Andrea Stift, born 1976 in Southern Styria (Austria), studied Applied Linguistics and German Philology and lives now in Graz. She writes prose and poetry, her stories were published in manuskripte, Kolik and several Austrian newspapers. She won some prizes and awards like the manuskripte-Literaturförderungspreis and the Startstipendium 2009 and was invitated to the Open Mike in Berlin and the Festival Internacional de Poesía Granada in Nicaragua. Her first book, called “Reben” (a story about her great-grandmother), was published in 2007, her second book, a novel called “Klimmen. Erzählung einer WG” (about students living together sharing a flat), was published in 2008. Since 2009 Andrea Stift works for the Austrian literary magazine manuskripte. Blog and further information: www.andreastift.at.
Cornelia Travnicek was born on January 22nd 1987 in St. Pölten, Lower Austria, and lives in Traimauer, Vienna and on the rails inbetween. She attended the HTL St. Pölten (school for higher technical education) in the branch of electronics for five years, after which she studied sinology and informatics at the Alma Mater Rudolphina (University of Vienna). Cornelia Travnicek is represented by the Literarische Agentur Simon and currently publishes at Skarabaeus Verlag. She has received several prizes and awards, among others the Autorenprämie of the Austrian federal ministry for education, arts and culture in 2008 and the Lise Meitner Literaturpreis in 2009.