Writers Out Loud – Pride Edition

This extraordinary group of writers who all have new work out this year sit down with host Liana Cusmano for a conversation about their literary arts practice and new books: Christopher DiRaddo’s novel The Family Way (Véhicule Press 2021), Helen Chau Bradley’s short story collection Personal Attention Roleplay (Metonymy Press, coming October 2021), and Eli Tareq El Bechelany-Lynch’s poetry collection The Good Arabs (Metonymy Press, coming September 2021).

Helen Chau Bradley is the author of Automatic Object Lessons (House House Press, 2020) and Personal Attention Roleplay (Metonymy Press, 2021). Their essays, stories, and reviews have appeared in carte blanche, Cosmonauts Avenue, Entropy Magazine, Maisonneuve Magazine, and elsewhere. They host the Strange Futures book club, a bi-monthly discussion group that focuses on BIPOC speculative fiction, via Librairie Drawn & Quarterly.

Christopher DiRaddo Christopher DiRaddo is the author of two novels: The Family Way and The Geography of Pluto. Since 2014, he has worked to create a space for LGBTQ literature in Montreal—producing and hosting the Violet Hour reading series and book club.

Eli Tareq El Bechelany-Lynch is a queer Arab poet living in Tio’tia:ke, unceded Kanien’kehá:ka territory. Their work has appeared in The Best Canadian Poetry 2018 anthology, GUTS, carte blanche, The Shade Journal, The New Quarterly, Arc Poetry Magazine, and elsewhere. They were longlisted for the CBC poetry prize in 2019. You can find them on Instagram and Twitter @theonlyelitareq. Their first book, knot body, was published by Metatron Press in 2020, and their upcoming book, The Good Arabs, will be published by Metonymy Press in September 2021.

Guest Host: Liana Cusmano

Writer, poet, filmmaker, and arts educator Liana Cusmano (Luca/BiCurious George) is the 2018 and 2019 Montreal Slam Champion and runner up in the 2019 Canadian Individual Poetry Slam Championship. A participant in the 2019 Spoken Word Residency Program at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, their poems and short stories have been published in anthologies and literary magazines. Liana has performed their work in English, French, and Italian, and given readings in Montreal, Lisbon, and Shanghai. They wrote the short film “La Femme Finale,” screened at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival, and wrote and directed the award-winning “Matters of Great Unimportance,” screened at the 2019 Blue Metropolis Festival. Their work explores heritage, queerness, and mental health. Liana is the 2020/2021 President of the Green Party of Canada. Their first novel, Catch & Release, will be published by Guernica Editions in 2022.

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