CALL FOR SHORT PROSE AND POETRY

On June 6 at Berlin’s Lettrétage, we are putting on an evening about the great German writer W.G. Sebald—Sebald Remembering. There will be an opening discussion about Sebald's life, work, and legacy among the writers and novelists Marcel Krueger, Paul Scraton, and Madeleine Watts moderated by the writer and critic Sanders Isaac Bernstein. For the second half of the evening, we’re currently selecting a series of writers (like you!) to read their work aloud.

“This then, I thought, as I looked round about me, is the representation of history. It requires a falsification of perspective,” Sebald wrote in Rings of Saturn. “We, the survivors, see everything from above, see everything at once, and still we do not know how it was.”

Drawing inspiration from Sebald’s work, we invite writers to submit work that is about CRISIS. Submissions do not have to be imitations of Sebald and should not be about him. Instead, we are looking for approaches that seek to make sense of a state of crisis (present or past, proximate or remote), that problematize the act of witnessing, that dig into geography, and that attempt to pry apart layers of history to see what’s inside. Place writing, fact camouflaging as fiction and fiction as fact, and multimedia experiments all encouraged.

Selected readers will be invited to share their work at the event and will have their work published online and in a printed zine commemorating the evening. Please email your submission of 600-800 words (or up to 30 lines of poetry) to JosephRothToday@gmail.com by May 17.

LINEUP ANNOUNCEMENT (FULL EVENT)

On February 21 at Berlin’s Lettrétage, we are putting on an evening about the great East German writer Christa Wolf—Christa Wolf in Our Day. After the opening discussion about Wolf's life and (late) work between Katy Derbyshire—acclaimed translator of One Day A Year (2000-2011)—and book critic Alexander Wells moderated by the novelist Paul Scraton, writers from Berlin and beyond will be reading their work aloud. Below, you can find out more about our panelists and selected writers.

You can see more about the event here.

Katy Derbyshire translates mostly contemporary German fiction, including Judith Hermann, Clemens Meyer and Inka Parei. But she has also translated three short books by Christa Wolf for Seagull Books.

Agnieszka Gasparska is a visual artist and graphic designer whose work moves in the delicate spaces that connect the sublime and the ordinary of our every day lives. Originally from Warsaw, she holds a BFA from the Cooper Union School of Art and is the creative captain of Kiss Me I’m Polish, an independent multidisciplinary design studio she founded in 2004.

Marcel Krueger is a German-Irish writer and translator living in Berlin. His essays have been published in The Guardian, Notes from Poland, 3:AM, Paper Visual Art, CNN Travel, The Diasporist, Przekrój, and The Irish Times, amongst others. Marcel is the co-editor of Elsewhere: A Journal of Place, and has published five non-fiction books in English and German, among them Berlin: A Literary Guide for Travellers (written together with Paul Sullivan, 2016) and Babushka’s Journey: The Dark Road to Stalin’s Wartime Camps (2018).

Sylvia Krupicka ist in Berlin (Ost) geboren. Neben Lyrik schreibt sie Prosa und veröffentlichte

Kurzgeschichten, Hörspiele sowie drei Romane. Ihr letzter Roman „Mädchen zwischen den Zeilen“ (2024) greift das Tabuthema innerfamiliäre sexuelle Gewalt auf. Die Autorin engagiert sich in der Christa-Wolf-Gesellschaft.

Roxie Perkins is an artist whose work spans the fields of opera, theatre, film, television, fiction, and new media art. She is the librettist of the Pulitzer Prize winning opera p r i s m and

wrote on the innovative, digital opera project desert in, co-produced by Boston Lyric Opera and Long Beach Opera. Her latest opera, The Shell Trial, premiered at the Dutch National Opera in 2024 and was shortlisted for the FEDORA award, a European platform supporting innovation in opera. Roxie has worked as a Visiting Lecturer at CalArts, UCLA, and Berlin Writer’s Workshop.

Katy Derbyshire translates mostly contemporary German fiction, including Judith Hermann, Clemens Meyer and Inka Parei. But she has also translated three short books by Christa Wolf for Seagull Books.

