Ren Aldridge

Ren Aldridge is an artist, musician and writer. She fronts feminist hardcore punk band Petrol Girls who released their debut album Talk of Violence in November 2016. Ren completed her BA Fine Art at Goldsmiths in 2013 where she was Women’s Officer on the Students Union. All of Ren’s creative output involves words and symbols, from large scale text sculptures to textile poems; lyric writing to zines. Being involved in feminist and other forms of activism has inspired her increasingly to write. 

www.renaldridge.co.uk 

www.petrolgirls.bandcamp.com

Sim Bajwa

Sim Bajwa is a sales assistant/admin assistant/writer living in Edinburgh. She graduated from Edinburgh Napier with an MA in Creative Writing in 2016. Her work has previously been featured in Fictionvale Magazine and Helios Quarterly, and she is currently working on her first fantasy novel. Her favourite things are nail polish, chocolate, and cats.

Sasha de Buyl-pisco in conversation with Laura Jane Grace

Sasha de Buyl-Pisco is a writer and illustrator based in Edinburgh. From Belgium by way of an extended stint in Ireland, she writes short stories and makes comics. You can find her on Twitter at @sashadebuyl and keep up to date with her work on www.sashadebuylpisco.com

Laura Jane Grace is the singer and songwriter behind the band, Against Me! 

Rowan C. Clarke

Rowan C. Clarke studied political sciences and human rights in France and Italy before moving to the UK. She now works in publishing and lives in Scotland with her wife, pets and overfilled bookshelves.

Kristy Diaz

Kristy Diaz (@diazzzz) is a communications professional and music writer based in Leicester, via the USA. She is a contributor at Track 7 and Upset Magazine, as well as a number of DIY zines. She graduated with a BA in Arts Management in 2008 and has been a passionate supporter of independent music for many years as a DJ, label co-founder and fan. Her interests include intersectional feminism and left-wing politics, supporting the Leicester Riders basketball team, and hanging out with her cat.

Claire L. Heuchan

Claire L. Heuchan writes as the award-winning blog Sister Outrider, covering themes such as intersectional feminism, race in the feminist movement, and Black feminist praxis. She is a freelance writer and feminist workshop facilitator – sharing ideas is her passion. In her spare time Claire volunteers for Glasgow Women’s Library and is a member of the Scottish Queer International Film Festival committee. 

Aside from writing, activism, and getting salty on Twitter
(@ClaireShrugged), Claire researches Black feminists’ use of digital media in activism. Claire is a PhD candidate at the University of Stirling, where she attained her MLitt in Gender Studies.

Elise Hines

Elise Hines is a 20-year veteran of the world of Information Technology, an accomplished Technical Communicator, and, at times, a concert photographer. She’s a native of New York City and currently resides in Raleigh, North Carolina. 

Becca Inglis

Becca Inglis wants to be the girl with the most cake. She is an Edinburgh-based writer who regularly reviews theatre and poetry for TV Bomb, with a special focus on women writers and artists. She has previously been published in the Dangerous Women Project and blogged for Hollaback!, Linguisticator, and Lunar Poetry. Becca has branched out into other female musicians since discovering Hole ten years ago, but Courtney Love is still the reason that she bleaches her hair.

Nadine Aisha Jassat

Nadine Aisha Jassat is the author of Still, a poetry pamphlet exploring women’s stories and women’s survival, and the editor of Rise, an anthology of women’s writing from YWCA Scotland – The Young Women’s Movement. She has performed solo shows at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and the Just Festival, and was the first Writer in Residence for The Young Women’s Movement. Nadine works in the movement to end gender-based violence, and has worked with young people to create theatre exploring sexual violence. She delivers feministcreative writing workshops and is currently focusing on creative participation with young women of colour exploring sexism, racism and Islamophobia. 

Jonatha Kottler

Jonatha Kottler is from Albuquerque, NM where she was a lecturer in the Honors College at The University of New Mexico. She moved with her husband, son, and three very well-traveled cats from the USA to Amsterdam before falling head over heels in love with Edinburgh. She is a happy member of Edinburgh’s Write Like A Grrrl community and runs a reading and writing group for the local charity ECAS. She read a piece at Story Shop at the Edinburgh International Book Festival in August 2016 and recently contributed to the Dangerous Women Project. She is currently completing her first novel.

