2021

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 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.

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.

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.

Helga Ferdinandsdóttir, born 1969, studied literature at the University of Iceland and the University of Liverpool and holds a Master in Editing and Publishing. She has extensive literary and leadership experience, including editorial and copy-writer work in various media and on numerous committees. She was Literary Adviser at the Icelandic Literature Center and has served as head of jury on several literary prizes, including the Icelandic Literary Prize and The Nordic Council Children and Young People’s Literature Prize (the Icelandic committee). 

Ivana Myšková (born 1981) is a writer and culture journalist. She worked as a radio cultural editor of the culture radio channel Český rozhlas 3 Vltava. In 2007, she debuted with her radio play Odpoledne s liliputem (Afternoon with a Lilliputian) and in 2012, she published a novella Nícení (Incitement). In 2017, she published a collection of short stories entitled Bílá zvířata jsou velmi často hluchá (White Animals Are Very Often Deaf). Since 2018 she is member of the committee of the Czech Writers Association (member organization of the European Writers’ Council).

Alma Čaušević, B.Sc. in Cultural Studies and B.Sc. in Cultural Anthropology, is a manager in the field of culture. In 2009 and 2010, she worked as an independent researcher in cultural anthropology. In 2010, she participated in the organization and execution of the World Literatures Fabula festival that was carried out in the framework of the World Book Capital Ljubljana. She also served as Executive Producer for Zavod En-Knap during that time.

Born in Belgrade in 1972, Ivan has worked in publishing, marketing and journalism for many years. He founded “Booka” publishing house in 2010 and, since then, published more than 150 books of the best contemporary authors, including Michel Houellebecq, Karl Ove Knausgaard, Elena Ferrante, Leila Slimani, Miljenko Jergović, and Dubravka Ugrešić. He owns two bookshops in Belgrade.

Tinna Ásgeirsdóttir is a translator and project manager. Ásgeirsdóttir has studied creative writing and translations at the University of Iceland and graduated with degrees in both philospohy and editing and publishing. She works part time as a project manager at the Writers’ Union of Iceland and as a translator of Swedish fiction. Among writers that she has translated are renowned author and playwright Sara Stridsberg, Matthias Edvardsson and Nina Wähä. Ásgeirsdóttir has been a jury member at both the Icelandic Translation Prize and Reykjavik City Children‘s Literary Prize.

Pavel Mandys (born 1972) is a journalist, book critic, and organizer of the annual Magnesia Litera book award. He has written numerous book reviews as an editor of the online literary magazine iLiteratura.cz. In 2012, he published the book Prague: The City of Literature to support the city’s successful bid to become a UNESCO Creative City of Literature. He was the editor of the short stories collection Prague Noir (2018) and in 2020 he wrote a book of the crime genre in Czech literature (Dějiny české detektivky, with Michal Jareš).