Janiru Liyanage is a 17-year-old student, writer & son of Sinhalese Sri Lankan immigrants. Born in Colombo, Sri Lanka, Janiru currently lives in Sydney, Australia & attends high school. He has won several international & national honours in poetry, including a Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net Awards and Best New Poets (2021) nominations, is a 2019 and 2020 winner of the national Dorothea Mackellar Poetry Awards (the only 2 year consecutive awarded poet in the competition), long-listed for the Frontier Poetry Industry Prize, recognised by The Poetry Society (UK) & a recipient of an Ekphrastic Award, among others. He is also the Sydney winner of the 2019 Australian Poetry Slam. He has been commissioned to write for the Emerging Writers Festival, Australian Poetry, Cordite Review (TMLYMI 2022). He founded / co-edits Hyades Magazine.
Alongside poetry, he has won various international/national awards in mathematics, including a gold medal in the APSMO, 6th place in the A-level section & 5th place in the O-level section in the international Tournament of Towns, Australian Mathematics Competition prize winner three years in a row, received The Highest Score In School in The AMC, MCYA perfect scorer three years in a row, a perfect score in the MCYA Enrichment, selected as a correspondent for the Mathematical Problem Solving (MaPS) program (USYD), Award recipient of the UNSW School Mathematics Competition & others. In 2021, he received a state-rank in the Economics HSC, coming 6th in New South Wales in the exam and completing the year 12 course a year in advanced in year 11.
He is the 2018 national winner of the Videos for Change Competition, & his work is taught in the writing curriculum at Melbourne University, having taught and spoken in its Writers on The Frontline Course. He has appeared on The Project, The Slowdown, Best of Australian Poetry (Vol 1,) Poetry Society (UK), and featured in Namoi Valley Independent, The Minister's Media Centre, Kavishala Daily, Schools & College Listings & elsewhere.
His recent work features or is forthcoming in The Australian (national newspaper), The Harvard Advocate, The Rumpus, The Slowdown, Frontier Poetry, Waxwing, MUZZLE Magazine, DIAGRAM, Poetry Daily, Cordite Poetry Review, The Poetry Society, Wildness Journal, Cordite Poetry Review, The Cardiff Review, Homology Lit, Up The Staircase Quarterly, The Journal Of Compressed Creative Arts, Ekphrastic Review & elsewhere.
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