(1.) Vida Mokrin-Pauer was born in Sempeter close to the town of Nova Gorica, where she has lived since she was four. A poet, writer, literary critic and journalist, she holds a double degree in comparative literature and librarianship from the University of Ljubljana. She worked as a librarian for five years, before devoting herself full-time to writing. She was the literary editor of the journal 'Primorska srecanja' for nine years, and has written seven poetry collections, the last of which was published as 'Selected Poems' in Bulgaria in 2005. She has also written poetry for children, convinced that such poems are as much for adults as they are for children. Her poetry has been translated into French, English, Sebian, Italian, Macedonian, Czech, as well as Bulgarian, and has appeared in a number of anthologies internationally. (2.) Maja Vidmar was born in 1961 in Nova Gorica. She studied comparative literature in Ljubljana, where she currently lives as a free-lance writer. She is the author of several poetry collections: 'Body Distances' (1984), 'Ways of Binding' (1988), 'Urgent Direction: Selected Poems' (1989), 'At the Base' (1998) and 'Presence' (2005), which was awarded the Jenko Prize. She is also the winner of the prestigious Pre'eren Foundation Award, and her work has appeared internationally in various literary journals and anthologies. Her selected poems were published in German translation in Graz and this book received the Hubert-Burda-Stifung Prize in 1999. A Croatian translation was also published in the same year in Zagreb under the title Akt. (3.) Uros Zupan, a poet and essayist, was born in 1963 in Trbovlje and graduated in comparative literature from the University of Ljubljana. A winner of numerous prizes, including the Preseren Foundation Award, the Jenko Prize, Herman Lenz-Preis (Langenburg 1999, Germany) and the Premio della VI Edizione del Festival Internazionale di Poesia (Genova 2000), he has published eight collections of poetry and three books of essays. His poetry titles include 'Sutras' (1991), 'River' (1993), 'Opening of Delta' (1995), 'Succession' (1998), 'A Tree and a Sparrow' (1999), 'Oil' (2002) and 'Locomotives' (2004). The books of essays are: 'Light inside an Orange' (1996), 'The Songs Stays the Same' (2000), 'Walker' (2003) and 'Autumn Leaves' (2006). He has translated a number of poets, including Yehuda Amichai and John Ashbery. His own work has appeared in numerous languages, books and journals. He lives with his family in Ljubljana and is a free-lance writer. (4.) Peter Semoli was born in 1967 in Ljubljana. He studied linguistics and cultural studies at the University of Ljubljana. Besides poetry, he also writes radio plays, children's literature and translates from English, French, Serbian and Croatian. He has published seven books of poetry to date: 'Tamarisk' (1991), 'The Roses of Byzantium' (1994), 'House Made of Words' (1996), 'Circles Upon the Water' (2000), 'Questions About the Path' (2001), 'Border' (2002) and 'Space for You' (2006), and has received many awards, including the two most eminent ones, the Jenko Prize and the Preseren Foundation Award. In 1998 he won the Vilenica Crystal Award. His poetry has been translated widely into many European languages. (5.) Natasa Velikonja was born in 1967 in Nova Gorica. She graduated in theoretical sociology from the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Ljubljana. She is the author of three poetry collections: 'Subscription' (Abonma, 1994), 'Thirst' (Zeja, 1999) and 'Weeds' (Plevel, 2004). A lesbian activist, she has translated a number of literary works from the field of queer and lesbian theory (including such authors as Lillian Federman, Monique Wittig, Shari Benstock, Richard Goldstein, Laura Cottingham). Over the last decade she has published almost 300 articles, columns and essays in various journals in Slovenia and abroad, and since 1997 she has been the editor of the political and cultural journal 'Lesbo'. She is the founder and coordinator of the Lesbian Library and Archive in Ljubljana, the city where she lives and works. (6.) Gregor Podlogar was born in Ljubljana in 1974 and graduated with a degree in philosophy from the University of Ljubljana. He writes literary criticism and book reviews for Slovenian National Radio, the daily newspaper 'Vecher', and the 'Literatura' literary journal, among others. He has published his poems in various literary magazines in Slovenia and abroad. Aleph Press published his first two poetry