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Back in the early 1990s, I had a brief correspondence with journalist and author Gay Talese. I’d been reading his memoir, Unto the Sons, a 635-page tome described as “an Italian Roots” by Washington Post Book World. In our exchange of letters — actual pen and paper — Talese and I lamented the dearth of books about the Italian-American experience (d...

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April 14, 2022 — 7 p.m. EST. Zoom Webinar (Register Here). Join us for a conversation with Lawrence Baldassaro, author of “Beyond Di Maggio” and “Tony Lazzeri,” and Richard Johnson, curator of The Sports Museum of New England since 1982 and author of 25 books, including histories of the Red Sox, Bruins, Celtics, Patriots, Boston Braves, Boston Gard...

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Among the features of Prof. Kenneth Scambray’s new book, Italian Immigration in the American  West, 1870-1940, that stand out are the episodes he relates coming directly from his Family Papers. These are by no means gratuitous or filio-pietistic boastings about his own immigrant family. Rather, they are integral to his overall thesis, especially re...

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This Way Home, Gianna Patriarca’s new poetry collection, is, among other things, a challenge to invisibility. This book offers a uniquely and universally powerful voice from a woman who writes clearly and passionately for all generations. She writes about immigrant communities, anger, love, displacement, religion, and violence and about young and o...

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Fifty is a nice round number and since I possess a 1972 Greater Roseland Area Directory and a 1972 Calumet Index Ninth Edition Greater Roseland Area Annual Yearbook, I thought it would be great if we could review what was happening 50 years ago. Roseland’s service organizations were the main topic of the Annual Yearbook. As we’re all aware, Roselan...

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Tuesday April 12, 2022 — 7 p.m. EST. Zoom Webinar (Register Here). Organized by I AM Books. Join us in conversation with Christin Simon and Julia Clairborne Johnson. Christine Simon grew up in a very large and very loud Italian family and now lives with her husband and four children in New Jersey. The Patron Saint of Second Chances is her first nov...

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Friday April 8, 2022 — 7 p.m. EST. I AM Books, 124 Salem Street, Boston MA (Register Here). Join I AM Books for a conversation between Elena Ferrante’s translator Ann Goldstein and Europa Editions Editor-in-Chief Michael Reynolds. The series “Libriamo! From Italy with Books” is presented by I AM Books in collaboration with FICC Boston and is under...

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Martin Abramowitz sits in Brookline’s Caffe Nero wearing a “Jews in Baseball” hat. It’s a nod to his position as CEO and founder of the nonprofit Jewish Major Leaguers, which produces baseball cards featuring Jewish players. I ask about his Durham Bulls T-shirt. “It’s a long story,” he answers. The tale he wants to tell is much more significant and...

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Baseball is biblical.  It acts out our desire to make our way back home, to get back to the Garden of Eden.  So pointed out literary scholar, then President of Yale University, then Baseball Commissioner, A. Bartlett Giamatti in Take Time for Paradise (1989): “It is the story . . . of going home after having left home, the story of how difficult it...

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For the first time, the Italian American Writers Association (IAWA) and Bordighera Press will share Table 1245 at the Associated Writing Programs (AWP) Conference in Philadelphia, March 23-26. IAWA will host a Reading at the off-site venue, A Novel Idea on Passyunk, Philadelphia, PA on Friday, March 25. The event will be facilitated by authors and...

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