Group fellowship on illustrated children's books

Four pairs of authors and illustrators from the Czech Republic spent two weeks in April at Wiepersdorf Castle, where they worked together on their book projects. Among them were author Markéta Pilátová with illustrator Monica Hajek, author Lukáš Csicsely with illustrator Dominik Tyl, author Anna Štičková with illustrator Veronika Bílková, and author Alice Krajčírová with illustrator Anna Kulíčková.

They worked on books for children and young adults—for example, about a mysterious hotel where strange things happen, about the journalist and writer Milena Jesenská and a little boy named Karl, about letters from the 19th century, and also about how baby whales communicate and the ABC of sperm whales.

In addition, workshops were held with Czech illustrator Michaela Kukovičová and German publisher and illustrator Rita Fürstenau (Rotopol Publishing). This allowed the creative teams to refine their plans and discuss how the books should be structured so that they could later be translated into German and released on the German market.

The residency was made possible in collaboration with the Prague Literary Center, the Knižní lázně Festival in Mariánské Lázně, and the German-Czech Future Fund (DTZF).