Alexander Wells is a freelance writer and critic from Australia. His reviews and essays have been published by The Guardian, The Drift, The Baffler, and the European Review of Books among others. From 2020 to 2025, he was Books Editor for the print monthly The Berliner.

Paul Scraton was born in the north of England and has lived in Berlin since 2002. He is co-founder of Elsewhere: A Journal of Place, the author of a number of books for Influx Press including Ghost on the Shore: Travels Along Germany's Baltic Coast and the novella of the forest In the Pines (2021). His most recent novel is A Dream of White Horses (2024).

Adam Joachim Goldmann is an American writer and journalist based in Munich and Berlin. He writes about arts and culture for numerous publications, including the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and the Atlantic. He has appeared on panels and written program notes for various cultural institutions and has taught at the School of the New York Times and the Münchner Volkshochschule. He was educated at Columbia University and the Freie Universität Berlin.

Lisa Holzer is an artist and writer from Vienna living in Berlin. She works with photography, language and at times performative gestures in connection with exhibitions or readings. Recent solo exhibitions: She knows nothing about clouds, 20 20, Vienna (2024); Forgot Sunglasses, Layr, Vienna (2023); Eyes hold things differently, Layr, Vienna (2021); What a beautiful idea you were, NOUSMOULES c/o L'Etoile Endettée, Berlin (2021); What carries you?, Secession, Vienna (2019); Eat me!, Kunstverein München, Munich (2019). Recent readings or performances: Say Nothing, Layr, Vienna (2024);  Tuesday, Secession, Vienna (2024); Reading Between Clouds, Steirischer Herbst, Camera Austria, Graz (2023); Forgot Sunglasses Again, How to Move and Respond, Haus am Waldsee, Berlin (2023); Everything, bobshop, Berlin (2022); Besides, curatorial projects, last, How to Move and Respond, Haus am Waldsee, Berlin (2023).

Anna Migliorini is a PhD in philosophy from the Universities of Pisa and Florence, where she currently lives. She is author of the monograph Walter Benjamin e gli stati d’eccezione (Florence, Clinamen, 11/2024). Her research interests currently revolve around the philosophy of history and law, political philosophy, theory and epistemology, and political aesthetics. Personal present interests concentrate on cinema and photography. And one of the actual intentions is to make them talk.

Gurmeet Singh is a writer and editor from the UK, currently working on a novel. gurmeetsingh.co

Madeleine Watts is the writer of the novels The Inland Sea, published in 2021, and Elegy, Southwest, forthcoming in March next year from Pushkin Press. Her non-fiction has been published extensively in Harpers, The Believer, and the Guardian, among others, and she holds an MFA from Columbia University. Born in Sydney, and after over a decade in New York, she has lived in Berlin since February of this year. 

Caroline Adler is a researcher and curator based in Berlin. Her research focuses on representation and method in Walter Benjamin’s literary work (in particular his „Moscow“ essay), epistemologies of the aesthetic, and theory and critique of scientific exhibition practice. Caroline currently holds a position as research associate at the University of Hamburg. She is a member of the theory collective diffrakt – centre for theoretical periphery and editor at BERLIN REVIEW.

Forthcoming: WALTER BENJAMIN IN THE EUROPEAN EAST: NETWORKS, CONFLICTS, AND RECEPTION, ed. with Sophia Buck, Routledge 2025.

Sanders Isaac Bernstein is a writer living in Berlin. His work has appeared, among other places, in JEWISH CURRENTS, THE BAFFLER, NEWYORKER.COM, and THE BAD VERSION, which he founded and edited from 2011-2014.  He currently teaches a personal essay writing workshop at The Reader Berlin and serves as Stage Editor for THE BERLINER, Berlin’s English-language print monthly.

Lindsay Lerman is the author of two books, I’M FROM NOWHERE and WHAT ARE YOU. She is also the translator of philosopher François Laruelle's first book. She holds a Ph.D. in Philosophy from the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada. Her short stories, essays, and poems have been published in the LOS ANGELES REVIEW OF BOOKS, NEW YORK TYRANT, and elsewhere. She teaches philosophy and creative writing courses online for her intensive series Climbing Down. Her second book, WHAT ARE YOU, is currently being translated and will be published in Greece in 2025. She lives in Berlin.

