Naomi Wood is an award-winning and bestselling author based in the UK. She is the author of three novels, The Godless Boys, Mrs. Hemingway, and The Hiding Game. Her first story collection, This is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things, is out with Orion (UK), Morrow (US), and Harper Collins (Germany) in 2024. Her story “Comorbidities” won the 2023 BBC National Short Story Prize. Her other stories have been shortlisted for the Manchester Fiction Prize, the London Magazine, and the Galley Beggar Press Short Story Prize. She lives in Norwich with her family, and teaches Creative Writing at UEA.

Marius Povilas Elijas Martynenko (b. 1993) is a carbon-based life form whose ultimate goal is to survive until it gets really boring. Current role: actor, writer, entertainer. Martynenko has published four books, created numerous performances, acted in cinema, television, and theater. He fathered two sons, both of whom are without any noticeable defects. Martynenko spent a year living in a monastery, burned down his home making fireworks, lost one of his eyes in a mysterious incident, spent some time in comas (due to a health condition), and claims to know “how it really is.” He once ripped a fart so powerful it made his spine crack. Elijas has received the Lithuanian National Prize for Culture and Arts. The man believes that everything is a game. He is certain that the ultimate truth is not a statement. It is a question. An absurd one. And it is yet to be found.

Marta Kiewel is a cultural manager, sociologist, and member of the Wrocław Literature House team. She coordinated numerous literary festivals and projects, among them the International Crime and Mystery Festival Wrocław, Bruno Schulz Festival, Wrocław Good Books Fair, and AfryKamera African Film Festival in Warsaw. She co-created the European Culture Congress in 2011 in Wrocław, Wrocław’s application for the UNESCO Creative Cities Network, literary programs of the European Capital of Culture Wrocław 2016, and the UNESCO World Book Capital City Wrocław 2016.

Damjan Zorc is an English professor, translator, and project manager with over two decades of dedicated work. At the beginning of his career, he worked for the Ministry for Foreign Affairs in Slovenia, translating important legal documents for the European Community. Later, he served as Head of the Translation Department at MTV Adria. Alongside his professional roles, he hosted several book discussions at Slovenia’s largest bookstore, fostering literary dialogue. Currently, as Coordinator at the Ljubljana UNESCO City of Literature office, Damjan oversees initiatives to promote Ljubljana as a center for literary expression and exchange.

Chris White is Senior Supervisor of Innovation and Development at Exeter Library, the central library of Libraries Unlimited, which oversees the running of the library service in Devon, UK. His role involves managing a broad program of regular activities and cultural and community events in a busy library that has around 1,500 daily visitors. These include author talks, music gigs, theater, and a regular offering of children and family events. White’s background is in the arts, and he has worked for over a decade as a performance poet, facilitator, and producer. For over 5 years, Chris White has been running a regular live poetry night in Exeter called “Spork!” Chris White is a former “Bard of Exeter,” was the first “Riddler in Residence” at Exeter Cathedral, and has a passion for making art that’s engaging, accessible, and fun. As a facilitator, he has led workshops in schools, in prisons, and on buses.

Eglė Baliutavičiūtė (b. 1989) has majored in literary studies and is a children’s literature expert and senior researcher with more than a decade of experience in the field. She works at the Martynas Mažvydas National Library of Lithuania. Baliutavičiūtė has initiated and contributed to various publishing projects and committee activities, is the author of articles and methodological tools, and hosts a podcast on children’s literature. Member of the Lithuanian IBBY Section. In 2024, Baliutavičiūtė received the Children’s Literature Prize from the Ministry of Education, Science, and Sport for her merits in promoting children’s literature and literacy in Lithuania.

Marius Chelariu (b. 1961, pen name Marius Chelaru) is a writer, poet, and editor. He lives in Iași, Romania. Chelaru has worked as an editor, director, and contributor at various national and international cultural magazines, journals, and publishing houses. He is currently Editor-in-Chief of Poezia magazine and Deputy Editor-in-Chief of Convorbiri literare magazine (founded in 1867). Chelariu has published over 50 books (poems, novels, critical texts, essays etc.). His work has been translated into more than 35 languages and published in anthologies or magazines from all continents. Marius Chelariu is a member of several national & international professional associations, such as The Writers’ Union of Romania (also member of the leading staff of the Iași Branch and the National Committee), The Union of Professional Journalists, Japan Universal Poetry Association, World Haiku Association (Japan), and others. Recipient of various national & international distinctions.

Violeta Radkova is a writer and cultural manager from Sofia, Bulgaria. She is Executive Director of the Bulgarian-American Elizabeth Kostova Foundation, a literary nonprofit dedicated to supporting writers’ professional development and fostering cultural exchange. Violeta co-hosts a literary podcast and is a 2016 Sozopol Fiction Seminars fellow. Her debut novel is set for release in 2024.

