Raad Khair Allah is a PhD candidate at the Faculty of Arts/ Department of English and Comparative Literary, University of Warwick, UK. Her thesis title is ‘Contemporary Arab Women Writers, Filmmakers and Artists in an International Frame’. She is also a member of the seminar series organising committee at CSGW/Center for the Study of Women and Gender at the same institution. Prior to joining the University of Warwick, she worked as an English lecturer at Damascus University (part-time, 2009-2012) and the Syrian Private University (full-time, 2014-2018). She has received a certificate of digital humanities for postgraduate researchers from the Faculty of Arts at Warwick University for her project "Marginalization of Arab Women and Revolutionising Patriarchy. In this project, she has used Miro to depict the severe suffering that most Arab women undergo because of the patriarchal ideology of society. She has also showed how Arab women writers, filmmakers and artists challenge and revolutionise prevailing notions of gender in the patriarchal Arab society. In particular, she is interested in themes of sexuality and war. Find more on the this project on this link.

Micah Tasaka (田坂舞花) is a queer, nonbinary, mixed Japanese poet, artist, community organizer, Reiki practitioner, and magic maker from Colton, California. Micah has led healing and writing workshops for trauma survivors and queer and trans* people of color. Working with a variety of mediums including dance, visual art, music, meditation, and writing, they believe that art and performance hold the keys to survival and radical healing both on a community and personal level. Currently, they reside in Riverside, California, and work as a teaching artist for Rainbow Pride Youth Alliance. They received their undergraduate degree in creative writing from the University of California, Riverside. Their first full length manuscript, Expansions, was released on Jamii Publishing in 2017. You can find more of Micha’s work at www.micahtasaka.com or @kinokono_inaka on Twitter.

Gina Hanson is a writer and an adjunct professor out of Southern California. She holds an MFA from a California State University where she now teaches writing and advises her campus literary journal. Other work of hers has appeared in ZYZZYVA, Typehouse Literary, Talking Writing, Typishly, Sci Fi Lampoon, So to Speak, and has been performed at Liars' League NYC. She is currently completing a dissertation on professional equity for contingent academic faculty. She lives with her wife and their menagerie of ill-behaved senior rescue animals.

Isidro Zepeda was born and raised in the Coachella Valley. He is a husband and father of two beautiful children: Marisol and Eligio. His dedication to bring positive change to the Inland Empire, specifically in Education, inspired him to earn degrees in English Composition and Applied Linguistics & Teaching English as a Second Language from California State University, San Bernardino. He is currently an Assistant Professor of English at Crafton Hills Community College, where he teaches First-Year Writing, Chicanx Literature & History, and English as a Second Language Non-Credit courses. His artwork threads his cultural and academic identities into a series of digital experiential landscapes of resistance and negotiation against imperialist ideas, beliefs, and values that continue to develop, implement, and advance programs of oppression, exploitation, and erasure of Indigenous Cosmovisions in Southern California and beyond.

Naim Aburaddi is a Ph.D. student and Teaching Assistant in the Department of Media Studies at the University of Colorado Boulder. He has a BA in Journalism from Istanbul University and an MA in Communication Studies from California State University, San Bernardino (CSUSB). As a result of his work and activism, Aburaddi was featured and interviewed by many media outlets such as Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, BBC, and other channels and newspapers. He also was awarded the 2022 CSUSB College of Arts and Letters Outstanding Graduate Student Award, the 2022 Department of Communication Studies Outstanding Graduate Student Award, and the 2022 Outstanding Graduate Teaching Associate Award. Aburaddi has over 7 years of experience in digital journalism and media. He worked for several international media production companies as a Digital Content Editor, Social Media Manager, and Communication Consultant. In addition, he taught Oral Communication courses as a stand-alone instructor at California State University, San Bernardino for two years. Furthermore, he presented several academic articles at national and international conferences such as the National Communication Association (NCA), and Arab Studies Quarterly (ASQ) Conference.

