Agata Tomažič

Agata Tomažič (1977) graduated in French at the Faculty of Arts and journalism at the Faculty of Social Sciences in Ljubljana. She first became known for her articles in Slovenia’s largest daily newspaper Delo and through her translations of fiction and non-fiction from English and French. She ventured onto the literary scene with her well-received short story collection Česar ne moreš povedati frizerki (Things You Can't Tell Your Hairdresser) (Goga, 2015), and a year later with the literary travelogue Zakaj potujete v take dežele? (Why Travel to Such Places?) (Cankarjeva založba, 2016). Her debut novel was entitled Tik pod nebom (Right Under the Sky) (Goga, 2017) and was followed by another collection of short stories Nož v ustih (Knife in the Mouth) (Goga, 2020). Her latest novel, Čmrljev žleb (Bumblebee Gully) (Goga, 2022), is an eerie yet funny crime story set in a family hotel in an idyllic alpine village. She currently works at the Research Centre of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts and keeps in touch with her readers as an avid Twitterer.

Alenka Zupančič

Alenka Zupančič (1966) is a Slovene philosopher and social theorist, one of the prominent members of the so-called ‘Ljubljana School of Psychoanalysis’. She works as Research councillor at the Institute of Philosophy, Scientific Research Centre of the Slovene Academy of Sciences in Ljubljana. She is also professor at the European Graduate School in Switzerland, and is invited as a guest lecturer to numerous universities worldwide. She is editor-in-chief of the Slovene journal Problemi and the book series Analecta (published by the Society for Theoretical Psychoanalysis, Ljubljana) and, together with Slavoj Žižek and Mladen Dolar, editor of the book series Short Circuits at MIT Press. Notable for her work on the intersection of philosophy and psychoanalysis, she is the author of numerous articles and many books, including Etika realnega: Kant, Lacan (Ethics of the Real: Kant and Lacan) (Društvo za teoretsko psihoanalizo, 1993); Najkrajša senca: Nietzschejeva teorija dvojega (The Shortest Shadow: Nietzsche's Philosophy of the Two) (Društvo za teoretsko psihoanalizo, 2001); Poetika, druga knjiga (The Odd One In: On Comedy) (Društvo za teoretsko psihoanalizo, 2004); Seksualno in ontologija (What is Sex?) (Društvo za teoretsko psihoanalizo, 2011) and Pustila bi jih trohneti: Antigonina paralaksa (Let Them Rot: Antigone’s Parallax) (Društvo za teoretsko psihoanalizo, 2022).

Aleš Šteger

Aleš Šteger (1973) is a poet and writer. He has published more than 20 books of poems, prose and essays and is noted for his collaborations with composers, musicians, visual artists, and filmmakers. Šteger is the programme director of Beletrina Academic Press, which he co-founded 25 years ago. He has initiated and directed Europe-wide arts projects, most notably Versopolis – a European platform for emerging poets and international poetry festivals. His Knjiga reči (The Book of Things) (Beletrina, 2015) won the BTBA and AATSEL awards. In 2016, he was awarded the Bienek Prize for Poetry by the Bavarian Academy of Fine Arts. In 2022, his novel Neverend (Beletrina, 2017) was awarded the International Spycher Prize for Literature in Leuk, Switzerland, and came in first place on the prestigious SWR Bestenliste. He received the title Chevalier des Artes et Lettres from the French state and is a member of the Berlin Academy of Arts and the German Academy for Language and Literature. His most recent book in English is Burning Tongues, New and Selected Poems (Bloodaxe, 2022). Other notable books in Slovene are: Svet je vmes (The World is In Between) (Pivec, 2022), Na kraju zapisano (Written on Site) (Beletrina, 2023), Kurent (Mladinska knjiga, 2015).

Alma M. Karlin

The German-speaking Alma M. Karlin was born in the now Slovenian town of Cilli (Celje) in what was then the Austro-Hungarian Empire. In 1908 she travelled to London, where she studied languages and earned her living as a translator and private teacher. In 1914 she leaves London for Norway and Sweden before returning to Celje for a short time in 1918. In 1919 she finally sets off on her world expedition, which would take her across five continents in the following eight years. Her travelogues in three volumes were bestsellers in the 1930s. They have now been reissued by the German publisher AvivA Verlag.

Ana Marwan

Ana Marwan (1980) was born in Murska Sobota, studied comparative literature in Ljubljana and romance studies in Vienna. Since 2005 she has lived as a freelance author in Vienna and writes short stories, novels and poems in German and Slovene. In 2023 she became co-publisher and chief editor of the Austrian literary magazine Literatur und Kritik. Her debut novel Der Kreis des Weberknechts (The Weavers Circle) was published in 2019 by Otto Müller Verlag. In 2022 she received the Ingeborg Bachmann Award. The awarded text was published the same year in a bilingual edition entitled Wechselkröte/Krota (Toad) (Beletrina). For her novel Zabubljena (Cocooned) (Beletrina, 2021) she won the Kritiško Sito Award for the best literary work of 2021. The novel was published in German by Otto Müller Verlag under the title Verpuppt in February 2023.

