CiTR

TINA BIELLO

Born to immigrant parents from Southern Italy, TINA BIELLO (she/her) is Italian by way of Lake Cowichan, BC.

Tina is an actor, a poet and playwright, her first full-length book of poetry, ‘In the Bone Cracks of the Walls’, published by Leaf Press, was part of a multi-disciplinary art exhibition of poetry, watercolour and music in Montreal, Vancouver and Italy that took place over five years.

Tina followed that up with ‘A Housecoat Remains’ and then Playing into Silence, her third collection in 2018.

Tina was the second Poet Laureate of Nanaimo from 2017–2020, and since then she has been collaborating with composers and the Vancouver Island Symphony with new symphonic works set to her poetry.

Biello’s latest work is THE WEIGHT OF SURVIVAL, retracing her family’s journey from post-war Italy to a small logging town near Cowichan Lake, exploring themes of identity, queerness and belonging. Tina will be reading from her new book at The Book Warehouse (4118 Main Street) on Wednesday March 13th at 7pm. To learn more about this queer creative, visit her website at www.tinabiello.com Insta at @biellotina
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LEAH LAX (she/her) has written award-winning fiction and nonfiction as well as an immigrant opera for Houston Grand Opera, reviewed with acclaim in The New York Times and broadcast on NPR.

Her work has appeared in Salon, Longreads, Dame, HuffPost, and Lilith, among many others, and in anthologies by Seal Press and North Atlantic. When Leah isn't writing, you can find her playing her cello, or with her wife kayaking around the world. Leah’s upcoming book, NOT FROM HERE: THE SONG OF AMERICA, comes out on March 28, 2024.

Asked to write an opera based on immi­grant sto­ries, Leah Lax spent a year lis­ten­ing to riv­et­ing accounts of upheaval, sur­vival, migra­tion, and arrival told to her in con­fi­dence by new Amer­i­cans from around the globe. In between sev­en of these amaz­ing sto­ries, Leah dis­cov­ers the sto­ry of her own fam­i­ly with its astound­ing par­al­lels. Check out the Author on Insta at @leahlax120 or reach out on Facebook at LeahLax