Laura Lam

Laura Lam was born in the late eighties and raised near San Francisco, California, by two former Haight-Ashbury hippies. After studying literature and creative writing at university, she relocated to Scotland to be with her husband. Her first book, Pantomime, the first book in the Micah Grey series, was released in 2013, which was a Scottish Book Trust Teen Book of the Month, won the Bisexual Book Award, was listed a Top Ten Title for the American Library Association List, and was nominated for several other awards. The sequel, Shadowplay, followed in 2014, as well as several the Vestigial Tales, self-published short stories and novellas set in the same world. The third book in the series, Masquerade, will follow in 2017. Her latest book is False Hearts, a near-future thriller released in June 2016 by Tor/Macmillan. She is still hiding from sunshine in Scotland and writing more stories.

Jen McGregor

Jen McGregor is an Edinburgh-based writer and director. She works mostly in theatre with occasional forays into fiction, poetry and other forms of writing. She blogs about mental health, arts politics and whatever else catches her attention at jenmcgregor.com.

Her recent work includes #SonsOfGod: Vox, a futuristic adaptation of Coriolanus that is currently touring Italy, Volante, a play about an 18th century rope dancer currently in development with Fronteiras Theatre Lab, and Unfinished Demon Play, which was written with guidance from Rob Drummond under Playwrights’ Studio Scotland’s mentoring scheme. 

When she’s not chained to the keyboard, Jen can be found playing computer games, feeding squirrels in the Botanics or chasing her cat around in the forlorn hope that he’ll someday love her back. She is married to fellow 404 Ink contributor Mark Bolsover.

Katie Muriel

Katie Muriel is a 20-something mixed Latinx chick, rabid intersectional feminist, writer, and future cat lady. She is also a university student with an A.A.S. degree in criminal justice who is currently working toward a Bachelors in criminology. The goal is victim advocacy, but for the moment, she is mainly focused on school and how many seasons of any given show she can feasibly marathon on Netflix in a single day. The word ‘bibliophile’ is her favorite identifier and she’s positive she’ll never have enough bookshelves. 

Christina Neuwirth

Christina Neuwirth was born in Austria and now lives in Edinburgh. Her short fiction has been published in Gutter and 404 Ink. Christina has written and directed short films, performed at the Scottish International Storytelling Festival and produced and written zines. Her novella Amphibian was shortlisted for the 2016 Novella Award, and she is currently working on her first novel. 

Belle Owen

Belle Owen has spent a large portion of her life traveling and living all over the world, recently returning home to Adelaide, Australia after 2.5 years in Toronto, where she worked in marketing and social media for a fashion designer, running an accessible brand. When she isn’t scouring the world for vegan treats, she is writing on a freelance basis about music, entertainment and accessibility issues. Belle is a strong advocate for social change and accessibility awareness, and often discusses these issues in her writing, presentations and online presence. Her work projects have been featured by Vice, Harper’s Bazaar, Fashionista.com, Notable.ca, Huffington Post and refinery 29.

Joelle A. Owusu

Joelle Owusu is a Surrey-based writer who currently works in publishing. She recently graduated from the University of Aberdeen with a BSc in Petroleum Geology. As a staunch advocate for intersectional feminism, she is committed to helping others acknowledge, accept and embrace their individuality. As a way of encouraging young people (especially People of Colour) to open up about their mental health, she self-published her diary, ‘Otherness’ in October 2016.
@joelle_o.

Chitra Ramaswamy

Chitra Ramaswamy is an award winning journalist and writer. Her first book, Expecting, a collection of nine essays for the nine months of pregnancy and birth, was published in April 2016 by Saraband. It won the Saltire First Book of the Year award and has been described as “immediately, poignantly, gripping… magnificent” by Zoe Williams, “elegant, funny, brimming with acute observations and suffused with a gentle intimacy” by Gavin Francis,  and “a glorious read” by Denise Mina. She currently writes mainly for The Guardian and lives in Edinburgh with her partner, young son, and rescue dog. 

Mel Reeve

Mel Reeve lives and works in Glasgow. She recently graduated from an MSc in Information Management & Preservation at the University of Glasgow, working first as an archivist on a project cataloguing Sue Ryder’s life, and now in Information Governance. She recently self-published 'Salt Water', a ‘zine of poetry and photography and continues to contribute creative writing pieces to various ‘zines and online projects. She also helps to run the Glasgow branch of Arts Sisterhood UK, who hold free and accessible art therapy classes for women.

