Bistra Velichkova was born in 1986 in Sofia, Bulgaria. Her first book, Small, Dirty and Sad, a collection of short stories, won first prize at the National Contest for Debut Literature in Haskovo. Previously her stories, poems and essays have appeared in Granta. Her works—short stories and poems—have appeared in the literary newspapers Literaturen Vestnik, Starshel, Trud; in the magazines Granta, LIK, Vagabond, LiterNet, Crosspoint, Dictum, Public Republic, and Fakel, among other places.