Emma Collins has been a leader, consultant, and producer in the arts and literature sector for over a decade. Most recently, she was appointed as Director of Push the Boat Out Poetry Festival in August 2023, after joining as Executive Producer in early 2022. From 2013 to 2017, she was the Director of the Village Storytelling Centre and in this role founded the Village Storytelling Festival, remaining the festival’s Creative Director until 2022. She is committed to contemporary cross-artform programming in literature and beyond, and experienced in commissioning and developing performance. Under the banner All the Figs, she produces small-scale contemporary work that crosses boundaries of storytelling, theater, and music. Across several years as a freelance consultant, coach, and facilitator in the arts and charity sector, she has had the privilege of working with many of Scotland’s foremost arts organizations, artists, and festivals.

Iris Munsch has been working for Lyon BD Festival, an event that takes place in Lyon and its surroundings every year during the month of June, for 19 years. During this festival, comic books, graphic novels, mangas and illustrations are celebrated in exhibitions, meetings, and other artistic forms for the public to enjoy. Iris has been working for several years as a publisher and now wishes to serve Lyon BD Festival to be as successful as possible for the youngest to the most senior visitors.

Anna Grinzweig Jacobsson (b. 1963, Wrocław, Poland) is a physicist and writer. She writes in the genre of narrative non-fiction. Her book The Flight to Marstrand (2020) is about the expulsion of Polish Jews at the end of the 1960s, something she experienced firsthand as a child. Her latest book The Wedding Pogrom (2023) is based on her own Jewish-Ukrainian family story from the turbulent years of the Russian revolution to the Second World War. Anna Grinzweig Jacobsson is the chairman of the Jewish Salon, an organization which organizes literary and other cultural events with a Jewish theme and is part of the Göteborg House of Literature. She currently lives in Göteborg, Sweden.

Madeleine Grive is the editor-in-chief and co-founder of the Swedish magazine 20TAL, and artistic director of the Stockholm International Poetry Festival. The magazine started as 80TAL in 1980 and is dedicated to literature, the visual arts, and debate. Since 2009, Grive is also the publisher of 20TAL Bok, which publishes poetry, experimental prose, and essays by Swedish and international authors. In May 2024, the magazine will publish a huge issue dedicated to Ukraine, its cutting-edge literature, and the importance of envisioning a future after the war.

Aranka Laczházi graduated in 1996 from Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest with a degree in Russian and German Philology, where she also studied Lithuanian and Latvian languages. During her studies, she did internships at Vilnius University and the University of Latvia in Riga. Laczházi acquired a PhD in 2002 after defending her thesis on neologisms in the first national Lithuanian newspaper Aušra. Since 2009, she works at the Institute of Slavic and Baltic Philology of Eötvös Loránd University, where she heads the Center of Baltic Studies and teaches Russian and Latvian languages, as well as courses on Baltic studies and linguodidactics. In addition to her scholarly work, since 1994 Aranka Laczházi is engaged in literary translation, translating mostly contemporary Lithuanian and Latvian prose.

Jonathan Simons is the founding editor of the offline publishing house Analog Sea and its literary journal, The Analog Sea Review. As a poet and essayist, he has written for publications including The London Magazine, PN Review, El País, Público, and The Analog Sea Review. His work has been covered by, among others, The Guardian, The Times Literary Supplement, The Washington Post, Toronto Star, Le Monde, and La Vanguardia. He researched Buddhist poetics at Naropa University and McGill University and was formerly a visiting scholar at the Center for Humans and Machines of Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin.

Marie Vrinat-Nikolov, former graduate of the École Normale Supérieure de Sèvres in Classics, is a Professor of the Bulgarian Language and Literature and of the Theory of Literary Translation at the Institut National des Langues et Cultures Orientales (INALCO), Paris, where she manages a Master’s in Literary Translation. Vrinat-Nikolov wrote or co-authored several course books for students in the Bulgarian language as well as numerous papers and books on the history of Bulgarian literature, history of translation in Bulgaria and East-Central Europe (Miroir de l'altérité: la traduction; Histoire de la traduction littéraire en Europe médiane), and literary translation theory (Shakespeare a mal aux dents). She translated many Bulgarian writers, from Ivan Vazov to Gueorgui Gospodinov, into French (about 50 books) and won several awards in Bulgaria and in France for her translations and for popularizing Bulgarian culture. In 2024, she was granted Doctor Honoris Causa of Sofia University.

Lucie Campos is the director of the Villa Gillet, France’s center for international writing and the home of Littérature Live, Lyon’s international literary festival, and Mode d’Emploi, its festival of ideas. As a lecturer of comparative literature, she has written about Sebald, Kertész, and Coetzee and edited several collective volumes on fiction and history in the 20th century. Campos has spent the last ten years between London, Paris, and Lyon, developing projects to promote literature in translation and to bring more writers through translation into festivals, schools, and public debate, working with the Institut Français network, the Collège de France, or the International Booker Prize.

