Sally Salomon Altschuler
(Danish: Fiction, Drama) Sally Altschuler, born 1953, had his debut in 1993 with the youth novel, The Salt of the Earth. Since then he has published about 35 books for children in all ages as well as dramas for children. In september 2011 he published his first adult novel, An angel behind the ear, a family novel based on his own family story from Eastern Europe in 1865 to Copenhagen 1912. Board member in Danish Author’s Society since 2002.
P. Athiyaman
(Tamil: Non-Fiction, Criticism) Dr. P. Athiyaman has published several monographs on key Tamil literary figures as well as on Tamil social reformers and activists. His work has appeared in respected little magazines such as Dinamani, Kalachuvadu, and Theera Nadhi, in journals (including those of the International Institute of Tamil Studies) and in daily newspapers.
Shridhar Balagar
(Kannada: Fiction, Non-Fiction) Shridhar Balagar is a Kannada short story writer, novelist and columnist with contemporary concerns. He is the author of four collections of short stories, a novel and two collections of columns. He is the winner of several prestigious awards including the Karnataka Sahitya Academy Award twice. Teacher and educator by profession, he lives at Kumta in Uttar Kannada district, Karnataka.
Ashutosh Bhardwaj
(Hindi: Fiction, Non-Fiction) Ashutosh Bhardwaj is a fiction writer and reporter, currently posted in Chhattisgarh as The Indian Express correspondent. He has a published a story collection, essays and diaries in Hindi. He has also reported extensively on the police-Maoist conflict and documented the condition of tribals.
Jawaid Danish
(Urdu: Drama, Poetry, Screenwriting) Jawaid Danish is a recipient of the prestigious Civic Arts Award (Canada), the Shiromani Sahitya Award (India), and the South Asian Theatre Festival Award (U.S.A.). He is the author of 12 books, and his plays have been translated into English, Swedish, Hindi, Bengali and Kannada. He is the Artistic Director of Rangmanch Canada (www.rangmanch-canada.org) and lives in Toronto where he organises an annual Hindustani Drama Festival showcasing the rich heritage of multilingual Indian Theatre, and has just produced a telefilm, Bara Shayer Chota Aadmi, the first Indian telefilm of Canada.
Peter H. Fogtdal
(Danish: Fiction) Peter H. Fogtdal was born in Copenhagen, Denmark and has written 12 novels in Danish. His work has been translated into French, Portuguese, and English. His off-beat historical novel, The Tsar’s Dwarf was published in the US in 2008 to critical acclaim. He won Le Prix Litteraire de la Francophonie for Le Front Chantilly in 2005. Peter teaches Literature and writing classes at Portland State University in Oregon, USa and shares his time between Portland and Copenhagen. The novel he’ll be writing at Sangam House takes place in India and is inspired by real events he has had with gurus in that country.
Denise ‘Kumani’ Gantt
(English: Theatre, Poetry) Kumani’s plays and performance pieces include meditations/from the ash, winner of the Artscape 1997 Best Play Contest and voted Best New Play by the Baltimore Alternative; Three Stories to the Ground, written with Gabriel Shanks and winner of the Theatre Project Outstanding Vision In Theatre Award; anatomy/lessons selected as part of Penumbra Theater’s Cornerstone Project; Communion written with actress Vanessa Thomas for Washington, DC’s Horizons Theater, Testament, a play inspired by Antigone performed by the Village of Arts and Humanities in 2006; and the work-in-progress, The Gift, which received a staged reading as part of ACT’s Central Theatre Lab in June 2011. In 2003, her collection of poetry, conjuring the dead, was awarded the Maryland Emerging Writers Award by poet, Afaa Michael Weaver. She holds a MFA in Theatre Performance from Towson University and lives in Seattle.
Trisha Gupta
(English: Non-Fiction, Criticism)Trisha Gupta is an independent writer and critic who spent many years studying cultural anthropology. Her writing on cinema, literature, art and the city appears regularly in Caravan, Open, Sunday Guardian, Indian Express, Business Standard and Firstpost.com. She is Associate Editor of the literary magazine Pratilipi. Her published writing can be read on her blog, Chhotahazri . She has lived in Delhi for many years and still thinks it inexhaustably interesting.