@melreeve

Zeba Talkhani

Zeba Talkhani is a writer and production editor with an interest in identity, feminism, intersectionality and social deconstruction. @zebatalk

Alice Tarbuck

Alice Tarbuck is a writer and researcher based in Edinburgh. She is completing a PhD on poet and visual artist Thomas A. Clark. Recent publications appear in Dangerous Women, Antiphon, Zarf and Three Drops from the Cauldron. She is part of Edinburgh writers collective content work produce form. She is on Twitter: @atarbuck

Sabeena Akhtar

Sabeena is a writer and editor. In 2016 she was commissioned to curate an online library of writers of colour for advocacy organisation, Media Diversified. She is also the Festival Coordinator of Bare Lit, the U.K’s principal festival celebrating remarkable writers in the diaspora. In 2017 she partook in the BBC’s coverage of the 70th anniversary of Indian independence and alongside her daughter, filmed a programme on the Partition of India for children. She is the editor of upcoming Anthology, Cut From The Same Cloth, published by Unbound and is currently working on her first novel.

Teamed with Erin Aniker.

Erin Aniker

Erin is a freelance illustrator based in East London., whose work is heavily influenced by the mixed female community she grew up with and my dual Turkish and English heritage. She also co-curates We Are Here: British BME Women which is a platform for British, Black and Minority Ethnic Women to explore their dual nationalities through panel discussions, workshops and exhibitions.

Teamed with Sabeena Akhtar.

Siana Bangura

Siana Bangura is a writer, performer, producer, and content creator from South London. She is the founder of Black British Feminist platform No Fly on the WALL and a publisher at Haus of Liberated Reading. 

Siana is the author of ‘Elephant’, a meditation on Black British womanhood, and is the producer of upcoming documentary film, ‘1500 & Counting’. Her work can be found in mainstream and alternative platforms, including VICE, Dazed, Consented, Black Ballad, and the Green European Journal.

www.sianabangura.com / @sianaarrgh

Teamed with Letty Wilson.

Hannah Berry

Hannah Berry is an award winning graphic novelist and comics creator, author of the political satire LIVESTOCK (2017), creeping horror ADAMTINE (2012) and offbeat noir BRITTEN & BRÜLIGHTLY (2008), all published by Jonathan Cape.

She drew a weekly cartoon strip for the NEW STATESMAN and has contributed to numerous comics publications around the world, including commemorative projects for First Second, Casterman, the Edinburgh International Book Festival and 2000AD.

Jenny Bloomfield

Jenny Bloomfield is a writer of graphic fiction and prose. She is currently studying for an MA in creative writing at Edinburgh Napier University.

Teamed with Grace Wilson.

Kathryn Briggs

Kathryn Briggs is an American graphic novelist who moved to Scotland in 2012 to study her Masters and loved it too much to leave. 

She is an artist as well as a writer; her comics range from slice of life to comparative mythology. 

When not making comics she works as an art educator and buys too many books.

Hari Conner

Hari Conner is an award-winning comics artist and illustrator. Hari has been making comics for more than ten years, and their illustrations have been exhibited and featured in publications across the UK and US.Bio to come. 

Teamed with Durre Shahwar.

Fionnuala Doran

Fionnuala Doran is an Irish artists, working between England and Scotland. She is senior lecturer at Teesside University's BA in Comics, Graphic Novels and Sequential Art. She came down with a bad case of comic-fever in 1990 and has never recovered.

Kirsty Hunter

Kirsty Hunter is an illustrator, graphic designer and co-founder of She Reads Comics. She has a literature background, with a masters in Publishing from Edinburgh Napier University, and acts as an editor for BHP. Kirsty is also the designer of the cover of We Shall Fight Until We Win.

Teamed with Heather Palmer.

Laura Jones

Laura Jones is one half of the award-winning indie publisher 404 Ink. She is a freelancer, and is on the Board of crime writing festival Bloody Scotland. She was jointly awarded the Saltire Society Emerging Publisher of the Year Award 2017.

Teamed with Jem Milton.

Wei Ming Kam

Wei Ming Kam has written for the best selling essay collection The Good Immigrant, Media Diversified and Gal Dem.

She works in publishing and is the co-founder of BAME In Publishing, a network for people of colour who work in publishing, and Pride in Publishing, a network for queer people who work in publishing.

Teamed with Shazleen Khan.

Shazleen Khan

Shazleen Khan is a London based Illustrator and comic maker. She has been a part of the UK small press scene since 2011 and blends both digital and traditional mediums together in her work.

In particular, she enjoys discussing topics such as race, gender and LGTBQ politics in her narrative work.

www.shazleenkhan.com / @NeonLanterns

Teamed with Wei Ming Kam.

