Joe Biel is a self-made autistic publisher and filmmaker who draws origins, inspiration, and methods from punk rock. He is the founder and CEO of Microcosm Publishing and co-founder of the Portland Zine Symposium. He has been featured in Time Magazine, Publisher's Weekly, Art of Autism, Utne Reader, Oregonian, Broken Pencil, Punk Planet, Bulletproof Radio, Spectator (Japan), G33K (Korea), and Maximum Rocknroll. He is the author of People's Guide to Publishing: Building a Successful, Sustainable, Meaningful Book Business, Good Trouble: Building a Successful Life & Business on the Spectrum, Manspressions: Decoding Men's Behavior, Make a Zine, The CIA Makes Science Fiction Unexciting, Proud to be Retarded, Bicycle Culture Rising, and more. He is the director of five feature films and hundreds of short films, including Aftermass: Bicycling in a Post-Critical Mass Portland, $100 & A T-Shirt, and the Groundswell film series. The Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy described Biel as "not trained in pedagogy." He lives in Portland, Ore and his work can be found at joebiel.net
Eliot is half of killer banshee, a multifaceted collaborative effort with Kriss De Jong dedicated to making and supporting queer art, music and literature. His visual work has been shown internationally, and has received support from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Andy Warhol Foundation. Kriss and Eliot have toured extensively, performing a combination of music and live video manipulation often called expanded cinema. The killer banshee studio has recorded and produced artists including Deep Dickollective and Tribe 8. He illustrates the majority of Proud to be Retarded and Your Neurodiverse Friend covers as well as contributing to most issues.
