Monthly Archives: January 2010

Valentino Assenza has been a published poet and spoken word artist for over the last decade. He has performed at many of the Toronto venues, and performed at many venues, and festivals across Canada. He has published four books of poetry, and is currently promoting his latest book published by Lyricalmyrical Press called Make Our Peace With Rattlesnakes.

Desi Di Nardo has had many publications in North American and international journals and anthologies. Her work has been performed at the National Arts Centre, featured in “Poetry on the Way” on Toronto’s transit system, and displayed in the Official Residences of Canada. Desi’s book of poetry is called The Plural of Some Things published by Guernica Editions.

Luciano Iacobelli is a poet, playwright and visual artist. In 1986 his first play, The Porch, was staged in Toronto. In 2000 he founded Lyricalmyrical Press, a grass-roots publishing company specializing in handcrafted chapbooks. More than eighty books have appeared under this imprint, many by very young writers whose work he has nurtured throughout his career as a creative writing and literature teacher. Author of seven chapbooks, The Angel Notebook, his first full-length poetry collection, was published in March of 2007 by Seraphim Editions.

Nyla Matuk’s first book of poems, Oneiric, was published in 2009 by Frog Hollow Press. She has contributed journalism on architecture and literary topics as a freelancer to the Globe and Mail, and numerous magazines. Her short fiction and essays have appeared in the literary journals Event, Room of One’s Own, Descant and twice in the Alphabet City anthologies.

Lina Medaglia is a teacher, a peace activist, and a crisis counselor for abused women and children. Her writings have included a libretto for a three-hour feminist musical called Casanova, the lyrics for a progressive country album, and two albums of political rock. At the age of eleven, Lina immigrated with her family to Toronto, from a tiny mountain village in Calabria. Her first book, Demons of Aquilonia, is a fictional autobiography based on her family’s struggles with ‘passing,’ or reinventing identities for the purpose of survival and overcoming. Lina lives and works in Toronto with her family.

Giovanna Riccio was born in Calabria, Italy and grew up in Toronto where she studied philosophy at the University of Toronto. Her poems have appeared in journals, magazines and newspapers, including the Eyetalian, Poetry Canada Review, CV2, Tickleace, and Italian-Canadiana. Giovanna completed her first manuscript, Strong Bread, earlier this year and is in the process of getting it published. Her dramatic monologue, Vittorio, will be published by Lyricalmyrical Press in the spring. She has recently retired from teaching and is working on a new book of poetry.

and as emcee:
Michelle Alfano is a Toronto writer and a Co-Editor with Descant. Her short story “Opera”, on which her new novella Made Up Of Arias (Blaurock Press, 2008) is based, was a finalist for a Journey Prize anthology. Her fiction and non-fiction work has been widely published in Canada in major literary publications, and has also appeared in the U.S. She will be featured in a forthcoming documentary on the passengers, and the children of the passengers, of the Saturnia, an immigrant ship which transported thousands of Italian-born immigrants to Canada in the 1950s and 60s and which will be featured on OMNI-TV. You may find her writing at alitchick.blogspot.com.