My Fear and Me: Finding Security in Insecure Times
15-17 May 2025
Refugio, Lenaustraße 3-4,12047 Berlin-Neukölln
Fear is currently creeping into all of our lives in many different forms. For example, fear of the global political and economic situation, fear of funding cuts or technological disruptions that pose an existential threat to many literary creatives. Fear is a an emotion, and so is neither good or bad per se. But our fears tell us something, and at the moment, they evidently have a lot to say.
Our next annual Industry Meetup is dedicated to the issue of fear. Of course, we can’t and won’t be able to eliminate all fears, nor (probably) solve all the problems that cause them. Nor do we have a secret recipe for how to cope with competition from AI or lack of funding by simply making more of an effort and keeping professionally up to date. Rather, we want to find ways of preventing things from getting the better of us, of facing our fears productively, together. Giving up is not an option!
Information on the Programme and Registration will appear on this page in Spring 2025.
Since 2016, the Industry Meetup: Literature has brought together solo self-employed literary professionals once a year to discuss current issues in the literary scene and political developments. The focus of the working groups, panels, lectures and workshops of the past Industry Meetups was on alternative forms of work organisation, cooperation and cooperative models as well as the visibility of literature. At the 2023 Meetup we hosted a Barcamp for the first time, which has now become a central part of the programme. The literature industry meeting is aimed at freelance authors, translators, editors, literature organisers and literature mediators. This year we are already celebrating the seventh edition of this annual exchange and networking format for Berlin’s literary professionals, save the date! The Industry Meetup: Literature takes place as part of the project schreiben&lebenPLUS of the Literaturhaus Lettrétage e. V. and is funded by the Senate Department for Culture and Social Cohesion and the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF).