GUESTS
Gold Medal Athletes
FujoCon brings BL manga-ka, authors, academics, industry insiders, and fujoshi influencers straight to you!
SCARLET BERIKO
MANGAKA
Scarlet Beriko began her professional manga career in 2010 and has since one on to create many manga in the BL genre, including Jackass! and a constellation of related works–Minori no Te, Fourth Generation Head: Tatsuyuki Oyamoto, and Jealousy. She has also published tutorials on drawing manga. Her birthday is March 21, and her blood type is A or O.
JEFF SATUR
FEATURED PRESENTER
Jeff Satur is a gifted actor and singer-songwriter under Warper's Talented Artists Project, a project that selects talented artists to develop their potential as professional artists. He began his acting career in the 2019 BL thriller He She It, a drama for which he also wrote the charted singles "Comedy" and "Comedy (Tragedy Version)." In 2020, he starred in Tops Supermarket's romantic-comedy Ingredients also wrote, produced, and performed the mini-series' hit single "Moment." As of 2021, Jeff has released the smash single "อยู่..(Holding On)" with Passenger Records and is set to star in Thailand's first mafia Y series, KinnPorsche.
GAMEPLAY RABBIT
FEATURED PRESENTER
Gameplay Garnpaphon Laolerkiat is a talented actor and chef from Thailand. He began his acting career in 2015 with Love Sick 2 and The School, and has since starred in Warper’s BL thriller drama He She It (2019) and Tops Supermarket’s romantic-comedy mini-series hit Ingredients (2020) alongside couple partner Jeff Satur. Gameplay shows off his culinary skills as the host of CentralFood TV’s foodie series Food Design, Food Hacker, and UNBAG!! In 2021, he is set to star in Thailand’s first BL mafia series, KinnPorsche.
GABBY
FEATURED PRESENTER
Gabby is the lead developer at Two and a Half Studios, a BL visual novel development studio based out of Australia. Her main projects are "The Divine Speaker", an 18+ fantasy adventure visual novel, and "Beyond the Abyss", an 18+ Xianxia-inspired visual novel. She has a keen interest in helping others enter the world of visual novel development, and regularly answers questions related to all aspects of game dev on her blog.
BISHIE SENSEI
INTERPRETER & ACADEMIC
Bishie Sensei is a Japanese professor at an undisclosed university somewhere in the Western hemisphere. Through some horrible mistake that was never corrected, he received his Ph.D. focusing on Japanese popular culture and has published multiple academic articles on BL, manga, and other otaku media. He has received numerous grants to conduct and present his work across the globe, but he much prefers to work as a translator/interpreter/bishounen at major anime conventions, including Yaoi-Con, Anime Expo, and FanimeCon. This will be his second time at FujoCon, assisting with guests and hosting his popular panel, Learning Japanese with Yaoi.
COLE FEUCHTER
VOICE ACTOR
Cole Feuchter is an American voice actor based out of Dallas, Texas. He’s worked on anime, video games, and visual novels, most notably Full Service (Lenga Valentine), Camp Buddy (Naoto Hamasaki/Archer Springfield), Mister Versatile (Lascivion), and Ishida & Asakura (Asakura). He’s also the titular Divine Speaker in The Divine Speaker. Cole is the VP of Acquisitions at Ascendent Animation, more recently involved in the acquisition and dubbing of The Titan’s Bride.
CRISTAL MARIE
ENTERTAINER
Cristal Marie is an anime, BL culture, and video game expert by day and an award-winning recording artist by night! Best known for singing the theme song of the NBC/Telemundo telenovela Pecados Ajenos and creating the first anime convention in her native Dominican Republic (CONANIME), Cristal Marie also wrote the silent manga Justicia (Justice), and has always been a lover of all things geek. She is a member of the diverse nerd collective Beyond The Bot, an anime-focused YouTube channel that promotes inclusivity for weebs from all walks of life.
FISKY
VTUBER
Fisky is a german VTuber catboy, uke with passion and loves cute fashion. In his streams and videos, which are usually in english language, he entertains and educates. Sometimes more, sometimes less serious. As a true catboy he works at a cat cafe daytime. He is also one of the main mascots at AiKon, a smol BoysLove & LGBT themed otaku convention in Germany.
