Maë Schwinghammer (hen/they), born 1993, lives and studies language arts in Vienna. 2021 Drama scholarship from the City of Vienna. 2022 Burgschreiber*in zu Beeskow and an Austrian starting scholarship for literature. 2023 Residency scholarship holder at the LCB and the Künstler*innendorf Schöppingen. The poetry debut „Covids Metamorphosen“ was published by Klever Verlag in 2022. The novel debut „Michael“ will be published by Haymon Verlag in fall 2024.

The theme of my time in Schöppingen could be named belonging as it was also the title of collective reading that took place in the final days of my stay. As a group of five authors – Annalee Davis, Muna Gurung, Tamar Noort and Sass Popoli and myself – we approached the subject of belonging from various angles and perspectives. Finally, we ended with an evening in which our words found each other, though at first glance they did not seem to belong together. That made me realize that as a group of people you can come from totally different backgrounds and still find and feel a sense of togetherness. It´s the most wonderful thing about Künstler*innendorf Schöppingen, with the neverending flow of new people and their influences, there are always new aspects affecting your own work. The surroundings where ideal to deal with my own process of belonging, to my community of trans people as well as the art scene. It was also the impulse to incorporate English passages into my own writing project, on the one hand to make them accessible to all fellows present at the final reading, and on the other hand to illustrate how my stay in the Künstler*innendorf has affected my work and me.