Interview with Stanislava Repar, editor of the Gender-Apokalipsa review
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Location
Please can you introduce yourself?
I am a middle-aged woman with a PhD in Literary Theory from the Slovak Academy of Sciences and recently habilitated at the University of Nova Gorica, Slovenia. I have double citizenship (Slovak and Slovene), I am the author of 9 books and (co)translator of 11 books, a poetess, fiction writer, literary critic and researcher, editor, publisher, organizer, still curious and in motion, a person who not only migrates between different countries but also between cultures, languages (can you imagine this in my profession?!), scientific fields (interdisciplinarism!) and intellectual circles. I have been married, divorced, married again. I am a lecturer at the university (this is quite fresh – after a 20-year-long interruption), former academic researcher and currently, an alternative de-constructor and “guerrilla” activist, a feminist without feminist education but solid motivation … A daughter, mother, wife and sister, a good friend and admirer of open-minded people.
How did you come to feminism?
First, my own (personal and professional) life has shown me the right way. Second, the Slovak magazine and publishing house Aspekt has offered me excellent feminist “food” at the right time – both subjectively (a slow destruction of my first marriage) and objectively (after the fast Velvet Revolution in 1989 and after my previous “bright” experience under communism, of course). Third, because I was re-reading and re-thinking the world (life?); because I occasionally compared and linked its patterns to feminist issues, questions, and provocations. Fourth, due to my own literary work, understood as a form of anti-dogmatic, anti-stereotyping and anti-neoliberal engagement in contemporary society as well as because of my intense, non-instrumental use and sensitisation of human (and, I hope my own) language.
Generally speaking, my life-troubles and relevant books were the key factor – besides my open-minded way of living. Some of my feminist interests and activities went beyond my preferred territory (feminism linked to literature/arts) – to activism, applied sociology, politics. Through Slovak NGOs and my friends and colleagues who work there, I could stay in touch with the more pragmatic or, better said, political line of feminist engagement – it would be difficult to call it a movement. I benefited from these insights and connections in 2007-08 when I was invited to collaborate in the “Gender Quality + Equality Politics” (QUING) project as a researcher from – and focused on – Slovakia.
How did you become involved in writing and publishing / media production?
In relation to writing, the story is quite a long – it began in my childhood. At the moment, my work is finding its way to Slovak writers’ lexicons and facing the slowly decreasing discrimination in Slovene literary circles. As for my (feminist) publishing activities – after my second marriage, I moved from Slovakia to Slovenia and left my academic career in Bratislava behind, so I was forced to find new fields of self-realization. The latter depended on the opportunities and challenges in my new environment. I began to collaborate with Apokalipsa publishing house and magazine from Ljubljana. My husband was engaged with both as their director – 25 hours per day. It was a very natural component of the whole migration process and adaptation to new circumstances. Apart from some negative sides of this solution, I was able to stay in contact with literature in all of my former roles (writing, translating, editing, organizing, exploring). Moreover, I helped to profile Apokalipsa’s publishing program – a rapidly developing project with large potentials, a brief tradition and absolutely insufficient financial support. To employ my previous experience and use all of my skills (I worked as an editor for several Slovak magazines), and, in addition, to continue with my self-improvement, I offered Apokalipsa some feminist contents and my engagement within the magazine, it’s book label program, promotions and so on (KUD Apokalipsa is an association or NGO focused on publishing books, making and publishing the Apokalipsa review, running the Review within Review international project as well as other smaller projects.).
