Why I Write: Rosanna Micelotta Battigelli

The earliest I can remember wanting to write was when I was around twelve. I had thoroughly enjoyed many of the books in Enid Blyton’s “Adventure” series featuring two sets of siblings: Phillip and Dinah, and Jack and Lucy-Ann, and Jack’s parrot Kiki. I had lived vicariously through them by reading The Island of Adventure, The Castle of Adventure, The Mountain of Adventure, etc.

I decided I also wanted to write a book featuring kids having a fun adventure, and so I gathered pen and paper and began writing. It was summertime, and although my intentions were good, I don’t recall getting much further than making up the names of my characters.

I was an avid reader early in life. I believe I devoured the written word because I wanted—no, needed—to learn English. I had immigrated at three to Canada from Italy and didn’t know any English when I started Kindergarten. I recall my first day of school and not understanding my teacher and vice-versa. The intrinsic need to communicate was my impetus to learn English, and as words began making sense to me, I reinforced my knowledge with books. We visited the school library weekly, and it didn’t take me long to become a bookworm.

I wrote the obligatory essays in high school, followed by university essays related to French and Italian literature, and written in those languages. I graduated from university and teacher’s college, and it was in my early teaching years that I started thinking about writing fiction.

I decided to write a romance. I had enjoyed many Harlequin romances since the age of fourteen and I thought it would be fun to try writing one. I completed one book, and started two others. Thirty years later, I entered a Harlequin “So You Think You Can Write” Blitz and one of my romances was accepted, followed by a second contract and then another three-book contract offer.

I enjoy writing the kind of romances that I loved years ago and still love—stories with an emotional core and happy endings. Why? Because I know there are readers who will also enjoy them and connect with the stories on many levels.

When my children were young, they loved books and had a growing home library. I felt motivated to write a story that they and kids their age would enjoy. My characters were named after them—Sarah and Jordan—and the story revolved around a broken dollhouse and a fairy named “Belinda” who had lost her power.

I called this story “The Enchanted Christmas,” a title that Disney would ultimately choose for a film…not based on my story, though! My book was produced by a small press, and I gave copies as gifts to my kindergarten students at Christmas. I read from the book at several local libraries, schools, and a daycare, and I was thrilled at the delight displayed by the children, especially when I scattered Belinda’s silver fairy dust around….

From then on, I decided that I would seriously begin investing in myself as a writer. I wanted to keep writing stories that would bring happiness to readers of all ages. That would move them and elicit the many emotions I had felt—and continued to feel—as a reader.

So, when I was not teaching, I started investing: in books and magazines on the art and craft of writing; on conferences; on workshops; and on mentorships. I wrote stories for children and adults and started sending them off. Slowly, stories started getting published. This spurred me on. I was invited to read my adult fiction at our local university.

The emotional reaction of the students reinforced my desire to keep writing. I revelled in the feeling of having moved my audience in some way, sometimes to tears. My writing had touched a chord and it made me feel good to connect with others at an emotional level through my writing.

When I read my stories to children, whether in my own classroom or in public, I delighted in seeing their little faces light up with surprise, joy, laughter, and anticipation.

Again, knowing that my writing could elicit such positive emotions gave me great satisfaction. The goal of inspiring kids to love stories, books, reading, and writing—that is, to provide the best early literacy foundation for my JK and SK pupils—was an important part of my calling as a teacher. Kids identified with stories in my “Zach Collection” (13 rhyming stories, with titles such as: Zach Has An Accident, Zach’s Strange Dream, Zach Gets the Chicken Pox, etc.) and when a reader connects with a story, what more can an author ask for?

I wrote my adult novel La Brigantessa (released October 2018) because I was fascinated with the history of post-Unification Italy (1861-1870) and I wanted to illuminate this turbulent period in my book. I was born in Calabria in southern Italy, and the events that took place at this time are part of my heritage and family history.

In a nutshell, I write because I want to connect with readers. I want my words to reach them at an emotional level, to make them feel something, whether it be happiness, sadness, joy, surprise, anger, hope, disappointment, love, grief, etc. If I can move a reader, then I have succeeded as a writer.

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Rosanna Micelotta Battigelli was born in Calabria, Italy and immigrated to Canada with her family at three years of age. She is an alumna of the Humber School for Writers and her fiction has been published in fifteen anthologies, including A SECOND COMING: Canadian Migration Fiction (Guernica Editions, 2016), Chicken Soup For The Soul: Inspiration for Teachers (2017). the “Folktales” Issue of VIA (Voices in Italian Americana, Bordighera Press, New York, 2017), 150 Years Up North And More (Latitude 46 Publishing, 2018) and People, Places, Passages: An Anthology of Canadian Writing (Longbridge Books, 2018). Rosanna has two books published by Harlequin UK (2018) 

Her novel LA BRIGANTESSA was released by INANNA PUBLICATIONS in October 2018. 

LA BRIGANTESSA is a novel set in the aftermath of Italy’s 1861 Unification, a turbulent period known as ‘The Decade of Fire,’ (1860-1870) when scores of brigands (outlaws) rebelled against the harsh policies imposed by the new government, which in turn ordered the destruction of the brigands and any-one harbouring them.

Gabriella Falcone is a peasant girl from Calabria who works for Don Simone, the parish priest. She is forced to flee her hamlet in 1862 after stabbing a wealthy landowner in self-defence. Knowing her fate will be life imprisonment at best, the priest leads her through the harsh Aspromonte mountain range to seek refuge in an isolated monastery, but they soon fall into the hands of brigands. Gabriella is catapulted into a world she has only ever heard about in nervous whispers, a world where right and wrong, justice and vengeance take on new meanings. She is drawn into the role of brigantessa, and in the company of the brigand chief, Stefano Galante, she discovers that the convictions she once held dear no longer have a place in this wild, unlawful territory.

Gabriella wonders if she will ever clear her name and be able to return to a normal life. Experiencing the harsh existence of a brigandess, she discovers what she must do to survive and to ultimately vindicate herself.

 

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Category: Contemporary Women Writers, On Writing