Janja Vidmar

Janja Vidmar (1962) is the author of over 50 books, numerous screenplays, theatre and radio plays, columns and articles. She has received several national and international awards for her work: the Večernica Award in 1998 and 2008, the Desetnica Award in 2006 and 2013, IBBY Honour List 2010, the Glazer Charter in 2007, the 1999 Medaglia d’oro, the 2010 Zlata paličica, nominations for the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award in 2013 and 2014. She is among the most popular YA writers in Slovenia, and many of her books have become successful in other countries as well. Her work has been translated into Albanian, Serbian, German, Croatian, Hungarian, Bulgarian, Italian and English. She lives and works in Maribor, where she continues to be inspired by the surrounding vineyards, her daughter and her cats.

Jelka Godec Schmidt

Jelka Godec Schmidt (1958) is a renowned illustrator, painter, comics artist, and writer. Over a period of almost fifty years, more than a hundred children’s and young adult books with her illustrations have been published. She has illustrated numerous textbooks and educational non-fiction texts, as well as designed several calendars, posters, and puppets for the puppeteer Cveto Sever. Since 1995, her works have been regularly exhibited at the Slovenian Biennial of Illustration, and she has also held many solo exhibitions. She has also devoted herself to writing children’s books, especially comic books (The Happy Cow Kindergarten, Cicigang) and original picture books. Her series Losey the Elf and the Chameleon has been translated into a number of languages. Her original stories are collected in the anthology Hooray, Hurrah! She has received numerous awards for her work, including the Levstik Award, the Hinko Smrekar Award, and the Levstik Lifetime Achievement Award.

Jelka Reichman

Jelka Reichman (1939) is a painter and one of the most important book illustrators in Slovenia. Her oeuvre spans more than 200 literary projects. She has been working with the Mladinska Knjiga Publishing House since 1964. She illustrated now famous books by Kajetan Kovič (My Friend Piki Jacob, Muri the Cat, The Doll and the Girl, Racket the Dragon, The Golden Ship), Svetlana Makarovič (The Fearsome Wolf), Leopold Suhodolčan (Stumpytumpy), Srečko Kosovel (Little Sweet-Tooth Bears), Prežihov Voranc (The Left Pocket), Polonca Kovač (Mousie), the fairy tale series The Golden Bird, and others. Her artwork also adorns the Cicido and Ciciban magazines. Part of her extensive opus is collected in the anthologies The Miracle Garden and A Fir Tree Has Grown. She has received numerous awards for her work, including the Levstik Award, the Hinko Smrekar Lifetime Achievement Award, and the Levstik Lifetime Achievement Award. She is an Honorary Citizen of Ljubljana, and she has also been named Slovenian Woman of the Year.

Jure Engelsberger

Jure Engelsberger (1977) has been drawing and illustrating since childhood. In secondary school, he founded the punk band Racija, which recorded three albums between 1995 and 2000. He graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Ljubljana (ALUO) and continued his education at the Aalto University School of Arts, Design and Architecture in Helsinki. He worked with comics, classic animation, and newspaper illustration. He also designed corporate visual identities, CD covers, and concert posters, played guitar or drums in various bands, and wrote music and lyrics. Since 2011 he has focused exclusively on illustrating children’s and young adult books. In his free time he is still passionate about music and kamishibai. He has received numerous honourable mentions, nominations and awards, including the Award of Typographic Excellence, the Golden Bird Award for Design and Illustration, an Honourable Mention for Excellence at the Brumen Biennial, the ALUO Student Award, the Golden Kamishibai Award, and the Hinko Smrekar Accolade. Books with his illustrations have received the Večernica Award, the Cankar Accolade, the Golden Pear Rating, and the Golden Pear Award.

Jurij Devetak

Jurij Devetak (1997) was born in Trieste. After finishing his studies, he enrolled at the Scuola Internazionale di Comics in Padua, where he studied comics for three years. Since 2018 he has been working with various Slovenian newspapers and magazines, including publications by the Slovenian minority in Italy. As an illustrator, he worked with the newspaper supplement Dnevnikov Objektiv for two years. His first graphic novel Necropolis (based on the famous autobiographical novel by Boris Pahor) was published in 2022, followed in 2023 by his children’s comic Deva From Devin, co-authored with Slovenian writer and poet Marko Kravos. Both books have been translated into German and Italian.