CALL FOR SHORT PROSE

On October 26 at Berlin’s Lettrétage, we are putting on a celebration of the wondrous German-Jewish writer Walter Benjamin—Walter Benjamin in the "Sphere of Life". There will be an opening discussion about Benjamin's ongoing vitality for contemporary writers, artists, and thinkers with novelist and philosopher Lindsay Lerman, researcher and curator Caroline Adler, and essayist Sanders Isaac Bernstein. For the second half of the evening, we’re currently selecting a series of writers (like you!) to read their work aloud.

Submissions do not need to be directly influenced by Benjamin—and should not be about him. What we want is for this evening to channel Benjamin's long-held idea of "setting out the sphere of life—bios—graphically on a map." Which means: we want you to think with his great attention to the specificity of place and time. We want your literary snapshots, your unsentimental farewells to unrecoverable moments, your dream images, your meditations on exile, your search for moments of revelation in the cracked, broken, and unredeemed world you once lived in. We are open to submissions in English or in German, or indeed a third language of your choice.

As Benjamin wrote, “A remembered event is infinite, because it is merely a key to everything that happened before it and after it.”

Email your submission of 700-1000 words – in any language – to josephrothtoday@gmail.com by October 5. All readings will also be published on this website and in a printed zine commemorating the evening.  You must be available to read at Lettrétage in Berlin on October 26 at 8:30 PM.

Julia Bosson is a writer originally from Ojai, California. Her work has been featured in publications such as BOMB, NOBODY, GUERNICA, and THE BELIEVER, among others, and awarded funding from the Fulbright Program, the DAAD, and the MFJC. She currently teaches writing at the Cooper Union and is at work on a novel about the life and journalism of Joseph Roth.

Don Clermont's fiction has appeared in the CHICAGO QUARTERLY REVIEW and his poetry has appeared in SALAMANDER, YEMASEE, and elsewhere. He was a finalist for the 2020 Steve Kowit Poetry Prize. 

Ramona de Jesús (Kolumbien, 1990) ist Dichterin und Übersetzerin und zwischen Bogotá und Mumbai aufgewachsen. Seit 2010 lebt sie in Deutschland, wo sie an der Freien Universität ihren Master in Vergleichender Literaturwissenschaft machte. Darauf folgte ein Master in kreativem Schreiben an der Universidad Nacional Tres de Febrero in Buenos Aires. Sie erhielt Stipendien des Berliner Senats und der Jan-Michalski- Stiftung in der Schweiz. Ihr Buch Dos metros cuadrados de piel wurde in Kolumbien mit dem Nationalen Preis für unveröffentlichte poetische Werke ausgezeichnet. Momentan lebt sie in Oberbösa.

Vijay Khurana is a fiction writer and translator. His debut novel, THE PASSENGER SEAT, was shortlisted for the "Novel Prize" and will be published in 2025. His latest translation is an excerpt from Senthuran Varatharajah's novel RED (HUNGER), forthcoming in the 2024 WHITE REVIEW TRANSLATION ANTHOLOGY. He's currently completing a PhD in creative-critical writing at Queen Mary, University of London.

Tessa Scott (she/her) is a designer, teacher, and poet from Aotearoa New Zealand with an MFA from Sydney University. Her poetry and short fiction has appeared in journals including LANDFALL (NZ), MSLEXIA (UK), CREVICE (Rom), been longlisted for the Berlin Writing Prize and shortlisted for the MSLEXIA Poetry Prize; her debut poetry collection DREAM HOUSES was published by Kelsay Books in 2019. She lives in Hamburg, Germany. Connect with her on Instagram: @tessa_sinclair_scott or https://linktr.ee/tessascott

Crista Siglin (she/they) moved to Berlin in 2017 after having grown up in the Midwestern United States. She studied Painting and Creative Writing at the Kansas City Art Institute. Her work varies in medium— oscillating between multiple visual forms as well as poetry. She explores the body and the mind’s relationship to environment, trauma, time, and phantasmagoria. Her variable works have been published in LIKEWISE MAGAZINE, KAWSMOUTH, BEAR REVIEW, BRIDGE, DOMICILIUM, FU REVIEW, PARATAXE, POETRY FOUNDATION's essay archive, and more. She has released two collections of poetry (Spartan Press and Vegetarian Alcoholic Press). She was poetry editor for SAND Journal Berlin from 2018 to 2023. Crista currently runs Poetry As__A Workshop, and is an organizer for the experimental event series AKIMBO.

