Petr A. Bilek (born 1962) is a professor of modern Czech literature and literary theory at the Charles University in Prague, and the chair of the Department of Cultural Studies at the University of South Bohemia in České Budějovice. He is the author of six books on literature and culture and co-author/editor of five other books. He wrote on modern Czech poetry, literary theory, and – in the last decade – mainly on contemporary Czech prose fiction.

Miroslava Vallová is an author, translator and president of the Slovakian Literary Information Center.

Martijn David (1962) worked in publishing for over twenty years. He has published translated and original Dutch literary fiction and non-fiction. Since 2012, he is the director of the Dutch Publishing Association for general books.

Rūta Elijošaitytė-Kaikarė is a literary manager and managing director of the Lithuanian Publishers Association. Since 2005, she has been participating in various literary and literary management activities. She coordinates the Creative Europe project VERSOPOLIS in Lithuania. She is also a member of various literary work groups: Vilnius Book Fair organizational committee, Literature Council, Vilnius - World Capital of Books.

Eric Lafraise is the Market Manager for Literature and Knowledge of the Cultura bookshops chain. He has been working for Cultura for more than 17 years.

Nessa O'Mahony is a novelist and poet from Dublin. She has published four volumes of poems and a crime novel. A fifth volume of poetry has been published by Salmon in May 2019. 

Sheila O’Reilly has been in bookselling and publishing for over 30 years. Under her ownership and management, Dulwich Books was awarded the accolade of best bookshop in the UK and Ireland by peers. Sheila has been a Costa judge, a judge of the Independent Bookshop Book of the Year award, a judge International Bookshop of the Year Award LBF and sat on many industry panels. She is currently a mentor for Independent Bookshops in the UK & Ireland.

Tinatin Beriashvili, born in 1987, is the director of the Georgian Publishers and Booksellers Association since 2014. The Association’s main priority is to promote and develop the publishing sector and raise the level of literacy in the country. The Association carries out important projects, such as organizing the Tbilisi International Book Festival and holding Georgian National desks at various international book fairs.

Rebekka Lotman is an Estonian literary critic, editor, journalist and translator, and since 2014 the editor-in-chief of Tallinn University Publishing House.

Elizabeta Bakovska (1969) received her BA and MA from the Faculty of Philology “Blaze Koneski” in Skopje, from the English Language and Literature Department. She holds Ph.D. in gender studies from Euro-Balkan Institute. She was the editor-in-chief of Blesok, an electronic magazine for culture and literature (www.blesok.mk). She translates, writes poetry and prose, as well as literary theory and criticism.