collections, 'States' (1997) and 'Joy in Vertigo' (2002). In co-authorship with the poet Primoz Cucnik and the painter Ziga Kariz, an experimental book on New York entitled 'Ode on Manhattan Avenue' came out with Sherpa Press in Slovenia in 2003. He lives and works in Ljubljana. (Introducer) Ale' Debeljak, a poet and essayist, holds a PhD in Social Thought from Syracuse University, New York and is a director of Center for Cultural and Religious Studies in the School of Social Sciences at the University of Ljubljana, Slovenia. He has won several awards, including the Slovenian National Book Award, the Miriam Lindberg Israel Poetry for Peace Prize (Tel Aviv) and Chiqu Poetry Prize (Tokyo). His books have appeared in English, Japanese, German, Croatian, Serbian, Macedonian, Polish, Hungarian, Czech, Slovak, Lithuanian, Finnish, French, Italian, Spanish and Romanian translations. His recent non-fiction books in English include 'The Hidden Handshake: National Identity and European Postcommunism', 'Reluctant Modernity: The Institution of Art and its Historical Forms', 'Twilight of the Idols: Recollections of a Lost Yugoslavia', and three books of poems 'Anxious Moments', 'The City and the Child', 'Dictionary of Silence'. (Editor) Brane Mozetic is the author of eleven poetry collections and three works of prose, of which twelve have been published in translation. His poetry collection 'Butterflies' and a book of short stories 'Passion' both came out in the United States. He has translated works by Rimbaud, Genet, Foucault and a number of contemporary poets. He has also edited two anthologies of homoerotic literature in Slovenian as well as a number of features of contemporary Slovenian literature - particularly of poetry - internationally. He has organised many events and readings of Slovenian literature abroad. (Translators) Ana Jelnikar was born in Slovenia in 1975, and shared her eucation between London and Ljubljana. She is currently doing a PhD at the University of London (SOAS), exploring the links between Rabindranath Tagore and Srecko Kosovel. She translates into both Slovenian and English. Her translation of Iztok Osojnik's 'Mister Today' came out in 2003 from Jacaranda Press (San Jose), and Brane Mozetic's 'Butterflies' was published by Spuyten Duyvil in the United States in 2004. Her most recent poetry translations are Iztok Geister's 'Hymn to the Bush Tree' and Taja Kramberger's 'Mobilizations'. Her translations have appeared in such literary magazines as 'Verse', 'Southern Humanities Review', 'Third Coast', and 'The American Poetry Review', and in various anthologies. She is the translator of the first Slovenian edition of C. G. Jung's 'Man and His Symbols', and has been involved in a number of international poetry translation workshops. Stephen Watts is a poet. He was born in 1952 and has lived mostly in London & the Western Isles, with close cultural roots in the Italian Alps. His selected poems up to 1997 'The Blue Bag'(Aark Arts, London & New Delhi) was published in 2004 and a selection of recent longer poems with Czech translation - 'Gramsci & Caruso' - in Moravia in 2003. He has worked extensively in hospitals and in schools as a poet & recently was the first 'embedded poet' writing on issues of suicide in the Highlands & Islands. For a number of years he helped run the Multicultural Arts Consortium in London. With Ana Jelnikar he is co-translating 'Ljubljana', a book of Meta Ku'ar's poems (forthcoming from Arc in 2007) and has had a long-standing interest in Slovene poetry. He has also co-translated the Persian poet Ziba Karbassi and the Yiddish poet Avrom Stencl. He has co-edited four anthologies of translated poetry, including 'Voices Of Conscience' (1995), 'Mother Tongues'(2001), and 'Music While Drowning' (2003) and two bilingual Bengali-English children's books. Kelly Lenox Allan was born in New Jersey in 1961 and received a Bachelor's degree in Environmental Science from the University of Virginia and a Masters of Fine Arts in writing from Vermont College. Her poems and translations have been published in 'Margin', 'RHINO', 'nidus', 'Ellipsis', 'Rattle', 'Big Bridge', 'Gobshite Quarterly', and other on-line and print journals in the United States. The chapbook 'Chasms' (PM Books), translations of the Slovene poet Barbara Korun, was published in 2003; other translations appear in 'Voice in the Body' (Litterae Slovenicae, 2006). She is a contributing editor for 'Hunger Mountain Magazine' and lives in Portland, Oregon.