Lila Prap

Lila Prap (1955) is a children’s book author. An architect by training, after a few years of architectural work, design, and teaching construction subjects and art history, she devoted herself solely to creating content for children. She has written and drawn numerous original picture books, which have been translated into more than 30 languages. The most translated among them are Why?, Dinosaurs?!, My Daddy, 1001 Fairy Tales, Dog Questions, Cat Questions, Where Do Dreams Go and Animals’ International Dictionary. One of her picture books (Why?) was adapted into a cartoon series in Japan. Her picture books have received several awards in Slovenia, both for illustration and design. She was included on the IBBY Honour List, and her works have been among the special mentions of the White Ravens selection. She was nominated for the Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis, the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award, and the Hans Christian Andersen Award. Her illustrations have been displayed in various galleries around the world.

Maja P. Kastelic

Maja P. Kastelic (1981) is an academically trained painter, illustrator, and author of children’s picture books. In addition to art, she studied philosophy and theory of visual culture. She has been involved in illustration since 2015, having spent the previous decade focusing on the restoration of wall paintings. She has received numerous accolades and awards for her work, including the Biennial of Illustration Bratislava Plaque, the Etisalat Award for Arabic Children’s Literature in UAE, and was included in the 2016 IBBY Honour List. In Slovenia, she has received the Levstik Award, the Kristina Brenkova Original Slovenian Picture Book Award, and the Hinko Smrekar Accolade and Distinction. Her works have featured in the Illustrators’ Exhibition at the Bologna Children’s Book Fair, the White Ravens selection, and the USSBY Outstanding International Books selection. She has participated in numerous selections, including The Original Art, the Biennial of Illustration Bratislava, Le Immagini della Fantasia, dPICTUS in Frankfurt, and the Nami Concours in South Korea. Her first original picture book A Boy and a House was also adapted into a puppet show. She works with the most reputable publishers in Slovenia and abroad, and her picture books have been published in 23 languages around the world.

Manica K. Musil

Manica K. Musil (1974) studied architecture. Her first project, co-authored with Mateja Katrašnik, was nominated for the Plečnik Prize and received the Grand Prix for Best Realisation at the Leonardo International Biennial of Young Architects in Minsk. She co-authored eleven Slovenian postage stamps. Between 2011 and 2022, 15 of her children’s books were published by different Slovenian publishing houses and translated into more than 15 languages. In 2016, her picture book The Naughty Pigs was adapted into a puppet show. She has received numerous awards, including the Best Book Design Award in the Children’s and Young Adult category at the Slovenian Book Fair, several Merits, an Honourable Mention, and two Gold Medals in the 3x3 International Illustration Shows, multiple Special Prizes at BookILL Fest in Novi Sad, Best of the Best Awards at the Hiii Illustration competition in China for three of her picture books, an Honourable Mention at the Global Illustration Award competition, two Best Illustration Awards at the Moscow International Book Fair, several nominations at the Little Haka competition, a Special Merit at the Croatian Biennial of Illustration, and the Glazer Credential.

Marjan Manček

Marjan Manček (1948) is a self-taught artist who made a living drawing caricatures for Slovenian and foreign newspapers and magazines during his studies in Ljubljana. He creates book illustrations, comics, and original picture books. He has illustrated more than 200 books, 33 of which were his own, designed the visual concept of five puppet shows, and created ten animated short films. He has received several accolades in Slovenia and abroad for his work. His caricatures have also been published in two European anthologies of illustrated humour and satire, Opus International (Paris, 1972) and Satyricon (Berlin, 1980). He has received the Levstik Award, the Levstik Lifetime Achievement Award, a nomination for the Hans Christian Andersen Award, and the Hinko Smrekar Lifetime Achievement Award for his illustrations.

Marjanca Jemec Božič

Marjanca Jemec Božič (1928) is an academically trained painter and illustrator. Since 1955, her colourful tongue-in-cheek images have adorned magazines, textbooks, and more than 200 books. During her long creative journey, she has illustrated works by many key Slovenian writers and poets who write for children. Her images in picture books such as Spot the Dinosaur by Leopold Suhodolčan, The Little Monkey Nana by Josip Ribičič, In the City by Polonca Kovač, Juri Muri in Africa by Tone Pavček, and The Little Mill by Anja Štefan represent an essential part of the canon of Slovenian children’s literature. A large part of her rich oeuvre is included in the The Fairy Tale Flower (2013) anthology. Her collaboration with the magazine Ciciban goes back to the very beginnings of the publication, more than seven decades ago. Her works have also been displayed in numerous group and solo exhibitions. She received an award for TV illustration in Japan, the first UNICEF Award for a greeting card illustration, multiple Levstik Awards, the Kajuh Award, the Levstik Lifetime Achievement Award, and the Hinko Smrekar Lifetime Achievement Award.