Rita Fürstenau works as an author, illustrator, and publisher. She is co-founder of the publishing house Rotopol for graphic storytelling and has been working as a publisher since 2006. She was born in Berlin in 1982 and moved to Kassel in 2001 for her studies. There she studied visual communication at the School of Arts and Design with a focus on illustration as well as Primary School Teaching and Education at the University. In addition to her artistic and publishing activities, she is teaching at the Children and Youth Art School in Kassel and as a guest lecturer in the fields of illustration and graphic storytelling at various universities, including the Kunsthochschule Kassel, The Animation Workshop Viborg (DK), the University of Sofia (BG) and the Fudan University in Shanghai (CN). As an illustrator Rita Fürstenau works for clients such as Bahlsen, Google, the Museumslandschaft Hessen Kassel, and many more. Her personal works are published by Rotopol in the form of books, folding booklets, paper games, postcards, hand-printed sketchbooks, and textiles. Together with and a wide range of picture books, comics, graphic novels, and zines from all over the world her works can be found in her book store for graphic literature in Kassel.