Karen Jennings
(English: Fiction) Karen Jennings was born in Cape Town in 1982. She holds Masters degrees in both English Literature and Creative Writing from the University of Cape Town. In 2010 her short story ‘From Dark’ won the Commonwealth Short Story Competition for the African region. In 2009 ‘Mia and the Shark’ won the English section of the MML short story competition and is now studied in schools. In 2012 Karen began a PhD in Creative Writing at UKZN under the supervision of Kobus Moolman. 2012 was also the year in which her debut novel, Finding Soutbek, was published by Holland Park Press (UK).
Raghu Karnad
(English: Non-Fiction, Fiction) Raghu Karnad is a journalist and editor who lives between Delhi and Bangalore. He was a reporter for the newsweekly Outlook and then Tehelka, where his articles received awards from the European Commission, the Internews Agency and the Press Institute of India. He has been editor of Time Out magazine in Delhi, and has written for the BBC, n+1, GQ, The Hindu, Mint, Business Standard and The Caravan, among other publications.
Taran Khan
(English: Non-Fiction, Film) Taran N Khan is a journalist and writer who grew up in Aligarh and is currently based in Mumbai. Her work has appeared in publications in India and abroad. She has been traveling to and writing from Kabul since 2006, where she works closely with Afghan filmmakers and media professionals. She is the co-founder of Jalebi Ink, a media space for young people.
Mario Kaiser
(German: Non-Fiction) Mario Kaiser is a writer of narrative nonfiction. Taking on issues of social transformation and human rights, his stories are based on long-term immersion in environments that are difficult to access, illustrating how government policies and social change affect people’s lives. A former reporter and editor for Die Zeit and Der Spiegel, he is a co-author of The Beslan File, Tsunami: Story of a Global Quake, Ghost Towns of the American West, and Highwaymen: The Best Stories by Spiegel Reporters. His reporting has been awarded the Henri Nannen Prize, the Lorenzo Natali Prize, the German Reporter Prize, and the Kurt Schork Award in International Journalism. He lives in New York City.
Yi Jeong Kim
(Korean: Fiction) Yi Jeong-Kim was born in 1960. She studied Philosophy at University and Literature at Graduate School. She debuted in 1994 with a short story in the Munhwa daily newspaper. She wrote a novel every day in Maeil, an economic newspaper from 1997 to 1998. She has two short story collections and two novels to her credit. Mutter on the Road (1997) and her second novel The Desert in the Water was published in 2002. She published a short story collection titled Thief Crab in 2006. Her fourth book, also a collection of short stories, titled The Room Belongs to Him was published in 2010. Yi Jeong will publish another novel this year and she currently teaches writing at university. Yi Jeong-Kim is a member of ‘Korean Artists for India’, a collective set up in 2006 comprising artists, writers and thinkers who are interested in and inspired by India.
Ulla Lenze
(German: Fiction) Ulla Lenze, born in Mönchengladbach in 1973, studied music and philosophy in Cologne. In 2003 her debut novel Schwester und Bruder (Sister and Brother) was published and awarded the Ernst-Willner-Prize at the Klagenfurt Bachmann competition, the Jürgen Ponto Prize for the best debut novel and the Rolf-Dieter-Brinkmann-Scholarship of Cologne. Her second novel Archanu was released by Ammann Verlag in 2008. In 2010 she was writer-in-residence for nine months at the Goethe Institut Mumbai. Today she lives as a freelance author in Berlin. Her new novel Der kleine Rest des Todes (What little remains of Death) was highly acclaimed and selected on the SWR Bestenliste in May 2012.
Maria Carolina Maia
(Portuguese: Non-Fiction) Maria Carolina Maia was born in 1979, in São Paulo, the biggest city of Brazil, where she lives today. She works daily as a journalist, writing and editing texts to VEJA magazine’s website (www.veja.com), and as a writer in her free time. Joining a residence is a great way, for her, to know other writers and experiences and to work harder in a new book. Her first book, her only by now, is Ciranda de Nós. The book won the Nascente prize, which belongs to USP (University of São Paulo), and was nominated to Prêmio São Paulo de Literatura, one of the most important in Brazil.
