The Reader Berlin

It’s our anniversary this Friday! On 15 May 2026, we celebrate two years of GIRL, SHOW ME THAT BODY (OF WORK), and we invite you to party with us. This project began with a simple question from @lettretage in 2024: why don’t you make an event here? I put out an open call, and within one week we received 89 submissions from emerging and established authors alike. Our first reader was the director of Reader Berlin, selected through that very call. The first events sold out completely, paid artists, and built the foundation for something much larger than I could have imagined. Then I did one funding application. Then another. Then more. Before it could even fully define itself, GIRL, SHOW ME THAT BODY (OF WORK) became FLINTA* LITERATUR, hosting two major programs within less than a year, a grassroots feminist literary initiative, and a team built from scratch with extraordinary care, commitment, and belief. GIRL, SHOW ME THAT BODY (OF WORK): FLINTA* LITERATURE NIGHT #6 SPECIAL EDITION FOCUS: SOUTH AMERICA Date: 15 May 2026, 20:00h Place: Lettrétage, Veteranenstr. 21, 10119 Berlin Admission: free Event language: English, German, Spanish Participants: Marie Álvarez, Camila Rhodi, Xueh Magrini Troll, Elsye Suquilanda Moderation: Rocío Rodriguez Focus and themes: Regeneration. South America has a long history—continuing to the present—of censorship. Many works have been removed from schools and libraries due to sexual content or political messages, including the alleged promotion of “un-American” ideas. This special edition focuses on South American posthumanist and transfeminist literature as a refuge and spiritual practice, centering community, ritual, and tenderness in the healing and liberation of the wounded female body. Funded by @senkultgz In cooperation with @lettretage Recommended by @thereaderberlin @barrio.berlin Presented by @tipberlin @taz.die_tageszeitung Photos @reich.natalia

Like the proverbial frogs we’ve been sitting in a pot of slowly boiling water for years, and now we find ourselves spending hours gazing at scrolling screens, handing over our attention in return for brain fog, anxiety, and a perpetual feeling of not being enough. Social media has gone from a tool that connects people to an addictive drain that pushes us to form relationships with AI personas and watch videos of things that never happened. We’re starting to lose ourselves. This course is about taking the pot off the boil, stepping away, and reclaiming our writing brains. The goal is to reduce numbing screentime and replace it with slower, deeper observation of the world around us and a durable creative writing practice. We’re aiming to create a kind of literary permaculture where we generate ideas with both immediacy and longevity in a sustainable fashion. We seek the kind of intellectual friction and effort that helps the brain grow and writing deepen without succumbing to self-doubt spirals and distraction. We’ll meet online for two hours once a week for seven weeks to learn techniques and tactics, do writing exercises, get inspired, and set goals. You can also get regular personal feedback on your work from me. Email us at [email protected] to sign up!

Xueh Magrini Troll, aka Xuehka was born in Bogotá belongs to the third generation of female artists in her family. She studied fine arts at the Universidad Nacional de Colombia in Bogotá, illustration at Escuela de arte diez in Madrid and visual communication at the Kunsthochschule Berlin Weißensee. Since 2009 she has lived in Berlin where she regularly illustrates for German newspapers like Die Taz, Junge Welt and Missy magazine. Drawing is her way of understanding the world around her and incidentally discovering herself. Feminism, diversity, cultural clashes, migration crisis and the human condition in general are part of the subjects that appear in her work out of a desire to observe what surrounds her, quite often with a humorous touch. GIRL, SHOW ME THAT BODY (OF WORK): FLINTA* LITERATURE NIGHT #6 Date: 15 May 2026, 20:00h Place: Lettrétage, Veteranenstr. 21, 10119 Berlin Admission: free Event language: English, German, Spanish Participants: Marie Álvarez, Camila Rhodi, Xueh Magrini Troll, Elsye Suquilanda Moderation: Rocío Rodriguez Focus and themes: Regeneration. South America has a long history—continuing to the present—of censorship. Many works have been removed from schools and libraries due to sexual content or political messages, including the alleged promotion of “un-American” ideas. This special edition focuses on South American posthumanist and transfeminist literature as a refuge and spiritual practice, centering community, ritual, and tenderness in the healing and liberation of the wounded female body. GIRL, SHOW ME THAT BODY (OF WORK) is a project by FLINTA* Literatur, Berlin’s platform for migrant and exiled womxn artists, in cooperation with Lettrétage, funded by the @senkultgz Senatsverwaltung für Kultur und Gesellschaftlichen Zusammenhalt, recommended by @thereaderberlin and presented by @tipberlin and @taz.die_tageszeitung

