Midtown Reader invites you to an evening with Tian Sanchez-Ballado as he discusses his groundbreaking debut poetry book with Creative Writing PhD candidate Chloe Rodriguez.

ABOUT THE BOOK
In Every Fig Has a Wasp Inside, Tian Sanchez-Ballado excavates the body - queer, CubaRican, Southern, chronically ill - and asks what it means to carry what cuts and feeds you in the same breath.

These poems are not an exorcism. They are what happens when the haunting stays.

Here: Wasps dissolve into figs. Lunchables erase pastelitos. Insurance companies feast on your bones. What devours you becomes sweetness.

This isn't a coming-of-age story. It's what survival looks like when it lingers.
Not confession - canon.
Not healing - staying.

Like the fig that needs the wasp's body to fruit, these poems know:
That tenderness has teeth.
That inheritance is both wound and offering.
That sometimes, the sweetest thing you can do is refuse to be digested.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Tian Sanchez-Ballado is a CubaRican-American poet, author, musician, and teacher. His Southern Gothic, post-lyric work examines how trauma, illness, and identity pass through families—what gets inherited in blood, silence, and ritual. Writing from Florida's queer margins, his poems bear witness to survival: living with chronic illness, navigating inheritance, and finding sweetness despite life's stings. A classically trained artist, educator, and scholar, he pursues his second doctorate—a PhD in String Music Education with orchestral conducting emphasis at Florida State University—and serves as Director of Education and Artistic Operations for Tallahassee Youth Orchestras, researching neuroscience, string pedagogy, and student-centered methods.