Mélanie Archambaud is the Director of Villa Valmont, an international artistic residency center for writing and literature located near Bordeaux in southwest France, which welcomes 40 authors each year and plays a key role in promoting literary creation in France. Mélanie Archambaud was previously Chief Curator of Libraries. She has worked in university libraries, at the Public Information Library of the Centre Pompidou in Paris, and in the management team of the Bordeaux library network, before becoming a consultant in book economics for the French Ministry of Culture.

Roman Pliske (b. 1970, Berlin, Germany) studied history and German and Jewish studies in Heidelberg. He was Editor-in-Chief of the cultural magazine metamorphosen and founded Elfenbein Verlag with Ingo Drzecnik in 1995 (now based in Berlin). After completing his master’s degree, he first worked as a freelance journalist (Die Zeit, Frankfurter Hefte, Tagesspiegel) from 1999, then as an editor at Axel-Springer AG, in 2001 as Editorial Director of VVA Kommunikation in Berlin and Essen, and from 2003 onwards in the chief editorial department of bücher, Germany’s largest book magazine on the newsstand. Since 2004, he has been Managing Director, and since 2005 Managing Partner, of the publishing house Mitteldeutscher Verlag. Since 2005, the publishing house has increasingly focused on international literature. Today, the independent publishing house is once again one of the largest in East Germany, publishing around 150 titles annually.

Rachel Fox is an events specialist who has programmed literary events for festivals, venues, charities and publishers. In 2019 Rachel took up post as the Children and Schools Programme Director at the Edinburgh International Book Festival, where she is responsible for creating a dynamic program of events for young people of all ages. Before the Book Festival, she worked at Pan Macmillan, Tate, Faber & Faber, Waterstones, and the Southbank Centre, where she programmed their first ever Young Adult Literature Festival.

Tania Rodionova (b. 1990, Khmelnytskyi, Ukraine) is a translator, poet, and cultural manager. In 2013, she initiated the VERBatsiya translation group. During 2016–2021, she worked as part of the curatorial team of the International Book Arsenal Festival, as press agent of the Intermezzo Short Story Festival and the Mama Africa Festival of African Culture, and coordinator of the Cultour.Ua Literature Tour Project. Currently Tania Rodionova is Director of the TRANSLATORIUM Literary and Translation Festival, which she co-founded with her colleagues in 2017. Since 2022, she is Head of the NGO of the same name. In 2019 and 2022, she was curator of short-term collective residencies for translators. In 2023, she founded the BAZHAN residency in Kamianets-Podilskyi for poets and translators and became its curator. Rodionova is a participant of the Kharkiv Residency Slovo, Literarisches Colloquium Berlin, the SDK Residency (Warsaw), and the Literary Residency in Gdańsk.

Siarhej Šupa (b. 1961, Minsk, Belarus) is a linguist, editor, translator, and journalist. He graduated from the Minsk State Institute for Foreign Languages with a degree in translation and interpretation (French and English), later working as a researcher at the Institute of Linguistics of the Belarusian Academy of Sciences. Šupa has also worked as an editor (Mastatskaya Litaratura publishing house, cultural monthly Naša Niva) and journalist (Radio Free Europe in Prague, Belarus Service). He has translated into Belarusian works by G. G. Márquez, G. Orwell, M. Kulbak, A. Škėma, J. Kunčinas, E. A. Poe, L. Darrell, J. Joyce, G. de Maupassant, P. Mérimée, B. Vian, B. Schulz, F. Tuglas, J. L. Borges, O.Milosz, M. Jergovic, and E. Keret. Member of the Belarusian PEN Centre, recipient of the Ales Adamovič Award for Journalism and the Carlos Sherman Award for the best translated book of the year (2018, 2021, 2022).

Jean Fraser (b. Edinburgh) is the founder and Head of Publishing at Scotland Street Press. She has a lifetime’s experience in literature as a playwright, journalist, author, and, for the last ten years, as an independent publisher. With a degree in Law and French, she founded an award winning theater company and wrote and produced plays which toured worldwide. She worked for many years in London as an arts journalist and photographer. As the author Jean Findlay, she is published by Chatto and Windus and Vintage in the UK and by Farrar Straus and Giroux and Picador in the US. She founded Scotland Street Press in Edinburgh in 2014 and since then has led the company to steady success with a list of over fifty titles and many awards, publishing biography, fiction, poetry, and literature in translation.

