ABOUT Us

Ós Pressan is a non-profit initiative designed to support and promote authors and to create an inclusive writing community in Iceland. We publish a yearly magazine titled Ós — The Journal, which features works of fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction and artworks in multiple languages. In a bid to help create a community for exchanging ideas and connecting, with both emerging and established writers, Ós Pressan organizes several events, such as writing workshops and readings.

The Ós writing community started in early 2015 after a workshop offered by the Reykjavik UNESCO City of Literature to celebrate the 100th anniversary of women winning the right to vote in Iceland.

In the ongoing social change in Iceland, where over 1% of the population was born in another country, we identified a tremendous gap between the current social reality and the literary-publishing scene. The absence of representation of foreign-born writers brought us to a wider and more inclusive idea: gather writers from the margins of Icelandic society and bring them into Iceland’s rich literary scene. Ós Pressan was born from the desire to offer those with voices that were not being heard an opportunity to be heard and to create a community addressing this social and cultural change.

The Icelandic word “ós” means the estuary or delta of a river, a spot where one river becomes many or many become one before entering the ocean. The name indicates Ós Pressan’s wish to collect multiple streams of writing and funnel them onwards to the open.

Our Team

  • Agata Wisniewska

    Agata is. Agata è. Agata er. Agata jest.

  • angela rawlings

    Canadian/Icelandic author and artist. Facilitated the Reykjavík Multilingual Writing Lab which led to the founding of Ós Pressan.

  • Anna Valdís Kro

    Anna Valdís (1978), one of the founding members of Òs Pressan, a writer, translator and organizer of literary events. Lover of langages and literature. Currently exploring the visual vernacular.

  • Beatriz Portugal

    A Brazilian living in Iceland, Beatriz works as a freelance journalist when not developing her fiction writing. She writes mostly prose.

  • Elena Ilkova

    A Macedonian living in Iceland, she discovered translingual literature during her masters studies at the University of Iceland and has adopted its poetics in her writing in English, Icelandic and Hebrew.

  • Ewa Marcinek

    Author of numerous projects in culture and education. A Pole, writing in English, while polishing her Icelandic.

  • Francesca Cricelli

    is a poet, translator, and teacher. She was born in Brazil to a family of Italian immigrants, and grew up in Malaysia, India, Spain, Italy, and Mexico. Her collection of poems Repátria was published by Selo Demonio Negro in 2015. Her work has been published in numerous literary magazines and anthologies. She is currently a PhD researcher at the University of São Paulo. Her thesis is about the yet unpublished love letters of Giuseppe Ungaretti to Bruna Bianco. With Bruna and Silvio Ramat she has edited a book of the letters, forthcoming from Mondadori, Italy.

  • Helen Cova

    Helen Cova is the current president of Ós Pressan and a member since 2017. Helen has published two books in Icelandic, English and Spanish. Her first book, Snulli likes being alone was published in 2019. Her newest book, Autosarcophagy - To eat oneself was published in 2020. You can learn more about Helen here

  • Katy Didden

    Katy Didden is the author of The Glacier’s Wake (Pleiades Press, 2013) and the forthcoming book Ore Choir: The Lava on Iceland (Tupelo Press, 2022). She is one of the co-creators of the Almanac for the Beyond (Tropic Editions, 2019), and is an Assistant Professor at Ball State University where she teaches Poetry and Creative Writing and the Environment. read more about Katy here

  • Lara Wilhelmine Hoffmann

    Scholar and learner interested in art (,) books and language(s).

  • Larissa Kyzer

    Itinerant Icelandic translator, writer, and librarian, who lived in Reykjavík for five years while studying contemporary Icelandic literature and completing a Master’s in Translation Studies. She’s currently on the move.

  • Marta Jonsson

    Marta M. I. Jónsson is a writer, lawyer, translator and interpreter. Member of Ós Pressan since 2019. Currently focusing on a specialization in Creative Writing and graduating in Icelandic as a second language. Brazilian based in Iceland.

  • Oliver Paglia

    Oliver Paglia is a writer/ filmmaker and was born and bred in Hampshire, south England, where he grew up on a small farm in the picturesque Test Valley countryside. He now lives in Reykjavik, Iceland with his veterinary nurse partner, Snæfriður Stefanssdottír. For many years Oliver has worked as a videographer in England and has a substantial portfolio of commercial and artistic film work spanning a broad variety of subjects. You can learn more about Oliver here

  • Randi W. Stebbins

    Founding member of Ós Pressan. Several languages, several careers and several countries have shaped Randi’s views of the world and of words.

  • Rubén Chumillas

    Rubén Chumillas is a designer focused on the cultural scene and innovation in rural areas. He designs concepts and narratives with visual languages out of the essence of every project in order to build their particular universes. He is a multi-award-winning designer: Gold Laus 2014 (ADG-FAD), Gold Laus 2015 (ADG-FAD), Grand Laus 2015 (ADG-FAD), Bronze Laus 2017 (ADG-FAD), Latin Grammy Nomination 2018 Best Packaging Art Direction (The Latin Recording Academy). He has also given lectures on typography and experimental-creative processes at various Festivals and Congresses in Spain and Latin America. He currently combines his job with a university degree in Social and Cultural Anthropology.

  • Sigurður Grétar Jökulsson

    Sigurður Grétar Jökulsson is a teacher in a small school in the small town of Þingeyri, Westfjords. He has masters in Business and a teaching certificate. Sigurður worked for almost 15 years for an icecream truck company where he had the opportunity of be surrounded by the wilderness and beauty of Icelandic countryside while selling ice creams on the streets and at farms all around the country. Sigurður has been part of Ós Pressan since 2017, jokingly known as “the husband” and now an official member since 2020

  • Virginia Gillard

    Virginia is a performer born in Britain, brought up in Australia and living in Iceland. She creates vignettes and playful drawings, patterns that represent her eternal search for home and the perfect character.