Mary Saracino's essay "Non Parlo Italiano" has earned third place in the first annual Italian/American Citizen Journalist Digital Witness contest sponsored by i-Italy,org.
Read her essay here.
Saracino's most recent novel, The Singing of Swans (Pearlsong Press, 2006), is partially set in Italy.
Check out Mary Saracino's webpage at the Red Room website: www.redroom.com/author/mary-saracino.
Saracino is the author of The Singing of Swans, published by Pearlsong Press in 2006.
Mary Saracino, whose novel The Singing of Swans was a finalist in the 2007 Lambda Literary Awards' Spirituality category, was interviewed on Karen Tate's Voices of the Sacred Feminine internet radio show Wednesday evening. The archived recording of the show is now available for downloading or listening online.
The interview focuses on fiction's role in rethinking, reclaiming and reawakening the memory of the sacred female, with an emphasis on Saracino's novel and how she claim to write it. Tate and Saracino also discuss Sicily's Lake Pergusa, long associated with feminine spirituality and the goddess Persephone. The lake plays an important role in Saracino's novel.
Download the mp3 recording of Saracino's interview by going to the webpage for Tate's radio show and scrolling down to the list of Feburary 2008 guests and topics, where a link is available to the Feb. 6, 2008 show.
Mary Saracino, author of The Singing of Swans, will be interviewed on Karen Tate's Voices of the Sacred Feminine internet radio show Wednesday, Feb. 6, 2008 at 6 p.m. Pacific Time (9 p.m. Eastern, 8 p.m. Central, 7 p.m. Mountain).
Saracino will discuss "Fiction's Role in Rethinking, Reclaiming and Reawakening the Memory of the Sacred Female." Her fourth book, The Singing of Swans, a novel about the divine feminine and the Black Madonna, was a finalist for the 2007 Lambda Literary Awards.
Following the broadcast, which can be heard live over the internet at http://internetvoicesradioradio.com, a recording of the show will be archived at http://internetvoicesradio.com/Arch-Karen.htm.
New Verse News has published another timely poem by Mary Saracino: "The Eliminated Girl."
Saracino begins the poem with a March 5, 2007 quotation by Indian activist & artist Sabu George:
In our country ultrasound is becoming a weapon of mass destruction. Instead of saving lives, what we are finding is that millions of girls are being eliminated before birth.
Read the poem here.
Saracino is an award-winning writer currently living in Denver, CO. Her most recent novel, The Singing of Swans, was published by Pearlsong Press in 2006 and was a finalist in the 2007 Lambda Literary Awards. Her short story "Vicky's Secret" recently won the 2007 Glass Woman Prize.
Sage Woman magazine features Mary Saracino's The Singing of Swans in its "Leaves of Sage: Books We Recommend" section in Issue #73.
Reviewer Barbara Ardinger calls the novel "a complex, sometimes disturbing, sometimes enchanting fairy tale about a long line of Sicilian* women who worship the Divine She, as they sometimes call the Black Mother of us all."
The importance of The Singing of Swans is that it presents both history and our foundational myths in an accessible format. Like other novels centering on the Goddess, this book also demonstrates why the mainstream publishers need to catch on to the fact that there is an audience for our literature....Let us hope that books like The Singing of Swans find wide audiences so that the lessons they teach will bring readers back to the Divine She.
Read a PDF clipping of the entire review here.
The Singing of Swans was published by Pearlsong Press in October 2006. It was a finalist in the Spirituality category of the 2007 Lambda Literary Awards.
*Actually, not all the women featured in the novel are Sicilian; some parts of the novel are set in other regions of Italy.
Mary Saracino's poem "Bombs Into Bread" has been published by New Verse News. It was posted today in honor of December 17, the day when bloggers around the world have been asked to post material on acts of kindness.
Saracino begins the poem with an April 16, 1953 quotation by Dwight D. Eisenhower:
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children...it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.
Read the poem here.
Saracino is the author of The Singing of Swans, a novel about the Divine Feminine and the Black Madonna (Pearlsong Press 2006), which was a finalist in the 2007 Lambda Literary Awards. Her short story "Vicky's Secret" recently won the 2007 Glass Woman Prize.