Tomasz Snarski (b. 1985, Gdańsk, Poland) is a Polish poet, lawyer, philosopher, and publicist. He holds a PhD in Law, teaches at the University of Gdańsk, and works as a lawyer as well as a human rights and cultural activist. Snarski is the Artistic Director of the interdisciplinary cultural festival Wilno w Gdańsku and curator of the literary project Bursztyny Literatury (“Ambers of Literature”). He is a member of the Gdańsk Poets’ Club. Tomasz Snarski is the author of poetry books and short stories. His poems were translated into English, Spanish, Italian, Japanese, and Lithuanian. In 2022, a collection of his poems titled Žiemos visada bus baltos was published in Lithuania (translated by Birutė Jonuškaitė). Also in 2022, he conducted a sociocultural project called “Poetry That Brings Peace” highlighting the solidarity of the literary community with Ukraine. As a researcher, he works inter alia on human rights, including multiculturalism issues and connections between law and literature.

Roxana Hashemi is a German and Iranian poet and translator. She lives in Marseille, France, where she works at La Marelle, a literary residency that plays host to French and international writers who are invited to develop literary projects of all genres. La Marelle positions itself as a literary laboratory, a space for experimentation hosting confirmed writers as well as newcomers. At La Marelle, Roxana Hashemi organizes literary events, workshops, and interviews authors for events as well as for a radio show hosted by Radio Grenouille. She is also the co-editor of Muscle, a French poetry magazine.

Birutė Jonuškaitė is a novelist, poet and essayist. She was born into a Lithuanian family in northeastern Poland. She later went on to study and graduate with a degree in Journalism from Vilnius University. From 2003 to 2018, she has held the post of Vice-President of the Lithuanian Writers’ Union, and since 2018, she is its acting President. Jonuškaitė has published five short story collections, seven novels, two books of essays, a book of poetry, and one novella for children. Jonuškaitė is the recipient of numerous literary awards, including the Žemaitė Prize, the Witold Hulewicz Prize, the Lithuanian National Prize for Culture and Arts, and the Baltic Assembly Prize. She has also translated a number of Polish authors such as Czesław Miłosz, Wisława Szymborska, Jacek Dehnel, Bohdan Sławiński, Magdalena Tulli, and Hanna Krall into Lithuanian. Her work has been translated into German, English, Polish, French, Slovenian, Ukrainian, Spanish, Russian, Georgian, Belarusian, and Croatian.

Dr. Thomas Michael Glaw (b. 1957) spent several years in the military before studying German Literature and Theology at Munich University. He graduated with a master’s degree and a PhD. After teaching stints in the UK, USA, China, and Japan, he founded the business consultancy Dr. Glaw + Partner, where he is still acting as Managing Director. In 2017, he joined Mediathoughts Publishing in Munich as co-owner and Publishing Director. Apart from academic papers, he has published several novels, as well as three volumes combining poetry and photography. Dr. Glaw is married, has one son and lives in Munich.

Greta Ambrazaitė (b. 1993, Vilnius, Lithuania) is a poet, editor, children’s writer, and co-founder of the publishing house Bazilisko ambasada. She holds an MA in Literary Anthropology and Culture from Vilnius University. Ambrazaitė’s debut poetry collection Trapūs daiktai (“Fragile Things” 2018) earned her the Young Yotvingian Prize and was named the Poetry Book of the Year. She was awarded the Young Artist’s Prize by the Lithuanian Ministry of Culture in 2019. Her second poetry book, ADELA (2022), was awarded the Jurga Ivanauskaitė Prize and included into several best Lithuanian books’ lists. Her poems have been translated into more than ten languages. Ambrazaitė has translated poems by poets such as Borges, Cortázar, and Pizarnik, and edited the anthology of young Georgian poets Aidintys, or ექო, published in 2021.

Herkus Kunčius (b. 1965) is a prose writer who, in many ways, differs from other Lithuanian authors as, unlike his peers, he did not study literature at university but instead received a degree in art criticism. He approaches existential themes with utmost grotesqueness, irony, satire, and, most often, black humor, unlocking and deconstructing shocking and absurd realities of the past. Some literary critics recognize his unparalleled ability to create comic texts but do not want to interpret them as full-fledged fiction. Since his debut novel “And the Bottom Will Always Hold” was published in 1996, Kunčius has authored numerous books, primarily novels (“Past Frequent Tense” 1998; “Ornament” 2002; “No Mercy for Dushansky” 2006; “A Lithuanian in Vilnius” 2011; “Derwish from Kaunas” 2014; “Stalin’s Iron Glove” 2019) as well as occasional short story collections (“To Betray, Disown, Slander” 2007; “Tales of an Imaginary Country” 2015), essay collections (“Full Moon Fun” 1999; “Three Beloved Ones” 2014), and plays.