GRAHAM KOLBEINS
FILMMAKER, WRITER, DESIGNER
Graham Kolbeins is a Canadian queer filmmaker, writer, and designer. The Japan-U.S. Friendship Council named Kolbeins a recipient of their Creative Artists Exchange Fellowship in 2016, and he subsequently spent five months directing Queer Japan, a feature documentary about sexuality and gender identity in Japan. Along with Chip Kidd and Anne Ishii, Kolbeins is the co-editor of two books on Japanese gay art: The Passion of Gengoroh Tagame and the Eisner-nominated anthology, Massive: Gay Erotic Manga and the Men Who Make It. Kolbeins is the co-founder and creative director of the apparel brand MASSIVE GOODS, which makes fashion, print projects, and international tours with queer and feminist artists from Japan.
kiba walker
director, VOICE ACTOR
Kiba Walker is an actor, director, writer, and performer based out of Texas. In the anime world, you can hear Kiba as Scylla Io (Saint Seiya), Paplo Espuma (Black Clover), various additional roles in Fruits Basket, One Piece, ALL OUT!!, and more. He is also known for his visual novel roles in the BL world, such as Keitaro Nagame and Yoshinori Nagira (Camp Buddy), Sota Kobayashi (Full Service), Syd (Mister Versatile), Kenta (To Trust an Incubus), Faeryn (Dear Monster), Yuuki Nekota (iDuel Battle for Stardom), Rin (Alpha Hole Prison), and more. As the COO and President of Ascendent Animation, Kiba has helped direct and write the English dub of Ishida & Asakura, and recently announced the acquisition of The Titan's Bride. Outside of the acting world, he is known as Salem Moon, a drag performer working all over the DFW area.
NICK J. RUSSO
NARRATOR
Nick J. Russo is an award winning narrator from Columbus, Ohio. With over 240 titles produced on Audible, he is well known in the romance genre for his smooth and engaging performances. In 2018, he was voted Sinfully MM Romance Review’s Narrator of the Year, and was the recipient of the 2019 Independent Audio Book Award for Best LGBTQ+ Audio Book for his work on LA Witt’s Not Safe for Work. He is currently nominated in two categories for the 2021 Independent Audio Book Awards - Romance and LGBTQ+. In his spare time, Nick is an avid gamer and movie enthusiast, and prefers communicating in GIFs wherever possible.
ALEX POWELL
AUTHOR
Alex Powell is an author of LGBTQ+ romance. They live in northern Canada where it snows six months of the year. Currently, they are pursuing a PhD in English, but that won’t stop them from writing about space vampires or cyberpunk hackers or whatever else pops into their head. Mostly a SFF writer, Alex sometimes drabbles in other genres, including contemporary romance.
Bru Baker
AUTHOR
Bru Baker writes gay romantic fiction with strong characters, real-world problems, and plenty of humor.
Bru spent fifteen years writing for newspapers before making the jump to fiction. She was also active in fandom under the name dracosoftie. Whether it’s creating her own characters or getting caught up in someone else’s, there’s no denying that Bru is happiest when she’s engrossed in a story. She and her husband have two children, which means a lot of her books get written from the sidelines of various sports practices.
Heidi Cullinan
AUTHOR
Author of over thirty novels, Midwest-native Heidi Cullinan writes positive-outcome romances for LGBT characters struggling against insurmountable odds because they believe there’s no such thing as too much happy ever after. Heidi’s books have been recommended by Library Journal, USA Today, RT Magazine, and Publishers Weekly. When Heidi isn’t writing, they enjoy gaming, reading manga, manhua, and danmei, playing with cats, and watching too much anime.
Heidi goes by Jun when being spoken to in person or online, and Jun’s pronouns are they/them.
H.R. Harrison
AUTHOR
H.R. Harrison is the penname of an unfortunate soul whose ancestors opted to Americanize pronunciation… but not spelling. Armed with a degree in linguistics and five years as an English language teacher in the US and abroad, they spend a lot of time thinking about communication, language, and how words… word.
They have a love for fantasy, mythos, and genre subversion, and that is what drew them toward writing LGBTQ fantasy. With a tendency to fall into research pits while trying to write, they know a lot of random trivia about a lot of random topics.
