Jody Houser decided she wanted to be a writer at eight years old and never looked back. She earned her MFA in Creative Writing at Emerson College, where she completed her master's thesis in screenwriting and was a winner of the Rod Parker Fellowship for Playwriting. Now a New York Times bestselling and Eisner-nominated writer, Jody has penned stories for DC Comics (Mother Panic, Harley Quinn & Poison Ivy), Marvel Comics (Star Wars, Web of Black Widow), Dark Horse Comics (Stranger Things, Critical Role), Titan Comics (Doctor Who), IDW Publishing (Orphan Black, Star Trek), and Valiant Entertainment (Faith), among others.
Sam Maggs is a New York Times Best Selling author of books, comics, and video games. Her novels include Star Wars Jedi: Battle Scars and The Unstoppable Wasp: Built on Hope; she’s written for games like Call of Duty: Vanguard, Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands, and Marvel’s Spider-Man; and her comics and graphic novels include Marvel Action: Captain Marvel, Critical Role: The Mighty Nein Origins, and Tell No Tales: Pirates of the Southern Seas. She is also an on-air host for networks like Nerdist. A Canadian in Los Angeles, she misses Coffee Crisp and bagged milk.
Cecil Castellucci is the author of books and graphic novels for young adults including Boy Proof, The Plain Janes, First Day on Earth, The Year of the Beasts, Tin Star, Stone in the Sky and the Eisner nominated Odd Duck. Her picture book, Grandma's Gloves, won the California Book Award Gold Medal. Her short stories have been published in Strange Horizons, YARN, Tor.com, and various anthologies including, Teeth, After, and Interfictions 2. She is the Children's Correspondence Coordinator for The Rumpus, a two time Macdowell Fellow and the founding YA Editor at The LA Review of Books.
In addition to writing books, she writes plays, makes movies, does performance pieces, and still occasionally rocks out. Born in New York City to French Canadian parents, she is a citizen of both America and Canada. Currently, she lives in Los Angeles.
Selina “Sirius” Espiritu is a Philippines-based comic illustrator with more dogs than sense. She gets real enthusiastic about medicine and fishing, and requires direct sunlight at least once a day. You can follow her on Twitter @siriusdraws.
Diana Sousa lives in Portugal, where she works as a comic book colorist, and as a freelance graphic designer doing layout for TTRPG books. In 2023 she was nominated for an Eisner Award for Best Coloring for her work in several Critical Role projects with Dark Horse Comics.
Ariana Maher (she/her) is a Brazilian-American letterer who has worked on quite a number of Critical Role comics, including Vox Machina Origins, Mighty Nein Origins and of course Tales of Exandria. Her greatest lettering challenge is telling the difference between Vex and Vax when reading comic book scripts, but she's getting better at it. Her beloved cat is Ames--named after the Ames Lettering Guide. If you're curious about lettering, you can find her at www.arianamaher.com
