Christopher DiRaddo

I met Shawn last year after he reviewed The Geography of Pluto for his Youtube channel, Shawn Breathes Books. He’s a smart, kind and thoughtful man, based in the Prairies, who loves literature and wants nothing more than to share his thoughts on the books he reads with his community. Shawn proceeded to read The Family Way and he reached out to speak to me about both books for his series. The conversation was a delight.

You can catch the interview below.

In-depth interviews with writers about their work are few and far between these days, so I am grateful for two recent opportunities to talk at length about my writing and community engagement.

Earlier this year, I spoke with writer and professor Linda M. Morra for her excellent literary podcast Getting Lit with Linda. We talked about both of my novels, as well as the recent literary milestones in my life (namely the 10th anniversary of The Geography of Pluto and Violet Hour). Her questions were great, and it is always fun to talk to another writer about craft. You can listen to the interview here.

And last week, I was a guest on CBC’s The Bridge with Nantali Indongo. The hour-long show features in-depth interviews with artists and cultural players where we talk about our personal journeys and play music that is important to us. I spoke with Nantali about growing up on the south shore, my two books, and my thoughts on community building. You can listen to the interview here.

A writer always dreams to make it in the pages of The New York Times. Imagine my surprise to find The Geography of Pluto mentioned in a feature this month by celebrated Canadian novelist Mona Awad (it’s only a sentence, but I’ll take it). Mona made a number of book recommendations for people looking to “Read Your Way Through Montreal.” There are so many great books she could have included, I’m honoured she mentioned mine.

Click here to read the feature.

The book recommendation site, Shepherd.com, asked me to contribute my three favourite reads of 2023. I read so many books this year, but still, it was an easy selection for me. The three titles are:

In Memoriam by Alice Winn

Leading Men by Christopher Castellani

Dandelion Daughter by Gabrielle Boulianne-Tremblay (translated into English by Eli Tareq El Bechelany-Lynch)

You can read what I wrote about each of them at the following link: Christopher DiRaddo’s 3 favourite reads in 2023. You can also read the total results from all authors (by genre and other categories) on Shepherd’s Best Books of 2023 page.

And if you want to go deeper, I also wrote another list for them earlier this year: The best books that uplift and celebrate queer kinship and chosen family.

Happy reading!

This weekend I wrapped up a month-long writing residency at Dentro La Terra, an artist residence located in Abruzzo, in the small village of Arielli. Every year the program – run by Montreal’s Espace de la Diversité – offers two Quebec writers from marginalized communities (BIPOC, LGBTQ+) the opportunity to travel to Italy and work on their next creative project.

I was there with playwright and actor Maryline Chery. She was writing a new play, while I was writing my next novel.

The book I’m working on is an ambitious project for me. It’s a family drama, told from the point of view of its four main characters. Set mainly in 1989/90, it also jumps back in time to the Montreal of the 50s and 60s. As such, the book has required a lot of research to get the details right, and it can be a bit confusing given that I am juggling multiple storylines and timelines.

Having uninterrupted time to work on a second draft of the book was invaluable to me. I have been able to get done in one month what might normally take me 4-5 months back home. In this time, I’ve been able to dust off the draft I finished earlier this year and fully immerse myself in the world of the novel. I’ve written new chapters, cut characters, added others, worked through problems, and made pages and pages of notes for the next draft (a good book is like lasagna—lots of layers). In all, it’s been incredibly productive.

My days/nights were mostly spent at the window in my apartment’s living room. I pulled up the dining room table to a window that looks out towards Arielli’s town square and the 4 Volte Caffe, a bar/coffee shop that kept me company these past four weeks. Open morning to night, the bar always had music playing (Thegiornalisti, Donna Summer, Miley Cyrus) with people coming and going and old men playing cards. Sometimes, when I needed a break, I would head down for a drink. I found I would miss the action when the bar was closed on Mondays.

