Mary Gray / Writer, editor, journalist

As a kid growing up in cliché-prone Mississippi, I learned that the phrases that get repeated most often about a place are not always the truest — they’re just the ones most easily left unexamined. In my years of editing, writing and reporting from Italy (and beyond), I’ve always tried to keep that top of mind.

I’m currently the Editor-in-Chief of Italy Magazine and a member of Italy’s Foreign Press Association, working across the culture, travel, and lifestyle beats. My writing has appeared in the Washington Post, MICHELIN Guide, U.S. News & World Report, Forbes Travel Guide, Repubblica, Virtuoso, and Qantas magazines, among other publications, and I’ve co-authored guidebooks for Time Out, Lonely Planet, and DK Eyewitness. With expertise spanning the whole Italian peninsula and the islands, I’ve edited supplements on 14 of Italy’s 20 regions (and have lived in five). As a source, I’ve been quoted or featured in outlets including Travel + Leisure, The Times of London, and Italian public broadcaster RAI.

Previously based in Florence for more than a decade, I cut my teeth as a staff writer and then a deputy editor at The Florentine magazine. While at TF, my food writing drew rare praise from the widower of the cookbook giant Marcella Hazan, and my column on misadventures as a renter was turned into a book. Along the way, I won a Premio Famiglia Fiducia fellowship from Middlebury College’s School in Italy, allowing me to earn my M.A. in Italian Studies. I’ve not yet fulfilled my teenage dream of becoming an agony aunt (which sounds so much more glamorous than “advice columnist”). But I’ve taught plenty of writing classes to undergraduates, which feels like a good approximation.

Now living in Turin — but more often on a train — I’m available for freelance commissions, long-term editorial projects, select press trips, and speaking engagements. If you’d like to work together, please email hello@verymarygray.com. For anything specific to Italy Magazine, use mary@italymagazine.com.