Camila Rhodi (Brazil) is a queer feminist author and artist working with performance (live and video), theatre, participatory lectures, and audio walks. She studied acting in Rio de Janeiro and holds an MFA from the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. Her work is based on her experiences as a Latin American migrant and addresses sexuality, love, and loss. Her performances create direct encounters with the audience and question roles, authorship, and the boundaries of relationships. GIRL, SHOW ME THAT BODY (OF WORK): FLINTA* LITERATURE NIGHT #6 Date: 15 May 2026, 20:00h Place: Lettrétage, Veteranenstr. 21, 10119 Berlin Admission: free Event language: English, German, Spanish Participants: Marie Álvarez, Camila Rhodi, Xueh Magrini Troll, Elsye Suquilanda Moderation: Rocío Rodriguez Focus and themes: Regeneration. South America has a long history—continuing to the present—of censorship. Many works have been removed from schools and libraries due to sexual content or political messages, including the alleged promotion of “un-American” ideas. This special edition focuses on South American posthumanist and transfeminist literature as a refuge and spiritual practice, centering community, ritual, and tenderness in the healing and liberation of the wounded female body. GIRL, SHOW ME THAT BODY (OF WORK) is a project by FLINTA* Literatur, Berlin’s platform for migrant and exiled womxn artists, in cooperation with Lettrétage, funded by the @senkultgz Senatsverwaltung für Kultur und Gesellschaftlichen Zusammenhalt, recommended by @thereaderberlin The Reader Berlin and presented by @tipberlin and @taz.die_tageszeitung

Where: Zabriskie Books, Reichenberger Str. 150, 10999 Berlin Number of sessions: 5 Maximum participants: 12 Cost: €150 This is a five week course for non-fiction writers wishing to incorporate lived experiences into their writing (whether research-based, journalistic or otherwise), and likewise for literary fiction writers and poets wanting to open up and bring more of their own life stories onto the page. Email us at [email protected] to sign up! Designed to foster self inquiry, to encourage personal openness, and to access memories more vividly, the course covers topics such how to “get out of your own way” and write your life experiences with honesty and conviction; how to touch a wide audience even when your subject matter is intensely personal; the art of blurring the boundaries between the personal, the political and the mythological; writing practice as therapy; and how to work through the emotional effects of having your personal stories go public. This is an intensive course for writers who want to push the boundaries between research, creativity and radical honesty. Siouxzi Connor is an Australian-born writer and experimental filmmaker, based in Berlin. She has previously taught “On the Nature of Writing” for The Reader. Her new book, ‘Your Body of Water’, was published by Repeater Books in June 2025 and launched at Hopscotch Books Berlin and San Serriffe Amsterdam with an accompanying scent installation. Siouxzi’s first book was published by Repeater Books in 2017, titled ‘Little Houses, Big Forests (desire is no light thing)’, and was launched with an accompanying film and artworks, titled ‘In the dark, dark room’. She is also a former research fellow of the ICI.