Arielli is a very small town of about 1,100, but I would be surprised if I saw more than 100 people in all during my stay. Like many villages in Italy, it too is suffering from low population as younger people tend to want to live in larger metropolitan cities. While I can understand that, it’s hard to get over the beauty of this place. From the town square, you can see the imposing Mount Amaro in the distance, and you are surrounded by trees and vineyards and valleys. The buildings have so much character and history, too (Arielli was on the Gustav Line during WWII – like my own family’s village – and you can still see the bullet holes pockmarking some of the old stone homes).

Unlike the previous two times I have been to Italy, I feel like I am leaving with a better understanding of what it might be like to live here. I would go out several times a week for groceries, or to the butcher or the fruit and vegetable stand. The cheesemonger’s son would make deliveries to the town square on Tuesdays. I made sure I was at the pasticceria early on Sundays to get the most delicious bomboloni. Sometimes I’d walk to where I had to go, other times I took one of the bikes provided to us. There are no nearby restaurants, and the closest major city is about a 30-minute car ride away, so we were very much reliant on what is available in the town.

The people of Arielli have been incredibly welcoming. Everyone says hi to one another, which is a very different experience from Montreal. Maryline and I integrated ourselves into the daily life of the village as best we could. We met townsfolk on our frequent trips to the 4 Volte Caffe. One evening, we walked to the park to watch children play theatre sports. We even went to Sunday mass and then out to dinner with the town priest, Augustine, who took us to one of his favourite seafood places in St. Vito. I’ve been touched by everyone’s generosity.

Our hosts have been the most kind. Dentro La Terra is run by Nicola Dell’Arciprete, who works for UNICEF and oversees Italy’s response to the refugee crisis. He is a passionate man who works hard for change and believes in the importance of art. Getting to know him and his family has been one of the highlights of this trip. His parents, Anastasia and Tonino, also became surrogate parents for us—leaving baskets of tomatoes and figs at our door, or passing by to see if we need rainwear (it was raining a lot last week). Anastasia even taught us how to make pasta. The family lives in a wonderful old building that, too, has the markings of WWII (at one time, Tonino’s family had to vacate it and turn it over to the Allies). Today it is a B&B with rows of olive trees and grapevines in the back that run towards the valley. We were to help with this year’s harvest, but unfortunately there was none as a pesky fungus has ruined the town crop.

Through my almost daily interactions with townsfolk, I was able to practice my rudimentary Italian. I’m pleased to say that not only has my comprehension improved, but I am also able to (somewhat) communicate my needs. This is something I would not have been able to easily do in Montreal. I also feel that my understanding of what it means to be “Italian” has changed. As a queer Italian-Canadian, I’ve been wrestling with questions of identity, origins, and inheritance, particularly in my work, these past few years. To be in Arielli, at this time in my writing career, has been extremely beneficial to my current and future projects. This experience has “filled the well” and I don’t think I am completely aware of all the ways it will impact my future work.

As I get ready to head back home, I know that I will be leaving with more than an improved version of my manuscript. I am also leaving with a greater understanding of Italian people and culture, and gratitude to the folks of Arielli for welcoming me into their community and giving me the terrain to cultivate my craft. I am also extremely grateful to Espace de la Diversité for believing in my project and allowing me to represent their organization, and Quebec, on an international level.

This is my first writing residency, I should say. I’ve applied to others over the years, but never succeeded in landing one until now. I encourage those of you who write to apply to this one next year and to others. There’s nothing quite like being uprooted from the day-to-day and thrown into a strange world where all you have to do is write. Yes, it was lonely sometimes (thank God Maryline was there) but I have never felt more like a writer than I did here.

Sometimes I feel guilty about my ambition. That maybe people think there is something untoward or inappropriate about being so invested in one’s writing career and wanting to share your imagination with the world. I know that’s just the imposter syndrome talking. But still, even if it were true, I am learning not to care. There is really nothing in the material world that makes me happier than what I am doing now: losing myself in a world I’m creating, only to surface hours later in another one wondering where all the time went.

