Annie Rachele Lanzillotto is the author of L IS FOR LION: AN ITALIAN BRONX BUTCH FREEDOM MEMOIR (SUNY Press 2013), and the book of poetry SCHISTSONG (Bordighera Press 2013).  She is the songwriter and vocalist of the albums BLUE PILL (Annie Lanzillotto Band / StreetCry Productions) a rock and blues collaboration with Adeel Salman, ELEVEN RECITATIONS,(StreetCry), and CARRY MY COFFEE, (StreetCry), a duet with cellist Lori Goldston.  Lanzillotto was born and raised in the Westchester Square neighborhood of the Bronx, and in Yonkers, New York, of Barese heritage.  She received a B.A. with honors in medical anthropology from Brown University and an MFA in writing from Sarah Lawrence College.  Her poem Triple Bypass won the Italian American Writers Association Paolucci Award in Poetry, and was published in the 2002 anthology, THE MILK OF ALMONDS: ITALIAN-AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS ON FOOD AND CULTURE, edited by Edvige Giunta and Louise DeSalvo.  Her poems Manhattan Schist, and My Grandmother’s Hands both won Rose and John Petracca Awards second place from Philadelphia Poets.  Lanzillotto made her acting debut in 1993 with her solo show, CONFESSIONS OF A BRONX TOMBOY: My Throwing Arm, This Useless Expertise at Under One Roof Theater and Manhattan Class Company in New York City. Lanzillotto received fellowships and performance commissions from New York Foundation For The Arts, Dancing In The Streets, Dixon Place, Franklin Furnace, The Rockefeller Foundation. Her shows include: Pocketing Garlic (Franklin Furnace), How to Wake Up a Marine in a Foxhole (The Kitchen), a’Schapett, at The Arthur Avenue Retail Market in the Bronx. (Dancing In The Streets, Rockefeller MAP Fund), The Flat Earth: Wheredddafhuck Did New York Go? (Dixon Place).  Lanzillotto teaches master classes in solo performance for the Acting Apprentice Company at Actors Theatre of Louisville, and guest lectures in Theatre Outreach at Sarah Lawrence College.