In 2001, Shakeh established Artbridge, the first bookstore café and restaurant in Yerevan, Armenia. During the past 20 years, she managed to change the culture of bookselling in the country, by promoting Armenian books, exporting them to libraries and customers around the world, and participating in international book fairs with the same vision of promoting Armenian issues and literature. She has initiated the project “Exhibition and Sales” for rural area in Armenia with collaboration with publishers to promote new publications.

Andriy Kurkov is a writer, journalist and screenwriter. He is the author of 13 novels and 5 children books. More than 20 feature films and documentaries have been based on his scripts. He is the president of PEN Ukraine.

Anne Merethe K. Prinos (53) is secretary general in Norwegian Critics' Association. She holds a master in literature from the University of Oslo and has been working as a freelance literary critic in the Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten for almost 20 years.

Kristian Bang Foss (born 1977) is a Danish writer. His debut novel Fiskens vindue (The Window of the Fish, 2004) was acclaimed by critics. This was followed by Stormen i 99 (The Storm in 99, 2008). He won the EU Prize for Literature for his novel Døden kører Audi (Death drives an Audi, 2012). His latest novel is called Frank vender hjem (Frank comes home, 2019).

Anna Rottensteiner, was born in 1962 in Bolzano/Bozen. After her studies, she worked as a bookseller, editor and literary scout (italian literature for german publishing houses). Since 2003, she has been the head of the cultural event institution "Literaturhaus am Inn" in Innsbruck. Since 2009, she has also been writing and publishing her own literary texts. 

Lucia Butnariuc was born in 1995. She studied History at  the Faculty of History and Philosophy of Moldova State University,. Since September 2019, she is a bookseller at Cărturești Chișinău.

Ville Rauvola is a publisher for the publishing house Atena.

Darin Tenev is an associate professor in the Literary Theory Department of the University of Sofia “St. Kliment Ohridski” and director of the Institute for Critical Social Studies at the University of Plovdiv. He gave lectures in Tokyo, Kyoto, New York, Berlin, Münster. He has published two books – Fiction and Image. Models (2012) and Digressions. Essays on Jacques Derrida (2013).

Karl Puš was born in 1955 in Vienna. He works as a bookseller since 1975. He is a former president of the European and International Booksellers Federation.

Christoph Schröder, born in 1973, studied literature, lives in Frankfurt/Main and works as a literary critik for Die Zeit, Süddeutsche Zeitung, Deutschlandfunk and other media.