So, again, much thanks to Dentro La Terra and Espace de la Diversité. Can’t wait for this book to be out there (give me a couple more years).

Today I packed up the Unveiling the Queer Italian-Canadian Experience exhibit at the Casa D’Italia, marking the end of several hectic but rewarding weeks.

Since the beginning of the year, I have worked to produce several events that took place this month. August is always a busy time in Montreal, what with it being Pride. But August is also ItalfestMTL, a celebration of Italian heritage in the city. This year, I produced events for both festivals.

I got the idea to pitch ItalfestMTL last summer. In June 2022, I produced Queer & Italian in Montreal, which looked at the history and future of queer activism among Montrealers of Italian origin. One of the things that came out of that discussion was a desire to bring events like it to the heart of the Italian community. Some Italian-Canadians are still hesitant to openly identify as members of the LGBTQ+ community. And in some circles (especially the family setting), being queer is still taboo. If change is really going to happen, then we need to go to the spaces where Italian-Canadians congregate.

So, I pitched ItalfestMTL a photo exhibit to take place at the Casa D’Italia. Earlier in the year, I had the privilege of being photographed by Toronto photographer Vincenzo Pietropaolo for a collaboration he was doing with Montreal poet Liana Cusmano on documenting queer Italian-Canadians in spaces where they felt harmony between their identities (I chose my kitchen). It’s part of a multi-city, multi-year project the duo is working on to demystify the queer Italian-Canadian experience. I’m glad to say ItalfestMTL loved the idea and worked with me to make the event happen.

The exhibit ran for three weeks in August, in collaboration with Fierté Montréal. We had a very well attended vernissage on August 8, with live readings and music. In addition to the exhibit, ItalfestMTL also screened the film Creative Spaces: Queer & Italiatn-Canadian, the short documentary by Licia Canton that started it all. As part of the post-film discussion, we discussed things we wanted to do for next year. Maybe a pasta dinner where people bring their grandparents? A float in the parade? A comedy night with Italian comics? This is definitely not the end of the work.

This month, I also interviewed Italian-American author Christopher Castellani on stage at the Istituto Italiano di Cultura di Montreal. Our Violet Hour Book Club read his novel Leading Men in June, and with the help of L’Équipe de recherche en études Queer au Québec (EREQQ) we were able to bring the author to town. Castellani’s book focuses on the life of Frank Merlo, the partner of Tennessee Williams, who was a working-class New Jersey boy from an Italian family and a war hero with aspirations of being an actor. We spoke about their tumultuous relationship, the literary and film circles of 1950s Italy, the burdens of fame, and the intersections between queerness and Italian heritage. You can watch the interview here.

I also produced Violet Hour: In Translation, which featured Montreal translators (Eli Tareq El Bechelany-Lynch, Jonathan Kaplansky, D.M. Bradford, Sophie Voillot) reading their work next to the original authors (Gabrielle Boulianne-Tremblay, Jonathan Bécotte, Nicholas Dawson, Leila Marshy). There was also a launch for Toronto author Aunja Vaghese, who came to town to promote her debut book of short stories Chrysalis.

Finally, I had a table on Community Day (see gratuitous legs shot below). I know I should not have a favourite event, but if I were to have one it was this one. So many people came by the booth to learn more about Violet Hour events and activities. I also got to connect with people who have read my work and sell copies of both of my books. It was such a beautiful day.

Sometimes I wonder how much longer I can keep this stuff up. In the last few months, I’ve had a lot of frank conversation with other writers about the stresses and taxes of being a writer, trying to promote one’s own work while also uplifting the work of others. I really do love producing events and connecting readers with books (18 events so far this year), but sometimes I wonder about its value. Do people still read books? Do they care about literature? Is it all worth it?

And then I have weeks like the last three and I realize the answer is yes. Yes it is.

So if you are one of those people who reads these blogs, subscribes to the newsletter, or comes out to my events (or even considers it), thank you. It means a lot.