Peter Davison

Peter Davison

Project lead, writer and editor.

Under the pseudonom of Alex Davison, Peter trained and worked as an actor before attending the MA in Creative Writing at the University of Chichester. Peter’s fiction has been published in Firewords Quarterly and the Bath Flash Fiction Anthology. He has worked across a number of artforms and on a wide range of projects, programming festivals, delivering the programme of support and mentoring for an EU-funded artist studio, and participating in You, Me and Everyone in Portsmouth, the UK’s largest community crowd sourced literary artwork. He is a Trustee of the Literacy Hubs.

Katriona Chapman

Katriona Chapman

Illustrator

Katriona Chapman is an illustrator and comic artist/writer living in London. She’s also head of marketing for Avery Hill Publishing.

She started out as a children’s book illustrator and has worked with publishers all over the world. In 2015 she created a zine called Katzine and has published eight issues. She has two graphic novels out with Avery Hill Publishing – Follow Me In (2018) and Breakwater (2020.) She is currently working on a third.

Instagram: @katrionachapman

Susanna Jones

Susanna Jones

Writer

Susanna Jones lived in Japan for several years in the 1980s and 1990s. She is the author of several novels, including THE EARTHQUAKE BIRD, WATER LILY, THE MISSING PERSON’S GUIDE TO LOVE and WHEN NIGHTS WERE COLD. Her work has been translated widely and won awards including the Betty Trask Award, the John Creasey Dagger, the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize and Fiction Uncovered. THE EARTHQUAKE BIRD has been adapted for film by Netflix, directed by Wash Westmoreland and starring Alicia Vikander. Susanna taught on the Creative Writing MA at Royal Holloway University of London for many years and now runs her own workshops and mentoring programme. She lives in Brighton.
Natsu Hirukawa

Natsu Hirukawa

Writer and Translator

Natsu Hirukawa is a poet, playwright and translator. Her collection of poetry films, To Our Grace, was presented by Bournemouth Emerging Arts Fringe. Her play, Eternity, was shortlisted for the Pleasance Theatre Reading Festival. The Japanese Doll was selected for the London International Playwriting Festival. I picture was table-read by The New works Playhouse Theatre and was presented by both Thematic Theatre and Queens Theatre. Natsu is a graduate of City University of London’s MA in Creative Writing. Natsu is from Japan. She currently lives in both London and Japan.
Jac Cattaneo

Jac Cattaneo

Writer

Jac Cattaneo is a writer and teacher of Creative Writing and Film Studies. As well as degrees in Design and Sculpture, she was awarded a PhD in Creative Writing from the University of Chichester.  Her interests include collaging text and image, arthouse film and encouraging students to explore the relationship between images and words.  Jac currently holds the post of Principal Lecturer at Screen and Film School, Brighton.  Her prize-winning short stories and poems have been widely published in journals and anthologies, including Riptide, C21 Literature and Flash: The International Short-Short story magazine.
Clare Sumi

Clare Sumi

Writer

Clare Sumi was brought up in London in a British-Japanese family. She studied English Literature & Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia, going on to do an MA in Text and Performance at RADA and Kings College. In 2011 Clare took part in the Unheard Voices Programme at the Royal Court where she wrote her first short play Nighthawks, a play set in a Chinese restaurant. This won Dim Sum Nights, an evening of short plays performed by Yellow Earth Theatre, which then did a national tour across the UK. Clare was invited back to the Royal Court to take part in the Studio Group, for which she wrote a second short, Automat, which again went on the Yellow Earth Theatre tour. Clare’s first feature film project Glowed Up is currently under development with the BFI. It was a finalist for Film London’s Microwave 2017 slate. Clare continues to write for TV, film and theatre.
David Swann

David Swann

Writer

Born and raised in northern England, Dave started out reporting on Accrington Stanley’s football matches for the local rag. Later, working in Holland, he became a toilet cleaner at the legendary Paradiso nightclub. He is a Senior Lecturer in English & Creative Writing at the University of Chichester. His short stories and poems have been widely published, including eight successes in the Bridport Prize and two in the National Poetry Competition. ‘The Privilege of Rain’ (Waterloo Press, 2010), a book based on his experiences as a writer-in-residence in a jail, was shortlisted for The Ted Hughes Award. Dave’s novella ‘Season of Bright Sorrow’ will be published in the autumn, after winning First prize in the 2021 Bath Novella-in-Flash contest. He agrees with the poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti that literature is the “shortest distance between two humans”. 
Houmi Miura

Houmi Miura

Writer

Houmi Miura is a Japanese British female writer, theatre-maker and actor. She’s a graduate of the BBC Writersroom’s Northern Voices 2020 scheme.

