Marie-Alice Schultz was born in 1980 in Hamburg. She studied theatre arts and German literature in Berlin as well as visual arts in Hildesheim. She is co-editor of the Hamburg-based literary magazine tau and has herself published in various magazines and anthologies. In 2016 she participated in the writing class of the Jürgen Ponto foundation and that of the Festival of German-Language Literature in Klagenfurt. For the manuscript of Mikadowälder she received the Hamburg advancement award for literature.

Christian Alt studied German literature as well as philosophy at the Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz. Since 2010 he has written for different media on pop and cyber culture. Now he works for Bayerischer Rundfunk (BR), mostly for the scene magazine “Zündfunk”, where he has remained true to his areas of interest. He is a columnist at “PULS”, the young program of BR, and a writer for different ARD-broadcasters. For BR he also develops podcasts, among others the story telling podcast “Einfach machen”, which he also presented.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Magda Albrecht was born in 1986 and grew up in Berlin. In 2013 she graduated in American studies and has since worked as a political spokeswoman and as a journalist. She regularly contributes to the blog “Mädchenmannschaft”, carries out research and give talks on body ideals and assumptions on health and fatness, which she questions. She sums up her activism in a short credo: My fat is political.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Safia Monney was born in 1979 in Saarbrücken. She studied acting at the conservatory of the City of Vienna and communication science at the LMU in Munich, sat in on the Bavarian Radio and was an editor at the student radio M94.5. As an actress, she worked at the Munich Kammerspiele, played in several German film and TV productions, gave literary readings and was featured in an audio play. She lives in Paris and at the French Atlantic coast.

Hamed Abdel-Samed was born in 1972 in Giza, Egypt. He studied English and French at Ain Shams University in Cairo, as well as political science, English literature and English linguistics at Augsburg University. From 1999 to 2000 he studied Japanese at Kwansei Gakuin University in Japan.
He worked, among others, at the UNESCO International Bureau of Education in Geneva and the chair of Islamic studies of the Erfurt University, and has been a research fellow at the chair of Jewish history at the Ludwig-Maximilians-University in Munich since 2007.

Sophie Albers was born in Hamburg in 1970. She studied film, history and literature and worked as a journalist for various magazines. Since 2008, she is an arts editor at stern.de. She lives in Berlin. Wunderland is her first novel.

Bastian Berner was born in 1985. He is a journalist working for the German weekly Die Zeit. Among other awards, he was awarded the Axel Springer Prize and the German Reporter Award. Berbner studied political science and history, and later attended the German School of Journalism in Munich.