by Lisa Grove

Gioia Timpanelli is one of the world's foremost storytellers. Timpanelli doesn't give readings; rather, she performs her work, quickly and deftly weaving between personal anecdotes and folktales from a variety of cultures and traditions, including her family's own Sicilian tradition. Timpanelli moves about a room as she performs, not only commanding the audience's attention, but also encouraging their participation.

Timpanelli's inclusion of the audience in her storytelling emphasizes her stories' timelessness. This timelessness is a quality referenced at the beginning of her new novel What Makes a Child Lucky, as she constructs the setting: "Sicily at the end of the nineteenth century or anyplace at anytime." Gioia Timpanelli, welcome to The California Journal of Poetics.

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Source: http://www.californiapoetics.org/