MARK MARIANO —

WRITER / CONTENT / MODEL

Mark Mariano is an award-winning Filipino writer, model, comedian and content creator from Doonside, in western Sydney, on Darug land. Mark completed a BAComms at WSU in 2017, and is currently a content producer for BuzzfeedOz.

Proudly queer, Mark’s work spans across SBS, Fruit Box Theatre, Kweens Of Comedy, Queerstories, United Nations NSW, ABC, and NetflixAU. He is also part of the Sweatshop Western Sydney Literacy Movement, through which his debut poem collection ‘Down From Doonside Station’ was published in 2019, and where he contributed to and sub-edited their 2021 anthology, ‘Racism’.

Mark has represented Australia twice at the Harvard University Project for Asian International Relations, was an artist at the National Young Writers’ Festival (2020, 2022), panelled at the Sydney Writers’ Festival (2021, 2022), and at the EnQueer Writers’ Festival (2021, 2022). He openly speaks to his lived experiences as a fat Filipino gaysian from The Area, and has appeared on various radio shows and podcasts across ABC, Triple J, SBS Voices and FBI Radio.

He was announced as a highly commended shortlistee for the 2021 Deakin University Non-Fiction Prize, and was commissioned by Blacktown Arts to co-develop ‘Hanap’ - a play written with Rizcel Gagawanan.

In 2022, Mark participated as a mentor at the Out For Australia x EnQueer emerging queer writers event, and co-facilitated a writers workshop under Sweatshop with ACON, which resulted in the 2023 written anthology ‘Stories Out West’. He ended 2022 with an appearance in ‘FA(C)TS’, a body positive docu-film produced by Demon Derriere and Dr. Naomi Koh Belic.

For Sydney WorldPride 2023, Mark appeared as a lead in ACON's With Love campaign, headlined Big Thick Energy’s Pride Square takeover, and was featured in both ABC’s WorldPride ‘Queer Firsts’ video and SBS' docu-series The Swiping Game. He also panelled on Channel 10’s The Project, where he discussed body image with The Biggest Loser’s Michelle Bridges. Mark also appeared in Specsavers’ ADIDAS campaign as a featured model,

Mark’s non-freelance work has seen him as a an editorial producer in lifestyle newsrooms (SBS Food, delicious.), and his short comedy skits have garnered over 5 million views on social media.

In 2024, Mark placed second in iHeartRadioAU & BlakCast’s national storytelling podcast competition ‘Find and Tell’, participated in Meta x The Butterfly Foundation’s ‘Enter The Chat’ social campaign, co-wrote a pilot under ABC Fresh Blood and was named one of Out For Australia’s 30 Under 30 award winners.