About Joe Vallese
Joe Vallese’s creative and pop culture writing appears in Bomb, VICE, Backstage, PopMatters, Southeast Review, North American Review, Narrative Northeast, and VIA: Voices in Italian-Americana, among others. He is currently clinical associate professor in the Expository Writing Program at New York University, and previously served as site director and faculty for the Bard Prison Initiative. Joe holds an MFA from New York University and MAT and BA degrees from Bard College.
About Carmen Maria Machado
Carmen Maria Machado is the author of several books, inclding Her Body and Other Parties, which was a finalist for the National Book Award and winner of the National Book Critics Circle’s John Leonard Prize. In the Dream House was longlisted for the PEN/Kenneth Galbraith Award for Nonfiction. Her work has appeared in Granta, the New Yorker, NPR, Electric Literature, and elsewhere. Her work has been nominated for a Nebula Award and a Shirley Jackson Award and was a finalist for the Calvino Prize.
About Zefyr Lisowski
Zefyr Lisowski is a Lambda award-winning trans and queer writer, artist, and North Carolinian living in New York City. A 2023 NYFA/NYSCA Fellow and 2023 Queer|Art Fellow, she's the author of the poetry collections Girl Work, winner of the 2022 Noemi Book Prize, and Blood Box, winner of the Black River Editor's Choice Award from Black Lawrence Press. Zefyr's work has appeared in The Believer, Electric Literature, Catapult, Literary Hub, Split This Rock, and elsewhere. From 2016 to 2024, she served as poetry co-editor for the Whiting Award-winning Apogee Journal. She's seen grave robbers twice.
About Graham Halstead
Graham Halstead, an Earphones Award and Audie Award–winning narrator, is a professionally trained actor and voice artist. As an actor, he has worked internationally in Edinburgh and London, as well as at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC. His youthful, easy-flowing voice can be heard on television and radio voicing spots for Airborne and Allegra.
About Aven Shore
Aven Shore is an audiobook narrator who is in love with the magical alchemy of storytelling. A dual United States/Canada citizen, she has a passion for sustainable living; feminist, gender, and sexuality issues; cognitive science and productivity; and trauma/cult memoirs. She currently resides in an off-grid tiny house in rural Canada.
About Aida Reluzco
Aida Reluzco is a first-generation queer/LGBTQ+ American of Cuban and Filipino descent as well as a patron and contributor to the creative arts. Having received training in character studies, dialects, animation, and theater, she can usually be found enjoying life with her young family or reading.
About Mark Sanderlin
Mark Sanderlin is a talented voiceover artist who has worked on numerous audiobook projects.
About Krystal Hammond
Krystal Hammond is a narrator/writer, cancer survivor, and nonbinary queer human. They grew up in rural North Carolina, nurtured by a steady diet of local Black Beard legends and Civil War-era ghost stories. These nuggets of folktale and myth fostered a lifelong love of storytelling and all the drama that goes with it, resulting in loads of trunk novels and dozens of audiobooks. They have a passion for science fiction, fantasy, and horror, YA and middle grade novels, and romantic comedies.
About Daniel Henning
Daniel Henning is a director, producer, actor, and writer. His work has been seen on HBO, CBS, NBC, ABC, FOX, MTV, Comedy Central, and on stages throughout Southern California. He won a 2017 Telly Award for "Best Writer" for the film version of his play The Tragedy of JFK (as Told by Wm. Shakespeare). As director and writer, his TV and film work includes MTV's Rob Dyrdek's Fantasy Factory and the film Critic's Choice. He won the NAACP Theatre Award for "Best Director of a Musical" for The Wild Party.
He is the Founding Artistic Director of Hollywood's The Blank Theatre, winning over 200 awards for his productions, including "Best Production," from LA Drama Critic Circle, LA Weekly, Ovations, NAACP, etc. Henning has been inspirational to thousands of young artists through his creation of The Blank's Young Playwrights Festival (the only professional nationwide competition for playwrights aged nine to nineteen). He directed the first play by 2016 Tony Award Winner for "Best Play" Stephen Karam when Stephen was seventeen and a winner in The Blank's Young Playwrights Festival.
Henning has also been an acting teacher and coach and is known for his ability to spot young talent. He has given opportunities to many young actors who later went on to success in Hollywood including Tessa Thompson, Noah Wyle, Alison Brie, Molly Shannon, Academy Award winner Octavia Spencer, and Sarah Michelle Gellar. He coached Sarah Michelle Gellar on her auditions for the landmark TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and they shared a close personal friendship, even traveling to Australia together with family for New Year's Eve 2000, where the paparazzi photographed Henning and Gellar dancing. For several months, Henning was rumored to be dating Gellar in the Australian fan magazines (including Big Hit Magazine), which, of course, was inaccurate as Henning was traveling with his husband, Rick Baumgartner.
He is a graduate of NYU's Tisch School of the Arts, Circle in the Square Theatre School, and American Conservatory Theatre. His work for LGBTQ Equality includes creating the fiftieth Anniversary Celebration of the Black Cat Protests (the first major LGBTQ Demonstration in the US) and directing and hosting the 2017 LA City Council LGBTQ Pride Ceremony. He was recently honored by the CA State Legislature for his work in LGBTQ Equality and nurturing the future of the Arts.
He has also narrated dozens of audiobooks, both nonfiction and fiction.
About Ron Butler
Ron Butler is a Los Angeles–based actor, Earphones Award–winning audiobook narrator, and voice artist with over a hundred film and television credits. Most kids will recognize him from the three seasons he spent on Nickelodeon’s True Jackson, VP. He works regularly as a commercial and animation voice-over artist and has voiced a wide variety of audiobooks. He is a member of the Atlantic Theater Company and an Independent Filmmaker Project Award winner for his work in the HBO film Everyday People.
