There's a lot going on in Berlin, and the Russian-language literary scene is no exception. There are book clubs, writers' workshops, independent initiatives, and communities. How do you navigate them? What are participants in these spaces looking for today? And what are they still missing?
We'll talk about how book and writing communities are structured in Berlin:
What formats work best—from workshops to reader meetings?
How to create a safe and supportive environment
What is important for participants today?
and how the demand for literary communities in emigration is changing
The meeting's participants—organizers and leaders of independent initiatives—will share their experiences and observations, talk about their projects, and how they envision the development of the city's literary scene.
This conversation is for those who already attend book clubs and workshops—and for those who would just like to try.
Natasha Podlyzhnyak is the founder of the "I Have Something to Say" school of writing, a teacher of the online courses "Fiction" and "Contemporary Novel," and the host of an offline book club at Babel Books Berlin.
Margot Gritt is a writer, the leader of a literary workshop (together with writer Nadja Hedwig), and a co-organizer of the Litbrunch Berlin project, a community of female writers in exile.
Dinara Rasuleva is a Tatar poet and writer. She runs a feminist writing workshop for immigrant women, Napishi, and a workshop on writing in her forgotten native language, TEL:L.
Yulia Efremenkova is a writer (prose writer and essayist). In February 2025, she opened a literary studio in Berlin. Ira Bombina is the curator and moderator of the book club at "Tochka," a Berlin library with books in six languages. She is a dancing psychologist and the owner of the Berlin "Fairytale Workshop" and the game of the same name.
Zhenya Berezhnaya is a Ukrainian writer, a finalist for the 2026 Dar Prize, a PEN scholarship recipient in Germany, a co-organizer of the Litbrunch Berlin project—a community of female writers in exile—and a podcaster.