Fascinating Authors

FASCINATING AUTHORS: What excites you most about your topic? Why did you choose it?

Author: Traveling to Italy was a childhood dream of mine that’s come true. Since my first trip in 1976, I’ve experienced so many wonderful aspects of the country and I’ve always loved sending friends there with my lists of favorite places and things to do. This book grew out of those lists.

And though Italy’s attractive to both sexes, its overwhelming feminine appeal fascinates me—The way it beckons. “Relax, enjoy my beauties and flavors…” The way it feels like it was custom made just for our enjoyment. Women are adored here—from baby principessas to nonnas. Surrounding this all, everywhere you turn, are two major divinities: Venus and the Madonna. What a country-where The Goddess of Beauty and Sensual Pleasures and the Mother of Compassion and Purity share center stage.

As far as the topic, it chose me: I was born to an Italian American mother. I imagine my love for Italy began in the womb, as my mother pressed up against the stove and stirred her Sunday tomato sauce.

FASCINATING AUTHORS: How long did the book take you from start to finish?

Author: One year—though writing it in my head probably began when I first stepped off the train at Roma Termini 33 years ago.

FASCINATING AUTHORS: What aspect of writing the book did you find particularly challenging?

Author: Choosing 100 out of the infinite treasures Italy has to offer.

FASCINATING AUTHORS: What surprised you the most about the book writing process?

Author: I discovered things about places I’d been to many times, that made them even more intriguing. For example, I’d always believed the words on the plaque in Ravello’s Villa Cimbrone garden which commemorates Greta Garbo’s stay there with in 1939. It reads (in translation) that Garbo spent “hours of secret happiness” at the Villa with Leopold Stokowsky. But when I researched and read Garbo’s account, I discovered it was not at all as romantic as it’s piped up to be. Though Garbo arrived at the villa ready for a tryst with the man she thought would be the love of her life, it turned out to be a quintessential bummer vacation. (Despite Garbo’s experience, the garden is still one of the most romantic places in this most romantic of countries.)

I also kept discovering more and more feminine aspects underlying Italy’s treasures. For instance, thanks to Madama Reale (a 17th century ruler of Turin), regular folk got to taste chocolate for the first time. Chocolate had been a treat reserved solely for the nobility and the clergy, until she gave the okay to a Turin baker to produce it for the masses.

And I was surprised touring Italian wineries to find so many women are now involved in the winemaking process. They’ve helped to change the face of the industry since the 1980s, and have been key to bringing worldwide recognition to Italian wines.

FASCINATING AUTHORS:Did you have any favorite experiences when writing your book?

Author: It’s impossible to pick a favorite when I’m talking about traveling in Italy, visiting family and friends, and meeting new people there. Italians are so wonderfully open hearted, so every one of my very favorite experience comes with a rich personal encounter. Fresh in my mind from my last trip is an evening cooking class I took in Parma. It was a one-on-one class in the tiny apartment kitchen of Micaela, a woman in her early 30s. As she taught me how to make tortellini, Micaela told me amazing stories about her nonna, who was a World War II partisan-one of the brave, underground group who formed an Italian resistance movement during World War II-after Italy’s 1943 surrender to the allies. Micaela’s nonna had taught Micaela to cook, so on top of my learning one of Parma’s specialties in Italy’s gourmet mecca region of Emilia-Romagna, I got goosebumps from hearing the stories of the woman whose recipe we were making. What a delicious evening!

Also, talking to other women about their Italian travel experiences was wonderful. Our conversations would be filled with sighs and I’d become inspired to go to a place I haven’t been to yet—as in, you may find me putting on skis and heading to Bormio, to not only hit the slopes, but soak in the thermal springs. Every interview went on far longer than planned and I made new friends in the process, who I’ll probably meet up with somewhere along my future Italian travels.

FASCINATING AUTHORS: What do you hope your readers will gain from reading your book?

Author: I hope they’re inspired to pack their bags and set out on their own Italian adventure, feeling that excitement that comes from getting out there and exploring their individual sense of pleasure.

FASCINATING AUTHORS: What projects are you currently working on?

Author: A screenplay about an Italian travel writer.

FASCINATING AUTHORS: Is writing your sole career? If not, what else do you do?

Author: Yes, though I’m also obsessed with Italian cooking, so I have a fantasy career of being a cook in a small trattoria, where I’d carry out steaming plates of pasta to happy diners. I play this out by throwing dinner parties.

Besides travel writing, I have written short stories, solo shows for theatre, and TV sitcoms. I was on staff of “Everybody Loves Raymond” and wrote one of its classic episodes, “Marie’s Meatballs,” — that’s the one where Ray’s wife tries to make meatballs that are as good as his mother’s. The story was inspired by my having been brought up around women who believed very strongly in the importance of meatball making.

FASCINATING AUTHORS: Did you do any research for your books, or did you write from experience?

Author: I wrote from my experiences and from conversations with friends and friends of friends. Once I decided on the places to write about, I researched extensively and delved into learning more and more about Italian history and culture—a joyful process.

FASCINATING AUTHORS: How did you come up with your title?

Author: Stephanie Elizondo Griest had written 100 Places Every Woman Should Go, published by Travelers’ Tales, so this title is an extension of that series.

FASCINATING AUTHORS: What books have influenced you the most?

Author: The first thing that pops into my head is the earth shattering experience I had in my early 20’s while riding a bus in San Francisco and reading the opening pages of Henry Miller’s “Tropic of Cancer.” Miller brought me to “his Paris”—the seedy and glorious sides of it—so vividly and with such verve. Jack Kerouac’s “On The Road” had the same effect. Both writers delve into the full spectrum of emotions that come with discovering ourselves in a new place—from utter frustration to bliss. Their books are truthful travel writing, reveling in the freedom travel can bring.

FASCINATING AUTHORS: Who was your publisher and why did you choose them?

Author: I have been a fan of Travelers’ Tales anthologies for years. They’ve kept true to their philosophy of publishing stories that take readers beyond guidebook facts, to give them firsthand travel accounts. Reading their books is like sitting at a coffee shop and talking to a friend who has just come back from an entertaining adventure. While personal travel essays are becoming rarer to find in newspapers and magazines where publishers are scrambling for ad revenue and running more and more service pieces, Travelers’ Tales is one of the only places out there for us writers to share more about a destination than the humdrum facts about its museum hours and hotel lampshades.

When I began writing and publishing travel stories in 2002, I enrolled in the Book Passage Travel Writers’ Conference that takes place every August in Corte Madera, California. It was a fab experience and that’s where I met Larry Habegger, Executive Editor of Travelers’ Tales. I was thrilled when they published one of my essays in “30 Days In Italy” and to have then been included in three more of their anthologies, including “Best Travel Writing of 2009.” I had been dreaming for years about writing a book that would include my varied travel experiences in Italy, and when I saw their title “100 Places Every Woman Should Go,” written by Stephanie Elizondo Griest, I was inspired to propose the “In Italy” version to them. I’m so grateful they said, “Great idea. Let’s do it!”

To learn more about the Author and book, please visit – http://www.susanvanallen.com/