Charlot Kristensen

Charlot is an Afro-Dane Illustrator currently based in Dublin. She graduated with an Illustration degree from MDX University, London, in 2015, and is currently pursuing a professional career in her field of study.

Having a black mum and coming from a mixed family, Charlot believes that representation is important to our development. Her art often represents women of colour in hope of empowering them and changing their narrative. The main focus of her work is comics, editorial and book illustration.

Teamed with Nicola Love.

Nicola Love

Nicola Love is a writer, journalist and occasional editor. Her work has appeared in the Daily Record, Sunday Mail, The Herald and STV. She ignores any email that opens with “dear sir”. @Nicola_Love

Teamed with Charlot Kristensen.

Jem Milton

After studying Performance Design at Central St Martin's, Jem worked in London as a graphic facilitator with Scriberia ltd , before moving to Glasgow to pursue a freelance career as a comic artist and illustrator. They have also made various short comics for small press groups such as One Beat Zines and Comic Book Slumber Party. Their ongoing project is a webcomic called The Flying Ship.

Teamed with Laura Jones.

Denise Mina

After a peripatetic childhood in Glasgow, Paris, London, Invergordon, Bergen and Perth, Denise Mina left school early, working in a number of dead end jobs, all of them badly, before studying at night school to get into Glasgow University Law School. Her first novel, Garnethill, published in 1998, winning Crime Writers Association John Creasy Dagger for Best First Crime Novel. She has now published 12 novels and also writes short stories, plays and graphic novels. In 2014 she was inducted into the Crime Writers’ Association Hall of Fame. She regularly appears at literary festivals in the UK and abroad, leads masterclasses on writing and was a judge for the Bailey’s Prize for Women’s Fiction 2014.

Teamed with Maria Stoian.

Heather Palmer

Heather Palmer is a writer who lives, works and lunches in Glasgow. She is the co-creator of the SICBA shortlisted comic series Grave Wax and writes with a focus on nationalism, death and folklore. She works in comics publishing; marketing, editing and planning events such as Edinburgh Comic Art Festival. @_HeatherAPalmer

Teamed with Rebecca Horner for and Kirsty Hunter.

Durre Shahwar

Durre Shahwar is a writer, an Associate Editor for Wales Arts Review, and a Word Factory Apprentice 2017. She is the co-founder of ‘Where I’m Coming From’, an open mic that promotes BAME writing in Wales. She writes fiction and creative non-fiction about a broad range of topics, including race, identity, gender and mental health.

Durre's work has been published in various magazines and anthologies including Know Your Place: Essays on the Working Class (2017, Dead Ink Books), The Lonely Crowd, Sister-hood Magazine and The Stockholm Review of Literature. 

Teamed with Hari Conner.

Maria Stoian

Maria is a freelance illustrator currently living in Scotland. She likes to use riso and Photoshop and she thinks InDesign is a gift from the gods. She's also working as a designer with the cool cats at Hillside Agency. Her comics have appeared in publications such as The New Yorker, The Nib, Dirty Rotten Comics, The Dangerous Women Project and Counterpoint.

@maria_draws

Teamed with Denise Mina.

Grace Wilson

Grace Wilson studied Ceramic Design at Central Saint Martins in London, and later completed her MFA in Storytelling at Konstfack College of Art & Design in Stockholm. She is a ceramicist, comic artist and illustrator, currently based in Edinburgh. Her debut graphic novel Saving Grace, was published by Jonathan Cape in 2016, and is a darkly humorous commentary on the housing crisis in contemporary London.

She regularly contributes to a variety of international zines and anthologies, does editorial illustration for the likes of Broadly and Strike! Magazine, and exhibits her ceramic figurines.

Teamed with Jenny Bloomfield.

Letty Wilson

Letty Wilson is a Scottish comics artist and writer. She won the 2016 graphic Shakespeare award for Park Witches, and the 2017 SICBA for graphic novel A Stranger Came to Town. You can find details of her work at behance.net/lettydraws.

Teamed with Siana Bangura.

Garry Mac

Garry Mac is a queer writer and illustrator, known for Gonzo Cosmic, Tomorrow and Freak Out Squares. He is currently working on a full-length comic AION, based on his Masters’ dissertation on queer temporality in autobiographix, and follows that with a political queer comic series called Praxis. garrymacmakes.com / @garrymacl

Gray Crosbie 

Gray Crosbie is a writer and performer based in Glasgow. They enjoy writing in the boundary between poetry and prose and have been published in journals such as Litro, Popshot and Lighthouse. In their free time they enjoy hanging out with their dog Rooney, drag shows and too many donuts.