Hal Hefner is an award winning Strategist, Writer and Creative Director specializing in Fan-Centric Strategies and Crafting Content That Resonates and Engages with audiences.

As a writer and marketing strategist in the entertainment world, Hal has worked with every major studio to create content for movies, gaming/TV, games and more, while specializing in Transmedia content, urban lore, horror, science fiction, children’s properties and animation. Since 2011, Hal has been rewriting the rules of storytelling working for LA’s top Digital Agencies and directly with Studios to make marketing and content bring value to audiences. Having worked with such innovators as Ridley Scott and his company 3AM on the Martian and with Fourth Wall Studios and their Emmy award winning digital interactive series Dirty Work, Hal has done everything from conceptualizing, ideation, writing and strategy to even building teams and producing projects. In addition he has worked on many horror properties most recently the Chucky series and Yellow Jackets season 2, Hal is also a Professor of Transmedia Storytelling at (RIT) the Rochester Institute of Technology, He’s also the artist who created hit pop art series, CONSUME, and was the Creative Director at Deviant Art. Hal lives in Los Angeles, California.

Justine Norton-Kertson is an author, publisher, and game maker, and the founder and editor-in-Chief of Solarpunk Magazine and Android Press. Books they’ve edited and published have been finalists for the Bram Stoker, Nebula, British Science Fiction, and British Fantasy Awards, among others. Their narrative roleplaying game, Fighting for the Future, came out in September 2023, and their solarpunk roleplaying game, City of Hope, is out in July 2025. Justine’s nonfiction book, Utopian Witch: Solarpunk Magick to Fight Climate Change and Save the World, was published in July 2024 by Microcosm Publishing, and their debut horror novella, Gutterspace, is forthcoming in October 2026 from Stars & Sabers Publishing. Justine lives in Fall Creek, Oregon.

We’re proud to partner with the Rochester Institute of Technology, working with over a dozen interns to help prepare them for jobs in the media entertainment industry.