Girl, Show Me That Body (of Work) FLINTA* Literature Night, Christmas Edition

The event comprises literary readings and performative poetry. Berlin is a place of arrival and refuge for many authors with a migration background - including women (cis and trans) and non-binary people.

In addition, there are topics such as gender equality and the reinvention of the parental role as well as dealing with transgenerational trauma. Reflecting on these topics through the lens of their biographies connects the authors and at the same time highlights the differences in their artistic approaches and their individual aesthetics.

In Girl, Show Me That Body (of Work), literature is an intimate space for reflection and an instrument of political and social activism, an artistic medium and an attempt at communication across heteronormative boundaries. Above all, literature is a space for encounters beyond pigeonholing and exclusion mechanisms. It provokes conversations about inclusion, diversity and belonging in an open society and enables respectful dialogue. The event is curated by the Romanian author and journalist Ioana Cristina Casapu, who has been researching and working intensively with migrant FLINTA* in Germany for ten years. Girl, Show Me That Body (of Work) aims to give established authors and previously undiscovered literary talents with migration experience from Berlin's FLINTA* communities a public stage together. Another goal is to offer concrete workshops that connect authors and the public, including refugees, feminist activists, survivors of sexual violence and the organizations that support them in Berlin, as well as other writers, politicians and publishers - in the belief that literature is a means of life for artists and visitors.

Ruth Barber was born and grew up in a small, boring town called Northampton in England. At the first opportunity she went to London where she studied and qualified as a criminal defense lawyer. She writes horror novels and psychological thrillers to process the trauma of her everyday professional life.

In her works she explores moral dissonances within individuals and society, and our fear and loathing of our own darkest impulses, combined with a healthy dose of black humor. She lived in Berlin for five years, where many of her stories are set, and also spent a few years as a lawyer in the British overseas territory of St. Helena. Her short story "Unfinished Business" was published in the anthology "Uncertainties VI" by Swan River Press in July 2023.

Ioana-Cristina Casapu is a Romanian-born author of novels, essays and poetry, and publications in over 30 anthologies and magazines in English, German and Romanian.

Communications Director with 15 years of experience in cultural diplomacy and event design in Romania, Austria, Germany and the US. Through her ongoing writing and projects, she aims to celebrate the efforts of women who have fled traumatizing circumstances to live safer lives, find their own place in the world and create a community that - in the words of Emily Dickinson - illuminates their experiences rather than shuts them down. In 2024, she founded Girl, Show Me That Body (of Work), a series of literary and performance events hosted by Lettrétage to promote the works of female writers and artists with a migrant background in Berlin. This initiative aims to build a bridge between communication and experience, encouraging not only the consumption of experiences but also active participation, reflection and action.Featured in DAZED, ELLE Romania, Thought Catalog, Berlin Art Parasites. They live and work in Berlin.

Fionnuala Kavanagh is a British author who specialises in social issues. She is working on a book about why her brother was radicalised by far-right ideology. Her other projects include a series of interviews about intimacy and a novel about an integration course. She has also published journalistic pieces on sex work, unemployment and identity in The Berliner and Lola Magazine. She has received funding for her writing projects from The Guerter Stifftung, the Berlin Senate, the Ionion Center for the Arts and Culture, the EU’s iPortunas mobility scheme, and the Arvon Foundation. Fionnuala likes to experiment with new ways of communicating her social commentary to new audiences. Discover extracts from her novel on bright green posters in Berlin.

Shlomit Lasky has been a relationship columnist for ‘Laisha,’ Israel’s leading women’s magazine since 2006. Originally from Tel Aviv, Berlin has been her home since 2010. Alongside writing, she guides tours in Berlin and works for German public news broadcaster Deutsche Welle (DW) as a voice over artist. Currently, Shlomit has an original series in development with UFA. She has received grants from the Israeli Film Fund and from the German National Film Fund (FFA) to develop original screenplays which were later optioned. Her short play, ‘The Imaginary Ex’, was selected for Zavta’s Short plays Festival (2011). She was awarded a grant from the Zurückgeben Foundation (Berlin, 2020) to develop her debut novel. Shlomit has an acting diploma from Beit-Zvi Academy of Performing Arts (Israel) and holds a masters in screenwriting from the University of the Arts, London (LCC).

Noemi Veberic Levovnik is a multimedia, interdisciplinary artist from Slovenia, based in Berlin. She is currently focusing on poetry and performance, exploring erotic and embodied poetry, as well as LGBTQAI+ issues. Noemi's visual art and performance work has been presented in solo and group exhibitions at venues such as MSUM (Museum of Contemporary Art of Slovenia), National Modern Gallery (Ljubljana, Slovenia), A+A Gallery in Venice, Humboldt Forum in Berlin, and many others. She has written several poetry collections, including Let My Pussy Speak, which she completed last year. She runs embodied writing workshops under the same name. Her work was published in Nothing Personal? Essays on Affect, Gender and Queerness, b_books, Berlin, 2023.

Originally from Istanbul, Cemre Nur Öztürk has lived in Berlin for 9 years. She writes poetry, prose and short stories. She organizes monthly creative writing workshops for women to encourage their creativity. She co-created two zine workshops in which participants explored the theme of dreaming and the connections between the heritage of witchcraft and modern feminism. As a result of these workshops, she co-edited the zines Dreaming Awake (2023) and Be The Witch They Cannot Burn (2024). She contributed to Dreaming Awake with her poem Hell is You, Uncle. Together with five FLINTA* migrant women from her writing community, she wrote Station to Station (2024), a collection of short stories in which Berlin subway lines were used as connecting elements in the stories. "Station to Station" was awarded the Thalia Storyteller 2024, Top Local Berlin Stories.