Mariko Tamaki is a Toronto writer, playwright, activist and performer. She works and performs with fat activists Pretty Porky and Pissed Off and the theatre troupe TOA, whose recent play, A vs. B, was staged at the 2004 Rhubarb Festival at Buddies in Bad Times Theatre. Her well-received novel, Cover Me (McGilligan Books) was followed by a short fiction collection, True Lies: The Book of Bad Advice (Women's Press). Mariko's third book, FAKE ID, is due out in spring 2005. Mariko Tamaki has performed her work across Canada and through the States, recently appearing at the Calgary Folkfest 2004, Vancouver Writer's Festival 2003, Spatial III, and the Perpetual Motion/Girls Bite Back Tour, which circled though Ottawa, Montreal, Brooklyn and Chicago. She has appeared widely on radio and television including First Person Singular on CBC radio and Imprint on TVO. Mariko Tamaki is currently attending York University working a master's degree in women's studies. [MacMIllan Books]

Kelly Sue DeConnick’s work spans stage, comics, film and television. Ms. DeConnick first came to prominence as a comics writer, where she is best known for reinventing the Carol Danvers as “Captain Marvel” at Marvel and for the Black Label standard-setting Wonder Woman Historia: The Amazons at DC. Her independent comics Bitch Planet and Pretty Deadly (both from Image Comics) have ranked as New York Times best-sellers and been honored with Eisner Awards, British Fantasy Awards and Hugo nominations. Ms. DeConnick’s screen work includes stints on Captain Marvel, a film that earned $1B for Disney worldwide, and 2023’s forthcoming The Marvels with Marvel Studios; in addition to having consulted on features for Skydance and ARRAY, and developed television for NBCUniversal, Legendary Entertainment and HBOMax. Her most recent stage work is the mythic spectacle AWAKENING, which opened at the Wynn Resort Las Vegas in November 2022. Mission-driven, Ms. DeConnick is also a founding partner at Good Trouble Productions, where she has helped to produce non-fiction and educational comics including the “Hidden Voices” and “Recognized” series for NY Public Schools and Congressman John Lewis’ Run, in partnership with Abrams Comics. In 2015, Ms. DeConnick founded the #VisibleWomen Project, whose mission is to help women and other marginalized genders find paid work in comics and its related industries. The project continues to this day and recently expanded in partnership with Dani Hedlund of Brink Literacy. Ms. DeConnick lives in Portland, OR with her husband, writer Matt Fraction, and their two children.

Grant Morrison has been working with DC Comics for twenty five years, after beginning his American comics career with acclaimed runs on ANIMAL MAN and DOOM PATROL. Since then he has written such best-selling series as JLA, BATMAN and New X-Men, as well as such creator-owned works as THE INVISIBLES, SEAGUY, THE FILTH, WE3 and JOE THE BARBARIAN. In addition to expanding the DC Universe through titles ranging from the Eisner Award-winning SEVEN SOLDIERS and ALL-STAR SUPERMAN to the reality-shattering epic of FINAL CRISIS, he has also reinvented the worlds of the Dark Knight Detective in BATMAN AND ROBIN and BATMAN, INCORPORATED and the Man of Steel in The New 52 ACTION COMICS. In his secret identity, Morrison is a "counterculture" spokesperson, a musician, an award-winning playwright and a chaos magician. He is also the author of the New York Times bestseller Supergods, a groundbreaking psycho-historic mapping of the superhero as a cultural organism. He divides his time between his homes in Los Angeles and Scotland.