"Vicky's Secret," a short story by Mary Saracino, is the winner of the Second Glass Woman Prize.
Saracino's short story, in which a middle-aged divorcee finds empowerment through an unlikely mass media image, was chosen from among 364 entries in the writing contest facilitated by Beate Sigriddaughter of Denver, CO. The short story is available online at Sigriddaughter's website and will also be published in the March 2008 edition of Moondance.
Sigriddaughter funds the Glass Woman Prize with 10 percent of her personal income. "My criterion is passion, excellence, and authenticity in the woman's writing voice."
The "Glass Woman" title comes from her desire for women "to be able to acknowledge, transparently, who we are, and that who we are is not trivial and unimportant, despite the fact that is it not typically rewarded in a man-made and money-motivated world." Sigridaughter's Glass Woman would be made of "unbreakable glass, transparent, but shatter-proof."
Saracino's novel The Singing of Swans (published by Pearlsong Press in October 2006) was a finalist in the Spirituality category for the 2007 Lambda Literary Awards. The Singing of Swans is a novel about the divine feminine in the form of the Black Madonna. The story of Madalene Ross, a thirty-year-old American woman cut off her body, her heart, and her sense of purpose in the world, is interwoven with the lives of three women: Rosalina, a priestess of Persephone in 70 B.C.E. Sicily; Ziza, a strega (Italian witch) in 16th century northeastern southern Italy; and Ibla, an herbalist and painter in 18th century southern Italy. An environmentally compromised lake in Sicily also acts as a portal to the rich tradition of pre-Christian spirituality that lies beneath Church dogma.
In announcing Saracino's win, Sigriddaughter reports that reading the work of the women who entered the contest was "a phenomenal experience...
I am moved by all your writing, your passion, your thoughts. Our voices are important. Above all, keep writing! Ursula Le Guin writes, "We are volcanoes. When we women offer our experience as our truth, as human truth, all the maps change. There are new mountains."
Sigriddaughter is now receiving entries through March 21, 2008 for the Third Glass Woman Prize, for a piece of short fiction or creative nonfiction written by a woman. For details, see http://www.sigriddaughter.com/GlassWomanPrize.htm.
Curled Up with a Good Book calls Mary Saracino's novel The Singing of Swans "an engrossing tale" and "a fascinating read. Rich in historical detail, this novel will keep you turning the pages."
Read the review at www.curledup.com/singswan.htm.
Mary Saracino, author of The Singing of Swans (Pearlsong Press 2006), has an essay in the current issue of TRIVIA - Voices of Feminism.
"Red Poppies Among the Ruins" was inspired by the Dark Mother study tour of Sardegna that Saracino took in 2004.
Charlie Lovett: The Program
A new weight loss clinic in New York City has an offer for you -- given them $5,000 and they'll make you as thin as a supermodel. You can eat whatever you want and never gain an ounce. Tempted? Fledgling journalist Karen Sumner would be -- if only she had $5,000. When Karen finally walks through the blue and gold doors of The Program, however, she's on the trail of the hottest story of her career. If she and her friends are right, The Program is doing something even worse than creating an army of unnaturally thin women. Library Journal calls The Program "a lively first novel. Highly recommended."
Linda C Wisniewski: Off Kilter: A Woman's Journey to Peace with Scoliosis, Her Mother, and Her Polish Heritage
Even before she was diagnosed with scoliosis at 13, Linda Wisniewski felt off kilter. Born to a cruel father in the insulated Polish Catholic community of Amsterdam, New York, she learned martyrdom as a way of life. Off Kilter shows her learning to stretch her Self as well as her spine as she comes to terms with her mentally deteriorating, widowed mother and her culture. Only by accepting her physical deformity, her emotionally unavailable mother, and her Polish American heritage does she finally find balance and a life that fits. Maureen Murdock, author of Unreliable Truth: On Memoir & Memory, calls Off Kilter "a courageous, insightful book, particularly relevant for anyone who grew up feeling physically 'different.'"
