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Kim de l'Horizon (without pronouns or they/them), born in 2666 on Gethen, studied German in the Ivory Tower, Literary Weeping in Biel and Witchcraft with Starhawk. 
Kim’s debut ‘Blutbuch’, which has been translated into 17 languages, won the German and Swiss Book Prize amongst others. Kim’s theatre plays have been invited to the Heidelberg Play Market and won the Hermann Sudermann Prize amongst others. Kim also does rituals and performs, for example, at the Schauspielhaus Zurich. Kim was nominated for the Nestroy ORF Audience Award 2024 for her performance in ‘Blutstück’. They like to shake the images that we have of bodies, that we have of people and non-people, that we have of ‘naturalness’, that we have of the ‘we’. 

Flurina Badel (*1983, Lavin) is a multilingual author. After initially training as a journalist, she completed a Master of Fine Arts at the Institute Art Gender Nature at the HGK in Basel and studied at the Institute for Language Arts at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna. Her first volume of poetry, ‘tinnitus tropic’, was published in 2019 (editionmevinapuorger, Zurich) and won the Swiss Literature Prize in 2020. Her first novel, ‘Tschiera’, was published in 2024 (Chasa Editura Rumantscha, Chur). She was a scholarship holder of Wintertuin (2024) and the Fondation Jan Michalski (2023) amongst others. Flurina Badel mentors for the Bolo Klub 24/25, designed the course ‘Lavuratori da scriver litterar’ for the Lia Rumantscha and teache the module ‘Scriver experimental’. She has led several seminars such as ‘Multilingualism and linguistic autobiography in poetry’ at the Banaras Hindu University and led the masterclass ‘Multilingualism as a power tool for literary writing’ for the ArtEZ University of the Arts Arnhem.
www.flurinabadel.ch

Alejandro Hagen, Germanist and Romance philologist (lic. phil. hist.), was born in Barcelona in 1974 and grew up in Basel and Leuk/VS. After studying at the Universities of Bern and Vienna, he worked as a parliamentary editor for the Federal Assembly. From 2001–2007, he was the project manager for the conception and development of the international literature prize ‘Spycher: Literaturpreis Leuk’. He was a member of the programme committee of the Solothurn Literature Festival from 2014 to 2017 and of the Rilke Festival Sierre from 2016 to 2018. Alejandro Hagen has been a member of the City of Bern’s Literature and Culture Commission since 2023.
His work ranges from essayistic writing to (short) prose and poetry, whereby his areas of interest are autofiction, memory work and nature writing.
He currently works as a freelance editor for various German-language authors.

Olimpia De Girolamo was born in Naples, where she completed her degree in philosophy. She later specialised in theatre and film languages. She has lived in Ticino since 2002, where she teaches Italian and is a co-director and trainer at the Agorà Teatro in Magliaso. The theatre monologue ‘La Mar’ was a finalist in the 2017 PREMIO Donne e Teatro and won the PREMIO Fersen 2018. In 2021, she won the Opennet Prize at the Solothurn Literature Days with the short story ‘Il primo scalino: l'assalto del passato’, which led to the novel ‘Tutto ciò che siamo stati’, published by Gabriele Capelli in 2022. In 2023, she won the Pro Helvetia creation grant for literary projects with the project that became her novel ‘Volontà’, published by Capelli in 2024. In 2024, Olimpia de Girolamo published a short story in the 18th edition of ‘Viceversa Letteratura’ and one in the collection ‘Un Natale di Storie a Mendrisio’ (published by Capelli with the support of the town of Mendrisio). The French edition of the first novel was published in the same year under the title ‘Tout ce que nous avons été’, translated by Lucie Tardin for the publishing house La Veilleuse. 

Monique Schwitter, born in Zurich, writes prose and dialogue. She studied directing and acting in Salzburg and spent many years performing at renowned theatres in Germany, Austria and Switzerland before her first book was published in 2005. ‘Wenn's schneit beim Krokodil’, a collection of short stories, won the Robert Walser Prize amongst others. Her work has been translated into many languages and won many awards. Her most recent novel, ‘Eins im Andern’, was shortlisted for the German Book Prize and won the Swiss Book Prize in 2015. It has been translated into a dozen languages. Monique lived in Hamburg from 2005 to 2024. She has taught literary writing at the HAW Hamburg and the Biel Literature Institute, amongst others. As President of the Freie Akademie der Künste Hamburg, her focus was on interdisciplinary work at the interface of text, sound and image, language and performance. 

Maria Ursprung (*1985), writes theatre plays and radio plays. She studied Theatre Studies and German Literature at the University of Bern and the FU Berlin, then Literary Writing at the Swiss Literature Institute. 
Her play ‘Schleifpunkt’, created in the 2018/19 DRAMENPROZESSOR workshop for scenic writing, was invited to the Autor:innentheatertage 2020 by the Deutsches Theater Berlin. In-house author at the St. Gallen Theatre as part of the Stück Labor Basel 20/21, where her play ‘Die nicht geregnet werden’ was created. Guest at the Autor:innenatelier at the Deutsches Theater Berlin in autumn 2021, where her classroom play ‘Vakuum’ premiered at the Junges DT. In 2022, Maria Ursprung was a fellow at the International Forum as part of the Berlin Theatre Meeting and a guest at the Literary Colloquium Berlin. She has been a co-director at Aargau’s touring theatre Theater Marie since 2022. 

Elisa Shua Dusapin was born in Sarlat-la-Canéda in 1992 to a French father and a South Korean mother. She grew up between Paris, Seoul and Porrentruy. She is a graduate of the Swiss Literature Institute in Biel. Her first novel ‘Hiver à Sokcho’ (Zoé, 2016; Folio, 2018) was awarded the Robert Walser, Alpha, Régine-Desforges and Révélation SGDL prizes. In 2021, her English translation was honoured with the National Book Award for Translated Literature. The book has been adapted several times for the theatre and filmed by director Koya Kamura with Roschdy Zem in the leading role. This was followed by ‘Les Billes du Pachinko’ (Zoé, 2018; Folio, 2020), which was awarded the Swiss Literature Prize and the Prix Alpes-Jura, ‘Vladivostok Circus’ (Zoé, 2020; Folio, 2022), which was nominated for the Prix Femina, and ‘Le vieil incendie’ (Zoé, 2023), which received the Prix Wepler and the Prix Fénéon. Her three novels have been translated into more than 35 languages.