Writer, filmmaker and spoken word artist, Liana Cusmano is the 2018 Montreal Slam Champion, representing their city at the Canadian Festival of Spoken Word in Guelph (November 2018). Their poems and short stories have been published in literary magazines, journals and anthologies, including The Radiance of the Short Story(CEAUL; Centro de Estudos Anglisticos da Universidade de Lisboa, 2018), People, Places, Passages: An Anthology of Canadian Writing (Longbridge Books, 2018), Influence and Confluence, East and West: A Global Anthology on the Short Story (East China Normal University Press, 2016), Exploring Voice (University of Toronto, 2016) and Writing Cultural Difference(Guernica Editions, 2015).
Liana has performed their work in English, French and Italian, and given readings in Montreal, Winnipeg, Lisbon and Shanghai. They are also the writer of the short films La Femme Finale, screened at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival, and Matters of Great Unimportance, which they directed. Their work explores cultural heritage, sexual orientation and gender identity, queerness, interpersonal relationships, physical and mental health. They are looking forward to leading writing workshops in the classroom, in addition to giving readings, performing spoken word, and participating in