Since the editorial board consisted primarily of men and since the review’s initial orientation was close to Christianity, it was not so simple to begin with such work. Fortunately, there was some kind of “heresy” and a systematic orientation against “invisible totalitarianism”, both of which were an organic part of Apokalipsa’s concept – and advocated by the large majority of its members and collaborators. The possibility to engage with feminism and the subsequent realization of our Gender subproject within the already existing Apokalipsa review has widened the contributors’ background, attracted many women writers and intellectuals, including members of the LGBT community. On the other hand, it has enabled us to open, compare, rethink and evaluate new “hot” issues or vice versa, “frozen” topics within our publishing space and Slovene society as a whole. Even if Apokalipsa as a whole does not have a feminist profile only, I appreciate the pluralism and rich variety of creative approaches that were merged under the one roof. In this differentiated context, feminism itself got the possibility to break out of its ghetto and perhaps persuade other than already persuaded people.
Where did you learn the skills for producing literary reviews / magazines?
In Slovakia, I was employed at Kultúrny život weekly and later at Meridian weekly (in both departments, of culture and literature). After that, I worked as the chief editor of Romboid, a literary monthly review published by the Association of Slovak Writers´ Organizations. I continued with this work even after I moved to Slovenia, until 2003. Since 2003, I am the magazine’s external editor. My whole life, I have been publishing my work in many local and foreign magazines. I am the editor and main editor of several books, anthologies, publications, review selections and thematic sections. By the way, I made my first step towards this lifelong engagement (and self-expression) by starting a literary magazine at my grammar school – Mladá cesta / Young Road was the magazine’s title, hmm. In that period – as well as today – it was and remains of strong importance to me (as a creative and conceptual person) that I did not have to take care of the magazine’s financial or economic matters; its production. My territory was and remains the intellectual “know how”, my role of an advisor, the communication with authors and the collecting and editing of the contents – also in Apokalipsa. I can say that this is the more pleasant side of working in publishing. However, fund-raising gradually became part of my everyday life as well. Promotion on the internet (editing of our website) presents another skill I will have to learn in the nearest future.
Do you consume feminist media (print, internet, TV, radio etc.)? If yes, how often? Which feminist media are you consuming?
Not as much as I wish to. By the way, what media is there in our part of Europe? The problem is in my lack of free time and moreover, the fact that feminist media is relatively hard to access. Feminist issues are not simply “attacking” me from the media I consume daily (daily newspapers, TV, radio, other literary magazines). So, it’s a rather happy coincidence if I can read something fresh and interesting in the field of feminisms in the media I have access to (mostly interviews, critiques and reviews). The only regular source I have is the Aspekt webzine, edited and made in Bratislava (the printed version of Aspekt stopped coming out a few years ago). Sometimes I read older issues of Delta review (published in Ljubljana) but not often. I’ve been following the ProFemina review from Beograd which has been falling in ruin for a long time already. I had very sporadic contacts with One Eye Opened, a Czech feminist review edited in Prague by the main editor of One Woman Press publishing house – but that is over now as well. Books or monographies are my main source of information. And, for sure, the internet. Again, though, it is a question of time to be able to surf and enrich my own feminist consciousness. However, sometimes I do it. Besides, the Gender issues of Apokalipsa are my media – I can run it according to my own interests or needs.
Are there any examples of feminist media that inspired you in your work?
Yes, in my mind, my project was absolutely connected with Aspekt, a feminist project from Slovakia, even though Aspekt´s and my own conditions of work were radically different. This “mental” closeness or proximity originated from the “identical” orientation of early Aspekt and our Gender issues since both were basically concerned with the links between feminisms and literature, also literary theory. The practical effects of this inspiration (and potential cooperation) were soon limited by the capacities and priorities of all of the involved. Romboid, the literary monthly review, was my second “inspiration” even though it is not feminist. As its responsible editor and later its external editor, I edited and published some special issues, columns and contributions for Romboid about outstanding female authors and figures in an attempt to create a more provocative atmosphere in the literary review and in Slovak literature in general – both are heavily dominated by men. It (partly) worked even though it remained unnoticed by the official evaluators of literary life in Slovakia.
Formation process of your media
Please could you tell us about the formation process of Gender? What was the initial idea / motivation when you started the review?
