Julia Lajta-Novak is a research fellow in English Literature at the University of Salzburg and founder and artistic director of Vienna Lit, a literary society dedicated to the promotion of literature/s in English. Novak is a published poet, as well as the editor of a collection of stories about Vienna, Vienna:Views (2006), and the author of Gemeinsam Lesen: die Buchgruppe als soziales Phänomen und ökonomische Triebkraft (2007), a book on reading groups.