Hazel Venzon was born in Winnipeg on Treaty 1 Territory to immigrant parents from the Philippines. She is an actress, writer, director and producer. She studied sculpture at the University of Manitoba’s School of Fine Arts and is an alumna of The Black Hole Theatre and Studio 58. She founded U N I T (you and i together) Productions, a stage company dedicated to Filipino storytellers and the stories of the Filipino diaspora.
Fiction (Juvenile, Graphic novel)
Places We Go
Illustrated by David Oro.
Winnipeg: ANAK Publishing Worker Cooperative, 2026.
Publisher’s Synopsis (From its website)
Grace — a girl in Sta. Mesa, Manila, whose Nanay left for work in Winnipeg three years ago — wakes up one morning on her Nanay’s birthday with the best idea for a birthday present: to look for work in hopes to buy Nanay a flight home, if only for a day.
Places We Go follows Grace through the small arithmetic of that goal: odd jobs, quiet sacrifices, and coins counted twice. It’s a story about growing up faster than a childhood should ask of anyone, and about hope that keeps finding its way back too.
Links
Publisher ANAK Publishing Worker Cooperative