Keynote Speakers

Nick Sousanis

  • Nick Sousanis is an Eisner-winning comics author and an associate professor in Liberal Studies at San Francisco State University, where he started and runs an interdisciplinary Comics Studies program. He is the author of Unflattening, originally his doctoral dissertation, which he wrote and drew entirely in comics form. Published by Harvard University Press in 2015, Unflattening received the 2016 American Publishers Association Humanities award for Scholarly Excellence and the 2016 Lynd Ward prize for Best Graphic Novel. Sousanis’s comics have appeared in Nature, The Boston Globe, Columbia Magazine, and MIT Technology Review. More at http://www.spinweaveandcut.com or @nsousanis

  • Zara Slattery is a comics creator, tutor, animator and author of the award-winning graphic memoir, COMA. She is artist and contributor to academic resources and anthologies, including THE SHAME SPACE, 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, is a member of the Society of Authors' Comic Creators Network and the Comics Cultural Impact Collective. Zara is currently collaborating with author Gregory Norminton from Writers Rebellion in re-creating the medieval eco fable, SWEENEY'S PROGRESS (Buile Suibhne) in comic form.