Creating a Future: Artist Mauro Balletti Reflects on Five Decades with Pop Icon Mina
Interviews

Creating a Future: Artist Mauro Balletti Reflects on Five Decades with Pop Icon Mina

In a rare and intimate interview with Elio Iannacci, visual artist Mauro Balletti reflects on his five-decade-plus collaboration with Mina—the iconic, reclusive Italian singer—whose image he helped reshape through boundary-pushing photography, collage, and cover art. For half a century, celebrated visual artist Mauro Balletti has helped shape the identity of…

The Growing Movement to Save the Sicilian Language
Heritage

The Growing Movement to Save the Sicilian Language

Something big is unfolding in Sicily, and no, it’s not a new season of White…

A Celebration of Creativity at AccentiFest 2025
Gatherings

A Celebration of Creativity at AccentiFest 2025

From June 26 to 28, 2025, the city of Charlottetown played host to the Accenti…

Echoes of the Troubadour: A Review of In a Cage of Sunlight: The Works of Joseph Maviglia, Selected and New
Reviews

Echoes of the Troubadour: A Review of In a Cage of Sunlight: The Works of Joseph Maviglia, Selected and New

Joseph Maviglia’s debut verse collection, Movietown, appeared in 1989, 36 years ago. That was only…

Love’s Eye View: New Possibilities in Storytelling and Heritage Preservation
Essay

Love’s Eye View: New Possibilities in Storytelling and Heritage Preservation

Upon invitation, my wife and I, we went down into the city. We travelled with…

Le Bateau en état d’ébriété (1870)
Poetry

Le Bateau en état d’ébriété (1870)

– Après Arthur Rimbaud, pace John Thompson As I sluiced wild, homicidal channels, The pilot…

Echoes of the Troubadour: A Review of In a Cage of Sunlight: The Works of Joseph Maviglia, Selected and New

Echoes of the Troubadour: A Review of In a Cage of Sunlight: The Works of Joseph Maviglia, Selected and New

Joseph Maviglia’s debut verse collection, Movietown, appeared in 1989, 36 years ago. That was only the start of a rhapsodic…

In Laura’s Uncovering, John Calabro Weaves a Tale of Two Eras

In Laura’s Uncovering, John Calabro Weaves a Tale of Two Eras

In Laura’s Uncovering (Ekstasis 2024), Toronto author John Calabro has crafted a historical romance set in two different eras, with…

Love and War in Genni Gunn’s The Cipher

Love and War in Genni Gunn’s The Cipher

With The Cipher (Signature Editions 2024, 239 p.), Genni Gunn has written a masterful work that captures the sacrifices of…

Creating a Future: Artist Mauro Balletti Reflects on Five Decades with Pop Icon Mina

Creating a Future: Artist Mauro Balletti Reflects on Five Decades with Pop Icon Mina

In a rare and intimate interview with Elio Iannacci, visual artist Mauro Balletti reflects on his five-decade-plus collaboration with Mina—the…

Mickey & Joe: Good. Bad. Ugly. Dirty: In Conversation with Michaela Di Cesare

Mickey & Joe: Good. Bad. Ugly. Dirty: In Conversation with Michaela Di Cesare

Mickey & Joe: Good. Bad. Ugly. Dirty is having its world premiere in Montreal from May 17 to 25, 2025.…

Between Curiosity and Imagination: In Conversation with Renée M. Sgroi

Between Curiosity and Imagination: In Conversation with Renée M. Sgroi

In a Tension of Leaves and Binding (Guernica 2024) is Renée M. Sgroi’s second collection of poetry. Her previous collection, life…

Gino Quilico, the  Man and the Artist

Gino Quilico, the Man and the Artist

In her new book, An Opera in Three Acts Starring Gino Quilico (LLP, 2022), Connie Guzzo McParland chronicles the lives…

At a Loss – The Science and Art of Being a Hairstylist

At a Loss – The Science and Art of Being a Hairstylist

Victor DiBenedetto has spent a lifetime discreetly making his customers look and feel their best. For nearly five decades, the…

But For Now We Stay Home

But For Now We Stay Home

For our mammas! Francesca LoDico’s radio special, "But For Now We Stay Home,” is about her mamma coping with the…

