An Italian-American Writer & Poet with a Yankee Outsider Perspective
Recently, the novels of World War II Czech writer H.G.Adler are being translated into English and published in the United States. I’m reading his Panorama, originally written in 1948, in Peter Filkins’ 2011 English rendition. Discovering a fresh voice, unknown … Continued
I’ve finally entered the older generation. Not the oldest, mind you: my cousin Eleanora at 93 is the oldest and dearest. But according to what I’m learning from my current crop of education students, I’m older. Sometimes wiser, sometimes, in … 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 our house we dislike war. My husband Fran spent seventeen months in federal prison during the Vietnam War for refusing to accept even alternate service. A thorough-going pacifist, he virtually insisted that his Iowa draft board send him to … Continued
Growing up as an outsider in Charleston, South Carolina, cut two ways: into myself when I recognized how divergent I was, how odd, how embarrassing, how ultimately unrecognizable. But also outward, toward the movers and shakers, toward the society that … Continued
World War II, and the enormous expansion of transportation and manufacturing necessary for the United States to “tool up,” brought the country out of the “Great Depression.” But what to do once peace arrived and there wasn’t as great a … Continued
Old magazines fascinate me. Especially those from World War II and the 1950s recovery period. The period during which the United States transformed itself from a player on the world’s stage to one of the top two or three strutters … Continued
An Italian-American who immigrated to the U.S. when she was twelve recently returned from visiting long-time friends in Rome, Milan, Parma, and Bologna. “They don’t remarry,” she said, “because they don’t divorce. They find ‘un companio’ and have children together.”Though … Continued
No one ever inspected the old Isla ferry riding like a double-decker, open-air church across the bay from the Cancun mainland to the heavenly body of Isla. Later, hydrofoils would compete, rising high on their hunk of spray, zipping across … Continued
At the Holiday Inn Riverview, I look down twelve stories onto a sweep of Ashley River and marsh. Charleston, South Carolina, where I grew up, is chilly this December. My parents, from Pittsburgh (father) and Hankinson, North Dakota (mother), used … Continued