In June 2023, the Icelandic poet and writer Thorvaldur S. Helgason was a resident of the Epic Residencies project in Košice. Thorvaldur studied theatre arts and creative writing at Icelandic universities. In 2016, he published his debut poetry collection, Draumar á þvottasnúru (Dreams on a clothesline), with Partus Press as part of the Emerging Poets series.
Gerður Kristný is one of Iceland's leading contemporary authors of literature. Over the past two decades, she has published numerous works, ranging from journalistic works to nine collections of poetry, which have been translated into several languages. Gerður won the Icelandic Literary Prize for her poetry cycle Blóðhófnir ('Little Blood') – a modern retelling of Norse myths – and was also nominated for the prestigious Nordic Council Literary Award.
The Epic Residencies project brings together three residency centres – Literary Residencies Košice, Gunnar Gunnarson Institute and Tou Scene – in order to create new opportunities for connecting literary events in these countries and to provide a space for concentrated work for authors from Slovakia, Norway and Iceland.