As I mentioned earlier, our feminist/gender publishing project has become a regular subproject of the Apokalipsa review which was established in 1994. The magazines’ subtitle is Break through Culture Live. Apokalipsa is focused on literature and humanities or, better said, philosophy and social sciences. It became one of the most important reviews in that field – and it’s still the only monthly that was established after 1991 (in independent Slovenia). The association KUD Apokalipsa was established by students and university graduates who were unsatisfied with the existing cultural scene. In 1995, they decided also to start a publishing house. My (future) husband, Primož Repar, was the movement’s motor from the very beginning – and remains one, except that we now work in tandem. After I came to Slovenia in 2001, the international project Review within Review was established in 2002. In 2003, we started the Gender project and also a new book series called Fraktal … Since then, a lot more work has been done.
Special feminist issues of the review (the Gender issues of Apokalipsa) have been published annually from 2003, mostly as double or even triple issues. Today, all the Gender issues amount to approximately 2000 pages of published writing. In the beginning, I decided to feature a questionnaire that will map the state of the art in the field of feminist writing. I included both feminist and non-feminist writers, critics and intellectuals. In 2008, the answers of 28 correspondents were published, including 1 male and 27 female writers from Slovakia, Czech Republic and Slovenia. In 2009, the survey was also published in a Slovak biweekly book review called Knižná revue. The English version – a selection of survey answers – should be published this year in Megaphone, a book published in the USA. The surveys should be read as an attempt to increase the feminist consciousness of women writers and (not only) female readers. It showed which gender-based stereotypes are still active. My intention was to open gender and feminist issues to a wider circle of interested people, to mediate relevant texts and create an audience for female creativity and its many voices, including writing. The concept was to create an international medium and the Gender issues tried to restore the communication within Central and South-Eastern Europe. Many authors from those countries were presented there, from issue to issue, alongside feminist “icons” or important female authors from Western Europe, Canada and USA.
How has the review progressed or changed since the beginning?
I tried to attract a more permanent group of collaborators and editors to Gender. After all these years and experience I can say that many (female) authors are prepared to collaborate with me from issue to issue because they are really interested in it. However, their other obligations do not allow them to make new ones, so that they would be more engaged with the project, that they would systematically intervene in it and hold it under conceptual control. There is a lack of capacity, energy and time, but this problem is definitely related to the lack of money, too. Even my position is financially underestimated and unclear (KUD Apokalipsa employs nobody on a regular basis) due to the social and political “games” in the wider context of Slovenian culture and media. But I would not like to burden you with the details. On the practical side, it means that Gender is released irregularly, that it is large and “overdosed” (triple issues) and insufficiently promoted.
On the bright side, the effects of Gender (published since 2003) and my decade-long presence in Slovenia (since 2001) are that many feminists’ and women writers’ books were published by our publishing house, especially authors from Slovenia and Central and South-Eastern Europe. One could say that the gender aspect has become the natural criterion of our decision-making in general, and gender equality in literature has become a more interesting topic for the more democratic parts of literary and cultural scene in Slovenia. If we are feminist activists, we are activists in the sense of putting pressure on people’s prejudices and “stone-hard” decision-making institutions through our intellectual, creative, and perhaps educational work. The readers, the authors, the dailies and electronic media – they also have work to do, just like the shapers of “canon” and the decision-makers: to use their experience, intelligence and sense and continue with their “mental action” in their field of activity, whatever it is.
Process of making media
Can you describe the process of making Gender? How many people are involved in the process?
I am the only editor and therefore editor-in-chief of Gender issues. Other invited female authors or researchers help me collect the interesting material or forward the invitation for contributions for individual issues of the review. Three of them could be understood as my nearer “advising” board or, better to say, permanent individual supporters: Iva Jevtić, Barbara Korun and Suzana Tratnik. Some contributions are also discussed at the meetings of Apokalipsa´s editorial board. I do the editing and luckily, I can rely on Apokalipsa’s translators, proofreaders, etc.
