Elena Mikhailik:  lives in Sydney.  She completed her Ph.D. at the University of New South Wales writing her thesis on Varlam Shalamov and currently teaches translation / interpreting at the same university.  She has two poetry collections: Ni snom ni oblakom (Not by dream or cloud, 2008), and Ekspeditsiya (Expedition, 2019).  She received the 2019 Andrei Bely Prize (Humanities).

Eduard Limonov:  February 1943 – March 2020.  He was a Russian writer, poet, publicist, and political dissident.  He emigrated from the USSR in 1974 and earned fame as a scandalous writer abroad, in particular, due to obscene language and pornographic scenes in his first novel, It’s Me, Eddie.  In 1991, he returned to Russia and founded the controversialNational Bolshevik Party.

Dmitry Kuzmin:  (1968, Moscow) is a poet, critic, and publisher. He heads the ARGO-RISK and Literature Without Borders publishing projects and is editor of the poetry journal Vozdukh.  He has been recognized with the Andrei Bely award of Merit in Literature (2002).  He is author of two poetry collections, It’s Fine To Be Alive (2008) and Blankets Are Not Provided (2018).  Since 2014, for political reasons, he resides in Latvia.

Nina Kossman:  born in Moscow is a painter, bilingual writer, poet, and playwright.  Among her published works are two books of poems in Russian and English, two volumes of translations of Tsvetaeva’s poems, and a novel.  She received grants from the Foundation for Hellenic Culture, the Onassis Public Benefit Foundation, and Fundacion Valparaiso.  She lives in NYC.