about me

At present, I am spending less than one hour a month on Authonomy, and so am not available for "swap reads".

My novel, "Ask Me if I'm Happy" appeared on here in short story form nearly two years ago, with the title "Connections". The novel was released by Diiarts Publishing last month.

What can I say about myself?

I am an American living in Italy with my Italian husband, trying to find time to write between teaching English at a local language school and my struggles to learn Italian. I have been here for five years, now, and it's apparently a permanent thing. (The wedding seems to have made that certain.) I never dreamed of coming here, as I'm not an Italophile of any sort, but Love took over when I least expected it, and now, here I am, having passed my sixth wedding anniversary on February 28th, 2010.

As for writing, I hope to improve my work to a publishable standard, as being a writer is my lifelong dream. I wrote my first short stories/essays when I was about eight years old, and kept the habit going ever since. I have written and shared three novels - only one of which has real hope to see the light of day (a.k.a. publication) - and I try to write a little each day. It's not easy, though, when work requires me to travel on foot to multiple locations around town to teach. However, that "quiet time" allows me to stew a bit on where my characters are heading and what they're doing. I just have to carve out the time to get it down on paper/computer when I can!

I am presently working on a short story collection with tales based in Northern Italy, an area I feel is quite neglected by other writers. I don't write about "La Dolce Vita" (neither did Fellini - if you've seen the film, you know what I mean), nor do I allow myself to stray into the broad Italian stereotypes most readers are likely familiar with. There are no mandolino-strumming, stripey-shirt-wearing, sunglassed-and-smoking types singing arias to bosomy, bodacious raven-haired babes and languishing melodramatically in the Tuscan or Neapolitan sun in my tales - just hard-working residents of the Industrial North of Italy, doing their best in the modern world.

I may not play to the stereotypes of the American-in-Italy stories, but I acknowledge their appeal. This is a romantic country, even if we aren't all hanging out in Roman piazzas at dusk or sipping grappa or vin santo in a vineyard in the rolling hills of Tuscany. This is indeed a country that manages to exude romance from every pore of its collective being, lives and breathes in a decidedly sexy way, and practically marinates in the very sensuousness of life itself.

The day I capture this in my stories, I will consider myself a success, published or not.

favourite books

Big Stone Gap, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (the whole series), The Dark Tower series by Stephen King, Tim Parks' non-fiction work, Watership Down, Native Heart, Contemplations of a Primal Mind, A Prayer for Owen Meany, A Widow for One Year... This list could go on all day...

my websites

http://www.kmenozzi.com