Andrea Voß was born in Cologne and raised in the Ruhr. She studied German and art history in Giessen and Bonn.
She then gained practical experience working for news stations and TV production companies. After a spell as editor for a talk show, she worked for several years as author and director for some science magazines of Deutsche Welle and WDR. She now lives in Cologne.

William T. Vollmann, born in 1956 in Los Angeles, is the author of numerous novels, short story volumes and specialized books which have won him many prizes, for example the Whiting Writers Award and the National Book Award, the latest being the Mildred and Harold Living Award in 2008.
The Newsday hails William T. Vollmann as »unconventional – and possibly most exciting and inventive novelist alive«, and the Washington Post sees in him »the only novelist who succeeds in filling in the seven-league boots of a [...] John Barth, William Gaddis and Thomas Pynchon«. The New Yorker selected him as one of the best 20 American authors. Vollmann is a prestigious journalist and his articles as war correspondent have appeared in The New Yorker, New York Times Magazine, Newsday, Spin, Esquire and Gear. His journalistic work was also published in Best American Travel Writing 1999 and in Best American Essays 2000.

Anne Weber was born in Offenbach in 1964, and has lived in Paris as a freelance author and translator since 1983. She has translated both from German into French, i.a. Sibylle Lewitscharoff and Wilhelm Genazino, and vice versa, i.a. Pierre Michon and Marguerite Duras. She writes her own books in both German and French. She has been awarded the Heimito von Doderer Literature Prize, the 3sat Prize, the Kranichsteiner Literature Prize and the Johann Heinrich Voß Prize, among others. Anne Weber was awarded the German Book Prize 2020 for her book Annette, ein Heldinnenepos (Annette, an epic Heroine). What's more, in 2022, she received the Leipzig Book Fair Prize for her translation of the novel Nevermore by Cécile Wajsbrot.

Sara Weber, born in 1987, is a German American living in Munich, Germany. She majored in communications and publishing in Mainz and graduated from the German School of Journalism. After being a freelance journalist and author for German media like Zeit, Süddeutsche Zeitung and Spiegel, she worked at LinkedIn for five years. Today, she is a journalist, media consultant and digital strategist. Sara is regularly talking about digitization, diversity and the world of work in interviews and as a speaker. Her book Die Welt geht unter, und ich muss trotzdem arbeiten? was published by Kiepenheuer & Witsch in January 2023.

Michaela Wiebusch and Rita Erz became friends and colleagues through their therapeutical work. For years they have been learning and teaching about personality development and self development. Rita Erz is a European Business Coach working with the senior management of well-known companies. Michaela Wiebusch started out as an actress (Es ist zu deinem Besten, Beck is back, Soko Wismar) but also works in bodywork therapy and as a psychological counsellor. In the secret village of the butterflies is their first book together and it will be published in spring 2022 by dtv.

Sigrid Wagner was born in 1955 in Goslar and completed a teacher training course at the University of Hamburg. Ever since she has been teaching at high schools in the Pfalz and in NRW. Sigrid Wagner is a mother of five and lives in Münster.

Thomas Weiss, born in Stuttgart, was a fellow at the authors’ workshop at the Literarisches Colloquium Berlin in 2003 und received several honours and grants such as scholarships of the Berlin Senate, the Stiftung preußische Seehandlung and the Konrad-Adenauer-Foundation. Thomas Weiss lives in Berlin as a writer.

Gernot Wolfram, born 1975 in Saxony, studied German literature and communication studies in Berlin and wrote his dissertation on cultural Zionism in Germany. He lives in Berlin working as an university lecturer and author of novels, stories, plays and essays. He published several pieces in the Frankfurter Allgemeinen Zeitung, DIE WELT, Süddeutsche Zeitung and the Jüdische Allgemeine. In 2002 he won the renowned Walter-Serner-Preis.

Georg von Wallwitz, born in 1968 in Munich, studied mathematics and philosophy in England and Germany, was a scholar of the Studienstiftung des Deutschen Volkes and, after his PhD, attended Princeton University as a visiting fellow. Since 1998 he works as a fund manager, first at DWS in Frankfurt and since 2004 self-employed as a co-owner of an investment management company in Munich. At regular intervals he writes a financial newspaper for the intelligentsia.

Peter Wappler, better known as »Milliarden Mike« (en.: »Billion Mike«), is everything he wants to be. Or rather everything others want to see in him: a boxer and an exchange broker, a surplus item dealer, owner of a model agency and wearer of a diamonded Rolex watch, the guy who knows Ben Becker, the Klitschkos and Dariusz Michalczewski; and he is the one who spent 18 years of his life in jail in the penal institution Fuhlsbüttel for fraud and forgery, because, among other things, he sold non-existing diamonds for several millions of Euros.

Peter Wappler is a first class hoodlum, but by his own admission one with a heart. For his luck always depended on the greed of the rich, since he never would have stolen the small pension out of the purse of an older lady.