Many famous writers published poems and stories in Muschelhaufen but also new texts by upcoming authors were included, e.g. Katrin Askan, Uwe Tellkamp and Markus Orths – all of whom were awarded later the Ingeborg Bachmann Prize.
Theo Breuer, freelancer of Muschelhaufen from 1994 to 2008, annually contributed long essays (e.g. on Mail art, contemporary poetry and prose) and new poems.
[2] Well-known writers that published in Muschelhaufen are the Austrian poet Ernst Jandl, Annemarie Schimmel (honoured with the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade), Günter Kunert, Siegfried Lenz, Walter Bauer, Christoph Meckel, Lutz Rathenow and James Krüss and many more.
Erik Martin invested special efforts in recovering the work of the authors Werner Helwig and Albert Vigoleis Thelen (still publishing unknown texts from both).
There were – back then – young (Jan Wagner, Anja Utler) and well-known poets (Friederike Mayröcker, Eva Zeller) publishing in the annual and famous artists delivered their photographs and paintings to it (Barbara Klemm, Clemens Weiss, Elke Rehder).