KEYNOTES

Saladin Ahmed's Throne of Crescent Moon was nominated for the Hugo and Nebula awards, and won the Locus Award for Best First Novel. His first comic, Black Bolt, won the Will Eisner award. His original horror comic Abbott was nominated for a Bram Stoker Award and was a Michigan Notable Book. Saladin currently writes the Marvel comics Miles Morales: Spider-Man and The Magnificent Mrs. Marvel. He lives near Detroit. 

Max Brooks is a senior nonresident fellow at the Modern War Institute at West Point and the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security. His bestselling books include Minecraft: The Island, Minecraft: The Mountain, The Zombie Survival Guide, Devolution, and World War Z, which was adapted into a 2013 movie starring Brad Pitt. His graphic novels include the #1 New York Times bestseller The Harlem Hellfighters.

SPEAKERS

Aidyn Arroyal aka Snailords (he/they) is a manga, comic, and WEBTOON artist. He's best known for his romance webtoon, Freaking Romance (completed), and thriller webtoon, Death: Rescheduled (ongoing). He is also the creator of Snailogy and Snailed It, two slice-of-life comic series.

David Brame is the Eisner-nominated comic artist of After the Rain, whose art for the graphic novel was hailed as "bold and arresting" by Publishers Weekly. He was also a contributor to the graphic novel anthology Young Men in Love: A Queer Romance Anthology, which earned the GLAAD Award for Outstanding Graphic Novel or Anthology and the American Library Association's award for Great Graphic Novel for Teens. David lives in Alaska with his three dogs. For more information, visit his Instagram @amazingdavidbrame. 

Matteo L. Cerilli is a trans masc author and activist who helped found the Students for Queer Liberation (Toronto) and works with the No Pride in Policing Coalition. He writes widely across genres and age categories. Lockjaw is his debut book. 

Adam De Souza is a Canadian cartoonist and illustrator. He has been drawing comics for as long as he can remember and self-publishing his work for the better part of a decade. His ongoing comic strip "Blind Alley" was 2022's recipient of the Cartoonist Studio Prize for web comics. Outside of comics, he has illustrated children's books and worked for publications such as the Globe and Mail. 

Saara El-Arifi is the internationally bestselling author of The Final Strife and The Battle Drum, the first two installments of The Ending Fire Trilogy inspired by her Ghanaian and Sudanese heritage. She has lived in many countries, had many jobs, and owned many more cats. After a decade of working in marketing and communications, she returned to academia to complete a master’s degree in African studies alongside her writing career. She currently resides in London as a full-time procrastinator. 

Lars Henrik Eriksen (b. 1995) studied music at upper secondary school, and has further education as a civil engineer. He has always loved comics and has been drawing for as long as he can remember. Eriksen participated in Egmont’s comic book competition in 2018 and immediately received a book contract. This inspired him to continue with his comic book – which now sees the light of day. 

Heather Fawcett writes books for adults, kids, and teens, including Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries, The Islands of Elsewhere, the Even the Darkest Stars series, Ember and the Ice Dragons, and more. She has a master’s degree in English Literature and a bachelor’s in Archaeology. 

Anna Gracia was born and raised in Minnesota, where she subsisted on Dairy Queen blizzards and the sheer audacity of Jessica Wakefield. Her YA debut, Boys I Know, was both an Indies Introduce and an Indie Next pick, and was featured in The New York Times, Paste, Buzzfeed, and Seventeen. When not writing, you can find her napping or wishing she was napping. 

Richard Ashley Hamilton is a Cuban-American (no, really) writer best known for his storytelling across DreamWorks Animation’s How To Train Your Dragon and Guillermo Del Toro’s Tales of Arcadia franchises. He wrote on the Daytime Emmy-winning first season of Dragons: Race to the Edge and scripted the Lumiere award-winning How To Train Your Dragon: Hidden World Tour VR experience. 

E.K. Johnston is the author of The Afterward, Aetherbound, That Inevitable Victorian Thing, and other YA novels, as well as the Star Wars books Queen’s Hope, Queen’s Peril, Queen’s Shadow, and Ahsoka. She had several jobs and one vocation before she became a published writer. If she’s learned anything, it’s that things turn out weird sometimes, and there’s not a lot you can do about it. You can follow Kate on Twitter (@ek_johnston) to learn more about Alderaanian political theory than you really need to know, or online at ekjohnston.ca.

Richard Kadrey is the New York Times bestselling author of the Sandman Slim supernatural noir series. Sandman Slim was included in Amazon’s “100 Science Fiction & Fantasy Books to Read in a Lifetime,” and is in production as a feature film. Some of Kadrey’s other books include The Grand Dark, The Everything Box, King Bullet, and Butcher Bird. In comics, he’s written for Heavy Metal, Lucifer, and Hellblazer. 

Cassandra Khaw is the USA Today bestselling author of Nothing But Blackened Teeth and the Bram Stoker Award-winner, Breakable Things. Other notable works of theirs are The Salt Grows Heavy and British Fantasy Award and Locus Award finalist, Hammers on Bone. Khaw’s work can be found in places like The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Year’s Best Science Fiction and Fantasy, and Tor.com. Khaw is also the co-author of The Dead Take the A Train, co-written with bestselling author Richard Kadrey. 

