About Us
“Us” that is the founders of HopeLit, a small group of seven women that got HopeLit off the ground and set the framework. And this (idea and) framework was then filled with content and life with the help of many other Hopelits who supported and still support us in word and deed.
We founders stand with our names for and behind HopeLit. We may have set the tone and made a part of the music – but on our own, the seven of us would be miles away from a symphony. Together we come closer.
And our literature is just as polyphonic as music. We believe in what connects. We want to build bridges, connect, dream together and make these dreams come true – beyond professional boundaries.
Sandra Bennua
Production & graphics
After publishing graduate Sandra Bennua has been working in the publishing and book industry for 20 years. Following a career spanning various positions and publishing houses, she has been self-employed for 5 years, offering overall support for the publication process – from manuscripts to print or digital products. She is also happy to take on individual project steps such as layout and typesetting.
Melanie Czarnik
Website, PR, Legal, Psychology
Melanie Czarnik (pictured with office dog Dobby) holds a degree in English and literature and has been working as a sales manager at Psychiatrie Verlag, BALANCE buch + medien verlag since 2009.
In her free time, she teaches women’s self-protection seminars and champions self-protection and female empowerment. For the HopeLit project, she sets picture books to music and creates videos.
Psychiatrie Verlag, Imprint BALANCE buch + medien verlag
Since 1978, the Psychiatrie Verlag has been the specialist publisher for social psychiatry. The term »social psychiatry« describes a particular method of professional support for people with mental crises and mental illnesses.
The focus is on people and their individual situation. Considerations include individual living conditions and needs.
In 2007, the publishing house founded its imprint BALANCE buch + medien, publishing advice and self-help books, experience reports, and children’s books on the subject of mental health.
Claudia Gliemann
Content, blog, overall coordination and everything that goes with it
Claudia Gliemann is an author, translator, publisher for the children’s book publisher MONTEROSA, and a singer-songwriter.
Her picture book Without Grandma, illustrated by Patrick Tritschler, made it onto the recommendation list of the German Medical Association’s Silver Feather award. Her children’s book Dad’s soul has the sniffles, illustrated by Nadia Faichney, won the 2015 The Beauty and the Book Award (the Frankfurt Book Fair’s audience award) and the DGPPN Anti Stigma Prize.
As an author, she was also nominated for the 2015 KORBINIAN, the Paul Maar Prize for German-speaking authors. Since 2017 she has been on reading tours in schools and social institutions all across Germany, a joint project with AOK and Deutscher DepressionsLiga e.V.
MONTEROSA publishing house
In 2010, literary translator Claudia Gliemann founded the children’s book publishing house MONTEROSA Verlag.
Since then, MONTEROSA has published eleven books and one CD. MONTEROSA Verlag focuses on books for children facing difficult circumstances. These include “Dad’s soul has the sniffles” by Claudia Gliemann and Nadia Faichney on the subject of “Children of mentally ill parents” as well as “The happy blackbird” by Stefan Moster and Nadia Faichney on the subject of “child abuse”.
Elisabeth Jäcklein-Kreis
Blog
Elisabeth Jäcklein-Kreis studied ’something with media’ (Media & Communication BA / MA) and worked as a (specialist) editor for a long time. She has been a freelance writer and editor since 2018, reading and researching, writing and correcting, preferably factual and specialist texts for large and small readers.
Ann Cathrin Raab
Illustration
Ann Cathrin Raab studied Illustration at the University of Applied Sciences (HAW Hamburg) and graduated in 2007. Since that time she is working as a freelancing Illustrator and author for various large and small publishers, companies, associations, and museums. Her picture and children’s books have won several awards. She is also a member of the Krickelkrakels, a group of illustrators that designed many creativity books and products for the F. Oetinger Verlag.
Find all her books and projects at anncathrinraab.de.
Anja Samstag
Organization
Anja Samstag studied English, linguistics and literary translation and is now starting out as a translator from English. She is a volunteer reading tutor at Mentor e.V.
Sabrina Weber
Texts, editing, proofreading
Sabrina Weber is a freelance editor and with Wortfeile – Lektorat Sabrina Weber offers services for all aspects of editing, proofreading, and related work. She joined HopeLit immediately and with pleasure, being one of many parents taxed with explaining this new reality and situation to their children.
Anna and the virus and That was us? (in collaboration with Claudia Gliemann) are her first-ever stories and were created as part of this cooperation.
