1--What is the title of your latest release?
BECOMING MARIELLA
2--What’s the “elevator pitch” for your new book?
A young Sicilian woman defies centuries of tradition, leaving home to make her way in the United States
3--How did you decide where your book was going to take place?
As a second generation American, with deep ties to Sicily, and to the Bay Area, I chose the locations closest to my heart.
4--Would you hang out with your protagonist in real life?
In a heartbeat.
5--What are three words that describe your protagonist?
Feisty, smart, determined
6--What’s something you learned while writing this book?
A deepening of compassion for people, like Mariella's mother, who lash out when they're hurt.
7--Do you edit as you draft or wait until you are totally done?
Both, but the best editing happens after it's done. Otherwise, for me, it's hard to move forward, although the temptation to "get it perfect" first is strong.
8--What’s your favorite foodie indulgence?
Oh, well, pasta and chocolate!
9--Describe your writing space/office!
The walls are faux painted to look Italian, with artwork on them that has meaning for me. The desk is a long wooden door, spacious. There are four bookcases, crammed to the brim, interspersed with small objects that also have personal meaning. Plantation shutters look out onto a Japanese Maple that blazes red in the Fall.
10--Who is an author you admire?
So many. Louse Erdrich, Ian McEwan, Shirley Hazzard, Colm Toibin, Henry James, John Banville, Jhumpa Lahiri
11--Is there a book that changed your life?
Middlemarch, when I was young, because Dorothea found the courage to become her own woman in spite of stern tradition, and against a very proscribed way of life.
12--Tell us about when you got “the call.” (when you found out your book was going to be published)/Or, for indie authors, when you decided to self-publish.
SheWrites (a hybrid publisher) let me know I had been "green-lighted" in 2022. Which means I had a comparatively minor amount of editing to undertake. But I had already edited and had the book edited what felt like a thousand times. Still, their copy editor did a wonderful job. SheWrites is a full-service publisher, and they've put together a beautiful book for me.
13--What’s your favorite genre to read?
Literary fiction, but I love a good mystery.
14--What’s your favorite movie?
Casablanca
15--What is your favorite season?
Summer, I think, because it brings the sensation of something about to happen, just around the corner.
16--How do you like to celebrate your birthday?
Go away for two nights to the Napa Valley with my husband and beloved doggie, and have wonderful dinners, and walks, and relaxation. And of course, good wine.
17--What’s a recent tv show/movie/book/podcast you highly recommend?
Somebody Somewhere TV; A Complete Unknown and A Real Pain, movies. And honestly, I haven't listened to many podcasts.
18--What’s your favorite type of cuisine?
Italian! Of course.
19--What do you do when you have free time?
Read, a lot. Go for walks with my dog, and I meditate every day. Also, I'm still seeing a handful of psychotherapy clients.
20--What can readers expect from you next?
A follow-up with Mariella pregnant, perhaps, alone except for her San Francisco roommate, and single.
For fans of Elena Ferrante’s The Lying Life of Adults and Jean Kwok’s Girl in Translation comes a contemporary coming-of-age tale about a young Italian immigrant’s desperate journey to find her personal freedom.
It’s unprecedented, even in the twenty-first century, for a young Sicilian woman to defy the centuries-old mandate, “Family is everything!”—but twenty-two-year-old Mariella Russo is desperate to escape Sicily. She’s being relentlessly coerced into an engagement with her wealthy college sweetheart—a young man from a prominent, powerful family—by her envious and erratic mother, who hopes the match will increase her own ignominious social status. Suddenly, Mariella’s lifelong home has become a claustrophobic island. In a bid for independence and an attempt to escape entrapment, she flees to San Francisco.
But Mariella’s bête noire—entrapment—follows her to San Francisco, where everyone wants more from her than she wants to give. Her American roommate, Leslie, turns out to be a gay man rather than the woman she imagined; her employer/lover is pressuring her to live with him; and her neurotic mother is haunting her, wreaking havoc and embarrassment. An urgent return trip to Sicily puts Mariella to the ultimate challenge: will she submit to tradition, or choose a life she wants for herself?
Women's Fiction [She Writes Press, On Sale: February 4, 2025, Paperback / e-Book , ISBN: 9781647427689 / ]
Janet Constantino was born in Omaha, Nebraska, and grew up in San Jose California where she earned a BA in Journalism from San Jose State University. She has worked at Disneyland, and as a “21” card dealer at Harrah’s Club, Tahoe; as a maid, and on a construction crew during the Olympics in Innsbruck. She was a competitive Latin Ballroom dancer, and danced in Argentine Tango showcases. As a journalist she wrote articles for California Living magazine; the Pacific Sun, a weekly newspaper from Marin County; the Point Reyes Light; and on supervision of interns, in The California Therapist. She was the Administrative Director of a medical clinic, and she has been a licensed psychotherapist since 1983. Janet is a practicing Buddhist.
In 2015 Janet earned an MFA in Creative Writing from Pacific University. The intersection of connection and independence has always fascinated her, both in her writing and therapy career. In 2021 she won second place in the M.F.K. Fisher Last House writing contest. She has a grown son, twin granddaughters, and Janet and her current husband of 25 years live in the beautiful city of Sonoma, California with their beloved Labradoodle and tuxedo cat.
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