She is also currently developing her solo show, IN THE BEGINNING WOMAN WAS THE SUN, supported by HOME, Eclipse, Unity Theatre and Arts Council England. She has provided writing development support to Red Production Company, written sketches for CBBC’s THE AMELIA GETHING COMPLEX and has recently written and performed a monologue for New Earth Theatre’s SIGNAL FIRES.She trained in an MA in Professional Acting at ALRA North and studied her BA in English Literature at The University of Manchester.

Houmi loves to playfully explore themes of identity within the everyday, through a fantastical lens.

As an actor, she has performed for theatres across the North including Royal Exchange, Stephen Joseph Theatre and York Theatre Royal. She has filmed for BBC One, Amazon, Netflix, ITV, Channel 4 and Sky. Houmi has provided voiceover for the TOTAL WAR gaming franchise and for the BFI award-winning VR short film TO MISS THE END, which has been showcased at Sundance Film Festival.

Website link to agent: https://www.wgmtalent.com/screen-writers/houmi-miura/

Haruka Kuroda

Haruka Kuroda

Voice Over Artist, Japanese language.

Haruka is a leading Japanese actress, based in London. She was the voice of Noodle in internationally acclaimed virtual pop band, Gorillaz! for seven years, joining for their first international tour. Since then, Haruka has become a highly sought after and successful voice over artist. Haruka was the presenter for award winning children’s BBC show, Officially Amazing (seven series). Her versatile career has seen her working as language coach to Oscar winning actress Alicia Vikander on the film Earthquake Bird, Sidse Babett Mnudsen on Channel 4 drama ‘The Accident’ and as dialect coach on the Netflix/Channel 4 show, ‘Giri/Haji’. As an actress Haruka has performed in plays at prominent venues including Bristol Old Vic (‘Bob’), Manchester Royal Exchange (‘Wit’) and Southwark Playhouse (‘Usagi Yojimbo’). Her film and television credits include ‘Killing Eve’, ‘Life’, ‘London Road’ and ‘Better Things’. Haruka is a prominent member of the annual London Matsuri festival.

Andy Lanning

Andy Lanning

Illustrator

Andy has worked for over thirty years as a storyteller; both as a writer and artist creating stories, characters and story worlds across many platforms, through comics, books, magazines, TV and film. He is probably best known for his work writing Marvel’s ‘cosmic’ characters, particularly, The Guardians of the Galaxy. Andy is also an inker, working with some of the biggest artists on top titles like Wonder Woman, X-Men, Spider-Man and many others. Andy has written for video games and spent eight years as the Executive Creative Director for Magic Leap, a tech start-up developing Augmented Reality glasses, helping to define the company’s creative ethos and developing the possibilities that the new platform and technology of spatial computing mixed reality presented.
Grant Perkins

Grant Perkins

Illustrator

Margates’ own Grant Perkins is a comic book artist and writer who has worked for WWE, Doctor Who, 2000ad, Titan Comics and much more.

He wrote and drew Doctor Who’s “Strax and the Time Shark” and recently finished up a run on WWE Kids Magazine where he writes and drew the colourful grapplers of the WWE.

He enjoys drinking coffee and long walks along the beach.

You can find him on the internet at www.TheGrantPerkins.com

Jem Milton

Jem Milton

Illustrator

Jem Milton (he/they) is a non-binary artist based in Glasgow. As well as illustrating and graphic recording they make an ongoing webcomic called ‘The Flying Ship’,  a queer fantasy adventure story inspired by Russian and Slavic folklore.

Recent books include ‘Beyond This Place’ – a collection of comics based on the stories of Edinburgh Women, and ‘Polly Who?’, a collection of diary comics about love, queerness and polyamory.

https://www.jmiltondraws.com/

Lucy Sullivan

Lucy Sullivan

Illustrator

Lucy Sullivan is the creator of acclaimed Graphic Novel Barking published by Unbound (2020) and supported by Lakes International Comic Art Festival and Arts Council England.

Lucy’s recent work includes Artwork on IND-XED with Fraser Campbell, Sweeney Todd & I with Dan Watters and Black Cat with John Reppion. She has created commissions for Black Hammer, Hey Amateur!, Killtopia #3, Colossive Cartographies, Tales From The Quarantine and her self-published zines.

