I’m preparing to give a workshop on research for writers generally and writers of historical fiction in particular. (Sept. 17, sponsored by the Knoxville Writers Guild). I got to wondering what this genre is anyway, I mean what do experts say…
Blog Archives
Hurricanes and Gingkos
Back when I was a child in Metuchen, New Jersey, hurricanes passed by with some regularity. One came just after my father had planted twin gingko trees in our front yard. While he was normally quite fastidious in tree-planting, for…
Comfort pasta with cauliflower
One of my favorite pasta dishes is also the most comforting: pasta with cauliflower, pasta al cavolfiore. It has that subtle blend of sweetness and substance that marks so many American comfort foods: rice pudding, vanilla ice cream, mashed potatoes,…
What Italians do best
Between 1990 and 2000, I taught for the University of Maryland’s European Division at the U.S. Naval Base in Agnano, outside of Naples. Some of my students were the walking wounded of civilian life. “The drill sergeants didn’t beat me…
With the dead in Pozzuoli
When we lived outside Naples, our local hospital was called La Schiana for the small mound on which it perched rather than its grand official designation: Ospedale Santa Maria delle Grazie di Pozzuoli. The city of Pozzuoli was old before…
Is Opi real?
It happens at books groups that someone asks if Opi is real. Oh yes. And it has been real for a long time, as the site Opionline can tell you in English and Italian. Altitude 1250 ft, current population 500,…
Bianca’s queen
I just pushed “send” on the first chapters of my next novel, winging them to my agent. Soon, I hope, we’ll be on the journey to a second book. A long journey, since there are just these chapters, a plot…
Rough Translation
Recently friends asked Maurizio to translate an email from a Sicilian bed & breakfast where they had wanted to stay. The oddity is that this email was in English, sort of. After explaining that there was no “bad” to be…
Irma goes Dutch
I have just found out that the Dutch company Karakter has bid on When We Were Strangers. This is very nice since with Polish rights sold and now Dutch coming, we are closing in on Italian sales. Here you see…
Buying holy water in Loreto
Near Ancona is the hill town of Loreto, an international pilgrim Mecca since it hosts the House of Maria. That Maria, the mother of Jesus. You may wonder what it’s doing in Central Italy and also why it’s so Baroque,…
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