18.30 - Live readings (Ellen Dillon, Michael Stein, Nika Pfeifer, Šimon Leitgeb, Andreja Štepec)
Saturday 15 October 2022
Judith Nika Pfeifer
She is a writer and artist, publishes poetry, prose, scenic texts, radiophone and performative works. Exhibition participations, photo and video works, installations. Reinhard Priessnitz Prize 2012. Lives and works in Brussels and Vienna. Numerous national and international collaborations and festival participations. Publications include Violante (Czernin 2017). tucsonics (Hochroth 2019). Judith Nika Pfeifer's approach to language, be it in her poems, her prose, her radio, photo and video works, is as playful as it is multi-layered, not only describing with words, but making something tangible with and through words, bringing together seemingly incompatible things. In addition, she develops - often in collaboration with other artists - participatory exhibition and performance projects, most recently together with Guadalupe Aldrete, Maria Hanl, Friederike Mayröcker, Edith Payer and Synne Genzmer "What's the time", fluc 2021. Coming up: Urban Magic (2022) together with Lukas Matthaei.
Michael Stein
He is a writer, editor and journalist based in the Czech Republic and has published short stories and journalism with a number of European and American magazines. He operates the website Literalab reports on Central European writing and he has written for literary journals such as Transitions, Asymptote and The Review of Contemporary Fiction. He is an editor at the Prague-based journal B O D Y and runs its Saturday European Fiction in translation series. His own fiction has been published in The Missing Slate, Panel and McSweeney's, among other magazines.
Andreja Štepec
Andreja Štepec is a graduate of Italian literature and a professor of pedagogy and andragogy. Her poetry was published in magazines such as I.D.I.O.T., Sex Zin and Lud Literatura and translated into German, Russian, English, Albanian, Hungarian and Spanish. She has been performing and participating at readings on different locations in Slovenia and abroad. Her poetry debut Edit Paf was published in May 2018 by LUD Šerpa and was chosen for a critical discussion at Pranger Festival in June 2019. Currently she is engaged in making video poetry and has already released a compilation of poems from her upcoming book Jesenožki which was part of the 25th Slovenian Book Days as well as the European Poetry festival 2020 and a separate video entitled Fnt moj, bodi moj dobar klastrfak (Hey boy, be my good clusterfuck). She lives and works in Ljubljana.
Ellen Dillon
Ellen Dillon is a poet and teacher from Limerick, Ireland. Her most recent book, Butter Intervention, was published by Veer 2 in 2022, and Morsel May Sleep appeared with Sublunary Editions in 2021. Other books and pamphlets include Heave (Smithereens Press, 2018), Sonnets to Malkmus (Sad Press, 2019), Achatina, achatina! (2019, SoundEye Press) and Excavate (Poems after Pasolini) (2020, Oystercatcher Press). She also edited the Free Poetry Irish Anthology (Free Poetry, 2017).
Šimon Leitgeb
Šimon Leitgeb is a Czech poet and the 2021 winner of the prestigious Cena Jiřího Ortena (Jiří Orten Award) for his book Betonová pláž. He is also the author of the 2017 book Mezi náma (Petr Štengl Publishing House, 2017). Mr. Leitgeb has received various awards for his poems in literary competitions throughout the Czech Republic and has published poetry in Czech magazines such as Tvar, Host, and Lidové noviny. In 2016, his verses were listed in the anthology The Best Czech Poems. Mr. Leitgeb is an avid traveler and has been invited to read his work at literary events in Ukraine, Iceland, Romania, Austria, and Slovakia. Within the Czech Republic, he regularly organizes literary events in various cities and towns, as well as collaborates with local and international writers and artists. He has organized the festival Literatura žije! (Literature lives!) for the past three years, and is the host and creator of the literature and music event series called Mezi náma.