LOOMING
Essay

LOOMING

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

Adrift
Excerpts

Adrift

On the 10th of June, 1940, the same day Italy entered the war and invaded…

Living and Writing Between Two Worlds: In Conversation with Douglas Anthony Cooper
Interview

Living and Writing Between Two Worlds: In Conversation with Douglas Anthony Cooper

Douglas Anthony Cooper is not an author you will find anyone reading under a beach umbrella. His novels are structurally complex, metaphysical, sometimes visionary; they report on existence at the boundary between reality and imagination. They have been described as “architectural.” Born in Toronto, Cooper has been a global wanderer…

The Courtyard
Writings

The Courtyard

Clara and Cosimo finally reached Via Plebiscito number…

Green
Poetry

Green

I say I love being close to you with a…

Autumn

Autumn

The wind brings cool air and swirling leaves falling gracefully to the ground, covering the lake with brocade flourishes, painting…

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…

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…

IN MEMORIAM: Remembering Corrado Paina

IN MEMORIAM: Remembering Corrado Paina

A Collage of Impressions, curated by George Elliott Clarke Among Toronto’s cold, glistening skyscrapers, Corrado Paina (1954-2024) was a transplanted…

The Elegant Complexity of Oranges

The Elegant Complexity of Oranges

“Did you like Toronto when you first arrived here?” “Never,” she replies in her broken English, the r trilled. “I…

More Lasting than Bronze: Pasquino Introduces Himself

More Lasting than Bronze: Pasquino Introduces Himself

Benvenuto a Roma! Welcome to Rome! If you want to enjoy your visit, shut your guidebook and listen to me,…

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…

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…

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…

Patrizio Buanne: Neapolitan Crooner and Really Nice Guy

Patrizio Buanne: Neapolitan Crooner and Really Nice Guy

In a career spanning more than 25 years, Neapolitan pop-crooner and international multi-platinum recording artist Patrizio Buanne has won over…

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…

Giuseppe Musolino: Brigand King of Calabria

Giuseppe Musolino: Brigand King of Calabria

“He was the Robin Hood of Italy,” my mother said when she first showed me the tattered old book in…

Living and Writing Between Two Worlds: In Conversation with Douglas Anthony Cooper

Living and Writing Between Two Worlds: In Conversation with Douglas Anthony Cooper

Douglas Anthony Cooper is not an author you will find anyone reading under a beach umbrella. His novels are structurally…

Making Waves: An Interview with Guy Rex Rodgers

Making Waves: An Interview with Guy Rex Rodgers

Guy Rex Rodgers is the founding executive director (2004-2021) of the English Language Arts Network, or ELAN; "a not-for-profit organization…

In Conversation with Robert Marra

In Conversation with Robert Marra

Born in Toronto, visual artist Robert Marra studied and created ceramic arts while living in Italy in the 1980s. He…

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…

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…

More Precious than Diamonds

More Precious than Diamonds

Despite my frequent trips to Italy, I consciously decided never to learn the language. With blissful ignorance, I always preferred…

Delusions of Empire: A Review of Francesco Filippi’s But We Built Roads for Them

Delusions of Empire: A Review of Francesco Filippi’s But We Built Roads for Them

One of the ironies of the Italic-skippered “discoveries” of the Caribbean and the Americas, from the late 15th and to…

To Seize the World: A Review of Carmela Circelli’s Love and Rain

To Seize the World: A Review of Carmela Circelli’s Love and Rain

Carmela Circelli’s Love and Rain (Guernica, 2023) is a beautifully written novel often soaked in mood. I wanted to swallow…

She Deserves to Be Happy: The Illusion of Choice in Michaela Di Cesare’s Extra/Beautiful/U

She Deserves to Be Happy: The Illusion of Choice in Michaela Di Cesare’s Extra/Beautiful/U

Michaela Di Cesare’s new play, Extra/Beautiful/U, premiered at Montreal’s Centaur Theatre last November as part of Centaur’s Brave New Looks…

A Review of Domenico Capilongo’s 1972

A Review of Domenico Capilongo’s 1972

In one sense, 1972 is an extension of some of Domenico Capilongo’s past work. Once again, Capilongo writes about growing…

LOOMING

LOOMING

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

Casa

Casa

It’s 1964, Montreal. And a photograph shows me taking my first steps in my grandparents’ front garden. A year later,…

Stranger in a Strange Land … or How I learned to Love the Hyphen

Stranger in a Strange Land … or How I learned to Love the Hyphen

Culture is a system of values – economic values, aesthetic values, moral values etc – to want to preserve it…

Another Timeless Italian Tradition

Another Timeless Italian Tradition

It may have been a spoonful of sugar for the family, yet it always left a bitter taste on my…

Italy’s Colonial Past Amid the Lies, Racism, and Selective Amnesia

Italy’s Colonial Past Amid the Lies, Racism, and Selective Amnesia

Excerpts from But We Built Roads for Them: The Lies, Racism, and Amnesia that Bury Italy’s Colonial Past, from the…

Feeling God’s Presence: A Review of Mary Melfi’s Welcome to Hard Times

Feeling God’s Presence: A Review of Mary Melfi’s Welcome to Hard Times

Mary Melfi has written over a dozen books, including fiction, non-fiction, memoires and plays, and her books have been translated…

In Search of an Altered Identity in Bruna Martini’s Roots-Radici

In Search of an Altered Identity in Bruna Martini’s Roots-Radici

Roots, Radici. (BeccoGiallo, 2022) is Bruna Martini’s new installment in her graphic memoir series and examines the author’s own altered…

Alla scoperta di un’identità mutata in Roots / Radici di Bruna Martini

Alla scoperta di un’identità mutata in Roots / Radici di Bruna Martini

Bruna Martini torna a sorprenderci nuovamente con il suo graphic memoir, Roots. Radici, (BeccoGiallo, 2022) alla riscoperta della propria “identità…

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…

2021 Accenti Contests – Winners Announced

2021 Accenti Contests – Winners Announced

  Montreal, May 16, 2021 – We are pleased to report the names of the winners of the 2021 Accenti…