Kadija Sesay is an award-winning literary activist, publisher of SABLE, editor of many anthologies. Her poetry collection Irki was shortlisted for the Glenna Luschei Prize for African Poetry. She received an Arts Council England R&D grant for her second book. She is a PhD student at Brighton University.

Tim Fielder is an artist/instructor and Afrofuturist in comics and concept design for film and video games. His genre is the creation of speculative narratives as they apply to people of color. Tim's primary outlet is through his company Dieselfunk Studios with projects such as Matty's Rocket.

Max Rodriguez is founder and publisher of QBR/The Black Book Review and founder of the Harlem Book Fair, televised nationally on C-Span's BookTV. He has served as moderator at American Booksellers Association events, BEA, American Publishers Association conferences, and New York Times author series.

Suban Nur Cooley is a Somali storyteller, whose essay has been published Scarf magazine. She is on the editorial staff Michigan State University's nonfiction journal, Fourth Genre. Her research focuses on women in the Somali diaspora, identity formation, and their activism on digital platforms.

Ibrahim Ahmad is the editorial director at Akashic Books, where he has worked in various capacities since 2000. He teaches at the Wilkes MFA Low-Residency Creative Writing Program, leads frequent writing workshops, and is the cofounder of Brooklyn Wordsmiths, an editorial and consulting program.