"A DELIGHT. GAIL REITANO PENS A SUCCESSFUL FIRST NOVEL ABOUT INTIMATE AND POLITICAL TURMOIL."    CURRENT WOMAN "A SUPERB NOVEL THAT OPENS UP A PART OF THE HISTORY OF ITALIANS IN AMERICA IN 1938. AND ABOVE ALL, A STORY OF A GREAT WOMAN WHO WANTS TO GET BY DESPITE THE...

I've been thinking about WATER, which drove me to Joyce's Ulysses ~ "What in water did Bloom, waterlover, drawer of water, watercarrier, returning to the range, admire? "... the independence of its units: the variability of states of sea: its hydrostatic quiescence in...

ITALIAN LOVE CAKE made the Small Press Distribution Fiction Bestseller List again this year  in Dec'21/Jan'22.  So grateful to the small independents who curate their offerings and provide readers and writers alike with a cozy home away from home. Many of our favorite...

A writer's life is a sedentary version of a "free solo." And if that sounds strange, then I'm guessing you aren't spending your days in the pursuit of the often illusive writing success. A publication, any publication, is the lifeblood of a writer. And sometimes we...

  ALL SIX COPIES ARE IN USE! Thanks to my readers ~~ As a writer and reader, I depend on my public library - for academic publications I wouldn't otherwise have access to, for rare out of print finds that still (thankfully) linger on shelves, for the amazing...

When Éditions Anne Carrière and their fantastic translator, Marie de Prémonville, approached me and wanted to translate Italian Love Cake into French, my immediate thought was: what makes my novel appealing to a French audience? The novel takes place in the period...

https://lithub.com/a-lasting-gift-remembering-my-friend-kim-chernin/ https://lithub.com/a-lasting-gift-remembering-my-friend-kim-chernin/

The old Slape mansion (in need of a refurb) on the lake in my New Jersey hometown, was the inspiration for the Ashworth mansion in my novel, ITALIAN LOVE CAKE.   Pictured here in 1952, before my aunt and uncle bought it.

Heading to a wedding. From left: my grandmother, Anna Renzi, Aunt Helen, and Mom, all in white.  Who said we never dressed up in our small rural town?   ______ We liked to dress up. Here, with a very suntanned Aunt Maddy in the guest bedroom of her house that...

I T A L I A N   L O V E   C A K E SUMMARY   As World War II approaches, Marie Genovese mourns the recent loss of her mother, struggles to manage the family's failing Five & Ten as well as a brother flirting with Fascism, and meets a man who is dangerously...

As the story goes, my Neapolitan great grandfather, Carmine Rodio, was bullied mercilessly at school, and soon became a disciplinary problem. One day he whacked the bully in the head with a shovel and injured him. How badly we don't know. Carmine was a young teenager...

Writing  ITALIAN LOVE CAKE, I felt compelled to recreate the life of an Italian-American woman in the 1930s. Often I imagined my grandmother, but really I drew from the lives of many women, my mother, aunt, and grandmothers. I reflected on my own life as a young girl...

  For lovers of memoir, there is no better than In My Mother's House (1983), by the glorious Kim Chernin, who died last month of Covid at the age of 80. Kim was an inspiration, a writing buddy, a confidante, and she was also a daughter, a subject we never tired...

Italian Love Cake

It was a warm night with fire flies lighting like stars, and they swirled around me, waist high, as if I were a giant. Dad came outside and asked me if I wanted to gig some frogs. I said I did, even though I didn’t know what gigging was.   Ransom’s pond was a...

  "WANTING WARHOL: My Connections to Andy Warhol" HERE:  https://catamaranliteraryreader.com/all-nonfiction   As Kathy Acker wrote: "The world is gray afterbirth. Fake. All of New York City is fake is going to go all my friends are going crazy all my friends...