Loredana Cunti
Still deciding what she wants to be when she grows up.
Selected Career Highlights
• 30 years in international film and television, including Head of Children's Programming at
PolyGram Filmed Entertainment and Universal Studios
• Named Animation Magazine’s Top 25 Women in Animation
• Producer & Executive Producer of international children’s television including
Sitting Ducks, based on the work of Canadian artist Michael Bedard
• Co-author of the award-winning four-book Dr. Dave Astronaut Series with Canadian astronaut Dr. Dave Williams
• Award-winning children’s author published by Annick Press, Kids Can Press
• Founder Loreworks Ltd. and Award-Winning Publisher Loreworks Press
• Creator, Librettist & Producer of Neapolitan Ice Cream: The Musical
Professsional Biography
Loredana Cunti is an author, speaker, producer, and cultural storyteller whose career bridges multicultural media, international film and television, children’s literature, and musical theatre.
She began her career as a DJ and Promotions Manager at CHIN Radio and TV and CIAO Radio before spending 25+ years in international film and television — as Head of Foreign Film Sales at Malofilm and then relocating to London, England to launch the children’s programming division at PolyGram Filmed Entertainment. She went on to become Head of Children’s Programming for Universal Studios, producing animated series, specials and digital games for worldwide brands including Maisy Mouse, Sitting Ducks based on the work of Canadian artist Michael Bedard, and Pink Panther and Pals. Animation Magazine named her one of the Top 25 Women in Animation and she has been quoted in media including The Wall Street Journal.
In 2002 she founded Loreworks Ltd., developing original intellectual property and consulting for Universal Studios, Weta Workshop, MGM, Fremantle Media, and Atlantyca Entertainment. She has served on the TIFF Industry Advisory Board, mentored at the Singapore and Ontario Media Development Corporations, and juried at Giffoni, Kidscreen, and Cartoons on the Bay.
Her 8 picture books have earned a Junior Library Guild Selection, multiple Forest of Reading nominations, a TD Summer Reading Club pick, a 2025 World Cookbook Award, and recognition from the Reuben Awards of the National Cartoonists Society. How Gogo Found Her Groove has been adopted into every elementary school in the Toronto Catholic District School Board and has been used by the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education to demonstrate the power of picture books to teacher candidates. Loredana has been published by top children's publishers Annick Press and Kids Can Press and also publishes under her own imprint, Loreworks Press.
She speaks at elementary classrooms, secondary schools, and women’s conferences on creativity, confidence, resilience, and the art of reconnecting with the kid inside. She has partnered with Girl Guides of Canada, the National Ballet School of Canada, Women in STEM initiatives, OISE, and StepStones for Youth.
She is currently writing and producing Neapolitan Ice Cream: The Musical — an original music-theatre work and love letter to the immigrant experience.
Loreworks Ltd. develops original books, events, and musical theatre that build confidence in kids, courage in adults, and connection across generations.
Life of Loredana
Loredana Cunti was born in Toronto, Canada and grew up in an Italian immigrant family. A middle child between brothers, she was raised in the countryside of Kleinburg, Ontario and first language was the Neapolitan (Italian) dialect.
She was the first in her family to graduate from university and loves to recount her father's story and pride in giving his children an education because he was only able to go to grade five himself.
Where many children’s authors cite a lifelong love of books, Loredana’s relationship with reading had a slower start. Her parents did not read or write English well in the early days so there were no bedtime books in the Cunti household but there were always stories of back home, of the journey over of the life they were building and the one they had left behind.
Loredana was more social butterfly than bookworm, regularly getting into trouble for talking too much. She remembers being teasted at school for having smelly Italian sandwiches, and a body that was just too big as a daily reminder that she was different from most kids in her community and that she didn't quite fit in.
Then, in 1982, Italy won the World Cup of soccer and Italians flooded the streets waving flags and singing Italian songs. For the first time, being from an Italian immigrant family was cool and felt like something to be proud of.
When a musical theatre troupe visited her high school, , she knew immediately that she wanted to be in the entertainment world. She enrolled in Radio and Television Arts, at now Toronto Metropolitan University, and discovered that while she loved being in front of the camera, She was more interested in being behind it.
From the Screen to the Page
Loredana's history of being told she talked too much turned out to be a competitive advantage. A DJ career at CHIN Radio and CIAO Radio — among Canada’s first multicultural broadcasters — turned into promotions manager and surrounded her with the voices of immigrant communities finding their place. The girl who once tried to blend in was now amplifying the voices that didn’t always get heard.
Radio led to a job in home entertainment, 'the video business' and that led to career in sales distributing Canadian film and televison abroad. In 1997, she left her tight-knit Italian family and moved to England as Head of Children’s Programming for PolyGram and eventually went on to become Head of Children's Programming for Univsal Studios. She travelled the world, immersed herself in languages and cultures, and took cooking courses everywhere she landed.
She was blindsided when restructuring came but the same company called her back within days for a consulting contract and she founded her own company, Loreworks Ltd. in 2003.
Motherhood shifted everything again and she moved to Paris and continued consulting. With a newborn in tow, she applied to Le Cordon Bleu in Paris and while cooking haute cuisine, discovered that her own cultural inheritance was what she was interested in — from sausage to sauce to struffoli — her desire to document and encourage others to put down the cookbooks and ask their own families for their own treasured recipes was lit.
After five years in Paris with her young family and almost two decades abroad, she moved back to Toronto. Inspired by her children's dreams of going to space, she created a space show for kids and cold-called Canada's space walking record-holder, Dr. Dave Williams with the idea. After a year of trying she finally reached him and their partnership has since created four award winning junior non-fiction books.
She was in her late 40s and had just become a children’s author.
The belief in passing on family recipes would later find its fullest expression in The Reindeer Café Cookbook — her World Cookbook Award winning title whose proceeds she uses to support StepStones for Youth, a foundation helping youth aging out of foster care.
Food, Family & Fun In Functioning
Even after winning awards with her first five books, the rejection from publishers and agents kept coming.
Then came a major family event which changed her professional and personal life forever — the sudden, untimely death of her big brother. Back in her hometown, she stepped in to help run the family business, launched Loreworks Press, and kept writing.
Gogo Flamingo from her picture book HOW GOGO FOUND HER GROOVE began as a male character — until Loredana realized she was Gogo. A woman who had spent years losing confidence, second-guessing herself, wondering if she was in the right room. Now, How Gogo Found Her Groove is more than a picture book — it is a reminder, wrapped in feathers and humour, that breathing, moving, music and dancing are some of the most powerful tools we have for finding our way back to ourselves.
From The Page to the Stage to ...
The girl who once hid her Italian sandwiches at school is now making videos with her "SuperMa" and writing and producting Neapolitan Ice Cream: The Musical, giving life to the immigrant journey that shaped her, and the kitchen that fed her.
Her work has increasingly moved into live music-producing and sponsoring chamber performances, supporting Canadian musicians, and creating ways to connect audiences with culturally specific repertoire.
Her newest concept, The Cake Concertos, pairs intimate chamber music with storytelling, conversation and of course, cake.
What drove her there through radio and film, Paris and pastry school, and loss and reinvention, was not a plan but a curiosity and an awareness that it is necessary to keep adapting at every turn. Her goal is to keep learning, make conscious choices to find the joy in every day.