The Italian Diaspora Studies Association is pleased to announce the launch of a new residential writing seminar. It will be held at the Grand Hotel San Michele, located in Cetraro (Cosenza), on the Northern Tyrrhenian coast of Calabria, May 22-31, 2025. This program inaugurates a collaborative project with the Ferrucci Institute for Italian Experience and Research at Chapman University, Orange, CA, USA.

The purpose of the seminar is to provide participants with a unique experience. A select group of established writers and motivated, aspiring writers, not only of Italian descent, will gather at the beautiful and peaceful Grand Hotel San Michele to learn about the Italian diaspora and focus on writing while exchanging ideas, memories, and emotions with a vibrant group of peers. 

Cetraro is a small town, a borgo, rich in history and natural beauty, with a stunning view of the coast. The historic Grand Hotel San Michele is recognized as one of the best in the Calabrian region. Because of the beauty and solitude of its mountain-top location, it is an ideal place to learn, write, reflect, relax, and enjoy stimulating conversation with a committed group of participants. The property includes a large farm, golf course, swimming pool, and a private beach reachable by elevator down through the cliffside. The hotel’s restaurant uses its own farm-grown products, including vegetables, fruit, olive oil, and wine. The cuisine is of high quality, local, seasonal and organic. Please take a look at the hotel’s website: https://www.grandhotelsanmichele.it/en-gb 

The Writing Seminar 2025 will offer three writing workshops, led by George Elliott Clarke, Stephen J. Cribari, and Giovanna Riccio, and one workshop on Italian diaspora history and literature, led by Margherita Ganeri. 

George Elliott Clarke 

The 4^th Poet Laureate of Toronto (2012-15) and the 7^th Parliamentary/Canadian Poet Laureate (2016-17), George Elliott Clarke was born in Windsor, Nova Scotia, in 1960. An English Professor at the University of Toronto, Clarke has taught at Duke, McGill, UBC, and Harvard.  Laurels:  Pierre Elliott Trudeau Fellows Prize, Governor-General’s Award for Poetry, National Magazine Gold Award for Poetry, Premiul Poesis (Romania), Dartmouth Book Award for Fiction, Eric Hoffer Book Award for Poetry (US).  Basta! 

Writing Poetry That Sings! (meets five sessions) 

Ezra Pound advises that the further poetry moves away from music, the closer--worrisomely--it edges toward dull, flat prose.  Indeed, as human beings formed cultures and civilizations, poetry began as song, chant, prayer, and prophecy, i.e., as a verbal means to move the heart and stimulate imagination, partly by inculcating attention to rhythm, rhyme, and other sound effects. Poetry is Voice, even if many of us encounter it, in classrooms, in books, or on screens, as a mute order of words to be scanned or read silently, our eyes moving, but not our lips.  Yet, Poetry is the unstinting tongue--intersecting with pulse, heartbeat, breath--dancing over all difficulty in expression and obstacles to meaning.  In this course, we will (re-)learn the truth that Poetry is the Truth of the heart (and brain), given visceral force by emotive vocalization.  We will (re-)discover the connectedness of soul, psyche, and song; i.e., we will realize that, whatever the subject, the Poem is always a Whitmanic "Song of Myself."  The Workshop will offer participants a choice of exercises to pursue that will have the effect of allowing each poet to realize the power of their/her/his own voice.  

Stephen J. Cribari 

Stephen J. Cribari’s poetry and plays have found their way into print and onto the theatrical and operatic stage in the United States and abroad.  In a parallel life he was a criminal defense attorney and law professor teaching evidence, criminal law and procedure, and cultural property.  His poetry recently appeared in the Paterson Literary Review and Bluebird Word.  Still Life (a verse-novella; 2020) and Delayed en Route (2022) are published by Lothrop Street Press. 

The Art of Poetry (meets two sessions) 

If you were handed the score for a Verdi aria and could read the words but not the musical notation, how much would you miss?  If you wrote a poem without sensitivity to its musical structures, how much would your reader miss?  Punctuation, meter, rhyme, even the words themselves: these provide the musical notation of how a poem should sound.  In this workshop, we will focus on developing our awareness of the musical form of a poem, so as to enhance the creative skills available to us as poets. 

Giovanna Riccio  

A prize-winning poet, teacher and independent scholar, Giovanna Riccio was born in Calabria, Italy and immigrated to Canada as a child. She is a graduate of the University of Toronto with a major in philosophy. Giovanna is the author of the acclaimed dramatic monologue, Vittorio (Lyricalmyrical Press, 2010) and two poetry collections:  Strong Bread (Quattro Books, 2011), and Plastic’s Republic (Guernica Editions, 2019), which was a finalist for the 2022 Bressani Prize. Her new manuscript is titled Elegies and Endings. Giovanna’s poems have appeared in national and international publications, numerous anthologies, and have been translated into six languages and composed into songs.