Mariko Nagai
(Japanese/English: Fiction, Poetry) Recipient of fellowships from the Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center, UNESCO, Akademie Schloss Solitude, the Ledig House, among others and the prestigious Pushcart Prizes for both in poetry and fiction, Mariko Nagai is the author of Histories of Bodies: Poems (2007), Georgic: Stories (2010), Instructions for the Living (2012), and two fiction books forthcoming in 2014 and 2015. Mariko Nagai is an Associate Professor at Temple University Japan.
Karthika Nair
(English: Poetry, Fiction, Drama) Karthika Naïr is a poet, playwright, fabulist and dance scenarist. Until theLions: Echoes from the Mahabharata, her reworking of the foundational South Asian epic in multiple voices, won the 2015 Tata Literature Live Award for Book of the Year (India). Les Oiseaux électriques de Pothakudi (Éditions Hélium/Actes-Sud, 2022) – her latest children’s book illustrated by Joëlle Jolivet – won the 2023 Prix Felipé for “ecological children’s literature”. The performances she has scripted and co-scripted have been staged at venues across the world. These include the play Beneath the Music, created and directed by Jay Emmanuel for Encounter Theatre; Akram Khan’s multiple-award-winning dance shows DESH, and Until the Lions (adapted from a chapter of her own book); and Carlos Pons Guerra’s Mariposa, a queer reimagining of Puccini’s opera Madame Butterfly.
Aditi Rao
(English: Poetry, Fiction) Aditi has published essays with InfochangeIndia, India Untravelled, and other online publications, and poems in the Boiler Journal, Muse India, Cha: An Asian Literary Journal, qarrtsiluni, and Four Quarters Magazine. Her story, “Face to Face: Transforming Conflict in South Asia” was featured in People Building Peace 2.0, published by the Global Partnership for the Prevention of Armed Conflict, and “I can bear it” was featured in Moments that Speak: Images and Stories of Connection, published by the Earth Charter Initiative. Aditi has twice been longlisted for the TFA Creative Writing in English award. She was one of the winners of the 2012 “Encountering Poetry” contest organized by Cha, and the winner of the 2011 Srinivas Rayaprol Prize for Poetry.
Tania De Rozario
(English: Fiction) Tania De Rozario is an artist, writer and curator who has exhibited in Singapore and abroad. She is the author of Reasons for the Rain and Tender Delirium, both set to be published in 2013. Tania is a Hedgebrook alumna, recipient of numerous local awards and is co-founder/curator of Etiquette, Singapore’s first ongoing arts showcase focused on feminist issues. To pay the bills, she also freelances as a drawing instructor, an art-writer and an adjunct lecturer at LASALLE College of the Arts.
J.P. Sanakya
(Tamil: Fiction, Film) Sanakya’s stories have been published in such Tamil literary magazines as Kalachuvadu, Uyirmey, Kalkuthirai, Adavi, 361 Degree, Theeranathi, www.ulagathamil.com and Semmai as well as in India Today. He has published two collections of short stories, En Veettin Varaipadam (2002) and Kanavu Puththagam (2005). He received the Sundara Ramaswamy Young Writer Award in 2010 and the Katha award. A translation of his story, The Force of Gravity was included in the Oxford University Press anthology of Tamil Dalit writing. Sanakya also has diplomas in Carnatic Music and Painting and is a practitioner of Sabhyasi transcendental meditation.
Park Ju Taek
(Korean: Poetry, Criticism) Mr. Park has published several collections of poems, Movement Architecture of Dreams, What a Painful Rest the Wandering Is, Under the Star of the Desert and The Pupil of Time. His critical essays include Dream of Recovering Paradise , The Restoration of National Emotion, Reflection and Self-examination and The Soul of the Red Hour. (Please note that these are not formal English titles as his books are yet to be translated into English). Mr. Park currently teaches Korean Literature at the Kyung Hee University. He has received several awards including the Sowol Poetry Award for his poem The Pupil of Time.
Jeremy Tiang
(English: Fiction, Drama, Translation) Jeremy Tiang is a writer and translator from Singapore. His short stories have won the Golden Point Award and been shortlisted for the Bridport Prize, and appeared in QLRS and the Philippine Free Press. His plays have received performances or readings at Pan Asian Repertory Theater, New York Theatre Workshop, Soho Theatre London, Portland Stage and the Esplanade, Singapore. He has translated novels by Zhang Yueran and Yeng Pway Ngon, and plays by Quah Sy Ren and Han Lao Da.