myFace, myStory: My Imperfect Beauty - A Conversation with Bella Lucia

Live Broadcast: Aug 17, 2022 at 6pm ET / 3pm PT

myFace’s Dina Zuckerberg spoke to author, poet, retired nurse practitioner, and advocate for the cleft community, Luci Capo Rome about her memoir, Lucia’s Story: My Imperfect Beauty, written in honor of facial differences. We will follow her journey of being born with a severe and complete bilateral cleft lip and palate and how she rose above all the challenges that went with it.

Read about our guest below the video:

Picture of Luci Capo Rome against a gray-beige background. Luci has short, curly, white-gray hair. She is wearing glasses, and she is smiling. She is also wearing a necklace and a white v-neck blouse. Luci Capo Rome, whose pen name is Bella Lucia, was born in 1951 with a complete and severe bilateral cleft lip and palate and has had multiple surgeries by the age of 51. Along this journey, she was bullied and abused, where people told her that she couldn’t fulfill her dreams due to her facial difference and assuming she had less intelligence because of it.

She proved them wrong by having a successful professional journey that spanned over 47 years. She is a retired RN and advanced practice RN/ nurse practitioner with a master’s and post-master’s degree.

She has written over a hundred poems with a few of them being published. In 2020, she published her memoir, Lucia’s Story: My Imperfect Beauty, which was written in honor of facial differences.

Currently, she volunteers with Smile Train as a member of their Cleft Community Advisory Council. She is passionate about helping facilitate community education beginning in elementary school to help prevent and reduce bullying.