To Market, To Market – the Mercato Experience in Italy

To Market, To Market – the Mercato Experience in Italy

The Mercato is an Italian tradition that goes back centuries. Once a week, travelling vendors come to town, set up…

Where Italy’s Most Famous Are Buried

Where Italy’s Most Famous Are Buried

Every year millions of tourists visit the city of Florence and flock to the Uffizi Gallery for its extraordinary collection…

Dining With the Gods – A Travel Essay

Dining With the Gods – A Travel Essay

After almost half a century living in Toronto’s Little Italy, I make a return journey to the place where I…

Ottawa’s “Village”

Ottawa’s “Village”

Cars, trucks, and heavy transports bustle down the busy thoroughfare known as Preston Street. A vital link between the city…

Giving Ethnocultural Studies a Digital Future

Giving Ethnocultural Studies a Digital Future

The historiography of Canada’s ethnocultural communities has developed largely over the past 60 years and individual community histories continue to…

The Roncarelli Case: Defiance in the Pursuit of Justice

The Roncarelli Case: Defiance in the Pursuit of Justice

In 1946, Montreal restaurateur Frank Roncarelli, an Italian immigrant from Bologna, did the unimaginable – he sued the most powerful…

Fascism, Anti-Semitism, and the Italian Novel in California

Fascism, Anti-Semitism, and the Italian Novel in California

As Italian Liberation Day approaches every April 25th, the editorial pages of Italy’s national newspapers reignite the national discourse over…

Letters of Introduction? Lear, Gissing and Douglas’s Travels to Calabria

Letters of Introduction? Lear, Gissing and Douglas’s Travels to Calabria

For centuries, letters of introduction were considered almost as essential as passports for travelling within what is now Italy. A…

The Growing Movement to Save the Sicilian Language

The Growing Movement to Save the Sicilian Language

Something big is unfolding in Sicily, and no, it’s not a new season of White Lotus. There is a saying…

Looming

Looming

“When we undertake the pilgrimage, it's not just to escape the tyranny at home but also to reach to the…

Pictures and Parades

Pictures and Parades

There is this picture of me, taken at my first gay pride parade, that is one of my favourites. In…

The Son She Never Had

The Son She Never Had

​Luca inhaled deeply and then parked his cigarette in the ashtray. He turned to me, wearing a very decisive expression…

Calabrese Nacatole: Byzantine Delights for the Holiday Season

Calabrese Nacatole: Byzantine Delights for the Holiday Season

As the festive season approaches, I think of my mom and her enigmatic smile, and how she diligently and lovingly…

Holiday Memories

Holiday Memories

Our holiday celebrations always began with Italian Christmas Eve fare: fish and seafood, and our regional specialty of polenta e baccalà. Around…

Mushrooms Like Paper-Thin Memories

Mushrooms Like Paper-Thin Memories

Evenings on Prince Edward Island already smell like autumn. On the boardwalk at the end of each day the air…

Preserving Summer’s Latecomers

Preserving Summer’s Latecomers

Forlorn, hopelessly hanging on, budding too late to reach their full glory, tarty green tomatoes are the latecomers of summer. Packed…

A Celebration of Creativity at AccentiFest 2025

A Celebration of Creativity at AccentiFest 2025

From June 26 to 28, 2025, the city of Charlottetown played host to the Accenti Magazine International Festival of the…

A Celebration of Italian-Canadian Voices

A Celebration of Italian-Canadian Voices

More than sixty writers of Italian heritage presented their work at the 19th Biennial Conference of the Association of Italian-Canadian…

Fallen Workers: How the Italian Community Found Its Voice Through Tragedy

Fallen Workers: How the Italian Community Found Its Voice Through Tragedy

International Day of Mourning takes place on April 28th to remember workers killed or injured in the workplace. At Toronto's…

Italian-Canadian Writers Gather in Torino for Biennial Conference

Italian-Canadian Writers Gather in Torino for Biennial Conference

The Association of Italian-Canadian Writers (AICW) held its biennial conference at the University of Torino, in Torino, Italy, from September…