2022 OREGON LITERARY FELLOWSHIP
Tony Ardizzone was one of eleven writers who was awarded a 2022 Oregon Literary Fellowship by Literary Arts. Oregon Literary Fellowships are intended to help Oregon writers at all stages of their careers initiate, develop, or complete literary projects in poetry, fiction, literary nonfiction, drama, and young readers’ literature. Two additional fellowships are also awarded to support Oregon’s independent publishers and small presses that demonstrate a commitment to literary publishing. Literary Arts received over 500 applications for the thirteen fellowships awarded for 2022.
New Work: In Bruno’s Shadow, A Novel set in Rome and Croatia
Betrayed in love and witness to a miracle after meeting an angel, a young Croatian baker named Dubravka transforms the lives of eight strangers in central Rome. A South-Korean Montessori teacher from Canada who has lost one of her senses. A Roman performance artist who decides to portray the life of Caravaggio. The daughter of a Chicago barkeeper fleeing her hostess job in Tokyo’s Roppongi district. A gay centurion working outside Rome’s Colosseum, who carries a vendetta against the Christ Child. A New York academic weighing evidence against a colleague who is a sexual predator. A grieving father from San Francisco walking in the footsteps of his daughter, who may or may not have taken her own life. Their stories interconnect and alternate with episodes from Dubravka’s life, as she moves from Dubrovnik to Mostar to a cloistered convent in the Biokovo mountains, then finally to Rome, where she finds work in a pensione on the Campo de’ Fiori, in the shadow of the statue of the martyred visionary Giordano Bruno.
OREGON ARTSWATCH PORTRAIT SERIES
The portraits in the installments of this series by photographer K.B. Dixon focus on Portland’s cultural landscape—on the talented, dedicated, and creative people who have made significant contributions to the art, character, and culture of this city and state, people whose work and various legacies are destined to be part of our cultural history. Dixon chose writer Tony Ardizzone to be featured in the installment’s sixth series.
In Dixon’s words: "My aspirations have remained the same: to document the contemporary cultural landscape and to produce a decent photograph—a photograph that acknowledges the medium’s allegiance to reality and that preserves for myself and others a unique and honest sense of the subject. The environmental details have again been kept to a minimum. The subjects have the frame to themselves and do not compete with context for attention. This provides for a simpler, blunter, more intense encounter with character. It is this encounter with character that animates the image."
Short Stories in Italian Anthologies and Journals
An exciting anthology of contemporary short fiction featuring the work of eight North American writers of Italian descent has been published in Italy by Manni Editori. Uè Paisà: Racconti dall’identità italoamericana is one of the first Italian short story collections to feature contemporary Italian American writers in translation. The book was edited and translated by Carla Francellini, Professor of Comparative Literature and Literary Translation at the University of Siena.
The anthology presents three short stories by Tony Ardizzone: "The Eyes of Children," which first appeared in his collection The Evening News; "The Man in the Movie," which was included in his collection Taking It Home: Stories from the Neighborhood; and an uncollected short story "What I Learned from the Good Sisters of Christian Charity During My Nine Years of Roman Catholic Grammar School in Chicago," which was published in an issue of The Louisville Review guest-edited by the poet and novelist Crystal Wilkinson.
Italian translations of two additional Ardizzone stories, "World Without End" and "The Transplant," along with an interview with the author were published in another anthology of fiction, Miraggi italiani, which focuses on the work of four North American writers. The book was released by Artemide Edizioni in 2020. Carla de Rosa of the University of Siena translated both Ardizzone stories and conducted the author interview.
Ardizzone’s short stories as well as a critical essay about his work have also been published in a pair of Italian literary journals. Franco Nasi translated his story "Nonna" in Lo stato delle cose: Pensiero critico e scuritture, and Carla Francellini published translations of "The Eyes of Children" and "The Man in the Movie" along with a critical essay "Tony Ardizzone e il dettaglio essenziale" in Atti impuri: Luogo di scritture. An English version of Francellini’s essay, "When Details Truly Matter: The Fiction of Tony Ardizzone," was later published in the North American journal Voices in Italian Americana.
“My Mother’s Stories,” “The Walk-On,” and “Idling” appear in Flannery O’Connor Award anthology series
The University of Georgia Press announced the publication of a new series of thematic short fiction anthologies drawing on the rich backlist of collections that have received the Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction.
The anthology Hold That Knowledge: Stories about Love inaugurated the project in March 2019. The book included Tony Ardizzone’s short story "My Mother’s Stories," which was first published in The Black Warrior Review and later appeared as the opening story of his collection The Evening News. "My Mother’s Stories" was also reprinted in a pair of anthologies — New Worlds of Literature: Writings from America’s Many Cultures and Hear My Voice: A Multicultural Anthology of Literature from the United States.
Two more Ardizzone stories appeared in Georgia Press story anthologies released in 2020 and 2021. "The Walk-On," first published in the literary journal Descant, was featured in Good and Balanced: Stories about Sports, and "Idling" was published in Growing Up: Stories about Adolescence. "Idling" made its first appearance in The Carolina Quarterly and received a Distinguished Story of the Year citation in Best American Short Stories. The story was also reprinted in the anthology New Chicago Stories.