Gilles Collard

Born in 1976, Gilles Collard funded the Pylône magazine in 2003. He is teaching Philosophy at the Superior School of Visual Arts – La Cambre where he is also in charge of the “Texts and Literary Creation” master degree.

Lindita Tahiri

Lindita Tahiri teaches at the Department of English Language and Literature and at the Department of Journalism of the Faculty of Philology in Prishtina, and her courses cover Literary Criticism, Stylistics, Language and Culture, Language and Ideology, Mass Communication, and Translation. She has been Vice Rector of the University of Prishtina from 2012-2016.

Siri Odfjell Risdal

Siri Odfjell Risdal (41) is Festival Director for Kapittel, Stavanger International Festival for Literature and Freedom of Speech at Sølvberget Library and Cultural Centre. Risdal is educated a librarian with a master’s in Literacy Studies, and has been a jury member for the Norwegian Ministry of Culture’s prizes for childrens literature, head of the jury for the Brage Prize for childrens literature and head of the Norwegian Cultural Council’s committee for comic books. From 2014 – 2019 Risdal was Project Manager for the Nordic Conference on childrens literature.

Marianne Withen

"I have spent nearly all my life in the world of books. 27 years ago I bought a little bookshop at Frederiksberg in Copenhagen. Before that I was a sales representative for different Danish publishing houses for 20 years. In my early youth, I spent nearly a year working for Blackwell Scientific Publications in Oxford."

Klaus Kowalke

Born in 1967 in Helmstedt/Niedersachsen, Klaus Kowalke is a Philosopher, Historian and Bookseller. He was awarded “Best Bookshop in Germany 2018” by the Federal Government Comissioner for Culture and the Media (Federal Government).

Đorđe Krajišnik

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.

Helén Foss

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.