LINEUP ANNOUNCEMENT (FIRST HALF)

On March 9 at Berlin’s Lettrétage, we are putting on a celebration of the great Austrian author Friederike Mayröcker—"But existence, too, must be poetic": An Evening of Friederike Mayröcker. There will be an opening discussion about Mayröcker and her living legacy with the poet-translators Donna Stonecipher and Alexander Booth and the poet-critic Ryan Ruby. Find out more about them below.

You can see more about the event here.

Alexander Booth is a poet & translator who has lived in Berlin for the past decade after many years in Rome. The recipient of support from the Austrian Federal Ministry for Arts and Culture, the German Translators’ Fund, and PEN America, his work has appeared in publications such as A PUBLIC SPACE, ASYMPTOTE, BELOIT POETRY JOURNAL, CHICAGO REVIEW, MINOR LITERATURE[S], NEW ENGLAND REVIEW, and WORLD LITERATURE TODAY, among others. In addition to Friederike Mayröcker, his translations include works by Alexander Kluge, Sandro Penna, Gerhard Rühm, Lutz Seiler, and a new translation of Ludwig Wittgenstein’s TRACTATUS LOGICO-PHILOSOPHICUS.

Ryan Ruby is the author of THE ZERO AND THE ONE: A NOVEL (Twelve Books, 2017) and a book-length poem, CONTEXT COLLAPSE, out from Seven Stories Press in November 2024. For his reviews and essays, which have appeared in such venues as HARPER’S, THE NEW YORKER, and THE NEW YORK TIMES, he received the 2023 Silvers Prize in Literary Criticism. He lives in Berlin.

Donna Stonecipher is the author of six books of poetry, most recently THE RUINS OF NOSTALGIA (2023), which was named a best book of 2023 by NPR, and TRANSACTION HISTORIES (2018), which was listed by THE NEW YORK TIMES as one of the 10 best poetry books of 2018. She has also published one book of criticism, PROSE POETRY AND THE CITY (2018). Her poems have been published in many journals, including THE PARIS REVIEW, and have been translated into seven languages. She translates from German, and her translation of Austrian poet Friederike Mayröcker’s trilogy ÉTUDES, CAHIER, AND FLEURS, for which she received a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship, is being published by Seagull Books. She lives in Berlin.

CALL FOR PROSE POEMS, ETC.

On March 9 at Berlin’s Lettrétage, we are putting on a celebration of the great Austrian author Friederike Mayröcker—"But existence, too, must be poetic": An Evening of Friederike Mayröcker. There will be an opening discussion about Mayröcker and her living legacy with the poet-translators Donna Stonecipher and Alexander Booth and the poet-critic Ryan Ruby. For the second half of the evening, we’re currently selecting a series of writers (like you!) to read their work aloud. You can see more about the event here.

Submissions do not need to be directly influenced by Mayröcker—and should not be about her. What we want is for this evening to channel her spirit, the spirit of  “not just what’s written but existence, too, must be poetic.” Which means: We want your prose poems, your lyric essays and zarte Prosa, your language experiments, your sound-games your word-storms your shouts against death. Obviously, we also want your proems. We are open to submissions in English or in German, or indeed a third language of your choice. Originality is key, and so is excess. Too much of a good thing is, in this case, the good thing.

Email your submission of up to 700 words (prose) or 50 lines (poetry) – in any language – to josephrothtoday@gmail.com by February 18. All readings will also be published on this website and in a printed zine commemorating the evening.  You must be avaiable to read at Lettrétage in Berlin on March 9 at 8:30 PM.

To get inspired, you can read some of Mayröcker's poetry – with translations – online at lyrikline.de. Ryan Ruby's essay was published by Poetry magazine and the Paris Review ran an excerpt from The Communicating Vessels here.  Her books are available in German in all proper bookstores, and the English translations can be ordered online; some will be available for purchase on the night.