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Fanny Desarzens has lived in Lausanne for ten years, but grew up in the countryside in the canton of Vaud. As a child, she spent most of her summer holidays in the mountains. 
Fanny completed her Bachelor's degree in Fine Arts at HEAD - Genève in 2018. After this Geneva experience, she threw herself into literary work.
Galel, her first book, received a Swiss Literature Prize in 2023 and the Terra nova Prize from the Schiller Foundation. Chesa Seraina, her second book, receives the Prix Ève of the Académie Romande. Her next novel, Ce qu'il reste de tout ça, will be published in August 2024. 
Fanny Desarzens is currently working on various texts and projects as well as her fourth novel.

Usama Al Shahmani, born in Baghdad in 1971 and raised in Qalat Sukar (Nasirija), studied Arabic language and modern Arabic literature. He published three books on Arabic literature before he had to flee to Switzerland in 2002 because of a theatre play. He translates into Arabic, including ‘Fräulein Stark’ by Thomas Hürlimann, ‘Der Islam’ by Peter Heine and ‘Über die Religion’ by Friedrich Schleiermacher. Since 2021, he has been a literary critic for the ‘Literaturclub’ programme on Swiss television SRF. His first novel ‘In der Fremde sprechen die Bäume arabisch’ won several awards and was nominated for the ‘Favourite Book of the Swiss German Book Trade’, among others.  Since then, the novels ‘Im Fallen lernt die Feder fliegen’ and ‘Der Vogel zweifelt nicht am Ort, zu dem er fliegt’ have been published. Usama Al Shahmani lives in Frauenfeld. In 2022, he took part in the 46th Days of German-Language Literature in Klagenfurt with his text ‘Portrait of Disappearance’.

Born in Leverkusen in 1956, studied sociology, dramaturge at the Residenz Theatre in Munich. Freelance writer in Basel since 1983. Author of numerous novels. Most recently published: Schule Der Indienfahrer and Bild Vom Bild Vom Grossen Mond. 
Literary critic, essayist, lecturer at ETH, ZHDK, BFH, Biel Literature Institute, co-editor of the collected stories by Adelheid Duvanel: Fern Von Hier and the Duvanel special edition of the literary magazine Das Narr.

Matteo Terzaghi was born in Bellinzona in 1970. He studied philosophy at the University of Geneva and is an editor at Edizioni Casagrande. He has published the prose works ‘Ufficio proiezioni luminose’ (Quodlibet, 2013; Swiss Literature Prize 2014) and ‘La Terra e il suo satellite’ (Quodlibet, 2019; finalist for the Dessì Prize 2019), both of which are situated between fiction and non-fiction and have been translated into several languages. Matteo Terzaghi has also produced numerous publications in collaboration with artists and photographers, including ‘Pensieri e fantasticherie su un paesaggio di Markus Raetz / Gedanken und Träumereien über eine Landschaft von Markus Raetz’ (Edizioni Periferia, 2021) and ‘Armand Schulthess. Livres de mysique’ (Sottoscala, 2023). He has also co-edited Giorgio Orelli's stories with Pietro De Marchi, which were published in the volumes ‘Pomeriggio bellinzonese’ and ‘Rosagarda’ (Casagrande 2017 and 2021).

Born in Coimbra, Portugal, and raised in Switzerland, Katja Alves has worked as a bookseller, concert organiser, journalist, columnist, player finder, input specialist and radio editor. She regularly writes radio plays for SRF radio. Today she works mainly as a children's book author, editor and project manager. She writes theatre, radio plays, read-aloud stories and children's novels, gives writing workshops and regularly leads further education courses on children's books as a lecturer. Katja Alves lives with her family in Zurich.
 

Thilo Krause, born in Dresden in 1977, lives in Zurich. After studying industrial engineering in Dresden and London, he completed his doctorate at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich and then worked in research for many years. Since 2012, he has published four volumes of poetry and a novel, most recently ‘Dass uns findet, wer will’ (Poems, Carl Hanser Verlag, Munich). Thilo Krause has received numerous awards for his work, including a Swiss Literature Prize, the Clemens Brentano Prize, the Robert Walser Prize and the Peter Huchel Prize.

Born in Basel in 1976, she grew up in Thalwil (ZH).
While studying German and French literature, Julie Paucker worked as a project manager at Migros Culture Percentage. She began her theatre career with Marthaler at the Schauspielhaus Zurich. From 2006, she was a dramaturge and member of the management team at Theater Basel, and from 2013-18 at Deutsches Nationaltheater Weimar. Since 2018, she has worked as a freelance dramaturge and author at the Volkstheater Wien, Theaterdiscounter Berlin and Theater St. Gallen, among others, and develops independent projects with the KULA Compagnie. KULA sees itself as a platform for transnational theatre and works with artists from different countries. She has worked as a guest lecturer at art colleges such as August Everding Munich, the University of North Texas, the Goethe Institute in Atlanta USA, the Esad drama school in Paris and regularly at the University of Performing Arts Baden-Württemberg. She has been Artistic Director of the Swiss Theatertreffen since 2021.