Monika Vaicenaviciene is an award-winning illustrator and picture book author. She was born in 1991 in Vilnius, Lithuania. After completing her illustration and printmaking studies at Vilnius Academy of Arts, she went on to study for a Master’s degree in Visual communication at Stockholm Konstfack University of Arts, Crafts and Design.
Chenxino was born in China in 1993. She studied Cartooon Animation at the Academy of Fine Arts in Hubei, China, and Illustration at the Academy of Fine Arts in Bologna. Her first book, La luce [The light], encapsulates her great passion and her love for drawing: picture books are for her "one of the purest and most beautiful kinds of art, like a lamp lighting up the darkness". Her style contaminates traditional Chinese painting with Western abstract art. Her works contain "the naive dreams of children”.
Sahar Doustar was born in Tehran in 1985. She studied at the University of Science and Technology of Iran where she graduated in Architecture and Engineering. She also has a Master's Degree in Architecture at Politecnico di Milano. She is currently attending her two-year specialization in Graphic Design for Illustration at ISIA, in Urbino.
Once upon a time in Persia is her first book as an author.
Sandol Stoddard Warburg is the author of 26 published books, including 21 written especially for children. She has four sons who are grown up now, but she says they are still her greatest inspiration. Thanks to them she also has ten grandchildren and five great grandchildren - all of them, she says, “quite fascinating and a lot of fun”.
Shin Sun-Mi graduated from the Ulsan University, and later from the Hongik Graduate School, majoring in oriental painting. She won a prize in the 2003 Art Concours of Korea, and has been active in and out of the country, participating in the Korea-Japan Exhibit (2007), and the International Art Fair in Korea (2008) as well as the SCOPE New York (2009). Since 2006, through several exhibitions, she has shared with the public a whole series of Ant-Fairies.
Janna Carioli vive fra Bologna e L’isola d’Elba. Scrive libri per ragazzi che spaziano fra diversi generi: poesia, romanzi, albi illustrati. E’ autrice di amatissimi programmi televisivi (Amici Mostri, Cartoon Network, Trebisonda, Melevisione, Bumbi). Ha vinto numerosi premi letterari e i suoi libri sono stati più volte inseriti nella selezione di letteratura The White Ravens, che ogni anno segnala buoni libri a livello internazionale. Insegna sceneggiatura televisiva a Bottega Finzioni di Carlo Lucarelli.
Olga Tokarczuk (1962) is one of the most critically acclaimed and commercially successful Polish writers of her generation. In 2018 she won The International Man-Booker Prize, in 2009 and in 2015 she received Poland’s highest literary honour, the Nike (and the Nike Readers’ Prize). Tokarczuk also received the international Brueckepreis and the prestigious annual literary award from Poland's Ministry of Culture and National Heritage. She is the author of eight novels, two short story collections.
Matteo Pelliti (Sarzana, 1972) lives in Pisa where he graduated in philosophy. He has written poetry collections, the last being published in 2015, “Dal corpo abitato” (Luca Sossella editore) with illustrations by Guido Scarabottolo and music cd by Simone Cristicchi, singer and songwriter with whom he has collaborated since 2005. His on-line journail is www.coltisbagli.it.
[Drawing by Tuono Pettinato]
Manuel Rossello, nato a Lugano da madre piemontese e padre catalano, ha studiato letteratura italiana a Ginevra e Pavia. Dal 1997 insegna nella scuola media ticinese. Dal 2001 al 2007 ha diretto la rivista trimestrale Cenobio. Di sera ha sempre raccontato delle storie ai suoi due figli, quand’erano piccoli.
Stefano Olivari è paesaggista. Nato a Torino nel 1983, vive a Vernone con suo marito, Federico Novaro. Ha studiato all'Ecole du Paysage de Versailles; progetta e realizza giardini, da molto piccoli a molto grandi. Si occupa inoltre di progetti di paesaggio e sviluppo locale legati all'agricoltura urbana.