With a background in screenwriting, journalism, short form story writing , and poetry, Laina Lovestein has always found ways to express herself creatively.
In 2008, she premiered her first short film, ‘MANchild’, at the Cleveland International Film Festival, directed by Rawson Marshall Thurber. The film revolved around a young Black man coming to grips with decisions made in his past to determine the future he envisions for himself. The film was also screened at the Directors Guild of America in Los Angeles, CA for select students of the LA Unified School District in 2009 .
Laina has had the pleasure of spreading her message of youth empowerment, sharing her perspective about race, gender, and class as a Black woman coming of age in the 2000s, the power of goal setting and following ones path. She has spoken at various conferences and schools across the country. In 2009, at the age of 17, she became the youngest presenter at ‘Americas Citadel of Free Speech’, the City Club of Cleveland, founded in 1912.
Between June 2018 & March 2019, Laina became a contributor to the online writing community, Medium. Essays range from commentary to personal perspective. Her pieces were viewed and read over 57k times, solely based on her own sharing strategies through her social media.
LainaLovestein.com was launched December 2019 as a space for Laina to create freely under her own imprint and explore the things that she loves told in her own voice.
She is actively producing and developing various projects under the content creation company, OPAL.
Laina was born and raised in Cleveland, OH. In 2019, she relocated to Los Angeles, CA with her husband, author, filmmaker, and owner/founder of OPAL, Brendan Whitt.
Her pen name is inspired by late rapper Mac Miller’s funky alter ego, Larry Lovestein. She cites him as an influence in her work. In addition to Donald Glover, Frank Ocean, Spike Lee, Lena Waithe, Judd Apatow, Kanye West, Mindy Kaling, Larry David, Issa Rae, Jerrod Carmichael & Chris Rock.