Tian Sanchez-Ballado

Tian Sanchez-Ballado (b. 1989) is a CubaRican-American poet and author of Baby Back Bitch (2025) and Every Fig Has a Wasp Inside (2025). 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.