Damage and Repair: A Response to Roberto Marra’s Paintings
Roberto Marra makes physical what is felt but not seen.…
Italian-Canadian Writers Gather in Torino for Biennial Conference
The Association of Italian-Canadian Writers (AICW) held its biennial conference…
Exposing the Soft Underbelly of the Legal System: A Review of Darlene Madott’s Winners and Losers
I approached Winners and Losers, Darlene Madott’s latest literary offering, with high expectations. Her last book, Dying Times, was a tight braid of narrative that wove together high stakes legal affairs with tense family relations – especially sibling rivalry—while dissecting sensitive issues of life and death, mortality, dignity, and honour. That’s a tough act to follow. But she rises to the occasion again here in a different form: the short story collection. Winners and Losers:…
I would have known. Of course, I…
Francesca’s first confession, after years of abstinence from the Catholic…
IN MEMORIAM: Remembering Len Gasparini
Curated by George Elliott Clarke When poet Leonard Gasparini passed away in October 2022, aged 81, lost was one of…
Another Timeless Italian Tradition
It may have been a spoonful of sugar for the family, yet it always left a bitter taste on my…
The House
I’ve never visited Grace Street, but draft an image from my mother’s stories. The brick is brownish-yellow; a leafless skeleton…
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…
Finding All the Movements of Life: The Art of Sandro Martini
Someone once said that all writers and artists, famous or not, share the same pain and the same dreams. They…
When Fiorello La Guardia Came to Ottawa
Fiorello La Guardia, the larger-than-life mayor of New York City, was the big draw at the Third National Conference of…
Ottawa’s “Village”
Cars, trucks, and heavy transports bustle down the busy thoroughfare known as Preston Street. A vital link between the city…
Ottawa’s Little Italy Revives Street Art As It Revives Itself
Ottawa’s Preston Street developed its Italian-Canadian identity well before the 1950s, when the bulk of Italian immigration began. More importantly,…
Calabria in Mind
Intellectuals, too, take vacations, and they generally don’t look askance to venues off the beaten track. This is what Margherita…
IN MEMORIAM: Remembering Len Gasparini
Curated by George Elliott Clarke When poet Leonard Gasparini passed away in October 2022, aged 81, lost was one of…
IN MEMORIAM: Remembering Luciano Iacobelli
Luciano Iacobelli passed away on August 30, 2022, after a long illness that eroded his body, but not his spirit.…
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…
When Fiorello La Guardia Came to Ottawa
Fiorello La Guardia, the larger-than-life mayor of New York City, was the big draw at the Third National Conference of…
The Downfall of Emilio Picariello
While the earliest wave of Italian immigration to Alberta between 1896 and 1914 largely comprised labourers, there were skilled individuals…
Jim Crow and Italian Immigrants in the American West
The 1920s saw the revival of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) in the West, especially in Colorado and Oregon, with…
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…
Glenn Carley on His “Urban Opera” Il Vagabondo
In his new book, Il Vagabondo: An Urban Opera (Guernica 2021), Glenn Carley introduces a new avant-garde genre – literature…
In Conversation with Genni Gunn, Author of Permanent Tourists
Genni Gunn is the author of twelve books, including three novels, three short fiction collections, two poetry collections, a collection…
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
Despite my frequent trips to Italy, I consciously decided never to learn the language. With blissful ignorance, I always preferred…
Italian San Francisco
It is impossible to think of San Francisco without its Italian heritage. There are the notables: A.P. Giannini, who founded…
Exposing the Soft Underbelly of the Legal System: A Review of Darlene Madott’s Winners and Losers
I approached Winners and Losers, Darlene Madott’s latest literary offering, with high expectations. Her last book, Dying Times, was a…
Poetry with Purpose: A Review of George Elliott Clarke’s J’Accuse
In his latest book, J’Accuse, Poems Versus (Exile Editions, 2021) George Elliott Clarke pulls out all the stops and delivers…
Review of Italian Immigration in the American West – 1870-1940, by Kenneth Scambray
Among the features of Prof Kenneth Scambray’s new book, Italian Immigration in the American West – 1870-1940, (University of Nevada…
Under the Shadow of Mortality: Review of Dying Times by Darlene Madott
Darlene Madott’s latest book of fiction, her eighth, might be titled Dying Times (Exile Editions, 2021), but it’s really all…
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
It may have been a spoonful of sugar for the family, yet it always left a bitter taste on my…
If Only We Knew
My father-in-law was a contadino from Castropigano. He was brilliant. He had a grade five education. He possessed the patience…
Rinasheremo
Love given wholeheartedly, inclusively and unconditionally is inexhaustible. – Anonymous The first time I acknowledged it out loud, I was…
The Drama of Caravaggio
An 11-year-old boy is walking on the edge of a forest near his uncle’s farm in the Lombardy region of…
Reflections on Timeless Rhythms in David Bellusci’s Age of Innocence
David Bellusci opens his latest poetry collection, Age of Innocence (Wipf and Stock, 2020), with a poem that heralds the…
Marinella
An excerpt from the novel The Transaction. De Angelis, an inscrutable northerner, comes to a rural village in Sicily to negotiate…
Caterina Edwards on the French Translation of Her Novel, The Sicilian Wife
Caterina Edwards immigrated to Edmonton at age eight with her British father and Venetian mother. The Edmonton author was the…
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
Montreal, May 16, 2021 – We are pleased to report the names of the winners of the 2021 Accenti…
Creative Spaces: Queer and Italian-Canadian
What does it mean to be queer and Italian-Canadian? And what experiences do queer Italian-Canadians have when their sexual orientation…
2020 Accenti Contests – Winners Announced
Montreal, May 26, 2020 – Publisher Domenic Cusmano and Editor-in-chief Licia Canton are pleased to announce the winners of the 2020…