Wednesday, August 1, 2018

Great Summer Reads: All the Way to Italy by Flavia Brunetti







Born just outside of Rome, Flavia Brunetti grew up bouncing back and forth between Italy and California, eventually moving back to the Eternal City and confirming her lifelong commitment to real gelato. 

Flavia holds a Master of Arts degree in Government and Politics from St. John's University and a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from John Cabot University.
Today she travels the world working for an international humanitarian organization and spends her free time writing and wandering around her beloved Roma in constant search of bookstores and the perfect espresso. 



You can find her city blog on Rome at whichwaytorome.com and her portfolio of published writing at flaviinrome.com.








Until her dad died, Little considered herself a Californian. Now, thanks to half a letter, a symbol she can't quite remember, and writer's block, she finds herself back in Italy, the country of her birth. In a headlong rush to return to her beloved San Francisco, Little will travel throughout Italy, enlisting the help of the aunt who raised her, friends old and new, and the country itself, in her search for the answers she needs.


This is the powerful story of those in search of a balance between wanderlust and the necessity to come home, a reminder that although we may be fragments, we are never a lost cause.








Author Interview:

What is your favorite book
that is not yours?
This is a really tough one to answer, but if I
absolutely have to pick one, I’ll have to go with American Gods by Neil Gaiman,
if only because of how very much it changed how I thought a book could be
written.

Do you write in multiple
genres? Which genre is your favorite to write?
I guess I could say I write in
multiple genres, in that I write however I feel at the time, and that doesn’t
always fall into the same category (I’d even say All the Way to Italy isn’t
easily categorized into just one genre, but I think that’s true of most
books!). I think my favorite form of writing at the moment is flash fiction,
those short snapshot moments – if that doesn’t count as a genre, can we make it
one?!

How young were you when you
started writing?
This may sound like a cliché answer, but as far back
as I can remember, I wrote things down. My aunt even has a short poem I wrote
as a little girl where I lobbied for more substantial dessert. Sweets and
writing: two of the greatest loves of my life!

If you could meet any author,
past or present, who would it be and why?
Pat Conroy. I find him to be
such a gargantuan talent, a writer of books I absolutely gobbled up and
continue re-reading throughout the different periods of my life. His writing
moves me so deeply that I’m not ashamed to say that I’ve cried at the sheer
beauty of a line, or a paragraph, a sentiment expressed. He was a brave writer,
unafraid of standing up for what he believed in also through his pen, and was
also a fascinating man because of how much he used his family, over and over,
in all of his books, as though writing were his way of externalizing what he
was trying to understand inside. A great friend of mine once described his
book, The Prince of Tides, as “jewels in your mouth,” and I never forgot that apt
description. He also wrote my favorite line in the entire world: “My wound is
geography. It is also my anchorage, my port of call.”

How long does it take you to
write a book, and what was your fastest book to write?
All the Way to Italy is actually my very first
book! It took me more than three years of actual writing and re-writing and
editing and then more re-writing, but the concept had been playing in my head
for years before that.

What is your favorite thing to
do in the summertime?
What a wonderful question! Sit by the sea with a good
book, good friends, and good food.





















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