Cleo graduated in 2017 from Colby College in Waterville, Maine where she followed her interests to a BA in French Studies and Creative Writing. She completed her Master's degree in English at the Bread Loaf School of English at Middlebury College in 2026. She writes creative pieces every day.

Cleo has a passion for creative writing that manifests itself in overflowing journals and endless documents on her computer. A queer Sephardic Jewish woman, she is working on two novels, writes short stories, creative nonfiction, essays, short personal vignettes (viewable on Instagram @cleoisverbose), and is currently seeking representation for a fantasy novel for adults entitled Of Hestra. She has taken creative writing workshops in New York, and during the COVID-19 quarantine, led a writers' workshop with close friends, who kept one another sane. The winner of the 2026 Bread Loaf Fiction Writing Prize, her work has been published in Hey Alma, several small literary magazines, and the Bread Loaf Journal.

She has extensive experience editing, copyediting, and workshopping spanning from peer creative writing in classes, to grant proposals, letters, and marketing communications at the Heschel School, to Playbills and marketing materials at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. She has also written freelance for Playbill and The Broadway Blog, where she wrote news articles and reviews. She was trained to write, edit, and tutor at Colby's Farnham Writers' Center, forming an excellent foundational base for her written work in the professional world.

Cleo is very hard working and driven by her thirst for knowledge. She loves great diners, hiking, Sabrina Carpenter, and swimming in frigid Maine coast waters. She is happiest when she is creating. 

EDUCATION
Middlebury Bread Loaf School of English ‘26—MA in English
Colby College ‘17—BA in French Studies and Creative Writing