Smokii Sumac (they/he) is a Ktunaxa two spirit and trans poet, PhD Candidate, podcast host, and emerging playwright. Smokii's research for his Indigenous Studies PhD centres on the question how do we come home?; as adoptees, as two-spirit people, and as Indigenous people more broadly. The ʔasqanaki Podcast, which Smokii hosts, focuses on why Indigenous representations matter, featuring Indigenous guest musicians and writers including G.R. Gritt and Tenille Campbell. Smokii is also a proud to be a member of the xaȼqanaǂ ʔitkiniǂ project where he supports conversations around gender and sexual diversity throughout the research process, as the team asks the question qapsin kiʔin ʔakaǂxuniyam? What would a healthy community look like?

Sam McKegney (he/him) is a white settler scholar of Indigenous literatures. He has published 3 books - Carrying the Burden of Peace: Reimagining Indigenous Masculinities through Story, Masculindians: Conversations about Indigenous Manhood, and Magic Weapons: Aboriginal Writers Remaking Community after Residential School—and articles on masculinity, environmental kinship, prison writing, and mythologies of hockey. He is a researcher with the Indigenous Hockey Research Network and Head of the English Department at Queen’s University, which occupies lands of the Haudenosaunee and Anishinaabe Peoples.