Aleksandra Kasprzak – author of the novel “Carve Me a Family in Cheese” (Biuro Literackie, 2024), editor-in-chief of ASZdziennik, slammer. Representative of Poland in the 2024 World Poetry Slam Championship in Paris.
During the residency, she worked on her second novel, the plot of which focuses on the lives of three women summoned to court for helping each other have an abortion. The media buzz around the “Abortion Party” is growing, as a famous influencer is involved in the event. Each of the accused women has a completely different life, but they are united by the anger of politicians and an upcoming court case. This is a made-up story, but in Poland it is very likely.
Pavol Rankov (1964) is a professor at the Faculty of Arts, Comenius University Bratislava, he is an author several academic publications about media and human communication. He wrote 6 novels, 4 collections of short stories and 3 books for children. In his historical novels, he explores the lives of common people in Central Europe during the 20th century. The short stories draw attention to irrational forces in human beings and society. During his scholarship stay in Krakow, he worked on a new novel titled “A Romance about Running in the Time of Pandemics”.
Zsombor Aurél Biró was born in Budapest, Hungary, 1998. He studied screenwriting at the University of Film and Theatre Arts in Budapest, and is currently working as a freelance writer of fiction, films and stageplays. His debut novel titled “In My Recurring Dreams I Wake Up on My Father’s Shoulder” came out in 2024. He currently has three stageplays on repertoire in Budapest theatres.
Eva Klíčová (* 1977) studied History of art and Czech language at the Faculty of Arts of the Masaryk University in Brno. In 2018 she completed her PhD studies with dissertation on Czech official prose in the era of state socialism – especially 1970s and 1980s. She taught at a secondary school for several years, and since 2009 she wrote literary critics for most of the relevant media (Revue Prostor, Respekt, Salon Práva and Deník N). From 2012–2022 she was the editor one of the most respected and largest literary magazine in Czechia – Host. Since 2022, she has been a member of the editorial staff of the daily Alarm, where she also produces the literary podcast TL;DR with Jan Bělíček.
