Haile Bizen (born 1966) is a poet, editor, translator and journalist from Asmara, Eritrea. After the publication of his book Behind the Doors in 2009, Bizen was forced to flee Eritrea. After three years as an asylum-seeker, moving between Uganda, South Sudan and Kenya, he was finally offered the opportunity to resettle in Norway as a guest writer (fribyforfatter) through ICORN. In Norway, Bizen has had his texts published in several anthologies, among them Å kysse en ørken, å kysse en myr (Aschehoug 2019), and he has translated Karius og Baktus by Thorbjørn Egner (Cappelen Damm 2015) from Norwegian to Tigrinja. This year, Bizen published his first poetry collection since coming to Norway. La oss si at jeg er is part of Aschehougs series «Parallell» and is written in Norwegian and Tigrinja.

Lara Okafor (they/them) is a writer, software developer, and organiser. They are interested in prison abolition, speculative fiction, and how those two topics overlap with technology. Lara has written a master’s thesis about digital security for queer people of colour, a short story, ‘Sevenfold’, which was published in the Norwegian sci-fi anthology ‘A line through gravity’, and has writing published in the magazines Fett, Samora Forum, and Billedkunst. Lara was also one of the project coordinators for the documentary film project ‘Loud and Proud: a celebration of Black queer voices’.

Muna Jibril (they/she) - A writer and literary critic. Muna has been involved with Fett, a Norwegian feminist magazine, and contributed as a writer and editorial member. They are also a writer for Periskop, an art magazine tailored for young adults. Furthermore, Muna is a co-founder of Comrades Inc, an organization dedicated to providing mutual aid support for queer and trans individuals in Oslo.