Today we’d like to introduce you to Gloria Mattioni.
Hi Gloria, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today.
I’ve been a writer since I could speak in complete sentences and a professional one since I was eighteen. I started writing articles for an underground music magazine when I was a freshman in college in Italy and went on to become a journalist and editor at the Italian edition of Glamour at twenty, and a contributor to several mainstream magazines. In 1992, I quit my well-paid job in another magazine staff, packed my son and my few essentials, and decided to move to California. I came with a press visa but didn’t have a contract: just confidence in my ability to pursue the stories I wanted to tell, interviewing the people I admired and wanted to know, and visiting the places I dreamed about. I’d always been a risk-taker, and my risky adventures usually turned out well. We moved a lot in those years, from Marina del Rey and Venice to Dana Point. I also spent long periods in La Jolla working at the project of a World Women Expedition led by twin triathletes, Ironman and X-Games champions Barbara Warren and Angelika Castaneda. We never reached our budget goal to make the expedition take flight but became great friends. Later on, I featured the twins in my book “Reckless-The Outstanding Lives of Nine Kick-Ass Women,” published by Seal Press in 2005. And here we get to the core of my story! When living in Italy, I wrote several “books”, but I never pursue their publication, considering that my ‘private writing’. After living a few years in the States, I expanded my horizons and became ready to pitch my ideas and manuscripts to publishers. I started publishing in Italy, four books between 1996 and 1998. But by then, I’d decided that California was going to be my home base, so I challenged myself to become an American author. It took a little time, but I published three books in the U.S. since 2005. The newest is the novel “California Sister” published September 2022 by Atmosphere Press, that already won seven awards included the prestigious Indies Today 2022 Best Contemporary Fiction. I keep contributing to European magazines and traveling around the world to do so, but I’ve discovered my voice as a fiction writer and intend to pursue that path as well.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall, and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Oh, not smooth at all! Being a freelance or independent contractor means to personally assume lots of financial risks. Anything can throw upside down carefully constructed ‘monthly budgets’ designed to balance work and personal time in a way that still allows you to pay rent, put food on the table, and pay for your son’s college tuition. There were times when I had to wear many different hats to make ends meet, from translating Hollywood movies dialogues for the Italian market to coordinating production of movie segments shot in California by Italian companies. But I’m a fast learner and eclectic enough to appreciate variety, so it was alright. Then, the crisis of print journalism in more recent years definitely threw some curve balls my way. Much worse than all that was dealing with the sudden interruption of my ‘Californian dream’ when my beloved sister, living in Italy, suffered a brain hemorrhage that left her severely disabled and unable to speak and advocate for herself. That is the story I tell in California Sister, even if chose to do so through fiction to distance myself a bit from the pain of reliving the ordeal, grief, and loss that left me ‘mutilated’ for years. Writing my sister’s story has been the best form of therapy. I can now talk about it without breaking down, and I’m trying to inspire others to discover what a beautiful healing tool writing can be. But it hasn’t been easy to ‘suspend’ my life here and go back to Italy for almost three years to be at her side, which included having to sell the first American house I bought and loved.
Thanks – so, what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
As an award-winning magazine feature writer, I moved my focus from my early interest in music and show business to architecture, design, and lifestyle. I still occasionally interview musicians, actors, and directors, but I find more rewarding to produce stories about modernist architecture, particularly Californian. I work together with my photographer partner, who comes from Italy anytime I have lined up a few gorgeous houses to photograph in Palm Springs, San Diego, or Los Angeles. We have great ‘chemistry’ on set since fifteen years. My roles go from scouting to convincing the owners, set designing, assisting on set, interviewing architects and designers, writing, and then selling the story to mags all over the world. But, more than anything, I’m known for ‘making those beautiful walls talk,’ which is not as easy as it might look. As a bilingual Italian American author, I’m very proud of having mastered the ability to write directly in both languages without necessity of translating. I write stories revolving around imperfect, flawed characters and their journey of transformation. Every reader has defined my style as lyric, poetic, and visual. In fact, I write from all senses, but my main goal is to make the reader ‘see’ the scene. I’m now writing the treatment of California Sister. I think it would make a great movie, and I’d love to give my novel a second life on the screen.
Alright, so to wrap up, is there anything else you’d like to share with us?
I’d encourage everybody to follow their passion and heart desire at any age. I have friends who became authors or artists in their 60s or even 70s, others who opened their own businesses after a life spent as employees in stressful jobs that didn’t fulfill them. You don’t need to be rich. My experience has been that of somebody who came here without any money or guarantee, counting only on my self-reliance and my drive to pursue my dreams. At the end of the day, I don’t regret anything. Even difficulties taught me new skills, made me stronger, and equipped me to better face the obstacles every ‘explorer’s path’ implies.
Pricing:
- Photo shootings and stories for architectural or design studios, $3-4,000
- Writing workshops $300-500 depending on number of participants and hours.
- California Sister, copy signed by the author, $17 included postage: request it through the contact form https://www.gloriamattioni.com/contact
- Business profiles, $350-500
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.gloriamattioni.com
- Instagram: @gloriamattioni
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/gloriamattioniwrites/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gloria-mattioni-45739b1/
- Twitter: @GloriaMattioni
Image Credits
Giorgio Possenti Photography
John Lautner
