Andrea Actis was born in Toronto but for most of her life has lived in Vancouver on the unceded territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm, Sḵwx̱wú7mesh, and səlilwətaɬ Nations. Her mother is Hungarian, from Romania, and her father was Italian and English.

Since finishing her PhD at Brown University in 2017, Andrea has taught writing and literature at Capilano University. Before that, in an interlude during which she almost dropped out of grad school to run a memorial-planning business, Andrea edited The Capilano Review, overseeing the magazine’s departure from Capilano University in 2015 and an active two years of its community arts programming.

Andrea’s first book, Grey All Over (Brick Books, 2021), is an autoconceptual study of traumatic grief, anomalous experience, and whiteness. She is at work on a new book, Flowers on Inner Memory, about language, seriousness, and whatever UFOs are.

With Trevor Shikaze, Andrea operates the small press and research entity WAWI (What Are We In?).