Welcome to my contribution to Zoe Brooks’ Annual Magical Realism Blog Hop. This is my first time participating, and I’m pretty excited to be taking part. The more I read about magical realism, the more I see conflicting definitions and…
I’m thrilled to share the cover for Children of the Salt Road, whose official publication date is September 26, 2017. This beautiful cover will exist in two forms—as you see it here for the print and audio versions, and in…
I’ve noticed the Facebook fad-game of naming twenty-five things about yourself has come back to life. So, I thought I’d share a humorous little story about why “don’t try this at home” might be pretty good advice at times. This…
September 26, 2017, is the official publication date for Children of the Salt Road. Maybe you remember I announced that the manuscript had been through all its copyediting and proofing last October—even the Italian copy editor had a go—and it…
The family was getting a little ragged around the edges after a full afternoon of clueless window-shopping for relatives. Now, we pulled up in front of a large three story house in San Demetrio Corone, and the owner came out…
With confidence in the full, beautiful day ahead of us, we hit the road at 9:30am. Of course, on the way to the place that was sort of on the way to our destination, we had to make a stop—it…
“We left at 9:30 this morning for THE TRIP to Macchia Albanese.” Those words are from my travel diary of 21 April, 1998. We hadn’t been back to Italy or any part of Europe in well over a decade, confining our…
Burns and Allen were way ahead of their time. If you’re old enough to know them, you’ll have no trouble conjuring up an image of George Burns: short, suit and tie, cocked eyebrow, ever-present cigar, knowing smile. And right next…
After the sobering experience of coming so close to seeing what Macchia was like, I knew we needed to know more stuff: more about the area, more of the Italian language and more about my actual family. More about the…
With a couple of clicks of the mouse and a decent internet connection you can find nearly anyplace on earth. But that wasn’t true in the early 1980s. Trying to find Macchia Albanese—the town I had reason to believe was…