An Italian-American Writer & Poet with a Yankee Outsider Perspective
Florence’s Protestant (or English) Cemetery used to sit outside the city walls–unsanctified ground. I like to think it was created out of an ancient kitchen midden, which might explain its peculiar shape–low at the entrance and rising at one end … Continued
In memoir writing, where the pen reaches deep into the past and draws up strands of honey and excrement, a life’s array, with its tassels and flotsam dances around the well. Finally to have achieved expression, life beyond the tortured … Continued
My oldest living relative Eleanora links me to her grandmother, also named Eleanora, who came from Sicily to New York, then Scranton, then Pittsburgh to marry the husband left with a small boy when her older sister died. Of course … Continued
In Minnesota Scandinavia, the Danes figure, along with their more populous cousins the Swedes and the Norwegians, as contributors of delectable (and hard to make) holiday treats; civic accountability; spare, appealing furniture design; and the Danish Gymnasts. Friends took me … Continued
Recently, two excellent Minneapolis Institute of Arts docents guided my writing class from Metro State through a “City and Country” tour, with an added stop in the African rooms. I’ve followed this practice of taking writing students to the MIA … Continued