All Things Italy
Writing Places & Bagni di Lucca, Italy
Bagni di Lucca, Italy, on the Lima River in Tuscany (Photo Credit: By Keith Ruffles, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=53034692) Six years ago this week, I...
Margaret Fuller: Writing and Social Activism in Massachusetts and Italy
Margaret Fuller Neighborhood House, Cambridgeport, Massachusetts. Fuller lived here during her early years. Fireflies, Fourth of July, fireworks, family reunions--the month has flown by--with lots of U.S. memories-in-the-making for me....
Mothers Without Borders: A Tribute to Surrogacy
Today I’m thinking of all those who “mother” -- beyond those who have born biological children. Think Mother Teresa, for example, or Mother Ann Lee,...
After Pasqua and Pasquetta . . . Liberation Day
Pasquetta--one Italian spring tradition I wish we could import to the US--blurs sometimes into another holiday, Liberation Day. Pasquetta, or “Little Easter” (since Easter is...
Utopian and Dystopian Visions: Sicily and Engaging Italy
Monte Argentario, off the coast of southern Tuscany Emeralds in a sea of sapphire—gems among gemstones—to a romantic dreamer. To those...
A Sicilian Memoir: Simeti’s On Persephone’s Island
Mandarins and pears at an open market in Sicily. Photo: Andrew Malone , Wikimedia Commons via Flickr Mary Taylor Simeti’s memoir of...
A Past January Inauguration Day in Sicily Spurs Hope for Future
Gray skies above Catania, Sicily, in January A few years back--twelve, to be exact--I was adjusting to an unfamiliar climate and...
Coincidence or Signs? Waldensians in the News
Twice in less than 24 hours—actually, within about 12 hours—I received notice from two friends* of two recent but very different news stories about the...
The Past Hauntingly Repeats Itself? National Elections of 1844
George Perkins Marsh portrait engraving by H. B. Hall, reprinted in Life & Letters (1888) Title Page of Life & Letters...
Coffee Passions: One of These Things is Not Like the Other
Double espresso and breakfast cookie in Rome Cappuccino from Starbucks, small One afternoon this week my desk...
