Event: Italian Heritage Month Café Readings
Time & Date: 7 p.m., Wednesday, June 29, 2022
Location: Spinelli Bar Italia, Little Italy, 10878 – 95 Street NW Edmonton, Alberta
Description: To celebrate the contributions of generations of Italian immigrants and their descendants during June – Italian Heritage Month – please plan to attend a reading showcasing the work of local writers Lynda Celentano, Adriana Davies, Caterina Edwards, Marco Melfi, Emma and Joe Pivato, and Vivian Zenari.

Sponsor: The event will be sponsored by Teresa Spinelli, owner and CEO of the Italian Centre Shop chain, in the Little Italy store established in the 1950s by her father, Frank Spinelli. Drink an espresso or cappuccino; eat biscotti; and experience the worlds created in prose or poetry by these gifted writers.

Author Bios:
Lynda Celentano is an emerging author and screenwriter whose stories are based on her Italian heritage and family. In 2018, the Edmonton Public Library featured her short story, “The Crease,” in their Emerging Writer’s Showcase, and in 2022, Capital City Press will be including her piece, “The Power of Seven,” in their second online anthology.

Adriana A. Davies received an Order of Canada, an Italian knighthood and Heritage Writers Reserve Award from the Edmonton Heritage Council. Publications include From Realism to Abstraction: The Art of J. B. Taylor; The Rise and Fall of Emilio Picariello; The Frontier of Patriotism: Alberta and the First World War; From Sojourners to Citizens: Alberta’s Italian History; and the poetry collection My Heart Laid Bare.

Caterina Edwards has published six books, and several have been shortlisted or won awards, while her novel The Sicilian Wife was a National Post Best Book of 2015. It was the Italian edition of Finding Rosa: A Mother with Alzheimer’s/A Daughter in Search of the Past that has garnered the most praise and media attention. In 2016, Caterina was inducted into the City of Edmonton’s Cultural Hall of Fame.

Marco Melfi has had poems published in The Antigonish Review, The New Quarterly, Prairie Fire, Funicular, and FreeFall, and he was the recipient of The Fiddlehead’s 2021 Ralph Gustafson Poetry Contest. His chapbook, In between trains, was published in 2014.

Emma Pivato has three degrees from the University of Alberta, and has worked as a psychologist in Edmonton and Toronto, and as an academic. She has published nine mystery novels (the Claire Burke Series) and a memoir, And Along Came Alexis.

Joseph Pivato was a professor of literature at Athabasca University and has published eleven books, six of which were devoted to Italian-Canadian writers such as Mary di Michele and Caterina Edwards. He placed them in a context of comparative literature in English, French and Italian, and has been at the forefront of advocacy for multiculturalism in CanLit.

Vivian Zenari’s first novel, Deuce, will be published in summer 2022 by Inanna Publications. Her poetry and prose have appeared in periodicals in Canada and the US. She teaches literature and writing at Athabasca University.