Cyd Apellido was born in Iligan, Philippines, and has a passion for writing and teaching. She received an M.F.A. in fiction from the University of Miami and has been teaching since 2006. She has taught at Gulliver Preparatory, University of Miami, and currently, she teaches literature and writing with a multi-sensory approach at The Fletcher School in Charlotte, NC.
Her love of stories first started at the age of two when her father gave her a copy of The Giant All-Color Book of Fairytales Retold by Jane Carruth. Apellido’s writing is informed by the duality of her cultural experience as a Filipina American growing up in the Philippines and the United States. When she is not writing, teaching, or reading, she enjoys baking cakes, taking Peloton classes, collecting antique jewelry, traveling abroad, and taking naps.
At MacDowell, Apellido revised the first half of her novel that takes place in the Manila, Philippines in the 1990s. She also conducted additional research on the culture of Manila in the 1990s to further improve the characterization and setting in the novel.