Dan Jurgens is an American comic book writer and artist. He is best known for creating the superhero Booster Gold, and for his lengthy runs on the Superman titles Adventures of Superman and Superman (vol. 2), particularly during The Death of Superman storyline. Other series he has been associated with include The Sensational Spider-Man (Vol. 1), Thor (vol. 2), Captain America (vol. 3), Justice League America, Metal Men, Teen Titans (vol. 2), Zero Hour, Tomb Raider: The Series, Aquaman (vol. 3), and the creator of DC Comics' imprint Tangent. Jurgens' first professional comic work was for DC Comics on Warlord #63. He was hired due to a recommendation of Warlord-series creator Mike Grell who was deeply impressed by Jurgens' work after being shown his private portfolio at a convention. In 1984, Jurgens was the artist for the Sun Devils limited series (July 1984 - June 1985), with writers Gerry Conway and Roy Thomas. Jurgens would make his debut as a comic book writer with Sun Devils he began scripting from Conway's plots with #8 and fully took over the writing duties on the title with #10. In 1985, Jurgens created the character Booster Gold, who became a member of the Justice League. His first work on Superman was as penciller for Adventures of Superman Annual #1 (1987). In 1989, Jurgens began working full-time on the character when he took over the writing/pencilling of the monthly Adventures of Superman. Dan Jurgens was the penciller of the 1990–1991 limited series Armageddon 2001 and co-created the hero Waverider with Archie Goodwin. In 1991 Jurgens assumed the writing/pencilling of the main Superman comic book, where he created a supporting hero named Agent Liberty. During his run on Superman, Dan created two major villains, Doomsday and the Cyborg. Doomsday was the main antagonist in the Death of Superman storyline. Jurgens wrote and drew Justice League America for about one year and in 1993 pencilled the Metal Men four-issue miniseries, which was a retcon of their origin story. Jurgens wrote and pencilled the 1994 comic book miniseries and crossover Zero Hour. He wrote and penciled layouts (with finished art by Brett Breeding) to the Superman/Doomsday: Hunter/Prey miniseries, which was a follow-up to the successful Death of Superman storyline. In 1995 Jurgens and Italian artist Claudio Castellini worked on the highly publicized crossover Marvel vs DC. In the same year, he gave up the pencilling duties on Superman. Jurgens scripted and provided layout art for the Superman vs. Aliens miniseries. The story was about a battle between Superman and the aliens created by H. R. Giger (a.k.a. the Xenomorphs), from the Alien film series. It was co-published by Dark Horse Comics and DC Comics in 1995. In January 1996, Jurgens was writer and penciller of the new Spider-Man series, The Sensational Spider-Man (Vol. 1), at Marvel Comics. The title was initially conceived to be the flagship showcase for the new Ben Reilly Spider-Man (it replaced the Web of Spider-Man series). The initial seven issues (#0–6, January–July 1996) were written and pencilled by Jurgens. Jurgens pushed strongly for the restoration of Peter Parker as the true Spider-Man and plans were made to enact this soon, but Bob Harras, the new Editor-in-chief, demanded the story be deferred until after the Onslaught crossover. Jurgens had by this stage become disillusioned with the immense amount of group planning and constant changes of ideas and directions and took this as the last straw, resigning from the title. In a past interview several years after his Spider-Man run, Jurgens stated that he would like to have another chance on the character, since his run was with the Ben Reilly character during the Spider-Man Clone Saga, and not Peter Parker. Jurgens had also written and pencilled Teen Titans (vol. 2) for its entire two year, 24 issue run. New Teen Titans co-creator George Pérez came on board on this incarnation of the Titans as inker for the se

Peter J. Tomasi is an American comic book writer, best known for his work for DC Comics, such as Batman And Robin; Superman; Super Sons; Batman: Detective Comics; Green Lantern Corps; and Superman/Wonder Woman; as well as Batman: Arkham Knight; Brightest Day; Green Lantern: Emerald Warriors; Nightwing; Black Adam, and many more. In the course of his staff career at DC Comics, Tomasi served as a group editor and ushered in new eras for Batman, Green Lantern, and the JSA, along with a host of special projects like Kingdom Come. He is also the author of the creator-owned titles House Of Penance with artist Ian Bertram; Light Brigade with artist Peter Snejbjerg; The Mighty with Keith Champagne and Chris Samnee; and the critically acclaimed epic graphic novel The Bridge: How The Roeblings Connected Brooklyn To New York, illustrated by Sara DuVall and published by Abrams ComicArts. In 2018 New York Times best-selling author Tomasi received the Inkpot Award for achievement in comics.