In collaboration with ItalfestMTL and Fierté Montréal, an evening with interviews and readings by queer writers of Italian origin organized by Violet Hour.
Speakers Matthew Fox (autor of This Is It), who will read excerpts from his new text coming out this fall with Great Plains Press, Liana Cusmano (Catch and Release, Guernica Editions 2022), Anthony Portulese, and many others writers.
Moderator Christopher DiRaddo.
Thursday August 8th at 6pm
Istituto Italiano di Cultura di Montréal
1200 Av. du Dr Penfield
Free admission-RSVP
Matthew Fox tackles queer themes around family and memory in his upcoming novel This Is It and his short story collection Cities of Weather. He’s also a critic and book reviewer, focusing on 2SLGBTQ+ literature. His work has appeared in Grain, The New Quarterly, Big Fiction, Toronto Life and Maisonneuve. Find him on Instagram at @presentingmrfox.
Writer, spoken word artist, editor and arts educator Liana Cusmano was the 2018, 2019 and 2023 Montreal Slam Champion and runner-up in the 2019 Canadian Individual Poetry Slam Championship. Their first novel, Catch & Release (2022), was published by Guernica Editions. They were also a 2022 finalist for the QWF Spoken Word Prize and the winner of the 2024 Society Pages Poetry Contest. They are currently Fiction Editor at carte blanche and Associate Editor at Accenti Magazine.
Anthony Portulese is an editor and emerging writer living in Montreal. Before pursuing his literary ambitions, he earned degrees in pharmacology, art history, and civil and common law. His writings explore macroscopic themes in microscopic environments, and timeless ideas in specific times and places.
Christopher DiRaddo is the author of the novels The Family Way (2021), shortlisted for the F.G Bressani Literary Prize, and The Geography of Pluto (2014). His essays and short stories have appeared in First Person Queer: Who We Are (So Far), and the two volumes of Here & Now: An Anthology of Queer Italian-Canadian Writing. He is the founder and host of the Violet Hour Reading Series & Book Club.
Big thanks to our partners: ItalfestMTL, Fierté Montréal, Italo Queer Montréal, the Équipe de recherche en études queer au Québec (EREQQ), and the Istituto Italiano di Cultura di Montreal.
Reservation no longer available
