Selja Ahava (b. 1974) is a Finnish author, dramaturge and a scriptwriter.
Ahava’s acclaimed debut novel The Day the Whale Swam through London (2010) was a nominee for the Helsingin Sanomat Literary Prize, and it won the Laura Hirvisaari Prize (The Bookseller’s Literary Prize) in 2010.
Nenad Joldeski was born in 1986 in Struga, Macedonia. In 2010, he graduated at the Faculty of Economics in Skopje. In 2013, he received a master's degree in comparative literature on the subject of 'Intertextual Irony in Modern and Postmodern Short Stories.'
He is a writer and author of two collections of short stories. His debut, The Silence of Enhalon, written in Macedonian dialect and slang, received the Novite Award from the publishing house Templum in 2009.
His second book, Each with Their Own Lake, was published by Templum in 2012.
Christophe Van Gerrewey (b.1982) studied architecture at Ghent University and literary science at KU Leuven. His PhD, 'Architecture: a User's Manual. Theory, Critique and History since 1950 according to Geert Bekaert' was published in 2015.
He is a member of the editorial board of OASE, a Dutch journal on architecture, and DWB, one of the oldest literary journals in Flanders, and has also published essays in other journals and newspapers. Since Septembre 2015, he is professor of architecture theory at EPFL in Lausanne, Switzerland.
Claudiu M. Florian was born in 1969 in Rupea, Braşov County. He received a degree in German Studies at Bucharest University in 1994, an MA in 'Humanistic Interdisciplinary Studies in the German Language' at Bucharest University in 1996, and went on to obtain another MA in Contemporary History at Bielefeld University in Germany. From 2002, he worked as an employee of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, moving on to become Cultural and Press Attaché at the Romanian Embassy in Berlin from 2004-2009. Between 2010 - 2013 he has held a key role at the Romanian Embassy in Bern, Switzerland.
Having started his literary career with self-published experimental avant-garde poetry books, Paavo Matsin has moved on to very tense and naturalistic prose writing. Loosely mixing history, fiction, fact and fantasy, alchemy and the esoteric with ironic but warm humour, his sharp, concise and exact use of words put more substance into his work than one might judge by volume alone.
Gast Groeber (*1960) grew up in Hollerich, Luxembourg, where he went to primary school. After graduating from high school in 1980, he studied primary education at the Institut Supérieur d'Études et de Recherches Pédagogiques in Walferdange, Luxembourg. From 1982, he taught at a number of primary schools in Luxembourg City. Since 2007, he has been head of the Centre Technolink in Luxembourg City, a division of school administration, which is in charge of equipping schools with computers, internet and new technologies.
Jesús Carrasco was born in Badajoz in 1972. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Physical Education and has worked, among other things, as a grape-picker, a washer-up, a physical education teacher, a music manager, an exhibition fitter, a graphic designer and an advertising copywriter. He took up writing after moving to Madrid, in 1992. Over the years, he has kept diaries and has written short stories, two books for children and one novel, and has grown as a reader.
Bjørn Rasmussen was born in 1983 and graduated from the Danish Playwright School in 2007 and from the Danish Writers’ School in 2011. He received the Montana Literary Award in 2011 for Huden er det elastiske hylster der omgiver hele legemet, was awarded a three year work grant from the Danish government in 2013 and received the Kultur Bornholms Literary Award in 2014.
Benedict Wells was born in 1984 in Munich. At the age of six, he started his journey through three Bavarian boarding schools. Upon graduating school in 2003, he moved to Berlin. There he decided against an academic education and instead started to dedicate his time to writing. In order to pay for his living expenses, he worked in several side jobs. In 2008, he published his critically acclaimed debut novel Becks letzter Sommer which gained him the Bayerischer Kunstförderpreis, a Bavarian arts and literature prize.
Tanja Stupar-Trifunović was born in Zadar in 1977 and is a graduate of the University of Banja Luka. She writes poetry, columns and literary reviews. Her poetry has been translated into several languages, and she was shortlisted for the CEE Literature Award (for poetry) in 2008. Stupar-Trifunović lives in Banja Luka and works as the Editor of Putevi, a literary magazine.
