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.

Sargon Youkhana was born in 1967 in Bonn. After living abroad in the USA and Great Britain, he returned to Germany and currently lives in Cologne. He works as an author for several TV series and is currently writing on a detective story.

Felix Zeltner works as a journalist and is co-founder of the New York company Work Awesome, which organizes all over the world conferences and workshops on the future of work. He is originally from Nuremberg and graduated from the German journalism school in Munich. For his work (Arte, ARD, Der Spiegel) he has received several awards.

Guy’s road to writing was long and winding. An economist by education, he became fed up with the dubious assumptions behind the façade of scientific rigor and switched profession to software engineering. When the intricacies of computer coding increasingly haunted his nights, he delved into a succession of stints, first building artisan carpentry, an endeavor his callous hands still bear witness to; followed by owning and operating a Blues club in NYC, a time his liver still recalls with horror; and lastly, dealing in oriental rugs, an enterprise that robbed Guy of his last strand of hair as he lost sleep over the safety of camel caravans crossing the steppe. Finally, he made a career in inventing consumer products, only to realize the destruction and folly of our modern ways. With that in mind, at the ripe old age of forty-five, he penned the opening lines of the Genostock trilogy...

Peter-Paul Zahl died on January 24th, 2011 in Port Antonio, Jamaica.

Undine Zimmer, born in 1979, studied Scandinavian studies, modern German literature and journalism in Berlin. Following several employments, including selling Popcorn, being a tourguide and a waitress. Her piece Meine Hartz-IV-Familie, published in the weekly paper DIE ZEIT,  was nominated for the Henri Nannen Preis. She currently lives in Berlin and Reutlingen.