Gustavo Alberto Garcia Vaca is an interdisciplinary visual artist/writer and arts educator. His artwork is in the Collections of MoMA New York, LACMA and the Bibliotheque Nationale de France. His writing appears in the online speculative fiction journal Strange Horizons, literary journal Bilingual Review and comic/manga magazine Shonen Jump/Aoharu. Gustavo collaborates visually with Detroit Techno producers Underground Resistance and Jeff Mills, Dub producer Francois K, graffiti painter Man One, comic creator Kenny Keil and others. He has created artwork for Apple, Capitol Records, Disney and Warner Bros; and in Japan for Be@rbrick and the Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation. Also, Gustavo creates community art experiences for museums and arts organizations. Gustavo holds a BA from Hampshire College, Certificate from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, Certificates from the Architectural Association London and is currently a MA candidate at California State University Northridge. Gustavo’s website is: http://www.chamanvision.com.

Henri-Simon Blanc-Hoang worked as an instructor of Spanish & French for the federal government until the election of Donald Trump, when the decision to build “the wall” made the learning of Spanish obsolete for government employees. For his second-language learners, Blanc-Hoang would draw graphic novel adaptations of authentic literary texts. After being laid off from his government job, this self-taught painter used his extra time to pursue his artistic career. He finds inspiration in his double cultural heritage and in the subversion of traditional art forms. For him, the priority is to give a visibility, in his work, to the post-colonial subjects while creating art that has a low-environmental impact.

Raul Moarquech Ferrera-Balanquet (PhD & MFA), an Indigenous Kairibe and Africana Arab Caribbean interdisciplinary artist, was born in Havana, Cuba. He received his PhD from Duke University, as well as his MFA from the University of Iowa. Ferrera-Balanquet is the author of Aestesis Decolonial Transmoderna Latinx_MX, (2019) and is currently the Co-Executive Director of Howard University’s Gallery of Art. Ferrera-Balanquet is a founder member of Latino Midwest Video Collective, Laboratorio Cartodigital, and the Afroyucatecxs collective. His writings have appeared in Aztlán: Journal of Chicano Studies, Vol. 44, No. 2, UCLA; Bienal de La Habana Para leer, Universitat De Valencia, Spain; Inter, Art Actuael, No 102, Québec, Canada. He has also exhibited his work at Haceres Decoloniales, Galeria ASAB, Bogota, Colombia; BE.BOP 2013 Black Europe Body Politics, Ballhaus Naunynstraße, Berlin, Germany; “Cuba: La Isla Posible”, CCCB Barcelona, Spain. In addition to a Fulbright Fellowship, Ferrera-Balanquet has been awarded grants from Critical Minded, FONCA, Foundation for Contemporary Arts, ANAT-Australia, and The Lyn Blumenthal Video Foundation.

Carly Creley is a painter and photographer from Los Feliz in Los Angeles, California. She holds masters degrees in Environmental Science and in Education, and uses art to share her experiences in the natural world with others. Carly loves hiking, camping, and exploring new places. In addition to teaching science, Carly leads an annual volunteer week in Sequoia National Park, and is a guide at Griffith Observatory. Her work has been exhibited at Art Share L.A., the Ronald H. Silverman Fine Arts Gallery at California State University, Los Angeles, and galleries throughout Southern California. Her art has been published in Spectrum, The Sand Canyon Review, and East Jasmine Review. Her scientific research on tree squirrels has been published in the Bulletin of the Southern California Academy of Sciences. You can find her recent work here.

Liliana Conlisk Gallegos “Mystic Machete” is a feminist, anti colonial performer of research, a translator, and an uncivil disruptor who doesn’t know her place. As an Optimus Prime Trauma Transformer con lengua de machete she exposes and confronts supremacist formats by experimenting “con lo que caiga”. Her live, interactive media art production and rasquache performances generate culturally specific, collective, technocultural creative spaces of production that reconnect Chicana/o/x Mestiza Indigenous wisdom and conocimiento to their ongoing technological and scientific contributions. As a transfronteriza (perpetual border crosser), the current limited perceptions of what research, media, and technology can be and do are like a yonke (junkyard), from which pieces are upcycled and repurposed to amplify individual and collective expression, community healing, and social justice.