Cem Gülay was born in 1970 as a son of Turkish immigrants in Hamburg. He made his high-school diploma in 1991 and wanted to study at the university, but then decided to make his career as a gangster instead. The desire for recognition through fast money was decisive here. 2001 Gülay succeeded in what so many fail in: he bailed out.
From that time on, he dedicated himself to the integration of teenagers with migration background, to spare the youngsters what he had to go through. The book about his story is the first step in that direction. After several stays abroad, Cem Gülay lives in Berlin again.

He who, like him, grows up among Hanseatic people, has three possibilities to escape from the typical lethargy of a coast metropolis: Advertising. Writing. Or going to sea. After an education in advertising and three years of agency work it was clear to him: Neither advertising, no, nor going to sea was meant for him, but journalism.
After a traineeship at the publishing group Milchstraße and studies at Akademie für Publizistik in Hamburg, Tim Gutke wrote interviews, reports and portraits for the Playboy. Since November 2009 Tim Gutke is a freelance journalist with focus on interviews and reports. He is chief of copywriting at the international men's magazine L'Officiel Hommes and develops magazine concepts for the media concern Gruner und Jahr. Tim Gutke lives in Munich.

Jaimy Gordon was born in Baltimore, studied at Antioch College and at Brown University and now teaches creative writing at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo. She was awarded numerous prizes, for example in 1991 the Academy Institute Award for Fiction by the American Academy of the American Institute of Arts and Letters. Her short story A Night's Work was included in the List of Best American Short Stories. So far Gordon has published two novels, poetry, plays, short stories and essays.

Constantin Göttfert was born in 1979 in Vienna. After his studies at the pedagogical college he majored in German literature and cultural science in Vienna. In 2006 Göttfert was awarded the international Wiener Werkstattpreis. He was a student at the Deutsches Literaturinstitut Leipzig and in 2008 scholar at the Klagenfurter Literaturkurs. He was given the scholarship of the Niederösterreichischen Landesregierung in the Budmerice mansion in Slovakia as well as the scholarship of the Literaturforum Schwaz in a franciscan monastery in Tirol. 2011 he was a resident at the Literarisches Colloquium Berlin. Göttfert lives in Vienna.

 

Sara Gmuer was born in 1980 in Locarno. She spent her childhood in the Italian Switzerland, her adolescence in Lucerne. Aged 17, she dropped out of school, traveled the world, earned her first money as a model and spent it for rap records. In 2002 she finished acting school in Zurich and since then starred in quite a few film and television productions. Sara Gmuer lives in Berlin.

Oliver Geyer was born in 1973 in Bielefeld. He studied journalism, psychology, political science and communication studies at Westminster University London and Freie Universität Berlin and worked as a copywriter with the advertising agencies Aimaq Rapp & Stolle and Scholz & Friends.
After that, he worked as a freelance journalist for the Frankfurter Sonntagszeitung, WELT am SONNTAG, Frankfurter Rundschau, Der Tagesspiegel, Berliner Zeitung, Vanity Fair, Psychologie Heute, Maxim, Playboy, fluter, geo.de and as assistant head editor for the society magazine DUMMY. Oliver Geyer lives with his family alternately in Berlin and, together with several friends, in a house in the Uckermark.

Julia Gäbel was born in Großburgwedel in 1975 and studied Italian, German, English, literature and cultural studies at Hannover University between 1996 and 2001. In 2005 she obtained a degree in fashion journalism and communication from Akademie Mode & Design in Hamburg. Julia Gäbel works as a journalist since 1998.

Sarah Höflich was born in 1979 in the German northern province of Schleswig. Already as a child, she was mesmerised by stories and history. After studying English Philology in Germany, she went on to study Creative Writing in the US as a Fulbright fellow, where she earned a Master of Fine Arts. Today, she is a screen writer and producer for the UFA, and has realised a variety of successful TV series. Heimatsterben is her first novel. Höflich and her family live in Cologne.