Born in Bambang, Nueva Vizcaya in the Philippines, Carmela Labitoria lectured on Aesthetics and the Humanities at the Universidad de Sto Tomas de Manila before coming to Bahrain where she teaches English at the Gulf International Institute. She started writing poetry aged 10 and hasn’t stopped, drawing inspiration from a variety of sources, among them the works of T.S. Eliot and Sylvia Plath. ‘I write about mundane things like crossing the road, having a midnight snack, drinking a cup of coffee and waking up early in the morning,’ she says, ‘but in a style that turns them into the lyrical, always with a tinge of forcible emotion somewhere in there.’