Inma R.
BL Artist
Inma R. is a freelance artist from Spain. She works on illustrations, video games, how-to-draw-manga books, art tutorials and manga. You can read her original BL manga "The Violinist and the Nerd" on Tapas and Webtoon for free.
J.K. Pendragon
AUTHOR
J.K Pendragon is a Canadian author with a love of all things romantic and fantastical. As a bisexual and genderqueer person, J.K. is dedicated to producing diverse, entertaining fiction that showcases characters across the rainbow spectrum, and provides queer characters with the happy endings they are so often denied. Their notable works include the Kirkus Starred YA novel Junior Hero Blues and To Summon Nightmares, which was the winner of the 2015 Rainbow Awards’ ‘Best Transgender Fiction’ award.
J.K. currently resides in British Columbia, Canada with a boyfriend, a cat, and a large collection of artisanal teas that they really need to get around to drinking. They are always happy to chat, and can be reached at jes.k.pendragon@gmail.com and on Twitter.
Karla Nikole
AUTHOR
Karla Nikole has a long-standing love affair with Japan. They have always been very good to each other. Having lived in the country for two years and taken several extended vacations there, she is deeply inspired by the culture, language, landscape, food and people. A trip to Italy in 2018 for a wedding (pictured left and below) breathed new fire into her writing, eventually leading to the birth of Nino Bianchi and Haruka Hirano: two love letters to these beautiful countries. She has also lived in South Korea, Prague and currently resides in the USA (although Milan is adamantly calling out to her).
LoveCast
BL PODCAST
Pixie, Alexa, and Coco are three women from three different countries who bonded over a shared Discord server and a mutual love of all things Boys Love. Primarily focused on live-action BL, LoveCast the Podcast is a passion project that covers all the happenings in the industry. Featuring interviews with actors and authors, series reviews, and in-depth discussions on a variety of topics, LoveCast covers it all weekly. Offering three unique perspectives and a whole lot of laughs, the podcast has a little something for everyone. Find new episodes every Tuesday on YouTube and Spotify.
MAKUNO
BL MANGAKA
Makuno is a BL manga artist and illustrator, born in Kobe, Japan. After working as an independent artist, she made her commercial BL debut in 2019 with Shuju no Saga (The Nature of Master/Slave Relationship). She likes to draw stories that combine everyday life with a bit of fantasy. She keeps a gecko and a hamster as pets.]
Nicholas Bella
AUTHOR
Nichollas Bella is a person with a wild imagination and a love for words who was sitting around the house one day and said, "Why hasn't anyone written a book like this before?" As with every storyteller, he wanted to share his with the world. He likes to engage his readers in an adventure that will keep them captivated until the last page is turned. He loves to leave readers thinking about his characters and stories until they get their next Nicholas Bella book. When not writing, he enjoys watching movies and TV shows, clubbing, biking, and hanging out with family and friends.
ROSARY DEVILLE
AUTHOR
Rosary is an author of erotica ranging from sweet and fluffy, to dark and taboo. She aims to foster a sex- positive experience for readers to indulge their fantasies in a fun and safe space. Sometimes she uses her writing to journey into the often hidden and taboo depths of human sexuality, and hopes readers will take away from her stories, not an acceptance of violence and sexual abuse, but rather a way to embrace their inner desires often shamed by society. A relatively new author, Rosary is best known for her Offering books—a two-book, werewolf MM dark erotica series.
RHYS FORD
Author
Rhys Ford is an award-winning author with several long-running LGBT+ mystery, thriller, paranormal, and urban fantasy series and is a two-time LAMBDA finalist with her Murder and Mayhem novels. She is also a 2017 Gold and Silver Medal winner in the Florida Authors and Publishers President’s Book Awards for her novels Ink and Shadows and Hanging the Stars. She is published by Dreamspinner Press and Rogue Firebird Press.
SARADEEK
ARTIST
SaraDeek is a cover illustrator and comic artist from Spain. She is the creator of the webcomic Vermelho (Webtoon Canvas), a BL webcomic inspired in the folktale "Little Red Riding Hood", and the artist behind the webcomic The Fever King (Webtoon Originals) with Victoria Lee.