Ana Pepelnik

Ana Pepelnik (1979) is a poet and translator. Her first collection of poetry, Ena od varijant kako ravnati s skrivnostjo (One of the Variants of How to Deal with a Secret) (LUD Literatura, 2007) was nominated for the Best Poetry Debut Award. Her second collection is entitled Utrip oranžnih luči na semaforjih (The Flashing of Orange at Traffic Lights) (LUD Literatura, 2009), her third Cela večnost (All Eternity) (LUD Literatura, 2013), followed by Pod vtisom (Under the Impression, (Lud Šerpa, 2015), Tehno (Techno) (Lud Šerpa, 2017), which was nominated for the Jenko and Veronika awards, and Treš (Trash) (Lud Šerpa, 2021), which also brought her a nomination for the Veronika Award. Her most recent collection is to se ne pove (you can’t say that) (LUD Literatura, 2023). As a poet she participated in the international project Metropoetica (under the tutorship of Welsh poet Zoë Skoulding). As a speaker she is part of the impro trio CPG Impro. As both poet and speaker, she collaborated with the Poetrix project, a sound product of musician and sound artists Jaka Berger – Brgs.

Ana Schnabl

Ana Schnabl (1985) is a writer, journalist and literary critic. She is currently writing her doctoral thesis on women’s autofiction and working on an anti-bildungsroman about a girl growing up in a violent family. As a cultural journalist she worked for the daily Dnevnik for a number of years and wrote various articles for magazines. In 2017 her collection of short stories Razvezani (United) (Beletrina) won critical acclaim and the Best Debut Award at the Slovene Book Fair, followed by two further nominations and the Edo Budiša Award in Croatia. Three years later she published her first novel Mojstrovina (Masterpiece) (Beletrina, 2020), that was well received by readers at home and abroad – with the book she travelled through a large part of Europe, including a residence in the Museumsquartier in Vienna, the Literarisches Colloquium Berlin, and the first European Writer's Festival in London. The novel was given favourable reviews in numerous Austrian, German and English media and was included on the longlist for the Dublin Literary Award in January 2023. Her second novel Plima (Tide) (Beletrina, 2022) was longlisted for the Kresnik Award.

Ana Svetel

Ana Svetel (born 1990 in Maribor), studied ethnology and cultural anthropology in Ljubljana, assistant at the institute there, also active in the fields of music and storytelling. Books of poetry, among others: Lepo in prav (Beautiful and Good, 2015), Marble (2022). In German: Gedichte in der Anthologie Mein Nachbar auf der Wolke; Slowenische Lyrik des 20. und 21. Jahrhunderts (Carl Hanser Verlag & Deutsche Akademie für Sprache und Dichtung, 2023).

Andrej Blatnik

Andrej Blatnik (1963) works as an editor and associate professor of publishing studies at the University of Ljubljana. He has participated in numerous literary festivals around the globe, including PEN World Voices in New York City, the Toronto International Festival of Authors, the Jaipur Literary Festival, and Cosmopolis in Barcelona. He was a participant in the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa in 1993. He has received several fellowships, including the Fulbright Scholarship. He continues to love reading and travelling. Blatnik has published five novels, most recently Trg osvoboditve (Liberation Square) (Goga 2021), six collections of short stories, including Zakon želje (The Law of Desire) (Beletrina, 2000), Saj razumeš? (You Do Understand?) (LUD Literatura, 2009) and Ugrizi (Bites) (LUD Literatura, 2019), five works on cultural studies, and a manual on writing short stories. He has been awarded several major domestic and international prizes. His short stories have been published in several magazines and anthologies, including Best European Fiction 2010 (Dalkey Archive Press, 2010) and Short: An International Anthology of Five Centuries of Short Short Stories (Persea Books, 2014). He has had around 40 translations of his books published in 17 languages, including four in English and German.

Anja Mugerli

Anja Mugerli (1984) is a writer, lecturer and editor. She graduated in Slovene language and literature and holds a Master's degree in performing arts and creative writing. In 2015 she published her collection of short stories Zeleni fotelj (Green Sofa) (Litera, 2015), which was nominated for best debut at the Slovene Book Fair that year. Her novel Spovin (Memory-Wine) (Litera, 2017), was among the final ten for the Kresnik Award. Her third book is a collection of short stories Čebelja družina (Bee Family) (Cankarjeva založba, 2020) for which she received the 2021 European Union Prize for Literature (EUPL). The collection was also nominated for the Novo Mesto Award and has so far been translated into Croatian, Macedonian, Italian, Bulgarian and Hungarian. Her texts are published in many important Slovene literary magazines, she was a guest speaker at various literary festivals in Slovenia and abroad. She lives in Nova Gorica and every so often travels to a literary residence; for example in 2022 she spent time writing in Vienna and in Liechtenstein. Her most recent novel is entitled Pričakovanja (Expectations) (Cankarjeva založba, 2023).