Emma Kubert is a freelance comic book artist, writer, and graduate of the Kubert School (2018). She has freelanced for various companies such as DC Entertainment, Dynamite Entertainment, 20th Century Fox, and Image Comics. Emma recently penciled, inked and colored for DC Entertainments’ DC Superhero Girls and Teen Titans Go!, and drew layouts for the company’s young adult graphic novel Raven. Though she loves superheroes, fantasy is her favorite genre, and she is extremely pumped to be presenting INKBLOT through Image Comics with her partner in crime, Rusty Gladd.  

Joe Latham is a Human Person, based in Bristol (UK). He makes comics, illustrations, and designs for other humans. In his own words, he is "a tall nerd" and he plays the drums. He also likes to hang out with his cat. He uses Instagram and Twitter to post project updates and artwork. 

E. Latimer’s breakout success on the online writing platform Wattpad has resulted in a fanbase of over 100 thousand followers, with over 20 million combined reads. Her debut novel, The Strange and Deadly Portraits of Bryony Gray, was shortlisted for the OLA Red Maple Award and the Manitoba Young Readers' Choice Award, and her second novel, Escape to Witch City, was called a "pulse-pounding adventure" by Publishers Weekly. A former children's bookseller, she is focusing on her writing. She lives in British Columbia with her family. 

Briana Lawrence has wanted to be a "WRITTER" since she was nine years old. Her fourth-grade class laughed and wondered how one hoped to become a “writer” if they couldn’t even spell the word. In Search of Superpowers is her debut middle grade book and book series; she also is the author of the upcoming Essential Guide to Manga (Scholastic, 2024) and the self-published magical girl series magnifiqueNOIR. Briana lives in St. Paul, Minnesota and enjoys all things nerdy like anime, video games, cosplay, and reading too much manga. 

Vikram Madan grew up in India, where he really wanted to be a cartoonist but ended up an engineer. After many years of working in the tech industry, he came to his senses and followed his heart into storytelling. He is the author/illustrator of Owl and Penguin, a Theodor Seuss Geisel Honor book and Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection, Owl and Penguin: Best Day Ever, and the new rhyming early graphic novel series featuring Zooni—loaded with laughs and silly gaffs, for fans of Baloney and Friends and Narwhal and Jelly. 

Salwa Majoka is a Pakistani-Canadian illustrator and 2D artist for the animation industry. She has worked on both TV cartoons and in film with a focus on painting and color design — the two things she enjoys the most about visual storytelling. Salwa has a special love and curiosity for the many marvels of the natural world, outer space and the deep sea, which often find their way into her work. She has known her co-author, Christine, since middle school, and this is her first book. She lives in Toronto, Canada, with her family. 

A Chicago native, Nick Medina has gone in search of Resurrection Mary, the “Italian Bride,” the “Devil Baby,” and other Windy City ghosts. An enthusiast of local and Native lore, some of which he featured in his debut novel Sisters of the Lost Nation, he attributes his fondness for the supernatural to his family’s history in the funeral business and the intriguing stories they would tell. He has degrees in organizational and multicultural communication. He enjoys playing guitar, listening to classic rock, and watching Svengoolie on Saturday nights. Learn more online at www.nickmedina.net.  

Meredith Moriarty is an Eisner-nominated artist and writer from Philadelphia. When she’s not drawing, she enjoys playing video games, baking desserts, and hanging out with her cats and dogs. 

G. Neri is the Eisner-nominated, Coretta Scott King Honor-winning author of Yummy: The Last Days of a Southside Shorty, which CNN and Flavorwire hailed as one of the top 25 essential graphic novels of all-time. He has written 13 books for young people, including Ghetto Cowboy, which was made into the movie, Concrete Cowboy. His books have been translated into multiple languages in more than 25 countries. In 2023, he was awarded an honorary doctorate degree from SUNY for his literary output. Mr. Neri lives on the Gulf coast of Florida. For more information, visit his website at gneri.com. 

Jonah Newman is a cartoonist and editor who has worked in the publishing industry since 2018. At Graphix, Scholastic’s graphic novel imprint, he has worked with Dav Pilkey, Jamar Nicholas, Angeli Rafer, and many others. When he’s not creating, editing, or reading comics, you might find Jonah binge-listening to history podcasts, playing in an LGBTQ softball league, or getting way too invested in his fantasy baseball team. He lives in Brooklyn with his husband (who’s a human) and two kids (who are cats). 

Jamie Pacton is an award-nominated young adult and middle grade author, who writes swoony, funny, magical books across genres. When she’s not writing, she’s teaching college English, obsessively reading obscure history, hiking, baking, or playing video games. Her books include The Vermilion Emporium, Lucky Girl, and The Life and (Medieval) Times of Kit Sweetly. 

Jason Pinter is the internationally bestselling author of the Henry Parker and Rachel Marin series, the standalone thriller The Castle, and the upcoming sci-fi thriller Past Crimes. He has been nominated for the Thriller Award, Strand Critics Award, Barry Award, and Shamus Award. Jason is also the Founder and Publisher of the independent publisher Polis Books, as well as Agora, an imprint dedicated to diverse and underrepresented voices in crime fiction. He lives in New Jersey with his wife and two daughters. 