Sometimes I consult my friends and acquaintances from foreign book reviews; I rely on my female colleagues from literary practice and universities, and so on. Some issues have a main feature, like féminine écriture (several times), women in literature/culture dominated by men (several times), a motherhood issue, a feminist epistemology issue, an issue about auto-biography in relation to feminist/women’s literature and critique. The next issue will be focused on the question of gender construction. Well-known writers (for example, Ingeborg Bachmann, Doris Lessing, Herta Müller, Ferida Duraković and others in the last issue) are mainly presented thanks to the translators’ and other contributors’ efforts.
Are you working in a collective in flux or in a stable group? Who are the people involved (age, education, occupation, background)?
I am working in a collective in flux and have my own responsibilities. The review is made by educated women, mostly writers/poetesses and researchers/university lecturers, some of them PhD students or graduates – especially the younger ones studied outside Slovenia and are fluent in English or German. Women in literature, literary theory, gender studies, queer studies, the arts, pedagogy and so forth.
Then there are my literary colleagues and friends from the creative practice, middle aged women like me, who reflect on their disadvantaged position in the Slovene literary scene. They are looking for media where they feel free to publish, for media without patronizing male editors or male colleagues who make decisions, women with a critical or intuitive reception of structural gender-based anomalies within society or just with the need for sisterhood and tolerance …
The social status of many of those women amazingly contradicts their excellent education and skills (unemployed, perpetual fellowship holders, freelancers without sufficient income, divorced mothers …). Men, even those from Apokalipsa’s circle (philosophers, pedagogues, architects, freelancers …) have played the role of observers and discussion partners for most of the time; they have asked questions and expressed doubts.
Do you co-operate with other feminist media?
At the beginning, I contacted almost all relevant feminist institutions in Slovenia and their representatives – Delta review was the only Slovene feminist media I contacted – but there was no interest for regular cooperation. Our contacts were limited to the exchange of review-copies of relevant publications and some polite responses. They ignored my invitations to participate in the survey. Later, I realized that these people do not even communicate between themselves. But the main problem is that there is no feminist partner here that would share our interest. We tried to cooperate with City of Women festival but our position was not equal or at least not clear. Since we were always the ones to initiate the contact, we gave up in the end.
Radio shows at the Slovene national radio and Radio Študent invited me to promote the “Gender” project and its achievements. But that was a one-time interview, not systematic cooperation between feminist media. It is a quite fresh experience, in the future it should be perhaps a more regular occurrence. As I mentioned, I tried to collaborate more intensely with the Aspekt webzine and feminist project in Bratislava – to use their experience in different circumstances. Again, it comes down to “one-way traffic” but we are still in contact as friends (i.e. discussing, consulting) rather than professionals.
Are you part of a feminist network?
No. I think I don’t have the means to contextualize myself there. My working conditions are very poor and the project lives thanks to my idealism and persistency. Things should be inverted which means that – in my opinion – the network must reach me and Apokalipsa review; we are publicly accessible. By the way, your questionnaire confirms my opinion.
How do you position Gender in relation to wider feminist or political movements?
Like I said, the isolation of every feminist centre or point is a crucial fact in Slovenia. Occasional networking or linking is enabled by individual enlightening initiatives. Only one exception can be stated: the queer community is very open to our collaboration and has also been fully realized from the beginning until now. Also, the existence of a “feminist establishment” in the country is a fact. Moreover, I cannot understand their enciphered (coded) speech contaminated by the speech of official state administration which is trying to occupy all fields, even the NGO’s and associations. Fortunately, I don’t have any desire to come too close to the feminist agenda in “high politics”. I want to create a free feminist vision and place for discussion (which is absolutely missing), I want to encourage feminist practice among writers and (among others) literary researchers and critics.
