Jo Weldon, Headmistress of the New York School of Burlesque, was a featured performer in Margaret Cho's variety show, the Sensuous Woman. She recently served as coach and consultant on the Victor Victrola episode of Gossip Girl. In 2007, the Village Voice named her Best Teacher in their Best of New York issue in Arts and Entertainment. In 2006 she was voted Best Burlesque Teacher and Mentor at the New York Burlesque Festival, and in 2005 she was voted Best Bump N Grinder. She is the judging co-ordinator for the Miss Exotic World Pageant and has been producing at Coney Island's Burlesque at the Beach series for five years. Going back a ways, in the early 1990s she was a feature dancer, traveling across the country with trunks full of props and costumes to headline at strip joints across the US and Canada; she performed her first fan dance in 1991. She also maintains a burlesque blog featuring backstage photos, news items, and interviews at burlesquedaily.blogspot.com. She literally wrote the book on burlesque: The Burlesque Handbook