Marie Álvarez (Argentina) is a lesbian poet, playwright, theatre director, and activist. From an intersectional transfeminist perspective, her work addresses language, trauma, pop culture, climate justice, and mental health. In 2022 she was selected for the Berlin International Forum for Young Creatives (Theatertreffen), supported by the Goethe-Institut. GIRL, SHOW ME THAT BODY (OF WORK): FLINTA* LITERATURE NIGHT #6 Date: 15 May 2026, 20:00h Place: Lettrétage, Veteranenstr. 21, 10119 Berlin Admission: free Event language: English, German, Spanish Participants: Marie Álvarez, Camila Rhodi, Xueh Magrini Troll, Elsye Suquilanda Moderation: Rocío Rodriguez GIRL, SHOW ME THAT BODY (OF WORK) is a project by FLINTA* Literatur, Berlin’s platform for migrant and exiled womxn artists, in cooperation with Lettrétage, funded by the Senatsverwaltung für Kultur und Gesellschaftlichen Zusammenhalt, recommended by The Reader Berlin and presented by tip Berlin and .taz.

I used to be a party girl before Berlin. The old homes I lived in - and also the newer ones - had something in common: bringing people from all walks of life and arts together at the table. Tomorrow I’m bringing to the stage something that feels both very old and very necessary. The launch of the FLINTA* Kultur Salon Berlin at Lettretage takes its cue from the historical salons: The rooms where women gathered artists, writers, thinkers, and occasionally a few troublemakers, and made space for ideas to collide, in ways that shaped culture and the history of art. I’ve been thinking a lot about the figure of the salonnière, the one who doesn’t just host, but constructs the conditions for something to happen. A table, a room, a mix of people who wouldn’t otherwise meet, and then letting it unfold, while also holding it together. In some form, I’ve been doing that for years without putting a label on it. Tomorrow, it becomes explicit. I’ll be moderating the evening: keeping the conversation moving, making sure it doesn’t settle too quickly, and hopefully creating a space that feels a bit like those earlier salons: alive, slightly unpredictable, and worth staying in longer than planned. If you’re in Berlin, come by. #SalonCulture #FLINTAKulturSalon #BerlinEvents #ArtAndCommunity #Lettretage

The Flash Fiction Factory In-Person A workshop dedicated to short-short prose of any kind: flash fiction, lyric essay, parable, fairy tale, dialogue, mini-play, whatever. The pace is brisk and the energy frenetic: you’ll be workshopped 3 times over the course of the 7-week class. No written feedback on the manuscripts themselves but expect generous, in-depth discussions of your work. Perfect for those looking to experiment with style, form, and voice—pure beginners, old hands, and the semi-seasoned all welcome. Limited to 10 participants.

Advanced Poetry Workshop Dates: Mondays: May 11 to June 8, 2026 Time: 7 to ca. 9:15pm Location: Mitte Cost: 150 euros Maximum Participants: 5 A 5-week poetry workshop with award-winning poet Donna Stonecipher, PhD, author of six books of poetry. This class will consist of two components: an exploration/discussion of published poems provided by Donna, and a workshop. Participants will submit 10 pages of poetry in two rounds of five on a rotating schedule, and receive constructive feedback from everyone in an informal and supportive workshop setting. Writing comes from reading, and as such we will also spend time reading others’ poems together and articulating why and how they work. The workshop is appropriate for writers at all levels of experience, from beginners to professionals, but is particularly suited for those who already have some poems written on which they would like feedback.

