Madhur Anand
Canada
Madhur Anand's debut book of creative non-fiction, This Red Line Goes Straight to Your Heart (2020), won the Governor General's Literary Award for Nonfiction. Her debut collection of poems, “A New Index for Predicting Catastrophes” (2015) was a finalist for the Trillium Book Award for Poetry, and named one of ten all-time "trailblazing" poetry collections by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Her second collection of poems, “Parasitic Oscillations” (2022) was a finalist for the Trillium Book Award for Poetry, and named a Globe and Mail Top 100 Book. To Place a Rabbit, her first novel, was also named a Globe and Mail Top 100 Book. Anand is a professor and the director of the Global Ecological Change and Sustainability Laboratory at the University of Guelph, Ontario.
Manuel Baixauli
Spain / Valencian Country
Manuel Baixauli was born and permanently resides in Sueca (València, Spain). Since childhood, Baixauli has been interested in art. First, he was a painter and studied Fine Arts in València. He has created many paintings and held several exhibitions in Spain and abroad. In his thirties, he began to write. He was a painter who wrote. He mainly writes fiction, but also articles about culture. Over the years, he has become a writer who paints. Art—literature, painting, music, and cinema, preferably—is his obsession and religion.
Théo Casciani
France
Théo Casciani is a French author. Born in 1995, he studied humanities and social sciences at SciencesPo, and mathematics at Panthéon-Sorbonne University (Paris) before joining La Cambre (Brussels) where he is now a lecturer. Retina, his first novel, was published by Éditions P.O.L in 2019, and will be out in English and Polish in 2027 by HELA Press. His fictions, translated into different languages and awarded several prizes, have been presented through multiple forms and multimedia collaborations in France and abroad. His second novel, Insula, published in January 2026, has received the Prix La Perle.
Yung In Chae
U.S. / South Korea
Yung In Chae is a writer, editor, translator, and Ph.D. candidate in history at Yale University. She has been on the editorial staff at Eidolon and The Yale Review. She has written a children's book, Goddess Power, and published essays in The Yale Review, The New York Times, The Times Literary Supplement, and more. She is currently translating, with Spencer Lee-Lenfield, Han Kang's novel, Ink and Blood, for Hogarth (U.S.), and Hamish Hamilton (U.K.).
Nastya Dzutstsati
U.S.
Nastya Dzutstsati is a writer, multidisciplinary artist, and social researcher working across Russian, English, and Ossetian. A 2026 PEN America Dreaming Out Loud fellow, they developed “The People,” a play on power dynamics between queer refugees and Americans, which received a staged reading at the 2026 World Voices Festival and forthcoming in PEN's anthology. They delivered the TEDx talk, Writing Within Exile (Bard College, 2023), and additionally, hold an MA in Human Rights and the Arts from Bard College, and a BA in Journalism from the University of Kent. Formerly a journalist for Current Time (RFE/RL) in Moscow, they fled into exile due to risks tied to their reporting.
Annekathrin Kohout
Deutschland
Annekathrin Kohout is a writer and cultural scholar exploring how digital culture reshapes perception, communication, and everyday life. Her 2025 book “Hyperreaktiv“ examines how social media turns reaction into a cultural and political force; it was selected for the Goethe-Institut’s Litrix translation program. Her previous books address online feminism, nerd culture, and K-pop. In September 2026, she published “Einhörner,” a cultural history of social media told through the unicorn, alongside “POP: Entdecke 100 Jahre Popkultur,” her first children’s book. She co-edits the book series "Digitale Bildkulturen” and the journal “POP. Kultur und Kritik.”
John Oakes
U.S.
John Oakes is an editor and writer. His first book, The Fast: The History, Science, Philosophy, and Promise of Doing Without, was published in 2024 (Avid Reader Press/Simon & Schuster) and translated into Italian, Dutch, and Spanish. His second book, Precious Metal: 79 Ways of Looking at Gold, is currently being published. He is publisher of the online literary magazine, The Evergreen Review, and is editor-at-large for OR Books, an independent press he co-founded in 2009.
Raphaëlle Red
Germany / France
Raphaëlle Red was born in Paris, and grew up in Berlin. Her debut novel, ADIKOU (Grasset, 2024), a coming-of-age roadtrip that explores the complexities of Afrodiasporic heritage within a web of brutal, resistant, and tender histories, was translated into German (Rowohlt, 2024, recipient of the Prix Premiere), and English (Arboretum Books, forthcoming 2026). Red’s non-fiction debut, SAFE SPACE, will be out in November 2026 with Seagull Books. Further writing in French, English, and German has appeared in publications including The Funambulist, Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung, and Delfi Magazin. In 2027, she will be a visiting researcher at the English Department at UC Berkeley, focusing on negotiations of community in contemporary literature of the African diaspora.
Tanya Rey
U.S.
Tanya Rey is a queer Cuban American writer who was born and raised in Miami, Florida. Her writing has appeared in Guernica, Granta, The Georgia Review, The Sun, Roads & Kingdoms, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, The Georgia Review, and Salon, among others. She holds an MFA in fiction from New York University, and has received fellowships from Rona Jaffe Foundation, San Francisco Writers Grotto, MacDowell, Hedgebrook, UCross, I-Park, and others. She currently lives in Oakland, California.
Alice Scornajenghi
Italy
Alice Scornajenghi lives and works in Rome. In 2018, she founded Ossì (a name that, in Italian, sounds like "oh yes!"), a self-published erotic zine featuring hot stories commissioned by writers—both men and women—who normally work in other genres. In 2023, "Atti Puri" came out with NERO editions, a collection of playful, weird porn stories that became a small cult hit. She is currently writing a fantasy porn saga and a memoir about her experience with polyamory.
Keith Wilson
U.S.
Keith S. Wilson is a poet, game designer, and multimedia artist. Wilson is an Affrilachian Poet and Cave Canem fellow; he is also a recipient of an NEA Fellowship, Kenyon Review Fellowship, and Stegner Fellowship. His first book, Fieldnotes on Ordinary Love (Copper Canyon), was recognized by The New York Times as a best new book of poetry. His second book, Games for Children (Milkweed Editions), was a winner of the National Poetry Series.