Rachelle Deguara

Rachelle Deguara has been working in the book industry for the last three years building close relations with authors, promoting their work and contributing to the National Book Festival (Malta). Her work in the literacy field started when she had the role of public relations officer in the voluntary organisation Għaqda tal-Malti Universitá which is the university association that strives to promote emerging authors and make sure that the pioneers of Maltese literature are not forgotten.

Iris Meijer

Iris Meijer has been working as a bookseller at Linnaeus Boekhandel in Amsterdam since 2015. Apart from day-to-day sales in store, she is responsible for the selection and purchase of English titles and partially responsible for the selection and purchase of fiction and non-fiction titles. Apart from her work at Linnaeus, she co-organises the annual nationwide event De Week van het Korte Verhaal [The Week of the Short Story] and she also coordinates booksales at the Lowlands Festival.

Elizabeta Bakovska

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.

Giorgos Moleskis

Giorgos Moleskis was born in 1946. He studied at the Nicosia English College and the Moscow State University – Lomonosov. He has an M.A. degree in Russian Language and Literature and a Ph.D. degree in Literature. He worked at the Cultural Services Department of the Ministry of Education and Culture of Cyprus, in the position of Senior Cultural Officer and us the Executive Adviser of the Cyprus Symphony Orchestra Foundation. 

Conor Kostick

Conor Kostick is an award winning author and historian based in Dublin, Ireland. As the author of sixteen books, he has twice been the chairperson of the Irish Writers Union.

Osman Gashi

Osman Gashi (Prishtina, 1962) is Professor of World Literature, Comparative Literature and Mythology at the University of Prishtina, Faculty of Philology (Department of Albanian Literature).
His books and scholarly articles cover a wide range of studies on Albanian and world literature, treatises in the field of Comparative Literature and Intertextuality as well as analysis on myths and mythology.
He has published the following volumes of studies:
Interliterary Studies, Rozafa, Prishtina, 2001
European Myth and Romanticism, Pen Center of Kosovo, Prishtina, 2005

Isabelle Wéry

Isabelle Wéry is an actress and director for the theatre and an author. She played The Vagina's Monologues in Belgium. Her second novel, Marilyn désossée, received the European Union Prize for Literature in 2013. This novel is translated in many European countries.

Paata Shamugia

Paata Shamugia is a contemporary Georgian poet born in 1983 in Georgia. Since 2018, he is a president of the Georgian Pen Center. In 2015, he became the first Georgian poet to get the most prestigious SABA literary prize twice.

Albert Marshall

Born in Malta in 1947, Albert Marshall has distinguished himself as a theatre and television director, playwright, poet and TV presenter in a career spanning over 50 years. His literary works are widely published in Australia, Canada and Malta. He spent 15 years working in Australian radio, theatre and television and became the first Maltese national to direct at Sydney Opera House. Marshall recently published a collection of his poetry written between 1964 – 2019 and is currently working on the publication of literary works for theatre and television.