Sirka Elspaß, born in Oberhausen, Germany, in 1995, studied creative writing and cultural journalism in Hildesheim and Language Arts at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna. In 2010 and 2011, she was winner at the Young Writer’s Conference (Treffen junger Autor:innen) and won the Postpoetry prize for young writers in 2013. Sirka co-edited BELLA triste (no. 41-45) which remains one of the most influential poetry magazines in German-speaking countries. Her work has been published in magazines and anthologies, including STILL, Edit, and Lyrik von Jetzt 3. The poetry collection ich föhne mir meine wimpern (i blow dry my eye lashes), published by Suhrkamp in 2022, is her debut and was shortlisted for the debut prize of the Austrian Book Prize 2022.