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