About me

In the beginning, I was a shy kid. The fact that I read my schoolbooks cover to cover when I was bored, listened to classical music on the bus and spent my afternoons in ballet class did not help with popularity, but now I can distinguish big theatres’ productions of Giselle by the costumes alone and I am accidentally well-read.

I studied at Liceo Boggio Lera, in Catania, and I chose a foreign language curriculum with English, Spanish and French. Our cohort was involved in two work-experience projects, training as translators for cultural heritage books and as tour guides for Museums’ Night. I also earned two language qualifications, the Instituto Cervantes’ DELE B1 and Cambridge English’s B2 and C1.

I studied Modern Literature at the University of Catania, and I was awarded my degree with the marks 110/110 and honours. I chose electives on philosophy, history of art, music and theatre, philology and literary theory, and I also attended a workshop on musical journalism, after which I was strongly encouraged to make writing my career. Who am I not to take this advice?

For a month I was a social media manager intern for UNICT’s humanities journal, Siculorum Gymnasium, where I had my first experience at copywriting and working professionally in a team. I naturally became the spokesperson, liaising with the journal’s editor in chief and helping to manage the work schedule for me and my colleagues.

My thesis was “Riscrittura e intertestualità in Valperga, Proserpine e Mathilda di Mary Shelley” (Retelling and Intertextuality in Valperga, Proserpine and Mathilda by Mary Shelley). I approached Mary Shelley’s “minor” works written in Italy, and analysed international academic literature about them to figure out in what ways she rewrote great Latin and Italian classics into her texts, critically engaging with her father’s philosophy, her husband’s poetry and her mother’s feminist principles. In the end, I argued that Mary Shelley’s reputation as a writer is still very much influenced by prejudices and that much is overlooked in the admirable way she positions herself inside the Canon while also reinterpreting it, especially when it comes to women’s education, values and agency.

“Aureovagante”, the title of my book blog on Instagram, is a made-up word meaning “wandering for gold”, a metaphor for what I do — surrounding myself with beauty like a thieving magpie. It now houses several projects and it remains my window into all things books (including the publishing drama).

I studied Comparative Literature at University College London. I took electives on literary theory, feminist literature, gothic literature and contemporary fiction, and I finished my degree with Distinction.

In the meantime, I explored the cultural scene in London, went to countless art exhibitions and shows at the Royal Opera, and founded a literary magazine with my friends, “L’Audacia”.

In my dissertation, I argued that much of the resistance towards the inclusion of Italian women authors in Italian university curricula and school syllabi is caused by restricted, out-dated and nation-centric history of literature notions. By adopting an international outlook and applying well-established English and American feminist theories to women-authored texts, it is soon revealed that Italian women writers were well-connected intellectuals, aware of their national literature but interested in models from overseas, and engaged in a difficult process of rewriting and critically answering to stereotypical representations of womanhood in male texts.

In June 2025, my research was presented during an academic symposium which took place in Rome, and was published in 2026 in an edited volume by Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, On the Road: Verso una nuova storia dei rapporti culturali tra Italia e Stati Uniti.

My supervisor at UCL entrusted me with a 450-page manuscript in need of an editor. It was her translation of Edith Wharton’s The Fruit of the Tree, rendered into Italian for the first time in history. Several typos and post-its with editorial suggestions later, it was self-published in 2026 through Mondadori Passione Scrittore. I dare say that this is my kind of dream project.

I joined Elwin Street Productions’ team for the summer as an Editorial and Rights Assistant. It was my first editorial experience in office and I loved being hands on editing and producing books, liaising with big publishers, designers, freelancers and authors. I did editing on thousand-page-long cookbooks using InDesign and research for brilliant literary-themed titles; I sourced images, checked content, sent books to every corner of the world. I also did some translation for promotional material and resolved some very difficult editorial conundrums. In the meantime, I was helping acquisitions and inviting editors to meet us at Frankfurt Book Fair in three languages, doing market research, talking with agents, and fixing the printer when it stopped working, always right when I needed it the most.

Duckworth is one of the publishers I admire the most, and I was thrilled to join them for a work-experience period. I was a Publishing Assistant, helping editorial with market research, cover briefs and manuscript evaluation (my absolute favourite part!), and the marketing team with reaching out to influencers, sending out press copies and getting us onto new platforms. So many brilliant titles came out while I was working there!

Creating a magazine from scratch is not as easy as it sounds, and after three years of delays and hitting walls, two of my coursemates from UCL and I finally launched the first issue of “L’Audacia Literary Magazine”. The launch was a brilliant evening of poetry and prose, and it was fantastic organising and hosting a literary event.

I plan to keep doing fantastic things with literature. I am preparing papers for conferences, completing courses such as Rights Management Essentials by the Rights and Licensing Hub (but also Acting for Beginners!), translating Italian to English, doing my copyediting exercises, organising fun initiatives for L’Audacia and @aureovagante, and much more. I am also writing my poetry and stories, which I hope will find their way to the world.