The (Not So) Nice Italian Girls go to Montreal

 

Lina Medaglia, author of The Demons of Aquilonia

Toronto poet Frank Giorno, author of Arrivederci! Plastic Covered Couch.

 

Montreal poet Mary Di Michele, author of ten books.

 Accenti Editor-in-Chief and author of Almond Wine and Fertility Licia Canton

Montreal poet Ilona Martonfi.  

Mike Pietracupa and Antoinette Pecora, generous friends to the NSNIG

 

Reeves Miller, Lina Medaglia's husband

Nadia Pecora and Joe, new friends

 Lina

 The appreciative crowd at the Arts Cafe, 201 Rue Fairmount, Montreal filled with family and friends

Mary reading a suite of poems on the filmmaker Pier Paolo Pasolini

 

Utterly Frank

Licia Canton is the author of Almond Wine and Fertility (2008), a collection of short stories for women and their men. She is also a literary critic, translator and the editor-in-chief of Accenti Magazine – for lovers of all things Italian. Her writing in English and Italian has appeared in numerous anthologies and journals. She has published four collections of creative and critical writing, including the soon-to be launched at Blue Metropolis Reflections on Culture. She holds a Ph.D. from Université de Montréal. She lives in St. Leonard with her husband and three children.

Poet, novelist and member of the renga group, Yoko’s Dogs, Mary di Michele is the author of ten books including a selected poems, Stranger in You, and the novel, Tenor of Love. She lives in Montreal where she teaches at Concordia University in the creative writing program.

Frank Giorno lives in Toronto and writes about health, environment, energy, sports and literature and other topics that arouses his curiosity. He is the author of two books of poetry: Elvis in America (2006) and Arrivederci! Plastic Covered Couch (2008) His poems have appeared Versifire, the magazine of the Ontario Poetry Society; Accenti Magazine; Garden Variety, a collection published by Quattro Books and in a collection of Italian-Canadian literature to be released at the Blue Metropolis Festival April 23, 2010. Frank is currently working on his third book of poems.

Ilona Martonfi's Blue Poppy, a first book of poems, was published with Coracle Press, 2009 which also published Coracle Press chapbook, Visiting the Ridge (2004). Martonfi’s poems have appeared in Vallum, Carte Blanche, Headlight Anthology, Accenti, Bibliosofia, (Italy), Arcade, Helios, Serai, Carve, Soliloquies, Fire With Water, Sun Through The Blinds: Montreal Haiku Today, Poets Against War, Poets Against War Canada, forthcoming in The Fiddlehead. Finalist 2007 Quebec Writing Competition. She published the story, “My Daughter, Marisa,” in CBC Story Anthology III, In Other Words: New English Writing from Quebec (Véhicule Press, 2008). Poet, editor, educator, creative writing teacher. Founder, producer/host of The Yellow Door and Visual Arts Centre Poetry and Prose Readings. Co-founder, producer/host of the annual Lovers & Others.

Lina Medaglia is a writer, a poet, and a lyricist for her partner, who, in her view, is a musical genius. Together, they have produced various works, including the libretto for a three-hour feminist musical called Casanova. At the age of eleven, Lina immigrated with her family to Toronto, from a tiny mountain village in Calabria. Her first book, Demons of Aquilonia, is a fictional autobiography based on her family's struggles with 'passing,’ the reinvention of one's identity for the purpose of survival and overcoming.

And as emcee ...
Michelle Alfano is a Toronto writer and a Co-Editor with Descant. Her short story “Opera”, on which her novella Made Up Of Arias (Blaurock Press, 2008) is based, was a finalist for a Journey Prize anthology. Her fiction and non-fiction work has been widely published in Canada in major literary publications, and has also appeared in the U.S. She will be featured in a forthcoming documentary on the passengers, and the children of the passengers, of the Saturnia, an immigrant ship which transported thousands of Italian-born immigrants to Canada in the 1950s and 60s and which will be featured on OMNI-TV.