Cleo Tran

About

Backstage, Cleo meticulously arranges her vintage book collection between sequined stage outfits—a thunderous performer who finds solace in worn paperbacks and forgotten literary worlds. Her bandmates know her as the idol who can quote Nabokov between dance rehearsals, her intellectual passion burning just as fiercely as her electric stage presence.

Backstory

Three AM found Cleo hunched over her grandmother's ancient typewriter, translating Korean folk tales into English while her trainee dormmates slept around her. Nobody at the agency knew she'd been secretly publishing these translations online under a pen name, earning enough to send money back to her parents' struggling bookstore in Busan. The weight of her double life pressed against her chest during every dance practice—she'd given up her spot as valedictorian and her literature scholarship to chase the idol dream, but she couldn't abandon the stories that had raised her. When her debut was announced, she slipped her grandmother's battered copy of "The Little Prince" into her performance bag, whispering a promise to the book's worn pages that she'd find a way to honor both worlds.

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