In the organizer's words:

On March 21, 2026, it's that time again - our traditional Literary Book Fair Salon opens its doors! At the same time, we will be celebrating the tenth anniversary of Edition Outbird. To provide an appropriate location for this special occasion, we will be hosting the event in the neo-Gothic nave of the Heilandskirche church at Westkreuz in Leipzig-Plagwitz. We are looking forward to this cooperation and location as well as to our program with the following artists:

19.00 hrs
Admission

7.30 p.m.
Ulrike Serowy reads from "Im Schutzraum"
Imagine there is a nuclear war and the bomb drops. What to do? Where to go? Down to the subway station, which until just now seemed quite ordinary, but where you are now supposed to seek refuge. Now you are in the shelter, a secret facility under the asphalt - sober, functional, oppressively cramped, and built precisely for this eventuality. No fire or fallout will reach you down here, you are told exactly what to do. You're safe here - aren't you? What is it like down there, where over 2000 people seek shelter in a confined space, where shabby characters abuse their power, where coercion and surveillance stifle any freedom, any hope - what is it like down there, in the shelter?

7.55 p.m.
Benjamin Schmidt reads from "Das geht nicht gut aus"
Benjamin Schmidt tells the story of a love and its branches into the unknown. The person waits without knowing what. This is actually the age when careers, relationships and everything else should be elevated to a new, more meaningful level and decisions should be made for the future. Instead, everything falls apart and nothing changes. Only the people in the club get younger and allow themselves to hope insecurely. The people at the opera, on the other hand, are too familiar with failure. Enough evenings that end with the death of the main character. Afterwards there is applause and everyone finds themselves back in their own tragedy.

20.20 hrs
Pia Lüddecke reads from "End of the Night"
Nuri Ramoska is not afraid of the dark. As a temporary journalist with a penchant for morbid topics, she is at her best at night. Then a gruesomely mutilated female corpse is found on the site of a derelict chemical factory, and the crime gets closer to her than she wants to admit. Is the factory murderer from the 90s back? What is behind the rumors of a curse? And what role does Viktor Lux, the obscure heir to the pharmaceutical company Lux Enterprises, play? Nuri's investigations lead her deeper and deeper into a swamp of intrigue and horror stories. The boundaries between good and evil, reality and nightmare become blurred on a black midsummer night dusted with fireflies. In the fight for survival, Nuri must listen to her heart and confront the monsters of the past.

20.45
Sanjina Kashikar reads from "Rat King"
Noel drifts aimlessly from one frenzy to the next. This changes when he meets Aliéna, who smells of earth and wilting flowers and claims to be able to talk to animals. Broken by life, they both want to give each other the support they never got themselves. But as the line between the real and the surreal blurs, passion turns into bloody obsession. Their inability to let go of each other puts both their lives in danger.

21.05 hrs
Intermission

21.30 hrs
Dirk Bernemann reads from "Gromzell "*.
Marie is dead. When the oldest inhabitant of the small village of Gromzell dies at the age of 108, the village community is deeply shocked. Death is back and it has taken Marie, of all people, who had been out of the picture for so long. The mourners seek solace in God, but as death continues to spread, the urge to take action and restore peace to the village grows. To make matters worse, Anna returns to the village from Berlin and a curious journalist wants to report on Marie's death. While the search for the culprit of all the mischief takes place between faith and superstition, an unusually large black bird with strangely human eyes hovers over the village.

21.55 hrs
Florentine Joop reads from "Summer in the Heckenrosental"
Borders, walls, passport controls, summer meadows, friendship, freedom and adventure. Berlin West and East. Entering another world, enclosed by a wall, and yet there was a freedom to be experienced there that was unthinkable in the big city of Hamburg. The world was divided, Germany was divided and at the same time inseparable for many. Memories of her youth merge with the insights of an almost adult woman who experienced her childhood in two homelands. Tales of happiness meet dark moments, the loss of security, family and home. Where do adolescents find stability when not even adults know how politics, love and peace work?

22.20 hrs
Christian von Aster reads from "Ba*man at the Buddenbrooks"
Aaron Tristen has had enough of the author's life: After beating up a horde of orcs at the premiere of his end-time epic "Angels vs. Zombies", he decides to change his life. However, it is inconvenient for him that one of the orcs wants to sue him and another is pregnant by him. In the course of a journey of self-discovery, he ends up in a therapeutic group where he is confronted with the essence of storytelling. Under a new pseudonym, he gets lost alongside Don Quixote in Wonderland, sees Pooh the Bear become William of Baskerville and Count Dracula stranded on a desert island instead of Robinson Crusoe. Between madness and legends, imagination and reality mingle in such a way that in the end one thing is certain: literature is nothing more than a tender lie. But also nothing less.

The evening will be hosted by Roland Spranger and M. Kruppe.
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*Our publishing friend and author Dirk Bernemann will be presenting his new novel "Gromzell", published by Edition W.
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There will be a book table at the Literary Salon.
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Accessibility by public transport:
Train: from Leipzig-Plagwitz station approx. 15 minutes on foot via Weißenfelser Straße
Tram: 1/3/14 | stop: Alte Straße, then approx. 5 minutes on foot

Price information:

Three ticket levels to choose from - basic price ticket (€10.00), sponsorship ticket (€18.00) and hero ticket (€25.00).