FRANZISKA WINKLER is an author, editor, and curator of literature projects involving sign language. She grew up as the daughter of Deaf parents. She initially studied Cultural and Media Studies (BA) at the University of Bremen and the Yeditepe University in Istanbul. She went on to study Deaf Studies (BA) at Humboldt University of Berlin; she engages critically with the issue of audism and is committed to emancipatory literature projects. In 2017, together with Katharina Mevissen, she founded the independent literary initiative handverlesen which translates, mediates, and disseminates texts in German Sign Language. Her anthology »handverlesen – Sign Language Poetry in Spoken Language« was published in 2023 by hochroth Munich. From 2022 to 2023, Franziska Winkler was artist-in-residence at Burg Hülshoff – Center for Literature. In 2024, she received a grant from the Künstlerdorf Schöppingen Foundation and participated in the prose writers’ workshop at the Literarisches Colloquium Berlin.

»Since 2017, I have been running projects with Deaf and hearing artists that consistently take into account the coexistence of sign language and spoken language. First and foremost, these projects focus on sign language poetry and its dissemination, but also on enabling Deaf artists to gain greater visibility within the cultural and literary sectors, which are heavily dominated by hearing people.«