Saturday, October 14, 2023

Italian American Heritage Month: Adriana Trigiani

Adriana Trigiani

She's involved in so many creative pursuits that a list of Adriana Trigiani's accomplishments practically leaves you breathless. She's the best-selling author of 18 books, a playwright, television writer/producer, film director/screenwriter/producer, documentarian, frequent TV guest and an entrepreneur. And yes, she has published a novel a year since 2000. In short, Trigiani is a dynamo!

Trigiani freely admits she's been inspired by her Italian American heritage and Appalachian childhood and these have formed the basis of much of her creative output. 

She was the writer and executive producer of City Kids for ABC/Jim Henson Productions and executive producer and writer of Growing Up Funny, a television special for Lifetime which garnered an Emmy nomination for Lily Tomlin. Trigiani has written best-sellers in fiction and non-fiction and wrote and directed the award-winning documentary Queens of the Big Time (1996 Audience Award Hamptons International Film Festival and 1997 Palm Springs International Film Festival). She wrote and directed the major motion picture Big Stone Gap, based on her debut novel and shot entirely on location in her hometown. In 2018 she directed Then Came You in Scotland, starring Craig Ferguson and Kathie Lee Gifford (screenwriter). 

She also adapted her novel Very Valentine for Lifetime Television. It premiered in June 2019 starring Kelen Coleman and Jacqueline Bisset. Trigiani co-founded with Nancy Bolmeier-Fisher The Origin Project, an in-school writing program in Appalachia that serves over 1700 students in her home state of Virginia. The program has received many awards, including citations from the Virginia Council for the Humanities (2018), Helen M. Lewis Community Service Award (2015), and the William P. Kanto Memorial Award at The University of Virginia at Wise (2017). She's also written numerous books for young adults.

Trigiani's acclaimed stand-alone novels include Lucia, Lucia (2003), The Queen of the Big Time (2004), and Rococo (2005). Trigiani's book The Shoemaker's Wife is the fictional account of the lives of her own grandparents after emigrating to America from Italy in the early 20th century. Critics have noted Trigiani's ability to "create distinctive voices for each of her characters." Millions of copies of Trigiani's books are in print in the United States and published in 36 countries around the world.


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