This is not very attractive. They don’t need to support us or present us in the big headlines. For many, we are the accurate alibi since they do not want to change something very basic in “the Danish Kingdom”. The Ministry of Culture, the Slovenian Book Agency, the Municipality of Ljubljana and their cultural politics are fortresses rather than democratic institutions. The other side of our financial misery and permanent self-helplessness is our “mental” independence and friendly atmosphere among contributors and editors. Strictly speaking, they are contradictory sides of the same coin.
Which skills are important to produce your media?
In the role me and my husband find ourselves, as editors, we need to be: visionaries, pragmatists, managers, financial specialists, book-keepers, administrators, intellectuals, creators, translators, correctors, proof-readers, diplomats, psychologists preventing conflict, designers, printing specialists, riders, travellers, distributors, specialists on digital media, fans of technology, promoters, sponsors, house-keepers, heretics and enchanters – all that in addition to our knowledge on and feeling of literature, contemporary philosophy, gender studies, theory of identity or other theories, social studies, and so on.
What would you describe as the main content of Gender? How do you choose the content?
The main content is about the links between feminism and literature, so feminism and creativity (fine arts), feminism and language (speech acts), literary canon, untraditional literary genres, feminist literary self-expression, transgender characters in literature, gender-based stories in culture and literature, women’s writing, discrimination of women writers, écriture féminine, feminist epistemology, (re)construction of gender, feminist cultural anthropology, theory of deconstruction, politics of identity, feminist politics, and history of feminisms.
I basically choose the content according to my knowledge, interests, motivation, offers, possibilities and skills – and “in line” with the main orientation of Apokalipsa review which is to map, explore and stimulate marginal and alternative identities and reveal invisible totalitarianism (hidden by neoliberal practices and philosophy of consumption).
Where do you produce the media? Do you have an office or do you work at home?
I/we have an office at home. We tried to move to a rented studio twice but it was too expensive, it burdened our budget too much.
Do you get funding for you media?
To publish Apokalipsa and its Gender issues, we had to reduce the costs of our infrastructure. The review is mainly supported by the state administration (Ministry of Culture, later on the Slovenian Book Agency) but their representatives and commissions underestimate our needs, even compared to the budget of other reviews. This is a chronic problem and the reason why we are in a permanent “paper-war” with the state administration which swallows too much of our energy.
In spite of the low payment and the difficult circumstances in which we work, we collaborate with the excellent writers and researches from Slovenia and abroad. To fulfil our vision, realize our potentials and the potentials of our environment, we are forced to deal with fund-raising, so we keep in touch with a number of funders, institutions, agencies, cultural institutes, embassies and so on. Their grants are meant for production (not infrastructure), and they are very helpful. However, the sums are mostly not so big and we spend a great deal of time for administrative work. If you take into consideration the size of our staff (three people, none of which are regularly employed), it becomes clear that our ability to help ourselves is a double-edged sword, like a negative “perpetuum mobile” which helps us and enslaves us at the same time.
How do you promote and disseminate the review?
We present all new releases at press conferences where each medium gets a review copy. Our production is regularly presented by some radios and dailies; we distribute our releases to libraries and book-stores via a private distribution business. This year, we made a presentation page on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/#!/kud.apokalipsa?ref=search) and then there is our website (http://www2.arnes.si/~ljapokal1/) which has to be updated – or actually reconstructed.
Occasionally, we participate in events organised by other associations where we promote our work and publications. We always go to book fairs (the Spring and Winter Book Fair in Ljubljana) where we present our books at various events (readings, round-tables, etc.). Sometimes we organise these events by ourselves or in relation to our international project Review within Review (it includes festivals, meetings, and presentations in Slovenia and abroad – mostly where our project partners live). We publish and disseminate news about all these activities through Apokalipsa’s mailing list.
What are the challenges of producing your own media?
