​Christina Marrocco works in memoir, short story, long fiction, and poetry. Her work has appeared in Silverbirch Press, The Laurel Review, House Mountain Review, VIA, Ovunque Siamo, and Red Fern Press. She lives outside of Chicago where she teaches Creative Writing and other courses at Elgin Community College

Federica Santini is Professor of Italian and Interdisciplinary Studies at Kennesaw State University, where she coordinates the Gender and Women’s Studies Program. She holds a Ph.D. in Italian literature from UCLA and a Laurea in Lettere Moderne from the University of Siena, Italy. Her work has appeared in numerous journals, including Plath Profiles, Rogue Agent, and Italian Culture, among others, as well as in many edited volumes. As a translator, she has published translations of US poets for Mondadori and Nino Aragno, as well as translations of Italian poets for the University of Toronto Press. She has authored or co-edited six volumes, among which her monograph, Io era una bella figura una volta: Viaggio nella poesia di ricerca del secondo Novecento (Scritture, 2013) and her poetry chapbook, Unearthed (Kelsay Books 2021).

Janine Certo is the author of three books: Elixir, winner of both the New American Poetry Prize and the Lauria/Frasca Poetry Prize (New American Press and Bordighera Press, forthcoming 2021), In the Corner of the Living, runner-up for the Main Street Rag Poetry Book Award (2017), and a book of poetry scholarship, Children Writing Poems: Poetic Voices in and out of School (Routledge, 2018). A winner of Nimrod International Journal’s Pablo Neruda Prize for Poetry, her poems appear or are forthcoming in The Cincinnati Review, The Greensboro Review, New Ohio Review, Poetry Northwest, Shenandoah, Vallum, and others. She has also been a Featured Poet in the cultural and historical review, Italian Americana. She is currently an associate professor of poetry and teacher education at Michigan State University.

Steve Cerulli teaches American History at Hostos Comunity College. He is also a College Assistant at the John D. Calandra Italian American Institute - Queens College.

His areas of interest and research include: Italian/American and Italian diaspora studies from an interdisciplinary perspective, New York City history, critical race theory, ethnic studies, American studies, and anarchist studies.

Maria Giura is the author of What My Father Taught Me  (Bordighera Press) and Celibate: A Memoir (Apprentice House), which won a 2020 Independent Press Award and was called “complex and emotionally wrought” by Publisher’s Weekly. Maria’s writing has appeared in several journals including Prime Number, Presence, Italian Americana, Lips, VIA, Ovunque Siamo, and Tiferet. She has won awards from the Academy of American Poets and the Center for Women Writers and was selected to judge the Lauria/ Frasca Poetry Award.  She has taught Literature and Writing at St. John’s University, Montclair State University, and Binghamton University where she earned her doctorate in English. 

https://www.mariagiura.com/

Allison Scola is founder, owner, and curator of Experience Sicily and the Cannoli Crawl. Named one of the experts for the 2019 New York Times Travel Show, Scola writes and lectures on Sicily and leads immersive tours and designs custom itineraries that delight discerning travelers. She has been featured on Rudy Maxa’s World with the Carey’s, America’s #1 Travel Radio Show and as the cannoli expert in the documentary Cannoli, Traditions Around the Table. Scola has lectured about Sicily at University of Pennsylvania, The New School, LIU Post University, Queens College, at high schools in the New York City metropolitan area, and at events in New York City.

Experience Sicily https://experiencesicily.com/

Cannoli Crawl https://cannolicrawl.com/

Cannoli Crawl on Instagram @cannolicrawl_nyc

From The Inquisitive Eater

Opened in 1910 by Ernesto Rossi as Rossi's Libreria, the shop began as a music store and publishing company.

Joseph Sciorra, assistant director of the John D. Calandra Italian American Institute at Queens College has said that E. Rossi & Sons is a repository and archive for Italian-American popular culture. Its collection is unprecedented.

For more information go to: https://erossico.com/

Link to a fabulous documentary on the history of E. Rossi & Sons: http://www.folkstreams.net/film,174

Anthony Julian Tamburri is the Dean of the John D. Calandra Italian American Institute (Queens College, CUNY) and Distinguished Professor of European Languages and Literatures. His research interests lie in literature, cinema, semiotics, interpretation theory, and cultural studies.

Joey Nicoletti is the author of 4 poetry chapbooks and 4 full-length collections, including Boombox Serenade (BlazeVOX, 2019), and Cannoli Gangster, which was selected as a finalist for the 2009 Steel Toe Books Award. His Pushcart Prize-nominated work has appeared in Ovunque Siamo, Gradiva, Voices in Italian Americana, and Drawn to Marvel: Poems from the Comic Books, among other journals, magazines, and anthologies. A graduate of the University of Iowa, New Mexico State University, and Sarah Lawrence College, Joey teaches creative writing at SUNY Buffalo State.

Kathy Curto teaches at The Writing Institute and Montclair State University. She is the author of Not for Nothing-Glimpses into a Jersey Girlhood, published by Bordighera Press. 

Her work has been featured on NPR, in the essay collection, Listen to Your Mother:  What She Said Then, What We’re Saying Now, and in The New York Times, Barrelhouse, La Voce di New York, Drift, Talking Writing, The Inquisitive Eater, Voices in Italian Americana, Ovunque Siamo and Lumina. 

She has been the recipient of the Kathryn Gurfein Writing Fellowship, the Montclair State University Engaged Teaching Fellowship and also serves on the faculty of the Joe Papaleo Writers’ Workshop in Cetara, Italy. 

Kathy lives in the Hudson Valley with her husband and their four children.