In her new collection of short stories, Baltimore writer Rosalia Scalia connects us to people we might never get to know by ourselves. Maybe they’re a lot older or younger than we -- or from a different ethnic group, and without Scalia at our side we wouldn’t realize that their families struggle like ours. Or maybe they’re just nasty, like the crotchety guy in the title story, 'Stumbling Toward Grace.' We learn right away that he’s a bigot who’s cut off his daughter and never met his grandkids. Somehow Scalia helps us see not just his mistakes, but why he’s made them, “There are many people around us who have things about them that are unlikeable but they themselves are not bad people, they’re just flawed.”

Scalia has two events coming up in the Baltimore area. She’ll be speaking at Pandola Learning Center at 914 Stiles St. in Little Italy-at noon this coming Saturday, April 23. And next month, on Sunday, May 29th, she’ll be in conversation with author Raphael Alvarez and poet Dean Smith at Ikaros Restaurant, 4901 Eastern Avenue, in Baltimore’s Greektown neighborhood. That event begins at 5 pm.

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