Story Metamorphosis

Born and raised outside an Army base in Seoul, South Korea, Christina Strain moved to the U.S. at eighteen to attend Louisiana State University. Shortly after graduating (BFA Graphic Design) Christina started coloring comic books for Marvel, working on titles like: Runaways, Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane, Thor, World War Hulk, and S.H.I.E.L.D.. Shortly after creating the Shuster Award winning webcomic The Fox Sister, Christina was accepted into AFI’s screenwriting program. There, she wrote a pilot adaptation of The Fox Sister, which kick started her career by getting her staffed on SYFY’S The Magicians. Since, Christina’s gone on to work on several shows including Netflix’s Shadow & Bone and a few others she’s not allowed to talk about. Her first feature, Finding Ohana, premiered number 1 in the world on Netflix in January 2021. Most recently, Christina severed as a Co-Executive Producer on season 2 of Shadow & Bone.

Named “an auteur to watch” by The Advocate, Drew Denny is passionate about representing women and LGBTQ+ characters on stage and screen. Harper’s Bazaar called her one woman play turned Academy Award nominated podcast Asking For It “a Fleabag fix in a post-Fleabag world,” and Marta Kaufman’s shingle OK Goodnight is producing a narrative television series based on her documentary Queer Habits – following drag queen nuns who save a rural homophobic community from ruin. Her first feature The Most Fun I’ve Ever Had With My Pants On won Best Feature, Best First Feature and Best Cinematography in its 50-festival run and her most recent narrative film Momster, starring Amanda Plummer and Brianna Hildebrand, premiered in Competition at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2019 where it was selected for their debut Pride program and called “Tarantino and Nicolas Refn’s queer feminist love child.” Denny earned a BFA in Cinema and Television Production from USC, an MA in Aesthetics and Politics from California Institute of the Arts, and is the creative director of Allies in Arts, a 501c3 non-profit that supports artists who are women, BIPOC and LGBTQ+. She is currently creating a queer rom com musical with producer Jaclyn Moore (Dear White People, Queer As Folk), directing a documentary about feminist bonobos and sex changing fish, and writing a Title IX comedy.

Leigh Bardugo is the New York Times-bestselling author of Ninth House and the creator of the Grishaverse, which spans the Shadow and Bone trilogy (now a Netflix original series), the Six of Crows duology, the King of Scars duology, The Language of Thorns, and The Lives of Saints — with more to come. Her short stories can be found in multiple anthologies, including The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy. Leigh grew up in Southern California and graduated from Yale University. These days she lives and writes in Los Angeles.

Shelley Meals is a native Los Angelino. Daughter of actress Sylvia Meals (the original Mary-Anne Creed) she grew up in the entertainment industry. After graduating from Film School at USC, she worked for Quincy Jones Entertainment, logging many hours on the set of Fresh Prince of Bel-Air before staffing as a writer. Most recently, Shelley was an Executive Producer on Shadow and Bone (Netflix/21Laps). Her previous writing and producing credits include See (Apple TV/Chernin), Sweet Magnolias (Netflix), Utopia (Amazon/Pacesetter), Witches of East End (Lifetime), and Dawson’s Creek (Sony). Mother of two teenage girls, Shelley is passionate about fostering equity & inclusion and was a contributor to the 2017 Color of Change Race in the Writers’ Room report. Shelley loves magic, time travel, mythical creatures, and any book with a map inside the front cover.