Luciana Francis (neé Saldanha) was born in the city of São Paulo, in Brazil. Writing poetry and stories has been part of her (life) since she was a little girl. She moved to London, in the UK in 1998 where she’s worked full-time whilst studying film, photography, and even method acting (though with no intention of being an actress, but rather for the sole purpose of honing her skills as a writer). In 2008 whilst studying for her final exams at Goldsmiths, she came across a leaflet promoting a competition for plays written by international writers, and she promptly started writing ‘The Sea at Night’, her first play, which was awarded the Angle New Writers’ Award, directed by its founder and award winning theatre director Charlotte Gwynner. The play was performed at the Hackney Empire Studio in 2009. Although she has written for as long as she can remember, it has been only with the birth of her son that poetry took a definite, and demanding hold of her. And it has only been in the past three years that she has slowly started to submit her work to literary magazines. She now lives just ‘outside’ of London with her husband, their son, and the many birds that visit/ reside in their bountiful garden — including blackbirds, goldfinches, collared doves, wood pigeons, robins, blue tits, and more recently, coal tits. Travel Writing, her first pamphlet, was published by ATG in October 2022.
Against the Grain Poetry Press 