Alongside comics Lucy mentors aspiring graphic novelists for LDComics and teaches Illustration & Animation at Kingston School of Art, London.

Her next comic Shelter, a Folk-Horror set in London 1969 will launch in 2022.

Mathilde Heu

Mathilde Heu

Illustrator

Mathilde Heu (b. 1993) is a Swiss artist and Illustrator based in London. Her work spans a wide range of practices including drawing, writing, installation, illustration and 2D animation.

Often of large scale and immersive by their nature, her installations and panorama-like drawings invite the audience to wander in landscapes or soundscapes that play with our senses and sense of scale.
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“Heu is less interested in analogy, in drawing equivalences, than in those moments when we lose the sense of what we’re looking at, when we’re overwhelmed by what things could be.” “[She] trains in on the small, the close at hand, the contingent and the otherwise neglected” Kit Webb

Website: https://www.mathildeheu.com

Nick Edwards

Nick Edwards

Musician

Nick has been making music for over 20 years, he has played over 200 shows globally as a performer in various bands and as a soloist.

He has produced various soundtracks/themes and soundscapes for XR experiences from his loft recording studio in the depths of Kent. As Head of Music Production at QXR Studios, Nick also works on the creation and production of content.

Nick has leant on his time at Magic Leap where he worked on the production of various mixed reality projects using spacial audio to add to the experience and to transport the audience to new worlds.

Nick has several projects being released this year, watch this space….

Selena Roberts

Selena Roberts

Colourist (Soma)

Selena studied at Croydon School of Art and Design from 1981 until 1985. Since the 1980s she has had a varied career, covering film and TV. One of Selena’s first jobs was to design the titles for the John Cleese movie ‘Clockwise’ and Ridley Scott’s fantasy epic ‘Legend’. She worked for two years on the 1988 movie ‘Who Framed Roger Rabbit?’

She continued to work on animated films and commercials and became Art Director on the CITV show ’The New Adventures of Captain Pugwash’. Recent work includes ‘The Snowman and the Snowdog’ and creating the backgrounds for the Moshi Monster film.

https://selen30.wixsite.com/selart

Shangomola Edunjobi

Shangomola Edunjobi

Illustrator

Author/ Artist Shangomola began his comics career in 2014 when his One Page Comic ‘Scarlet’ took first prize in the London Graphic Novel Network A3 comic competition 2014. Since then he has been a two-time finalist in the Japanese Embassy’s MANGA JIMAN comic competition 2016 and 2017, and in collaboration published The One Page Comic Collection. Shangomola has gone on to win the Silver award in the International Manga Award 2018 with his recent work, MISEYIEKI. He has also contributed to the 2019 Citi MANGA exhibition at the British Museum as its Curator of tone, and the 2020 BLACK INK publication commissioned by Serendipity for Black History Month with a short story titled Beware The Tokoloshe. He is a UK based creator with a degree in graphic design and a passion for creating ethnic diversity in comics.
Tamayo Hussey

Tamayo Hussey

Japanese & English - Japanese Translator

Tamayo is a qualified translator with a Masters degree, specialising in modern literature, educational and medical fields. Her translation experience includes work within the public sectors, particularly museums and schools, as well as private clients. Tamayo’s skills and interests include consecutive and simultaneous interpreting between English and Japanese, project management and transnational literature. Tamayo was recently awarded a translation prize in the Novice category with J-Net. She is a member of the Japanese Network of the Institute of Translation and Interpreting (J-Net) and ITI Cymru Wales in the UK.

Email: tamayohussey@gmail.com

LinkedIn: Tamayo Hussey | LinkedIn

J-Net: Tamayo Hussey | J-NetJ-Net

Yuko Caroline Omura

Yuko Caroline Omura

Japanese & English - Japanese Translator

Yuko is a Japan-based freelance interpreter and translator. She grew up in both the UK and Japan, and currently lives in Kanagawa, Japan.

Following six years working as an interpreter, project manager, and international director at Japan-based international NGO Peace Boat, she now specialises in providing interpreting and translation to non-profit organisations and charities working in Japan, with a focus on issues such as sustainability, climate change and human rights.

Yuko was in Osaka on March 11th, 2011 when the Tohoku earthquake hit, and in June 2011, she volunteered in Ishinomaki city, Miyagi prefecture, as part of disaster relief activities organised by Peace Boat Disaster Relief Center (PBV).