The list below is not exhaustive. As of 2023, I do more editing than writing in my day-to-day work, but I pen weekly newsletters for Italy Magazine’s audience of approximately 65,000, along with a monthly newsletter for the site’s Premium Members. You can subscribe here or read a sample of the weekly newsletter here.
ART + CULTURE
The “Open to Meraviglia” Campaign is a Mess. Italy Deserves Better. Italy Magazine, May 2023
The maverick’s ministry. The Florentine, May 2018
The anti-Anna Maria Luisa. The Florentine, January 2017
Was Leonardo da Vinci a cat lover?. The Florentine (for TF’s #Leonardo500 issue), May 2019
The fiaccherai of Florence. The Florentine, July 2018
John Currin in Florence. The Florentine, June 2016
Quakers in Florence. The Florentine, February 2020
BOOKS + LITERATURE
Italians (mostly) love Elena Ferrante’s new novel. Here’s what Americans can expect. The Washington Post, January 2020
Facing Fallaci. The Florentine (for TF’s “Sisterhood” issue), October 2019
FASHION
Rethinking cotton for the common good. Textile Clothing & Business Labs Foundation, May 2019
The perpetual student: Danilo Venturi of Polimoda. The Florentine, December 2017
Gucci to finance restoration of the Boboli Gardens. The Florentine, April 2017
FOOD + WINE
A love letter to Italian bar food. The Florentine, March 2019. (See what Victor Hazan, widower of the culinary giant and cookbook author Marcella Hazan, had to say about this piece here)
Breakfast in Tuscany. The Florentine, March 2018
Feeding Frenzy. The Florentine, March 2017
Piadina: Emilia-Romagna’s daily bread. Dream of Italy, November 2020.
Palermo’s Best Restaurants and Osterie for Local Flavour. Culture Trip, October 2021
PERSONAL ESSAYS + RENTAL DIARIES
The collected “Rental Diaries” (recurring column in The Florentine since June 2017). NOW A BOOK! Learn more + get your copy here
Help Desk One. The Florentine, October 2016
Floren-Tinder. The Florentine, February 2016
PROFILES
The players: a calcio storico portrait. The Florentine, May 2018
Carmela Batacchi: from the Bronx to Borgo Ognissanti. The Florentine, April 2019
Izzeddin Elzir: unmasking the mosque. The Florentine, September 2018
TRAVEL
Florence Like a Local: By the People Who Call it Home. Co-authored with Vincenzo d’Angelo and Phoebe Hunt, DK Eyewitness guidebooks, September 2022
10 Top Tuscany Attractions. Forbes Travel Guide, June 2021
5 days in Florence for film lovers. Visit Tuscany, October 2017
Spending 2 perfect days in Florence. Forbes Travel Guide, February 2016
The Returners. The Florentine, April 2017
The beauty and brutality of calcio storico fiorentino. Culture Trip, February 2020
Weekend break: Florence. British Airways Club Magazine, April 2023
Time Out guidebook to Florence. Updated existing copy and co-authored complete new sections with Maddalena Delli, 2017
WORDPLAY aka NON-REMUNERATIVE RHYMING
If you give a girl a chickpea. The Florentine, March 2020
Blue. Perdigiornale, March 2021
EDITOR’S PICKS: SAMPLE ITALY MAGAZINE COMMISSIONS
Since becoming Managing Editor (June 2022) and later Editor-in-Chief (February 2023) of Italy Magazine, I’ve been focusing my energy on fine-tuning the travel- and culture-focused magazine’s identity and editorial line. I wholeheartedly trust that there’s an appetite for more nuanced stories than the same old “pizza, pasta and pretty people who take long lunch breaks” tropes often seen in English language media about Italy. (Aren’t we all pretty bored with that? If you’re a writer or PR rep and you are too, I’d love for you to pitch me: mary@italymagazine.com.)
Here are a few pieces that I think illustrate my editorial sensibility.
FICO Has Been Around for Five Years. Can it Go On?, by Alex Sakalis
Why This Year’s Italian Championship is About More Than Soccer, by Katherine Wilson, author of Only in Naples
Why is New Orleans Spotlighting the Palio di Siena at One Key Mardi Gras Parade?, by Annalisa Coppolaro Nowell with additional reporting of my own
How the Fiat 500 Became a Global Icon, by Jennifer Clark, author of Mondo Agnelli: Fiat, Chrysler and the Power of a Dynasty
Giorgia Meloni and Gendered Language in Italian: Understanding the ‘Il Presidente’ Puzzle, by Rosaria Costanzo / L’Italiano Porticando language school
Ramadan, the Roman Way, by Miranda Mullings
Around the Italian Passover Table with Benedetta Jasmine Guetta, by Eric Millman
Traveling the Gardens of the Italian National Trust with Head Curator Emanuela Borio, by Alexa Ahern
Inside the Atelier of Perugia’s High Priestess of Embroidery, by Laura Itzkowitz
A Dentist, the Dalai Lama, and the Bizarre Backstory of the House of Tibet in Italy, by Phoebe Hunt
Saghar Setareh on the Food That Moves Us, by Coral Sisk
Hunting for Witches in Benevento, by Janna Brancolini