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.

Isabel Lucas is a journalist and literary critic. She started to do journalism on television and has since passed through the editorial staff of some of the main Portuguese newspapers and magazines. Freelance since 2012, she writes regularly for Público newspaper, collaborates with Ler and has collaborated with several national and international publications. Among many of his work in various journalistic areas, he has featured in articles and interviews with some of the most celebrated American authors.

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).

Ben Andoni was born in Tirana. He studied Geography and History. Since 1996, his main profession has been as a journalist. For 12 years, he was the manager of a National Cultural Supplement. He works regularly for columns concerned with national politics and Kosovar issues. He has translated more than 20 prominent authors from Slavic and English literature. He also published 5 books of his own, concerned with history, publicity and geographic issues, and is the co-authors of some reports of the Civil Society. 

Dragana Tripković –  poet and playwright. She is born 1984. at Montenegro (Southeast Europe), graduated on dramaturgy on Faculty of Performing Arts at University of Montenegro. 

Đorđe Krajišnik is a literary critic and a journalist at the Oslobođenje daily newspaper and the Dani magazine. In October 2017, he worked as a resident for the Berlin daily Der Tagesspiegel. His literary critiques and other texts have been published in magazines and on websites across the Yugosphere. His publications have been translated into English, German and Albanian. He reviewed and edited several books.

Endre Szkárosi (b. 1952, Budapest) is a writer, poet and performance artist. As full professor he teaches literature at the University ELTE (Budapest), heading there also a literary doctoral programme. He has been a frequently encountered writer and performer on both the Hungarian and the international art scene as well as a scholar interested in the history and the theoretical background of 20th century experimental poetry and intermedia art. He was and has been editor of important reviews (Mozgó Világ, Új Hölgyfutár, Magyar Műhely/Atelier Hongrois) and editor of a number of anthologies.

Anahit Avetisyan is a literary translator and conference interpreter. She holds a Master degree in translation from the Ecole de traduction et d’interpretation of the University of Geneva, and was also part of the Fellowship Programme in Paris organized by BIEF and French National Book Center (CNL) for foreign publishers, editors and rights managers.

Wojciech Nowicki (1968) is a writer, essayist and translator. In addition to his interest in literature, he is also a culinary critic for the Kraków edition of the daily newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza and the co-founder of the foundation Imago Mundi, whose goal is to promote photography. He currently lives in Kraków.

Helén Foss has worked nearly 30 years in bookselling. She started out as part time help in a small bookshop while taking flying lessons, but advanced and was responsible for books in general in a larger bookshop. After taking the bookselling trade school, she became manager in very large bookshop just outside of Oslo. The last 18 years, she has worked as CEO for the independent bookshops Fri Bokhandel SA. She is a board member in the Norwegian Bookseller Association and a board member at Bokbasen, a company for shared metadata for the Norwegian book industry.