LITERARY PROGRAMME
,,POET OF THE DAY”

On the occasion of our great jubilee, we turned back 30 years and among old documents from FEP’s archive, we found a written trace of something which used to be a regular part of our Festival, and it was called: ,,POET OF THE DAY”. Promotion of literature for children and young is of utmost significance because it’s the area that is, sadly, still neglected and undervalued in our country, and yet again, past, present and future times somehow met at the same spot, and because of that, we decided to return this segment of the Festival and to give it a new life through some new people and some new ideas, shapes and forms.

,,Poet of the day” at the 30th FEP will be four of our exceptional poets of different generations: Jasminka Petrović, Pop D. Đurđev, Stefan Tićmi and Aleksandra Jovanović. On each festival day, the audience will have a chance to meet with one of them closely and to do it in very unusual ways, through socialising and joint interesting activities, like, for example, visual poetry and „creative reading of poetry that is for watching“ meetings, making up new stories with Dixit cards, memes and story reading and many other. Also, excerpts from their works will be published daily in the Festival Bulletins, and so will be our recommendations for a further voyage on your own through superb literature for children and young, while in the FEP diaries, our "Poets of the Day" will share with the audience the answers to the questions that the children will be most interested in.

Poet of the day - Thursday, August 22nd:
JASMINKA PETROVIĆ

Jasminka Petrović was born in Belgrade in 1960. She wrote more than thirty books for children and young people (Giga Makes the Sea, The Summer When I Learned to Fly, Good Manners, Reading Makes You Grow, For Your Ears Only, This is the Scariest Day of my life, Everything is fine, 35 calories without sugar, 100 faces of chairs, I want to go home, I want to go to school and others). Her books have been translated into twenty-five languages, and many have been dramatised in domestic and foreign theatres. Films were made based on the novels The Summer When I Learned to Fly and About the Button and Happiness. She was the editor of the teenage show Radio Penguin, wrote for many magazines (Tik-Так, Big Yard, Politika’s Entertainer...), edited National Geographic Junior in the Serbian language, and also signed the script for the children's series Cock-A-Doodle-Doo Show (Radio-Television of Serbia - RTS). She is a participant in various programs and projects that encourage children's imagination and creativity. She finds inspiration in conversations with children. She receives support for her work from her family, relatives, friends and readers. She likes autumn, the sea and mint tea.

Poet of the day - Friday, August 23rd:
POP D. Đurđev

18:00 h Veljko’s garden
Hanging out with the poet of the day – Pop D. Đurđev

Pop D. ĐURĐEV
(Novi Sad, 1953). He attended elementary school in Novi Sad and a couple of surrounding towns, high school in Kraljevo, and Forestry studies at Belgrade University. He writes satire poetry for young people and also engages in visual research. For more than two decades, until his retirement, he was the director of the International Center for Children's Literature – Zmaj Children Games. He lives in Novi Sad.
So far, he has published forty books, mostly for children and young people. For his literary work, he received the Stražilovo Charter and the following awards: Brana Cvetković, Radoje Domanović, Gordana Brajović, Momčilo Tešić, Rastko Zakić, Stevan Sremac (Elemir), Blue tuft, Dositej’s feather, Meeting under the old olive tree (Bar), he is the carrier of The Golden Helmet (Kruševac), Golden key of the City of Smederevo, Golden Gaša’s feather (Lazarevac), Golden Key of Popularity (Novi Sad), Knjaževac Golden Fleece, Gold Badge of KPZ Serbia, he was pronounced Knight of Čarapanija, The prince of the children's kingdom (Banja Luka), and he is the winner of Little Prince (Tuzla) for the development of multiculturalism in the region and Little Prince (Subotica) for life's work.

Poet of the day - Saturday, August 24th:
STEFAN TIĆMI

20:00 h Veljko’s garden
Hanging out with the poet of the day – Stefan Tićmi

Stefan Mitić Tićmi
(1992, Leskovac) is an author of I am Akiko (“Laguna”, 2018) and Moss Coat (“Laguna”, 2020) novels, which are listed among the 200 best children's books in the world as chosen by the “White Ravens” magazine published by Munich library. For the I am Akiko novel, he won the „Politika’s Entertainer” award and the „ Children's Book of the Year” plaque at the „ Book Square” International Festival in Herceg Novi. Based on the motives of this book, an animated film is in the works, and also three plays are played: one in Belgrade (co-production between FEP and ” Go there …” Children’s scene of the Pančevo Cultural Centre), the second is in Skoplje and third one in Zagreb. For his Guguto Memeto novel (“Imprimatur”, 2023), he was awarded the prize of the city of Niš, A small flower, and a movie of the same name was made. He is a winner of the „Zmaj poet's stick” for the year 2023. He lives and works in Belgrade.

Poet of the day - Sunday, August 25th:
ALEKSANDRA JOVANOVIĆ

11:00 h Veljko’s garden
Hanging out with the poet of the day – Aleksandra Jovanović

Aleksandra Jovanović
(1996, Vranje) is a screenwriter, playwright and writer. She is the author of the novel Black Bird published by Creative Centre (Politika’s entertainer award for 2020, award of the city of Niš A small flower in 2020 for the best novel for children and young; it is included in the 200 best novels for children and young people in the world, in the international catalogue “White Ravens” 2021, published by Munich library for children and young people, Sigridrug аward for text entitled Wish, based on the motifs of the Black Bird novel at Zmaj children games in Novi Sad, within the festival “Monodrama for children” in 2021), Petra really left novel (Rade Obrenović award in 2023), published by “Creative centre”, Yagma collection of poems (Young Dis award in 2020) published by “Vladislav Petković Dis” library and Fingers in the dog's fur collection of poems published by “Literary workshop Rašić”.