Sarah Winifred Searle originally hails from spooky New England but currently lives in sunny Boorloo (Perth, Australia). Their first award-winning graphic novels were Sincerely, Harriet (Graphic Universe, 2019) and Patience & Esther: An Edwardian Romance (Iron Circus Comics, 2021). Their First Second books are The Greatest Thing (2021), Ruined (2023), and their upcoming vampire rom-com, The Sweetness Between Us. 

A.J. Steiger was born in Burbank, Illinois and grew up in the Chicago area, graduating from Columbia College in Chicago where she majored in Fiction Writing. Her previous novels include the Young Adult books Mindwalker and Mindstormer, When My Heart Joins the Thousand, and Cathedral of Bones. Eye of a Little God is her first adult fiction book. 

Jiaming Tang is a queer immigrant writer. He holds an MFA from the University of Alabama, and his writing has appeared in such publications as AGNI, Lit Hub, Joyland Magazine, and elsewhere. He is a 2022-23 Center for Fiction Emerging Writer Fellow and lives in Brooklyn, New York. Cinema Love is his first novel. 

Joshua Williamson is a bestselling author who resides in Portland, Oregon. Joshua has written for nearly every comic publisher with creator owned works such as Ghosted, Birthright, Nailbiter, and Dark Ride. Josh is one of the pillars of the modern DC Universe, with an iconic run on The Flash, the longest any writer had spinning out of the DC Rebirth initiative. As one of the architects behind Death Metal and Dark Crisis, Josh has cemented his reputation with fans as one of the best voices at DC. But his heart will always be with creator owned comics and building new worlds. He secretly hopes to take over comics.     

Kristi Chadwick is a Consultant for Massachusetts Library System, providing advisory and continuing education for multitype library members all across the Commonwealth. Kristi is also the columnist for Library Journal's Science Fiction & Fantasy reviews. You can find her discussing writing, books, libraries, and her love for coffee, chickens, and fountain pens on Twitter @booksnyarn. 

Kristyn Dorfman has been a school librarian for over a decade and has worked with children of all ages, from early childhood to High School Seniors. She has been reviewing for School Library Journal since 2013 and has served on several ALA and ALA affiliate committees including most recently APALA's 2020-2021 Youth Literature Award. She spends most of her free time reading, writing, doing the crossword, and spending time with her three young children.  

Grace D. Gipson, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor in the Department of African American Studies at Virginia Commonwealth University. As a Black future feminist/pop culture scholar, Dr. G's area of research interest centers on Black popular culture, digital humanities, representations of race and gender within comic books, Afrofuturism, and race and new media. Outside of the classroom, you can find Dr. G working in the community and on her social networks: Instagram- @lovejones20 and Twitter- @GBreezy20. 

Migdalia Jimenez is a Branch Manager at the Chicago Public library. She contributes reviews for Library Journal and writes Staff Picks for the Chicago Public Library website. She enjoys reading a wide variety of genres but especially Romance, Sci-fi, Fantasy, re-tellings of classics and books about the Latinx Diaspora. Her hobbies include travelling, cooking, bike-riding, and playing with her 4 cats. 

Ashley Leffel is the librarian in Frisco, TX.  Before becoming a librarian, she taught music for many years. She loves reading all types of books and fangirling for her favorite authors. When not reading, she enjoys Broadway musicals and can quote just about every episode of Bob’s Burgers. 

Stephanie Lim brings an abiding love of literary classics, guilty-pleasure genre fiction, fanfic, and children’s books to her work as the co-founder and CEO of Third State Books, the first general-interest publisher dedicated solely to uplifting AAPI authors and stories. Early in her career, Stephanie sifted through slush piles as an intern at Penguin Putnam and edited a mathematical children’s book for Charlesbridge Publishing, so working on TSB feels truly like coming full circle for her. She lives in San Francisco with her husband, Garry, and their two sons. 

Ashley Rayner is a research librarian at NORC at the University of Chicago. She has been an academic and public librarian as well, all within the Chicagoland area. Ashley loves reading any genre but she has a special love for speculative fiction, historical fiction, and thrillers. She started writing book reviews for Booklist in 2020 and they help her stay connected to fiction as a librarian at a social science research organization. When she's not reading or researching, Ashley can be found playing video games, cooking, planning her next karaoke debut song, tweeting at @ashley_rayner, or hanging out with her husband and two kids. 

Becky Spratford [MLIS] is a Readers' Advisor in Illinois specializing in serving patrons ages 13 and up. She runs the critically acclaimed RA training blog RA for All. She provides content for EBSCO’s NoveList database and writes reviews for Booklist and a horror review column for Library Journal. Becky is a 20- year locally elected Library Trustee and a Board member for the Reaching Across Illinois Library System. Known for her work with horror readers, Becky is the author of The Reader’s Advisory Guide to Horror, Third Edition [ALA Editions, 2021]. You can follow Becky on Twitter @RAforAll.  

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