First of all, we have to make a new website and update it regularly. This is the most effective way to promote our work and address a wider audience, not only feminists. Second, it would be nice to organize more public readings and discussions – not only to promote our work but to enable a more direct contact between writers, other contributors and editors. Third, it would be necessary to improve our working conditions, to increase our finances, so that we could continue doing our work in a more dignified way, so that we could concentrate our creative forces and energy instead of atomizing ourselves into too many fields.
What obstacles do you face?
Our budget should be comparable with our actual output, but that’s not the case. Improvisation and voluntary work are good – however, not when you want to do things more systematically and professionally. This is related to state policies on culture and literature which do not recognise the gender aspect as a priority; in fact, it is rarely taken into consideration. Also, the continual monopolization of the literary scene (thanks to the large contribution of daily media and their writing about culture) won’t bring the changes many of us had expected to see. My position (editor) as well as my husband’s editorial position would be really improved if we could afford to pay another editor (that is, beside us). The other obstacle is the copyrights, especially the deals with Western writers. It takes a lot of effort, time and money to arrange them so that we can publish their texts in our review. To be honest, sometimes we simply give up. Our other problem is that – since we collaborate with many academic workers – we would like to be officially positioned higher, in a sense of the reference-making expert review, to guarantee them (and us, of course) a higher evaluation within academic circles, but the criteria for that are not within our reach (regular publishing, annotations in foreign languages, expert reviewing of single contributions, and so forth). I mentioned some other obstacles above as well.
Feminism
What is the feminist self understanding of your media? How are you dealing with all these different feminism? Could you describe the kind of feminism that is represented in your media? Is there any feminism which is very important for your media?
Basically, the studies, essays, reviews and other contributions we publish are there to inform people about all of these feminisms. However, the perspectives we mostly rely on are poststructuralist or, in other words, postmodern feminist ones (postfeminism?) which stipulate so-called fluent (gender) identities in relation to deconstruction and contemporary feminist literary theory. Queer feminism is also included in our project since many contributors and collaborators come from the LGBT community in Slovenia. To speak about feminisms and their coexistence does not mean that we have to speak in terms of categories or “branches” stated in your question. For us, the important question is which feminist approaches are relevant to literature, to the interpretation and understanding of literary text, so we treat it mostly as a question of methodology. To a certain extent, one that depends on the writers’ interest and consciousness, we simultaneously deal with liberal feminism, feminism of difference, psychoanalytic feminism and poststructuralist feminism, and their impact on feminist thought in the 20th (21st) century.
Media Production and media careers
Can you make your living from working as an editor and from writing? How did this evolve?
Absolutely not in spite of my high education and extensive experience in the field. As I mentioned, I am not regularly employed so I need to work in more fields at once in order to receive an income which is, according to statistics, comparable to the average income in Slovenia. And, paradoxically, I use one part of my income to sponsor Apokalipsa´s activities. I lecture at the university, I edit, I translate other authors, and publish my own literary works, organize events (international festivals, readings, and symposiums) …
From a financial point of view, that is, as far as my salary is concerned, my gender-related activities are negligible. Moreover, my way of living – or surviving? – is possible only because of my status. I am a self-employed cultural worker and the status is approved by the Slovene Ministry of Culture. Thus, my retirement and health (but very low) contributions are paid directly from the state budget. In order to achieve and keep this status, you have to work really hard as the rules and criteria of the evaluation (by the relevant commission) are literally cruel. I finally received this status in 2009. Before that, I was a hopeless case, a migrant (including my migration between two literatures) with a PhD and several published books – in Slovak language, unfortunately.
In what ways has making these media projects helped in your career?
It helped me in many ways; career is only one of them. It helped me from a psychological and social perspective, especially due to my migrant position. I had the chance to meet and collaborate with many excellent writers, researchers and representatives of other professions. Many of them became my friends. I was able to continue working on my interests and research themes, and to develop them. As a poetess and fiction writer, I was able to try out “gendered writing”. All of this proved to be very helpful; I was able to preserve my personal dignity which was exposed to many tests in the past ten years; to educate myself about new issues, to intensify my international contacts, and so forth. My background, at least in some circles, gives my career a more interesting dimension. I am sure that my fresh university career in Slovenia (lecturing as a contract worker) is possible because of my previous publishing, research and editorial work, and my engagement as a writer.
