Hannah Berry is an occasionally award-winning graphic novelist, comics creator, scriptwriter and campaigner. She is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and was UK Comics Laureate 2019-21. She has published three solo graphic novels - BRITTEN & BRÜLIGHTLY (official selection, Festival International de la Bande Dessinée d’Angoulême), ADAMTINE, and LIVESTOCK (Best Writer Award winner, Best Graphic Novel nominee, Broken Frontier Awards) and has contributed comics to anthologies and publications from 2000AD to the New England Journal of Medicine. As Laureate she conducted the first national survey of UK comics creators, resulting in the founding of the Society of Authors’ Comics Creators Network – of which she is on the steering committee – which aims to advocate for creators and offer professional support.
Karrie Fransman comics have been published by the United Nations (UN), The Guardian, The Times, Time Out, the BBC, The New Statesman and by The Arts Council. She is creative director at PositiveNegatives.org - an organisation that uses comics to amplify research. Her illustrated books, ‘Gender Swapped Fairy Tales’ (2020) and ‘Gender Swapped Greek Myths'(2023) were co-created with Jonathan Plackett and published by Faber & Faber. She published two graphic novels with Penguin Random House; ‘The House That Groaned’ (2012), and the award winning ‘Death of the Artist’ (2015). She developed an award winning comic about an Iranian teenage refugee, for The British Red Cross, created an installation for the British Council and Southbank Centre and was commissioned to make a ‘Selves Portrait’ for an exhibition with Manchester Art Gallery and the National Portrait Gallery. She has spoken and run workshops at The Guardian Masterclasses, Tate Modern, TEDx, Central Saint Martins, Oxford University, The Hay Festival and The British Library, and presented her work worldwide from Russia to Bangladesh, Lebanon and Mexico.
Rhiannon is the Co-Founder and Managing Director of Comics Youth CC, a youth led social enterprise that supports marginalised young people aged 8-25 to improve their wellbeing by making and publishing comics. In 2015 she co-founded CY as a means of plugging service provision gaps for marginalised youth who fall through the cracks between tier 1-4 mental health services and who feel 'other'. Rhiannon holds an undergraduate degree in Law from the University of Liverpool and a Masters degree in Public Health Research.
She fast became an industry leader within the third sector, winning numerous national awards for her innovative practice and Lived Experience Led Leadership. Rhiannon is a School of Social Entrepreneurs Fellow, Royal Fellow for the Society of Public Health, Trained Social Accountant, member of the All-Parlimentary Group for Art and Education in addition to being a Trustee for numerous charities. To date, she has secured over £20 million worth of funding from a range of trust and grant foundations, corporates, and charitable giving ventures for an array of charities across the North-West. She has recently been awarded an MBE for services towards young people in the King's 2023 Birthday honours.
linkedin.com/in/rhiannon-mair-griffiths-mbe-85843a14b
Sara Kenney has worked as a writer/producer/director for 25+ years in TV (BBC, Channel 4, Discovery) and science engagement and since 2015 in comics and games. In 2011 she set up Wowbagger Productions to explore how collective working, art and storytelling can improve science & health. Sara was awarded a 'Wellcome Engagement Fellowship' to research comics and health (2017-19). Her comic projects include SURGEON X (Writer, Image Comics), PLANET DIVOC-91 (Project lead, Writer, Webtoons), THE AMYG DALA (part of 24 PANELS anthology, Image Comics). Graphic Medicine Projects include ONE FOR ALL (Vocal, Manchester NHS) & SICKLE CELL WARRIORS (Brighton Uni). Sara is writing comic ACID BOX and writing/producing, a digital escape game inspired by the comic SHE COULD FLY (Berger Books). She currently works at the Environment Agency as a 'Senior Engagement Advisor' exploring engagement with communities around Flood Risk (to subsidise working in comics)!
Myfanwy Tristram has drawn comics all her life. She is interested in the power of comics to educate, enrage and create change in the world. As well as the small inequities of everyday life, she tackles global systemic issues, always with some humour and the aim of also putting visually appealing artwork into the world. In 2016 she coordinated the Draw The Line project, bringing together more than 100 artists, each depicting a positive political action that anyone can take. That year it won the Broken Frontier award for Best Web Comic. In 2020 it became a self-printed book, which sold out within days of its first print run; in 2021 a revised edition was published by Street Noise Books. As well as being a successful self-publisher, Myf has contributed to many projects and platforms, notably including US political comic The Nib, an illustrated essay that was amongst the most-read that year on the Longreads website, and the The Inking Woman exhibition and book. Myf's work has been longlisted for the LDC award, and shortlisted for both the Myriad First Graphic Novel Prize and a Broken Frontier Award.
Zara Slattery is a comics creator, tutor, painter and a newly minted animator. She is author of the award-winning graphic memoir, COMA (BBP&DA). Artist and contributor to academic resources; anthologies, including PLANET DIVOC, Myfanwy Tristram's, DRAW THE LINE and small press titles, DON'T CALL ME A TOMBOY, Zara runs workshops and creates accessible guides to comic creation. A member of the Society of Authors' Comic Creators Network, she's aiming for better access communication for mobility impaired comic creators and audiences. Zara is currently collaborating with author Gregory Norminton from Writers Rebellion (Extinction Rebellion) in re-creating the medieval eco fable, SWEENEY'S PROGRESS.
zaraslattery.com
instagram.com/zaraslattery