She wasn't completely convinced at first-since her brother's tastes ran to movies like Godzilla and Rodan - but when a group of her friends from Caltech suggested seeing Star Wars the day after it opened, she willingly agreed. When she and six of her techer friends arrived at the Chinese Theater in Hollywood that evening and camped out for three hours in line, they had no idea what they were about to see. Fortunately, it proved to be worth the wait. Her love for the movie was instant and enduring.
Throughout her college days, Rebecca managed the offices at a small electronics company in Southern California. This, along with her friendships with techers, her love of science fiction, and a life-long association with her father, sealed her fate: Rebecca became a founding member and faithful adherent to a philosophical system of beliefs she calls Gadgetology.TM The devout gadgetologist TM sums up her belief system as follows: If anything-regardless of whether it is electric, abstract, electronic, mental, or mechanical-is the latest, the greatest, the newest, the best, I will undoubtedly want one; indeed, I must eventually have one.