In what ways does your media project intersect with activism or broader political engagements in your life?
The intersections are clear and visible in many ways. They are connected with my engagement for freedom of speech and thought, for freedom of publishing, for gender equality, pluralistic culture, diversity of opinions, and democracy; also, in a sense, for respect of minorities. All these issues – and human rights – are contained in our review and book publishing practice. Furthermore, we organize meetings and panel discussions in support of those whose rights have been violated. Finally, we are engaged in a permanent and critical dialogue with those in power, the institutions and their representatives, in order to achieve a better and more just distribution of funds within the literary and media market. Our main purpose is to stop this unbelievable discrepancy between self-promoted “establishment” within culture (cultural business, commercial activities) and the oppressed and discriminated identities on the other. Our feminist engagement is an indispensable part of this effort.
Recommendations: who else should we interview about feminist/women’s media production in Europe? (Please provide names and contact information). Can we refer to you if we contact these persons?
Aspekt webzine, Slovak Republic: aspektaspekt [dot] sk
One Eye Opened (published by One Woman Press), Czech Republic: owpvolny [dot] cz
ProFemina (if it still exists), Serbia: Dubravka Djurić, ddjmsEUnet [dot] yu
Thank you for the interview!
*****
Stanislava Repar is the editor of the Gender-Apokalipsa review, the annual special issue of Apokalipsa magazine, focused on feminist literary theory and women’s and feminist writing. She is also a writer, translator, critic and researcher in the field of literary theory.
Apokalipsa is a monthly magazine and a publishing house. KUD Apokalipsa association consists of an informal group of poets, philosophers, essayists, researchers, writers, visual artists and architects. The Apokalipsa publishing house releases books on philosophy, arts, prose and poetry, especially haiku. Apokalipsa is also the co-founder of the World Haiku Association.
KUD Apokalipsa releases book of translated fiction as well as fiction written in Slovene. The women authors include Alexandra Berková, Bojana Kunst, Vesna Milek, Mila Haugová, Barbara Korun, Alma Anakiev, Alenka Zorman, Darja Kocjančič, Novica Novaković and Stanislava Repar.
Gender Apokalipsa (2003, 272 pages) included fiction by Maruša Krese, Nataša Velikonja, Suzana Tratnik, Maja Vidmar, Slavica Šavli, Vanja Strle, Vida Mokrin-Pauer, Iva Jevtić, Irena Brežná, Stanislava Chrobáková Repar and Jana Juráňová. Essays by Veronika Sorokin, Amy Tan, Lynne Pearce, Zdeňka Kalnická, Denise Levertov, Jasna Koteska and Elisabeth Badinter.
Gender Apokalipsa (2004, 536 pages) included a survey on women writer’s relation to feminism (as theory, as politics, as experience). Some of the contributors were Kateřina Lišková, Etela Farkašová, Biljana Kašić, Jana Cviková and Sylvia Porubänová. The poetry section included works by Lila Rok, Nada Pinterić, Kristina Hočevar, Tatjana Soldo and Maja Vidmar, Irish poets Eavan Boland, Paule Meehan, Rite Ann Higgins, Nuale Ní Dhomnaill, Medbh McGuckian, Mary O'Malley, Eileán Ní Chuilleanáin and Eithne Strong, photos by Jana Hojstričkova, Erika Trnkova, Dominika Ličková-Horákova, Lucia Nimicova, Slivia Saparova and Jana Ilkova, fiction by Joan Barfoot, Margaret Atwood, Iva Jevtić, Suzana Tratnik and Magdaléna Platzova, etc.