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 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. Her work has appeared in Granta, the New Yorker, NPR, Electric Literature, and elsewhere.
About Zefyr Lisowski
Zefyr Lisowski is a 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 is a professionally trained actor, voice artist, and Audie Award–winning narrator.
About Aven Shore
Aven Shore lives in rural Eastern Canada in an off-grid tiny house she built on her large woodlot. She keeps chickens and bees and grows a lot of food. She is passionate about alternative, sustainable, and organic agriculture; feminist, sexuality, and gender identity issues; productivity and brain science; and all things Icelandic. Her interesting past lives include being a building contractor, firefighter, bartender, search and rescue volunteer, tax accountant, and competitive snowboarder. Her lifelong (and voracious) appetite for reading and learning is constantly fueled by reading for a living, and she has narrated over 200 audiobooks.
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 an actor, Earphones Award–winning narrator, and voice artist with over a hundred film and television credits. He works regularly as a commercial and animation voice-over artist and has voiced a wide variety of audiobooks. He won the Independent Filmmaker Project Award for his work in the HBO film Everyday People.
About Hope Newhouse
Née aux États-Unis et vivant en France, Hope Newhouse est d’abord comédienne de théâtre et a joué dans des projets d’une grande diversité : farces médiévales, théâtre contemporain et pièces pour enfants. Ces temps-ci, on la trouve plus souvent derrière le micro où son timbre chaleureux et dynamique peut être entendu aussi bien dans des publicités, des jeux vidéo, du e-learning, des lms institutionnels que des livres audio.
About Lindsey Dorcus
Lindsey Dorcus is a SOVAS and IAA Award–winning audiobook narrator and classically trained actor. She has narrated over fifty titles for publishers like Penguin Random House, Disney Hyperion, Audible Studios, Scribd, and others.
About André Santana
André Santana is a NYC-based audiobook narrator on a journey to tell great stories. He's a Black, Latin, and non-binary voice actor delivering intentional and human performances. Operating with a keen sense for realistic delivery, he inevitably becomes a fan of every book he narrates and shares that joy through his performances.
About Joel Froomkin
Joel Froomkin is a UK transplant, having grown up with American parents in a British commonwealth. He is often cast for his ability to deliver both American and British sounds.
About Mike Cooper
Mike Cooper is a British voice talent who left big-city life in London for a log cabin in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina.
Mike is recognizable from his years with the BBC World Service, and as the narrator of countless television documentaries. A disruptive influence in school, Mike's first break in narration came at age six, when his teacher realized he could tell the afternoon story better than her (and she could get a nap by way of a bonus). When he's not in his home studio, you'll find him enjoying hobby farm life and tending to two charming pet goats, named Baxter and Hazel.
About Vikas Adam
Vikas Adam is a classically trained actor who has performed on stage, film, and television. He has also recorded over one hundred audiobooks, for which he has garnered numerous awards and nominations, including Earphones, various Best of the Year lists, and the Audie Award. When not recording, acting, or directing, he can be found lecturing in the Theater Department at UCLA.