Giedrė Kazlauskaitė (b. 1980) is a poet, prose writer, essayist, literary critic, and Editor-in-Chief of the literary journal Šiaurės Atėnai. She obtained a degree in Lithuanian Philology from Vilnius University. Her debut was a collection of short stories Sudie, mokykla (“Goodbye, School”) in 2001. Her collection of poems Meninos (2014) was a turning point in Lithuanian poetry: Kazlauskaitė’s confessional style was saturated with autobiographical elements and concerned with both societal and personal themes. Kazlauskaitė’s poetry, which has been translated into English, French, Polish, and other languages, brings to life the inner drama and comedy of a woman writer, a mother, a lesbian, and a young researcher with an unfinished thesis. The characteristic quality of her latest book Gintaro kambarys (“The Amber Room” 2018) is the author’s ability to connect personal and biographical stories with a cultural context, thus discussing universal and widespread phenomena through personal, intimate experiences.

Kornelijus Platelis (b. 1951) was educated as a construction engineer and worked in this field for 15 years. He has published 12 books of poetry (the first in 1980) and two books of essays. He has translated and published selected poems by Ezra Pound, T. S. Eliot, Seamus Heaney, Robert Bringhurst, the History of Polish Literature by Czesław Miłosz, and developed the commentary for a new Lithuanian edition of the Old Testament. Platelis is the co-founder of the annual international literary festival Druskininkai Poetic Fall. He has worked as President of the Lithuanian PEN, Director of the publishing house Vaga, Editor-in-Chief of the cultural weekly Literatūra ir menas, and President of the Lithuanian Association of Artists. His poetry has been translated into many languages and published in Bulgaria, Italy, Slovenia, Poland, and the USA. Among his honors and awards is the Lithuanian National Award for Culture and Arts in 2002.

Dainius Gintalas (b. 1973) is a poet, librettist, translator, and critic of literature and art. He studied Lithuanian Language and Literature at Vilnius University and Art Criticism at the Vilnius Academy of Arts. He has published the poetry books Angis (“Viper” 1997), Boa (2007), which earned him the Young Yotvingian Prize and the Literary Hat Prize, Adatos (“Needles”), listed as the best poetry book of 2016, and the poetical prose book Vienos vasaros giesmė (“One Summer Song” 2021), which was awarded the Yotvingian Prize. Gintalas is also the author of two innovative poetry books for children. He has written librettos for several diverse genres of musical performance. Gintalas has translated from the French the works of G. Debord, G. Bataille, J. Genet, M. Houellebecq, Lautréamont, H. Michaux, Bl. Cendrars, R. Char, A. Artaud, and others authors. He organizes assemblies of amateur painters called Maskoliškių meno frontas (“The Front of Art of Maskoliškės”).

Jurga Tumasonytė (b. 1988, Kaunas, Lithuania) is a prose author and interviewer whose conversations with artists have been published in Lithuanian periodicals. She holds a bachelor’s and master’s degree in philology. Tumasonytė participated in poetry slam tournaments, being included in a collection of slam texts Slemas Lietuvoje! (“Slam in Lithuania!” 2012). Her published works include a short prose collection Dirbtinė muselė (“Little Artificial Fly” 2011), a fiction piece in the short stories collection Troleibuso istorijos (“Trolleybus Stories” 2015), the book Knygyno istorijos (“Bookstore Stories” 2018), a collection of short stories Undinės (“Mermaids” 2019), the novel Remontas (“Repair” 2020), and a collection of stories Naujagimiai (“The Newborn” 2023). Tumasonytė is a recipient of the Jurga Ivanauskaitė and Antanas Vaičiulaitis prizes, the Kazimieras Barėnas Literary Award, while her books Undinės and Naujagimiai were shortlisted among the Top 12 Most Creative Books of the Year and included in the Book of the Year lists.

Kotryna Zylė (b. 1986, Vilnius, Lithuania) is an award-winning author, illustrator, and designer of books for children and young adults. Zylė’s books are often rooted in Lithuanian mythology or include allegorical reflections on key issues in life that will delight young readers. Zylė studied at the Vilnius Academy of Arts. While still a student, she became immersed in the visual communication of cultural heritage and became interested in Lithuanian mythology. In 2012, she began writing and illustrating children’s books and ever since her love of children’s literature, illustration, and mythology has been a source of inspiration for new books and projects. She co-organizes literature events and festivals, leads creative workshops, and writes a literary blog.

Vaiva Grainytė (b. 1984, Lithuania) is a writer, poet, and playwright. Her text-based practice shifts between genres, interdisciplinary works, and publications. As an author she takes action as an observant anthropologist: challenged by Grainytė’s poetic interpretation, mundane social issues take on a paradoxical nature. Her books – the book of essays Beijing Diaries (2012) and the poetry collection Gorilla Archives (2019) – were nominated for Book of the Year and included in the twelve most creative books of the year in Lithuania. She is the librettist and co-author of internationally acclaimed contemporary operas: the opera-performance Sun and Sea, which was awarded the Golden Lion at the Venice Biennale of Contemporary Art (2019), and the opera Have a Good Day! (2013), which earned 6 international awards in Europe. In 2022, she published the bilingual (Lithuanian and English) collage novel Roses and Potatoes. Her work has been translated into more than ten languages.

