Event Speaker: Jennilee Austria-Bonifacio

Jennilee Austria-Bonifacio is a Filipina-Canadian community worker, speaker, and founder of Filipino Talks– a program that builds bridges between educators and Filipino families. After years of working with newcomers in Toronto’s schools and libraries and leading tours of Toronto’s Little Manila, she began to write as a form of self-care. Her debut novel, Reuniting with Strangers, was longlisted for Canada Reads, was a finalist for the Jim Wong-Chu Emerging Writers Award, and won the silver medal for multicultural fiction at the Independent Publisher Book Awards. Jennilee is a founding member of Salaysay, a collective of Filipino authors based in Toronto.