Pat, Ballard: The Best Man
Sparks fly the night Lana Clarke meets to plan her sister's wedding -- and not just because curvaceous Lana announces she's stopped dieting and doesn't care if she's fat as maid of honor. The strong-willed sister of the bride attracts the attention of the groom's devastatingly handsome best man, Anthony Angelino. But when the sparks become flames, Lana's in trouble. Tony's first wife died mysteriously. Will Lana be next?
Judy Bagshaw: At Long Last, Love
Big beautiful --and in some cases slightly more mature -- heroines grace the pages of this collection of romantic short stories by Judy Bagshaw.
Jack Adler: Splendid Seniors
An inspiring ensemble of 52 people whose accomplishments after age 65 remind us that creativity, passion & influence can not only flower in later years, but bear delicious fruit.
Mary Saracino: The Singing of Swans
"The Singing of Swans is a remarkable narrative calling--even compelling--us to connect with our own ancestral roots, to seek our own inner wisdom, and to reclaim our own inner voices!" --Margaret Starbird, author of The Woman With the Alabaster Jar & Mary Magdalene: Bride in Exile
Ellen Frankel: Beyond Measure: A Memoir About Short Stature and Inner Growth
"If you have ever measured your height or your weight and felt good or bad about yourself as a result, you need this book. In its pages, Ellen Frankel makes an important contribution to human liberation by telling the most fabulous story that can be told, the story of a person coming fully into her own. This book is thought-provoking, heart-rending, and a genuine solace for people of all sizes." --Marilyn Wann, author of FAT!SO?
Pat Ballard: Abigail's Revenge
Injustice, romance and suspense smolder in a small Southern town. Romantic suspense from the Queen of Rubenesque Romances, Pat Ballard.
Pattie Thomas, Ph.D.: Taking Up Space
"Thomas's incisive blend of sociological inquiry and personal narrative amounts to a provocative treatise on fat oppression in our culture. Taking Up Space is a kind of roadmap through the minefield of the 'war on obesity,' and it offers protection to the reader ready to fight for cultural change surrounding the meaning of fatness." --Kathleen LeBesco, Ph.D., author of Revotling Bodies: The Struggle to Redefine Fat Identity.
Anne Richardson Williams: Unconventional Means: The Dream Down Under
Shattered by family tragedy in the early 1960s, an upper-middle-class Southern teenager finds solace in art and literature. Decades later she is called to the continent whose literature once comforted her, and to a magical connection with an Aboriginal woman transcending race and half a world.
Pat Ballard: A Worthy Heir
When Pam Spencer sees the newspaper ad seeking "a worthy heir" to Fiona Bainbridge's millions, she jumps at the chance to get her brother the medical care he needs after a job-related accident. But Reese Bainbridge, Fiona's handsome grandson--and jilted heir--rushes home in anger when he hears his grandmother has moved Pam and her brother into the family mansion. Sparks fly--and Pam is up to the challenge.
Pat Ballard: His Brother's Child
One party, one silver-tongued, double-talking stranger intent on winning a bet, and Faith Carr ends up betrayed, alone, and pregnant. When Edward Brenner shows up on her doorstep intending to right his brother's wrongs, she's scared and vulnerable. But she agrees to marry this stranger to give the baby a father, although keeping him at a distance. She doesn't realize that Edward fell in love with her the moment he saw her. Will her battered self-esteem allow her to see the truth--and her own beauty?
Pat Ballard: Wanted: One Groom
Wealthy Hanna Rockwell will lose her home and her inheritance unless she marries by her 30th birthday. She's stunned when Matt Corbett, the faded rock start she worshipped in her teens, accepts her brother's offer to bail him out of financial trouble if he'll marry her. Her teenaged fantasies come to life--bringing a few surprises with them.
Pat Ballard: Nobody's Perfect
Nella Covington can't believe she's agreed to marry arrogant Samuel du Cannon, even if it IS only a marriage of convenience. He needs a mother for his young son, and she needs to keep her childhood home. If Sam's work keeps him on the road enough, she won't have to deal with him much. Sam's never been attracted to plus-size women, so they won't be tempted to have a real relationship. At least, that's what they keep telling themselves--
Pat Ballard: Dangerous Curves Ahead: Short Stories
Ten romantic tales pack suspense and sizzle into this collection of short stories featuring amply curved women.
