A Stroll Through Mark Frutkin’s The Walled Garden
While hoeing his garden one day – so the story…
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 Italian that she kept in her cedar chest. I was immediately interested because I was an avid follower of the television series “The Adventures of Robin Hood,” which was very popular in the 1950s. The book told the story of Giuseppe Musolino, a man with the same birth surname as my mother’s. Flipping through those…
Roots, Radici. (BeccoGiallo, 2022) is Bruna Martini’s new…
The 1960s continued to see increasing numbers of Italians immigrating…
“Mom, the woman will be here at 11:30. Are you…
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…
Damage and Repair: A Response to Roberto Marra’s Paintings
Roberto Marra makes physical what is felt but not seen. We’ll come back to this. As an artist I am…
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…
I Should Have Known
I would have known. Of course, I would. The bruises, black eyes, and lacerations would be easy to spot.…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
A Stroll Through Mark Frutkin’s The Walled Garden
While hoeing his garden one day – so the story goes – Saint Francis of Assisi was asked what he…
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…
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…
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
Bruna Martini torna a sorprenderci nuovamente con il suo graphic memoir, Roots. Radici, (BeccoGiallo, 2022) alla riscoperta della propria “identità…
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…
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…