Rasa Aškinytė (b. 1973) has a background in history and philosophy. Her main work is at a university, where she teaches philosophy, ethics, didactics, and where she also writes and co-writes textbooks and other materials for schools and universities. She is the author of six novels and two children’s stories. She has famously shrugged off repeated comments about her “unfeminine” style of writing with a request to say exactly what constitutes feminine writing so that she could change. Feminine or not, the voice of her fiction is definitely distinctive: emphatically crisp and short, often even slightly academic. Most of her novels (with the notable exception of her book Glessum) are set in nameless “anywheres,” with no particular relationship to a place, time, or culture, focusing instead on universal aspects of human existence. Her books were translated into English, German, and Latvian languages. She also has a private practice as psychotherapist.

Rimas Uzgiris is a Lithuanian and American poet and translator. His work has appeared in Barrow Street, Hudson Review, The Poetry Review and elsewhere. He is the author of North of Paradise and Tarp (poems translated into Lithuanian, shortlisted for Best Poetry Book of the Year), translator of eight poetry collections from Lithuanian, including Caravan Lullabies by Ilzė Butkutė (A Midsummer Night’s Press), Then What by Gintaras Grajauskas (Bloodaxe), Now I Understand by Marius Burokas (Parthian), The Moon is a Pill by Aušra Kaziliūnaitė (Parthian), Vagabond Sun by Judita Vaičiūnaitė (Shearsman), and Voices of Spring by Maironis (Maironis Museum), as well as the Venice Biennale Golden Lion winning opera Sun and Sea. He was educated at UCSD, UW-Madison, Rutgers-Newark, with a PhD in Philosophy and an MFA in Creative Writing. A recipient of a Fulbright Scholar Grant and NEA Translation Fellowship, he teaches at Vilnius University.

Unė Kaunaitė is a writer, public figure, and education expert. She has majored in Psychology and Social Anthropology from the University of St Andrews in Scotland and in Education from the University of Cambridge in England. Kaunaitė is the author of four prose books – her debut novel Sudie rytojau (2011) and Laiškai Elzei (2016) are written for teenagers, while her two subsequent books, Žmonės iš Alkapės (2014) and 2084 (2023), are adult fiction. Her last book is a foray into the dystopia genre, which analyzes today’s issues by means of a futuristic world. As a writer, Kaunaitė prioritizes moral and ethical dilemmas, their potential solutions, and psychological portraits of her characters.

Antanas A. Jonynas (b. 1953, Vilnius, Lithuania) is a poet and translator. He majored in Lithuanian Language and Literature from Vilnius University. Jonynas is a member of the Lithuanian Writers’ Union, acting as its President during 2011–2018, and the Lithuanian PEN. His literary debut was the poetry book “Year as the Thrush” (1977), which earned him the Zigmas Gėlė Prize. His subsequent poetry books are “Ship of Memory” (1980), “A Night Train” (1990), and “Waterfall under Ice” (1997), which earned him the Yotvingian Prize. He is the recipient of the Poetry Spring Laureateship (2002), Lithuanian National State Award of Culture and Art (2003), Baltic Assembly Prize for Literature (2023). Jonynas has translated poetry from the German, Latvian, Russian, Belarusian, Ukrainian, and Croatian languages. His own work has been translated into Armenian, Belarusian, Bulgarian, Croatian, English, Estonian, French, German, Georgian, Hungarian, Italian, Latvian, Norwegian, Polish, Romanian, Russian, Slovenian, Spanish, Swedish, Ukrainian.

Indrė Valantinaitė (b. 1984) made her debut in 2006 with a collection of poems Žuvim ir lelijom (For Fish and Lilies). She obtained a degree in cultural management and has worked as a journalist. The poet is also known in the music scene: she has won several music competitions and performed in the rock operas. Valantinaitė is an outstanding reader, participating regularly in various literary festivals. She has written four award-winning collections of poems. Valantinaitė’s poems can be described as poetic minimalism – short phrases, subtle sound, and suggestive images. Her poetry have been translated into more than 20 languages. From 2022, Indrė Valantinaitė works at the Lithuanian Writers' Union as a coordinator of international projects.