T.A. MOORE
AUTHOR
T.A. Moore is a Northern Irish writer of romantic suspense, urban fantasy, and contemporary romance novels. A childhood in a rural, seaside town fostered in her a suspicious nature, a love of mystery, and a streak of black humor a mile wide.
Coffee, Doc Marten boots, and good friends are the essential things in life. Spiders, mayo, and heels are to be avoided.
Tenankichi
MANGAKA
A Japanese BL mangaka and illustrator, Tenankichi creates works mostly focused on strong or delinquent type men. Besides making manga and illustrations, she also has been creating “Live 2D” animations to make her 2D illustrations come to life in a 3D-like way.
VVBG
WEBCOMIC DUO
VVBG (Very Very Bad Girls) is the hugely popular and prolific comic-creator duo behind The God in the Field, Born Sexy Tomorrow, Thick As Thieves, Knight’s Choice and their newest hit work, Sharpe and Rabbit. Archia (the artist) and Michi (the writer) first met in slash fandom 8 summers ago, and the two of them fell in love while weaving beautiful romances together. They haven’t stopped creating since, and will be happily making BL ever after, for many years to come!
AERI
BL Academic
Aeri started their early anime life with VHS tapes, gameboy, and 6 a.m. Pokemon before school. With degree work in Japanese, linguistics, history, global education, and media effects, they thought, “Hey, why not combine all of those, that sounds fun.” After managing over eighty study abroad programs and thousands of students, Aeri wanted to focus on their research. They’ve worked as a scholar on projects with Japanese LGBTQ groups, non-profits, universities, and government branches. They currently focus on queer Japanese media and social behavior in fan spaces. One recent independent project is the BL Fan Interview Project on their Patreon. Find Aeri and their endless lists of citations on twitter (@_queerioes).
DR. THOMAS BAUDINETTE
Academic
Dr. Thomas Baudinette is Lecturer in Japanese Studies at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia. A cultural anthropologist of Asian queer popular culture, he has written extensively about Japanese BL manga and its reception among queer consumers in Japan and Mainland China. He wrote the first English academic article on Thai BL dramas and is currently working on his second book tentatively titled Boys Love Media in Thailand. Thomas is also a massive K-pop fan and writes about K-pop idol shipping and the global fandom for BTS.
Lakshmi Menon
ACADEMIC
Lakshmi Menon teaches English Literature at NSS College under the University of Kerala in India, and a PhD candidate at JNU, New Delhi where her work is on Harry Potter slash. She has been excitedly watching the growth of BL fan cultures in South Asia since 2016, while her wider research interests also include video games, anime and manga fandoms, and queer popular culture.
DR. LORI MORIMOTO
ACADEMIC
Lori Morimoto is an academic, fan, and mom who researches and writes on transcultural media fandom. She became a fan of Hollywood movies in Hong Kong as a kid, a fan of Japanese anime in the US as a college student, and a fan of Hong Kong movies in Japan as an adult, and that’s pretty much set the tone for her entire body of work. When she isn’t writing, she argues with her spouse about what to watch on TV, reads fanfiction, and tries to work her way through all 50 episodes of The Untamed.
DR. KHURSTEN SANTOS
ACADEMIC
Dr. Kristine Michelle Santos is an Assistant Professor on Japanese Studies and History at Ateneo de Manila University. Her most recent publication "The Bitches of Boys Love: The Pornographic Response of Japan's Rotten Women" examines the depictions of sex in BL manga as it incorporates techniques and tropes from eromanga.
DR. JAMES WELKER
Academic
James Welker is a professor in the Department of Cross-Cultural Studies at Kanagawa University. His research examines gender and sexuality in postwar and contemporary Japan, with a focus on the lesbian community, radical feminism, and queer media consumption and production, as well as the global spread of Japanese media. He is an active author and editor of several academic books about manga, including Boys Love Manga and Beyond (Mississippi, 2015).
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WANT TO JOIN OUR A-TEAM?
Guest and sponsorship spots for 2021 are now closed, and a big thank you to everyone who inquired! If you are interested in being a guest or sponsor for FujoCon 2022, please contact us at fujocon@gmail.com.