Zeynep Cekinmez will perform this Sunday 26 April ar the FLINTA* KULTUR SALON in @lettretage . She is an Alevi-Turkish poet, pursuing a Master’s degree in English Studies at the Free University of Berlin. Her MA thesis focuses on “Refugee Motherhood” in the poetry of Ocean Vuong. Her poems address sexualized violence, migration, intergenerational trauma, panic and anxiety disorders, solidarity, and friendship. FLINTA* KULTUR SALON #1 Date: 26 April 2026, 20:00h Place: Lettrétage, Veteranenstr. 21, 10119 Berlin Admission: free Event language: multiple languages Participants: Marjan Sareh, Elsa Cailletaud, Flora Karetka, Ruoming Zhao, Zeynep Cekinmez Moderation: Ioana Cristina Casapu Focus and themes: This evening explores the postfeminist female gaze as a site of friction, demonstrating how gendered ways of seeing can be dissolved, redirected, or used as resistance through artistic expression. All contributions engage with questions of embodiment, voice, and visibility across genres and disciplines: from performance and sound to visual narratives and hybrid text forms. What becomes visible, or even speakable, through a female or queer gaze? Can poetic or performative forms disrupt the hierarchy between subject and object, observer and observed? How are desire, vulnerability, or eroticism renegotiated when reclaimed by those who have historically been objectified? A project by FLINTA* Literatur, Berlin’s platform for migrant and exiled womxn artists, in cooperation with Lettrétage, funded by the Senatsverwaltung für Kultur und Gesellschaftlichen Zusammenhalt, recommended by The Reader Berlin and presented by tip Berlin and .taz.

Fionnuala Kavanagh will host and moderate the fifth edition of Girl, Show Me That Body (of Work) this Friday the 24th of April in @lettretage . She was an author in our program in 2024 and 2025 and now returns to the stage as the voice who will guide us through an evening of intensity, poetry and magic, from 8 pm and until the dancing tunes begin. Fionnuala is a writer from the UK with a degree in philosophy and psychology from Durham University. She loves writing because it helps her to better understand things that puzzle her – usually, things to do with human behaviour, and how society structures itself around, and in spite of, the quirks of human behaviour. Her debut novel, I Keep My Shadow Light, was published in January 2026. She has also published essays in the LAC, The Martello Journal, and Stadtsprachen Magazine. Fionnuala studied journalism in Melbourne and worked for Amnesty International Australia, conducting interviews and writing articles about migration issues. Her time in Berlin started as a content writer for Studio Olafur Eliasson’s Little Sun. She has since worked on an exhibition about gender equality for the V&A Friday Late, written for the Berlin magazines Exberliner and LOLA, created FATMAP’S adventure guidebooks, and she has worked in the content team at Steady (Germany’s equivalent to Substack). Save the date: GIRL, SHOW ME THAT BODY (OF WORK): FLINTA* LITERATURE NIGHT #5 Date: 24 April 2026, 20:00h Place: Lettrétage, Veteranenstr. 21, 10119 Berlin Admission: free Event language: English With: Katarina Gotic, Melody Makeda Ledwon, Giuliana Kiersz, Ioana Cristina Casapu Moderation: Fionnuala Kavanagh

Ruoming Zhao (China) is a Berlin-based multidisciplinary artist whose work focuses on the transcendence of meaning within states of indeterminacy and silence. She examines the relationships between femininity, materiality, and social structure through imagined representations of everyday life, love, death, memory, and vulnerability within an intertwined reality. In 2025 she was selected for the “Conditions – Alternative Art Education Program.” The FLINTA* Kultur Salon reclaims and rethinks Berlin’s tradition of feminist salons as radical spaces for encounter, resistance, and collective growth. In four interdisciplinary and intersectional events in 2026, the series centers the voices and works of FLINTA* authors, poetry performers, actors, playwrights, and musicians with migration backgrounds who live in Berlin. Through interdisciplinary, cross-genre artistic practices rooted in word and language, they explore themes such as identity, uprooting, autonomy, and solidarity. FLINTA* KULTUR SALON #1 Date: 26 April 2026, 20:00h Place: Lettrétage, Veteranenstr. 21, 10119 Berlin Admission: free Event language: multiple languages Participants: Marjan Sareh, Elsa Cailletaud, Flora Karetka, Ruoming Zhao, Zeynep Cekinmez Moderation: @berlintagebuch a project by FLINTA* Literatur, Berlin’s platform for migrant and exiled womxn artists, in cooperation with Lettrétage, funded by the @senkultgz Senatsverwaltung für Kultur und Gesellschaftlichen Zusammenhalt, recommended by @thereaderberlin The Reader Berlin and presented by @tipberlin and @taz.die_tageszeitung