Réka Szentirmay (1984)

As a child, I spent loads of time reading and quite a bit of my pocket money on books. Back then, I dreamt of becoming a writer.

After high school, I studied journalism (2006) while working towards a degree in social sciences (2008) in Budapest. More than a decade later in the Netherlands, I decided to deepen my knowledge in the theory of photography (2017)—another love of my life.

My devotion to documentary photography is a merger of all the paths I have taken. In the past 20+ years, I have been working as a layout editor, and now I also moonlight as a writer, curator, editor, producer, and mentor in the domain of documentary photography and media archaeology.

Slowly but surely, I have come to acknowledge my urge to make books. Not only writing them, but also designing them, caring for them: bringing them to life. I aim to make them as accessible as possible, on as many levels as possible, to the widest possible public. In the early months of 2024, I decided to finally do something about it, and Yellow Stairs Publishing came to be.

Here we are now, with the first of my very own books printed. I could not be prouder.

And now, on to the next adventure: The Winter Garden is to be published in 2025.