networking
Literature Across Frontiers is the convenor of the informal European Network of Literature Centres which brings together key national organisations promoting literature abroad, and of the Mosaic Publishers’ Network, a partnership of independent publishers committed to the promotion of literature in translation. The network aims to disseminate information about publishers working outside the mainstream of the European publishing industry and promotes the translation of literatures written in less diffused languages. The Mosaic website contains information about the network’s activities, members’ backlists, authors, translation funding as well as sample translations.

research, documentation & information
The Mercator Centre has been engaged in a number of research projects and its staff provide expert advice, give lectures, organise seminars and workshops and contribute to international conferences. As part of the Literature Across Frontiers programme, a Europe-wide comparative survey of support for translation and international promotion of literature was conducted, profiling programmes operating in selected countries and language areas, as well as at regional and European level, assessing their impact, highlighting examples of successful policies and practice and identifying possible ways in which trans-national and national schemes of support for this area could be better coordinated. The resulting report will be available on this website.

debates, seminars and conferences
Literature Across Frontiers organises public debates, seminars and conferences on subjects related to the production and publishing of literature in translation, international cooperation in the field of books and literature and the relevant cultural policy and financing.

The three-day Literature Across Frontiers International Conference: The Future of Support for Literary Translation in Europe, organised in cooperation with the 2001 Prague Book Fair, brought together professionals working in the area of literary translation and publishing with representatives of the relevant government bodies and non-governmental organisations to exchange ideas and debate issues central to the process of taking literature across national and linguistic frontiers. The 2003 LAF conference Multicultural Europe - National Literatures Revisited, hosted by FILI - Finnish Literature Information Centre in Helsinki, questioned the validity of the concept of national literature in an era when increasing numbers of people—including writers—are living between cultures and languages. The LAF symposium Re-Visions – Literary Exchange in an Enlarged Europe was co-organised with Inizjamed in Valletta, Malta, in November 2005, and in May 2006 LAF celebrated five years of its cooperation with Book World Prague with a conference on independent publishing and translation. Making Literaure Travel was the title of a conference organised with Institut Ramon Llull in Barcelona in Novemmber 2006.

international literary events
The programme aims to raise awareness of lesser known literatures and issues related to their translation and publishing by organising readings and round table debates with writers, translators, editors of literary magazines and websites, literary promoters and publishers at book fairs, literary festivals and in other venues.
Since 2001, LAF has organised dozens of events involving writers, translators and publishers from the Basque Country, the Czech Republic, Catalonia, Denmark, England, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Latvia, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovenia, Sweden, United Kingdom and the United States.

writing & translation workshops
Literature Across Frontiers fosters cross-cultural literary collaboration and creation of new work and translations through short-term projects involving writers and translators in a residency workshop situation. Since available courses in literary translation rarely combine small languages, one of the main aims of such workshops is to develop opportunities for writers/translators working in less widely used languages, and we welcome proposals for collaborative projects in this area.

So far, Literature Across Frontiers workshops held in the Czech Republic, Estonia, Malta, Scotland and Slovenia have included over 100 distinguished poets and translators working with languages such as Estonian, Catalan, Czech, Basque, Irish, Welsh, Norwegian, Macedonian, Icelandic, Flemish, Finnish, Latvian, Polish, Shetlandic, Scots, Scottish Gaelic, as well as German, English and French. Workshops are planned in Estonia, Latvia, Malta, Scotland and Slovenia in 2006. Transfer of skills in workshop organisation and facilitation is one of the by-products of this strand of our activities.

participation in book fairs
Literature Across Frontiers participates in international book fairs with collective stands and displays enabling partner organisations to increase their visibility, present their activities and promote their assistance to publishers and translators.

www.transcript-review.org
In 2002, Literature Across Frontiers launched Transcript, a bi-monthly multilingual on-line review of books and writing, featuring literary and publishing news from all corners of Europe and beyond. The review aims to provide up-to-date information on quality literature written in the smaller languages of Europe, stimulate interest on the part of publishers and literary editors, extend the work of national organisations promoting literature internationally, and give wider circulation to material from a variety of literary publications, ultimately contributing to the wider aim of the Literature Across Frontiers programme, which is to raise the international profile of lesser known literatures and to encourage greater diversity in the publishing of literature in translation.