Sep 24 2026 @ 7:00PM
Get your tickets for our Queens Bookend Event produced in partnership with Culture Lab LIC and New Women New Yorkers. Check out all the amazing Bookend Events across the five boroughs leading up to the Brooklyn Book Festival.
Take a look at our four “Passage” storytellers who will step into each other’s immigrant stories on stage at Culture Lab. Plus, story trivia for fun literary prizes!
Stories
- Cables by Florencia V. Cariddi, performed by Jessica Hoppe, directed by Erika Iverson
- Water, Please by Jessica Hoppe, performed by Florencia V. Cariddi, directed by Tim Lindner
- Necondiționata Dragoste Infinită / The Unconditional Endless Love by Anda Totoreanu, performed by Ana Reza, directed by Erika Iverson
- A Secret on Your Plate by Ana Reza, performed by Anda Totoreanu, directed by Tim Lindner
Creative Team
- Pichchenda Bao – Story Coach
- Kelly Jean Fitzsimmons – NYTI Producer, Co-facilitator Passage generative workshop
- Erika Iverson – Story Director
- Tim Lindner – NYTI Co-Producer, Social Media, Story Coach, Story Director
- Zach Rothman-Hicks – Co-facilitator Passage generative workshops
Storyteller Bios
Florencia V. Cariddi is an Argentine storyteller, public speaking facilitator, singer, and writer based in New York City. Her work explores identity, migration, language, and the courage it takes to express ourselves authentically. Through workshops, performances, and writing, she creates spaces where personal stories become tools for connection and transformation, especially for immigrant communities and people speaking in a second language. As someone who has experienced the challenges of finding her voice in a new country, Florencia believes that every story has the power to build empathy, belonging, and meaningful human connection.
Jessica Hoppe is a Honduran Ecuadorian writer and the author of First in the Family (Flatiron Books, 2024), which was longlisted for the Brooklyn Public Library Book Prize and selected by Esquire, People, San Francisco Chronicle, Marie Claire, Latina Media, and HipLatina as one of the best books of 2024.
Named a writer to watch by Publishers Weekly (Fall 2024), Hoppe’s work has appeared in the Latino Book Review, The New York Times, Vogue, and elsewhere. Hoppe is Assistant Director for the Columbia Artist/Teachers Incarcerated Writers Initiative, the Justice-In-Education Initiative, and an inaugural NYWBA Justice Reads Fellow. She is currently pursuing an MFA in Nonfiction at Columbia University.
Journalist, art facilitator, and photographer Ana Reza embraces an interdisciplinary practice that weaves together writing, imagery, and memory. Drawn to storytelling from an early age, she has become an active voice in forums and creative spaces dedicated to contemporary expression. Her work has been featured on the podcast El cielo ese día and in NYU’s Literacy Review, among other platforms. Rooted in her Mexican identity, her work explores memory, culture, and the human experience. Her perspective brings depth and emotional resonance to each narrative.
Anda Totoreanu is an immigrant, poet, immigration lawyer, choral singer, and lover of all things outdoors. Her poems have been published by The Poetry Society of New York, Pandemic Poems, Gravel Literary Journal, and Poets of Queens. She has also published work in several academic journals for her research on minority rights and conflict resolution. Anda’s poetry explores themes of (self) love, loss, vulnerability, family, identity, coming to terms with the past, living in the present, and the peace of finding oneself in nature. You can find many of her poems at instagram.com/poemsbyanda/. She received her creative writing minor from Lafayette College.
THIS IS AN OFFICIAL 2026 BROOKLYN BOOK FESTIVAL BOOKEND EVENT.
Alliance of Resident Theatres/New York Creative Opportunity Fund (A Statewide Theatre Regrant Program) grant.
