ABOUT
We, the Unabhängige Lesereihen e.V. (The Association of Independent Reading Series, “UL” in short) are the growing association of over 40 reading series’ from German-speaking countries. All of the reading series’ associated in UL share a passion for literature and a commitment to remain independent of established institutions. We give a stage for authors to share their texts to an audience – whether they write in German or not – and promote experimentation and novel event formats.
Joined as UL, our reading series’ stand together for literature as a social practice, as a space for cultural exchange. Our event formats are designed to be easily accessible: our aim is to create opportunities in which people of all ages and cultural backgrounds can meet with contemporary literature at eye level. This is one of the reasons why our reading series’ have a wide variety of locations: whether in a pub, a theatre, or in a shared apartment – literature takes place wherever social life takes place.
We stand for an open, pluralistic society. Our spaces are inclusive and encourage participation of all kinds of race, class, gender, sexual orientation, age, disability. We strive to enact plurality on and behind our stages. This also means for us that the German speaking area is a multilingual one, and thus several of our reading series’ focus on content in many languages.
All of UL series’ look forward to present texts that are courageous, innovative and open in form. We think past, present and future-oriented. For us, literature also challenges literary and social norms. It doesn’t matter what age you are, whether you are an author and have your first experiences in public or whether you are presenting your umpteenth book.
We are not limited to one format, each series is designed individually. We curate our program independent of publishers or established institutions. This characteristic social practice of literature was made evident at ULF – The Independent Reading Series Festival, in which all series represented invited their readers and curated their events themselves.
We are networked with other participants of the independent literary scene and are actively committed to cultural-political concerns.
For example, we work together with the Freie Literaturszene Berlin (nflb) network and support its demands. Furthermore, we also call for funding instruments for independent reading series outside of Berlin, thus aiming for the continuity and sustainability of UL’s reading series’ beyond individual projects and events. While remaining independent, we want to be able to pay authors and curators according to their expenses. We therefore demand, for example, that the reading series’ associated in UL can reimburse travel and accommodation costs to their guest authors, plus a minimum author honorary of 300 € in Germany (nflb catalog of claims), 250 € in Austria (minimum IG fee for authors) and 500 CHF in Switzerland (the above fees apply to group readings).
The Association of Independent Reading Series’ has been working together since 2015. Since 2018 we are a registered association (e.V.).