Justinas Žilinskas (b. 1974) is mainly known as an author, writing for young adults and teenagers. He writes fantasy, adventure stories, historical fiction, and science fiction. His illustrated novel, Bėgliai: jūrų keliais į Ameriką (“Runaways: Over the Ocean to America”), illustrated by Ūla Šveikauskaitė, was listed as the Book of the Year for young adults in 2023, along with the IBBY Lithuanian section’s Pranas Mašiotas Award for the best book for teenagers and young adults. Among his other notable works are the Kaukas Gugis trilogy, a three-volume fantasy series inspired by Lithuanian mythology and history, Mano Vilnius mano, and the comic book Atgal į Vilnių (illustrated by Povilas Vincentas Jankūnas), a novel for teenagers exploring Vilnius history. He has also penned the mystery thriller KGB vaikai (“KGB Kids”) and the science fiction novel Genomas 3000.

Alvydas Šlepikas (b. 1966) is a writer who lives in Vilnius. Šlepikas writes prose, poetry, and plays. His most known work is the novel Mano vardas – Marytė, which is one of the most translated Lithuanian books of recent times and has now been published in English, Spanish, French, Albanian, Belarusian, Dutch, Estonian, German, Latvian, Polish and Ukrainian. Alvydas Šlepikas is the recipient of various foreign and national literary prizes, most notably the Lithuanian National Prize for Culture and Arts. Last year A. Šlepikas published a collection of short stories titled Namas anapus upės: įvairių laikų istorijos, which was listed by the Intitute of Lithuanian Literature and Folklore among the Most Creative Books of 2023 and the Top Five Best Books of 2023.

Aušra Kaziliūnaitė, a poet, philosopher, and writer is distinguished by her unique poetic style, which combines visual imagery and precision of form with a philosophical relationship to the world that is an inquiry into the essence of things and phenomena. Kaziliūnaitė is the author of 5 poetry collections. Her works have been translated into 19 languages. In 2018, Parthian Books (UK) published The Moon Is A Pill, a collection of Kaziliūnaitė’s poetry translated into English. The book was listed among the five best works of Baltic literature recently translated into English by literature expert Jayde Will. In 2021, Free Poetry (CheBOOKsary) published весна это и есть любовь, a collection of Kaziliūnaitė’s poetry translated into Russian by Andrei Sen-Senkov ir Anna Halberstadt. In 2023, Warsztaty Kultury (Poland) published osobista pustka, a collection of Kaziliūnaitė’s poetry translated into Polish by Paulina Ciucka. In 2023, KLAK Verlag (Germany) published Feiertags Makeup, a collection of Kaziliūnaitė’s poetry translated into German. Kaziliūnaitė participated in writers’ residency programs in both Europe and the US. Kaziliūnaitė was awarded the Berlin-Fellowship by the Section Literature of the Akademie der Künste (Berlin, Germany; 2023 August-November). Kaziliūnaitė holds a degree in history and religious studies.

Eglė Frank (b. Vilnius) is a prose writer and essayist. She graduated from Vilnius Pedagogical University and has worked in editorial offices and an advertisement agency. Mirę irgi šoka (“The Dead Also Dance”) is her first book. “Writing for me is a legal way to express my inner darkness, while peeking out of the corner of my eye into the beyond. I dare say, I know the price of this deal.” Eglė Frank’s short stories are sensual, inventive, uncanny, with a certain Lynchian vibe, but still firmly rooted in everyday life. And in that life, anything can happen.

Marius Burokas (b. 1977), poet and translator. 2016-2023 was an editor-in-chief of online magazine of Lithuanian literature in English Vilnius Review. Made his debut with the poetry collection Ideograms (Ideogramos) in 1999. His second book of poetry, States of Being (Būsenos), appeared in 2005. Third book – I‘ve Learned Not To Be (Išmokau nebūti) was published in 2011 and was awarded “The Young Yotvingian prize” as a best young poet’s book. His fourth poetry book of clean life (švaraus buvimo) was published in 2018 and was awarded Poetry Spring-Maironis prize for the best poetry book. His selected poetry book in English “Now I Understand” was published by “Parthian Books” in 2018. His poetry book in Ukrainian „Найменші речі“ was also published in 2018. His selected poetry book „Tu miezkal Jonasz“ was published in Poland in 2021. He is a compiler and editor in chief of Lithuanian contemporary poetry anthology How the Earth Carries Us – New Lithuanian Poets (published by Lithuanian Culture Institute). Poetry has been translated into Polish, Latvian, Finnish, Swedish, Slovenian, English, German, French, Greek, Spanish, Italian, Romanian, Georgian, Belorussian, Ukrainian and Chinese. Marius also translate poetry and prose from English, Ukrainian and Belorussian.

Michaël Batalla has been actively engaged in the poetic scene since the late 1990s. He became the director of the Centre international de poésie / Marseille in 2019. Before that, he ran the collection (expériences poétiques), published by Le clou dans le fer between 2002 and 2013. From the 2000s onwards, he became interested in the pedagogies of poetic writings, which he taught at the École Spéciale d'Architecture in Paris, from 2010 to 2015. His writings have been published in numerous magazines and books by various publishers.

