brutal tender honest

Leon Engler presented his debut novel "Botanik des Wahnsinns" (Dumont, 2025) at the LCB workshop in 2022. When his protagonist loses everything that connected him to his family's history - due to a mix-up with moving boxes - he is left to reckon with what remains of his origins: psychiatric stays, alcohol addiction, and depression running through his family tree. As both a writer and a psychotherapist, Engler tries to make sense of the psychiatric system and all its absurdities.

Rina Schmeller took part in the LCB prose workshop in 2020. Her novel "Co" (Penguin, 2026) tells the story of co-dependency. The protagonist experiences first-hand the far-reaching consequences of her partner's alcoholism. She slides deeper and deeper into dependency until her entire life is consumed. Searching for a self-determined existence, she tries to break free from the relationship.

An evening about states of psychological crisis and the question of whether so-called normality even exists.