Ana Božičević, born in Croatia in 1977, is a poet, translator, teacher,and occasional singer. She is the author of Stars of the Night Commute (Tarpaulin Sky Press, 2009) and the Lambda Award-winning Rise in the Fall (Birds, LLC, 2013). She is the recipient of the 40 Under 40: The Future of Feminism award from the Feminist Press, and the PEN American Center/NYSCA grant for translating It Was Easy to Set the Snow on Fire by Zvonko Karanović, forthcoming from Phoneme Media. At the PhD Program in English at The Graduate Center of the City University of New York she studied New American poetics and alternative art schools and communities, and edited lectures by Diane di Prima for Lost & Found: The CUNY Poetics Document Initiative. Ana has read, taught and performed at Art Basel, Bowery Poetry Club, Harvard, Naropa University, San Francisco State University Poetry Center, the Sorbonne, Third Man Records, University of Arizona Poetry Center, and The Watermill Center. She works and teaches poetry at BHQFU, New York’s freest art school.

Esther Dischereit (poet, novelist, essayist, stage and radio dramatist; Germany) has given lectures and readings around the world. Most recently she published Blumen für Otello. Über die Verbrechen von Jena [Flowers for Othello. On the Crimes of Jena] and edited Havel, Hunde, Katzen, Tulpen, Garz erzählt [Havel, Dogs, Cats, Tulips – Garz Talking]. Her work spans multiple genres and often reflects the post-Holocaust landscape in Germany, e.g. Joëmis Tisch [Joëmis Table] and Übungen jüdisch zu sein[Exercises in Being Jewish]. In 2009 Dischereit received the Erich Fried Prize. In 2017 she was a visiting professor at the University of Virginia; she teaches at the University for Applied Arts in Vienna. Her participation is made possible by the Max Kade Foundation.

Santiago Giralt (playwright, screenwriter, filmmaker, fiction writer; Argentina) writes plays, screenplays, and novels, and directs films. In 2017, he was awarded the National Arts Fund Bi-Centennial Grant in Literature. His first novel, [Nelly R, the General’s Lover], was shortlisted for the 2008 Planeta International Prize; La mala memoria came out in 2015; Disparo is forthcoming. He has written and directed over a dozen films, and participated in many international film festivals. He participates courtesy of the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs at the U.S. Department of State.

Sharlene Teo (fiction writer; Singapore) won the Deborah Rogers Writer’s Award for her debut novel Ponti, to be released in 2018 and translated into six languages. She is a PhD student in Creative and Critical Writing at the University of East Anglia, where she received the Booker Prize Foundation Scholarship and the David TK Wong Fellowship. She participates courtesy of the Singapore National Arts Council.

Kinga Tóth (poet, translator, illustrator, songwriter, performer; Hungary) has published six poetry books, all self-illustrated. Her visual poetry has been exhibited widely; she is the lead singer of the experimental band Tóth Kína Hegyfalu and is working on the visual/sound/poetry projects X and [Moonlight Faces], for which she received the 2017 Hazai Attila award. Ms. Tóth participates courtesy of the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs at the U.S. Department of State.