John Walsh is a double BAFTA and double Grierson-nominated filmmaker, best-selling author and founder of Walsh Bros Ltd, one of the UK’s top 100 production companies. John met Ray Harryhausen as a film student to make a documentary about his life and work. Today, John is a Trustee of the Ray & Diana Harryhausen Foundation and, in 2021, founded the Harryhausen Awards.
His books include Harryhausen The Lost Movies and his acclaimed non-fiction Official Story of the Film series with titles on Flash Gordon, Escape From New York and Dr Who & The Daleks. All four Rondo Award Nominees for “Book of the Year”. 2023 saw the release of Conan The Barbarian, and The Wicker Man. 2024 saw the publication of The Third Man: The Official Story of the Film, c
Aaron Elliott, better known as Aaron Cometbus, is a drummer, lyricist, self-described "punk anthropologist" and author of Cometbus, a seminal punk rock zine.
Michelle Cruz Gonzales, a Xicana writer, writes memoir and fiction. Born in East LA in 1969, MCG grew up in Tuolumne, a tiny California Gold Rush town. She played drums and wrote lyrics for three bands during the 1980s and 1990s, Bitch Fight, Spitboy, and Instant Girl. Spitboy, not a riot grrl band, toured extensively in the US and overseas and released several albums.
The author of The Spitboy Rule: Tales of a Xicana in a Female Punk Band, PM Press, MCG earned degrees in 2001 and 2003, in English/Creative Writing from Mills College, where she also minored in Ethnic Studies. She has been a regular contributor to Hip Mama Magazine, published by Seal Press in Book Lovers Anthology: Sexy Stories from Under the Covers , in the Listen To Your Mot
Emily Bludworth de Barrios is a poet whose latest book, Shopping or The End of Time (University of Wisconsin 2022), received the Felix Pollak Prize. Her next book, Rich Wife, is the recipient of the Four Lakes Prize and will be published Spring 2024 (University of Wisconsin). Her poems have recently appeared in publications such as Harvard Review, Copper Nickel, The Poetry Review, and Oxford Poetry. She received her MFA from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and also holds degrees from Goldsmiths College and The College of William & Mary. She was raised in Houston, Cairo, and Caracas, and now lives in both Houston, Texas and Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia.