Ramunė Brundzaitė was born in 1988 in Vilnius, where she obtained a Bachelor‘s degree in Lithuanian Philology and the Italian language and the Master‘s degree in Intermedial Literature Studies at Vilnius University. In 2013 she won in the contest of the First Book held by the Lithuanian Association for Writers. Her first collection of poetry titled Drugy, mano drauge (“Moth, my Friend”) was awarded the Young Yotving’s prize during the Druskininkai Poetic Fall festival and later she received the prize of the Mayor of Vilnius for her works on Vilnius. In 2015-2016 she had a graduate internship in Trieste, at the museums of writers Italo Svevo and James Joyce. Poetry, translations from Italian language, essays, book reviews have been published in cultural magazines and anthologies. Brundzaitė published her second poetry book Tuščių butelių draugija (“Fellowship of Empty Bottles”) in 2022, which was selected by Institute of Lithuanian Literature and Folklore as the Most Creative Book of 2022. Her poetry has been translated into English, German, Italian, Spanish, Ukrainian, Chinese, Turkish, Hungarian and other languages.

Tomas Venclova (b. 1937) is a Lithuanian poet, prose writer, and literary critic. He is Professor Emeritus of Slavonic Literature at Yale University and holds an honorary doctorate from Lublin University. Together with his close friends, Nobel Prize winners Czesław Miłosz and Joseph Brodsky, he belongs to a generation of influential Eastern European literary figures who have given a clear poetic form to the experience of totalitarian regimes. The poet took part in the dissident movement during the Soviet period. Venclova is the author of poetry collections and translations, essays, and articles. Venclova’s poetry addresses the desolate landscape of the aftermath of totalitarianism, as well as the ethical constants that allow for hope and perseverance. His most recent book, written together with Ellen Hinsey, Magnetic North: Conversations with Tomas Venclova, interweaves Lithuanian history, literature, and dissidence together with Tomas Venclova’s own life and work, presenting an in-depth account of ethical choices and artistic resistance to totalitarianism spanning half a century. At the core of Venclova’s intellectual poems is an existentially thinking mind, uniting various realms of time and space. He is a recipient of the Lithuanian National Culture and Arts Prize (2000) as well as numerous international poetry prizes. Venclova has translated into Lithuanian the works of T. S. Eliot, W. H. Auden, Charles Baudelaire, Saint-John Perse, Boris Pasternak, Anna Akhmatova, Joseph Brodsky, Czesław Miłosz, Wisława Szymborska, and others. His poetry collections have appeared in many languages, including English, German, Italian, Swedish, Russian, Polish, Hungarian, and Chinese.

Virginija Kulvinskaitė is a writer. She is the author of three books – the poetry collection Antrininkė (Doppelganger, 2017, Naujas vardas), the novel kai aš buvau malalietka (when i was a malalietka, 2019, Kitos knygos), and the short story collection Keturi (Four, 2023, Kitos knygos). Her writing has been translated into English, German, French, Russian, Latvian, and Ukrainian.

Evelina Daciūtė is the author of 16 books, 15 of them are children books. She debuted in children’s literature in 2014. In 2015 “The Elephants Went Visiting” was published and awarded as the The Most Beautiful Book in the Book Art Competition. In 2016 the book received the Book of the Year Award for the Youngest Readers by IBBY Lithuania. The most recognized and awarded book by Evelina Daciūtė, “Happiness is a Fox” was published in 2016 in Lithuania, in 2018 in the UK and US with title “The Fox on the Swing”. In 2020 this book received Mildred L. Batchelder Award from the American Library Association and some other awards. The writer’s other books (“The Secretest Secret”, “The Hole”, “Chevelure”, “The Tale of the Cat and the Tulip”) also received awards and appreciation. Daciūtė’s books have been translated into more than 20 languages. In 2020 the artist received the Global Lithuania Award for promoting Lithuania abroad.

Gabrielle Young is the European Project Manager at ATLAS – Association for the promotion of literary translators, based in Arles in the south of France. ATLAS supports, shares and promotes literary translation and hosts translators in their residency space. Gabrielle is working on the EU-funded project Archipelagos which will run over the next three years, and aims to unearth the diversity of European literary voices by supporting the role of translators as explorers of literature written in lesser-used language, and reinforcing the expertise of book chain professionals.

Akvilina Cicėnaitė (born in 1979 in Vilnius) is a writer, literary translator, the author of eight books and a recipient of several literary awards. She has a PhD in Religious Studies from Victoria University (Wellington, New Zealand), a master’s degree in Literary Theory and a bachelor’s degree in Lithuanian Philology from Vilnius University. She is a member of the Lithuanian Writers Union, Lithuanian Literary Translators Association, and the Lithuanian Section of IBBY.

Her latest novel A Dictionary of the English Language was published in 2022.