Voicing Your Truth Fearlessly (meets two sessions)

Poetry’s great power convinces the vulnerable, hesitant side of our psyche of its right to be heard despite all the damning forces touting the wisdom of silence. Indeed, in cobwebbed shadows dwells the outlawed, outcast self. But poets — hunters tracking the human heart and mind — seek an elemental, existential truth. Poetry confirms that our defeats, wounds, dreams, and ecstasies illuminate the thorny beauty of a grief-troubled world. Says Nobel Laureate, Seamus Heaney: poetic form allows us access to our strongest weaknesses. So, our sessions will try out the dramatic monologue, the epistolary poem (poems written as letters) and the catalogue poem. Such forms ease our way into what American poet, Joy Harjo, calls “the timeless room of lost poetry,” a site haunted by fragile lovers, rogue relations, conflicted heroes, and poignant victims.  Our exercises will welcome memory, revery and revelation. Like psychologists, we will freely associate; like archeologists, we will shovel dirt; like wizards we will hold language spellbound, thereby conjuring fresh images and conspiring with sound and rhythm to highlight meaning and intensify mood. Thus, you will pen your truth and guide, to outspoken power. 

Margherita Ganeri 

A full Professor of Contemporary Italian Literature at the University of Calabria, she is the founding director of the Seminar Italian Diaspora Studies. She is on the board of directors of the journal «Moderna», and directs the book series Italian Diaspora Studies for the publisher Rubbettino.

Receiver of two Fulbright fellowships, she was appointed visiting professor at numerous universities in Australia, Canada, Europe and USA. Her most recent invitation was in spring 2024 to The University of Toronto (ON, CA). 

Diasporic Calabria: Writing the Search for Roots (meets four sessions) 

This workshop will provide an overview of Calabria’s history, a history which includes successive waves of emigration.  We will address such crucial questions, as the definition of diasporic identity in relation to displacement, the so-called Southern Question, the internalized colonial orientalism, the transnationality of contemporary Calabria, the importance of positionalities and the benefits of changing them. We will reflect on why we are participating in this seminar and on the relationships between writing and the search for roots in order to liberate our creative energy. There will be a session on Helen Barolini's well known novel Umbertina, and a glimpse into the ethnic minorities of Calabria, in particular the Albanians. We will read from the Italian-Albanian memoir by Rose Musacchio's Hidgon's Falconara. A family Odyssey (provided in pdf) 

Goals

One of the most important goals of our 2025 program is to publish a follow-up book that will be the sequel to Celebrating Calabria: Writing Heritage and Memory (Rubbettino, 2020), and to Writing from the Tyrrhenian Coast of Calabria/ Scriviamo dalla costa tirrenica calabrese (Rubbettino 2025), both co-edited by Margherita Ganeri and Maria Mazziotti Gillan. 

How does the program work? 

Workshops will be held in the mornings and afternoons. Before and after dinner, there will be space for guests and participants’ talks and readings. The program will offer three afternoon field trips, one to Guardia Piemontese (Waldensian Museum) and Paola (Sanctuary of Saint Francis of Paola); the second one to Cetraro and surroundings; the third one to Falconara Albanese and Fiumefreddo Bruzio. These visits are connected with the contents of the program. 

Who can apply?  

The Italian Diaspora Writing Seminar 2025 is not designed only for professional writers and academic scholars. It is open to anyone interested in improving their own writing and exploring their personal and family history, whether connected to Italy or to some other region. It offers an opportunity to immerse oneself in Southern Italy, to learn and write about Italy and the Italian diaspora and to visit places of significance in the emigration story, including places of departure. 

There will be a maximum of 20 participants. 

Why apply? 

The Italian Diaspora Writing Seminar 2025 promises to be a rejuvenating experience. It is a cultural endeavor, an occasion to search for roots and identity, to interact with well-known writers and scholars, and to strengthen social bonds destined to last. It is also an extraordinary chance to visit Calabria’s beautiful Northern Tyrrhenian coast in a non-touristy way - and at a reasonable cost for a high-quality program. 

Through visual, artistic, linguistic, and culinary immersion, this seminar will connect participants to a living, true image of Southern Italy and the meaning of Italian origins and Calabrian roots.  It also offers the tools with which to explore other ethnic backgrounds, histories, and origins. 

Cost of the program 

EUR 3200. Supplement for accommodation in single room: EUR 500.

Dates: May 22 (arrival day) – May 31 (departure day), 2025.

Apart from workshops and activities, the price includes:

1) Transportation from Lamezia Terme airport to the program location and back, or from the Paola (CS) railway station and back, only on the dates of arrival and departure (May 22 and 31, 2025). It does not include the cost of transportation from different airports or railway stations or arrival and departure transport on other dates. However, we can arrange arrival/departure transportation on other dates but at participants’ expense.

2) Accommodations are double-occupancy with private bathroom, unless the single occupancy supplement is chosen.

3) Breakfast plus two meals a day.

4) Field trips and tickets to the museums.

5) Conversational small group activities in Italian from beginners to advanced, available upon request. 

How to Apply

Please fill out the enclosed application form.

For inquiries, please email us at:

[email protected] 

Deadline to apply: December 2, 2024. 

Accepted applicants will be notified by December 12, 2024. Payment of the first installment (half of the total cost) must be made no later than January 15th; the second installment is due no later than February 15^th. If you prefer, you can pay the entire amount by the first deadline. 

In case of cancellation, you will receive a 50% refund if you notify the program before April 15, 2025. No refunds will be made after April 15.

Payments are due through wire transfers. Bank details will be communicated within the letter of acceptance.

Please note: It is possible to enroll only for the entire program.

Depending on room availability, we accept accompanying family and friends not registered in the program. Related costs for accommodation and meals will be communicated upon request.