Nina
Romano’s love of storytelling began around her grandmother’s table. As a child
listening to her family’s stories, Romano had no way of knowing they would
eventually inspire five poetry collections, two poetry chapbooks, a short story
collection and a trilogy of novels that would earn her several awards and rave
reviews from readers.
Born
and raised in Brooklyn, NY, Romano was an avid reader whose writing talent
blossomed early. “As a child, I wrote little love notes to my parents and left
them by their bedside,” she recalls. “I began writing poems when I was
thirteen. I started my first novel at
sixteen but put it away when I realized I had no life experience.” She
graduated from Ithaca College and went on to earn a Master of Arts degree from
Adelphi University. After several years as a middle school teacher, she moved
to Italy with her husband, Felipe, where she lived for the next twenty years.
It was here that Romano began submitting her poems to magazines and even
self-published a few poetry books.
In
1990, Romano returned stateside and settled in Florida where she made the
decision to seriously pursue a writing career. She enrolled in Florida International
University and earned a Bachelor of Arts and a Master of Fine Arts degree in
Creative Writing. “I took five grad courses in poetry from Campbell McGrath,”
she says. “My final portfolio was a fifty-page stack of poems.” This served as
the basis for her first poetry collection, Cooking
Lessons. Inspired by her years in Italy, Cooking Lessons was praised by Midwest Book Review as … “a poetic
treat not to be missed.”
Romano
published three more poetry collections, ending with She Wouldn’t Sing at My Wedding, a book she describes as “one long,
elegiac narrative poem in fifteen sections” written for her dying mother. She
calls it “one of my best and most difficult.” Romano then turned to short
stories with the publication of a collection titled The Other Side of the Gate. According to Romano, “Short stories are
the most difficult to write because you must be concise. I read poetry before I
begin writing fiction. Something transfers that makes it easier to begin.”
Romano’s
transition to novels actually began with a short story. As a child, she was
enthralled by her grandfather’s tales of his experiences in the Italian Navy
during the Boxer Rebellion. After two visits to China, Romano wrote a short
story titled “The Rain,” which was published in Hong Kong’s Dim Sum Literary Magazine. The story
grew into her first full-length novel—The
Secret Language of Women, a haunting love story of a Eurasian woman and an
Italian sailor. The book is written with a lyrical beauty that elevates it to
the level of literary fiction and echoes Romano’s poetic soul. It was awarded a
gold medal in the Independent Publisher Book Awards.
The year
that her first novel, The Secret Language
of Women, was released, Romano also had her fifth poetry collection
published. Westward: Guided by Starfalls and Moonbows was written for her
dying brother, her first cowboy hero.
Romano then signed on for two companion novels to create The Wayfarer
Trilogy. Lemon Blossoms, the second book in the series, is set in Sicily and
chronicles a woman’s struggle with love, loss and intimacy. The final
installment, In America, is a
coming-of- age story set in New York during the Depression. It follows a young
Italian-American girl’s quest for her true love and true self. All of Romano’s
novels were finalists for book awards.
Having
completed her Wayfarer Trilogy, Romano recently finished a Western novel set
between New Mexico and St. Louis, Missouri.
For her next writing projects, she’s contemplating a mystery set in
Leningrad in 1950 and a WWII novel based on the life of her one hundred and
three year-old aunt who lives in Italy. “The past makes me what I am today,”
Romano explains. “My family background influences everything I write. In all my
writing, there are lots of family stories and family history. It’s beautiful to
investigate how things could have been and to envision how they might be. Times
past help our understanding of the era we’re living in.”
For more information, visit the
author’s website at www.ninaromano.com
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