Rita Ciresi (born in 1961) is an American short story writer and novelist. She is the author of three novels that address the Italian-American experience.

Early life and career

Ciresi was born in

New Haven New Haven is a city of the U.S. state of Connecticut. It is located on New Haven Harbor on the northern shore of Long Island Sound. With a population of 135,081 as determined by the 2020 U.S. census, New Haven is the third largest city in Co ...

Connecticut Connecticut ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, New York (state), New York to the west, and Long Island Sound to the south. ...

, a city which serves as the backdrop for most of her fiction. She attended Penn State University, and graduated with an M.F.A. Ciresi is the author of several novels, short stories, and pieces of flash fiction that have appeared in magazines such as ''

Cosmopolitan Cosmopolitan may refer to: Internationalism * World citizen, one who eschews traditional geopolitical divisions derived from national citizenship * Cosmopolitanism, the idea that all of humanity belongs to a single moral community * Cosmopolitan ...

'', ''

Creative Nonfiction Creative nonfiction (also known as literary nonfiction, narrative nonfiction, literary journalism or verfabula) is a genre of writing that uses literary styles and techniques to create factually accurate narratives. Creative nonfiction contrasts ...

'', ''Brevity'', '' South Carolina Review'', ''California Quarterly'', and ''

Prairie Schooner ''Prairie Schooner'' is a literary magazine published quarterly at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln with the cooperation of UNL's English Department and the University of Nebraska Press. It is based in Lincoln, Nebraska and was first publi ...

''. She has also had anthologies published by ''

Penguin Penguins are a group of aquatic flightless birds from the family Spheniscidae () of the order Sphenisciformes (). They live almost exclusively in the Southern Hemisphere. Only one species, the Galápagos penguin, is equatorial, with a sm ...

'', ''

Purdue University Press Purdue University Press, founded in 1960, is a university press affiliated with Purdue University and overseen by Purdue University Libraries. Purdue University Press is currently a member of both the Association of University Presses, to which i ...

'', and ''

Feminist Press The Feminist Press at CUNY is an American independent nonprofit literary publisher of the City University of New York, based in New York City. It primarily publishes feminist literature that promotes freedom of expression and social justice. The ...

''. She has written romantic comedies, such as ''Love on Longboat Key'', under the pen name of Meg West. Her fiction has been translated or optioned for translation in German, Dutch, Greek, Polish, and Bulgarian. Ciresi is well regarded for her writing style, and on her novel ''Pink Slip'', she is appreciated for her ability to mix the tragic and the comic aspects of love in a hilarious fashion. Ciresi has received support from the state arts council of

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania, officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a U.S. state, state spanning the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern United States, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes region, Great Lakes regions o ...

Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern and Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States between the East Coast of the United States ...

, and

Florida Florida ( ; ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders the Gulf of Mexico to the west, Alabama to the northwest, Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia to the north, the Atlantic ...

. She has been in residence at the

American Academy in Rome The American Academy in Rome is a research and arts institution located on the Gianicolo in Rome, Italy. The academy is a member of the Council of American Overseas Research Centers. History 19th century In 1893, a group of American architect ...

, Hawthornden International Writers' Retreat, Sozopol Fiction Seminars, Martha's Vineyard Writers Residency, Virginia Center for the Arts,

Atlantic Center for the Arts Atlantic Center for the Arts (ACA) is a nonprofit, interdisciplinary artists' community and education facility located in New Smyrna Beach, Florida. The complex was designed by the Boston-based firm Thompson and Rose Architects. Atlantic Center ...

, Santa Fe Art Institute, and the

Helene Wurlitzer Foundation Helene Wurlitzer Foundation of New Mexico is an artist residency program in the artists' colony of Taos, New Mexico. The Foundation, which offers prize fellowships to painters, poets, sculptors, writers, playwrights, composers, photographers an ...

. She has written the first and final drafts of most of her work at the Ragdale Foundation. Ciresi has served as a fiction editor of ''2 Bridges Review'', an annual published by

New York City College of Technology The New York City College of Technology (City Tech) is a public college in New York City. Founded in 1946, it is the City University of New York's college of technology. Its main urban campus is located in Downtown Brooklyn. History City Tech ...

. She currently rests as a retired faculty of the

University of South Florida The University of South Florida (USF) is a Public university, public research university with its main campus located in Tampa, Florida, Tampa, Florida, United States, and other campuses in St. Petersburg, Florida, St. Petersburg and Sarasota, ...

, where she was a professor emerita. Ciresi served as director of M.F.A. theses that resulted in publication and worked alongside former students.

Bibliography

Collections and Novels

* ''Mother Rocket'' (

University of Georgia Press The University of Georgia Press or UGA Press is the university press of the University of Georgia, a public land-grant research university with its main campus in Athens, Georgia. It is the oldest and largest publishing house in Georgia and a me ...

, 1993) * ''Blue Italian'' (

Ecco Press Ecco is a New York–based publishing imprint of HarperCollins. It was founded in 1971 by Daniel Halpern as an independent publishing company; Publishers Weekly described it as "one of America's best-known literary houses." In 1999 Ecco was acquir ...

, 1996) * ''Pink Slip'' (Delacorte Press, 1998) * ''Sometimes I Dream in Italian'' (Delta Publishing, 2000) * ''Remind Me Again Why I Married You'' (Delta Publishing, 2003) * ''Bring Back My Body to Me'' (2012) * ''Second Wife'' (Burrow Press, 2018)

Meg West's Romantic Comedies

* ''Love on Longboat Key (The Keys to His Heart, Book 1)'' (Champagne Book Group, 2017) * ''Love on Lido Key (The Keys to His Heart, Book 2)'' (Champagne Book Group, 2018) * ''Love on the Links (The Keys to His Heart, Book 3)'' (Champagne Book Group, 2019)

Awards

* Barnes & Noble Discover New Writers Series for ''Blue Italian'' * 1993 Finalist for the

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' is an American Newspaper#Daily, daily newspaper that began publishing in Los Angeles, California, in 1881. Based in the Greater Los Angeles city of El Segundo, California, El Segundo since 2018, it is the List of new ...

Art Seidenbaum Award Art is a diverse range of cultural activity centered around ''works'' utilizing creative or imaginative talents, which are expected to evoke a worthwhile experience, generally through an expression of emotional power, conceptual ideas, tec ...

for First Fiction * 1997 Pirate's Alley Faulkner Award for Fiction for ''Pink Slip'' * 2002

Flannery O'Connor Award for Short Fiction The Flannery O'Connor Award for Short Fiction is an annual prize awarded by the University of Georgia Press in to a North American writer in a blind-judging contest for a collection of English language short stories. The collection is subsequently ...

for ''Mother Rocket'' * 2017 Jeanne Leiby Memorial Chapbook Series Award for ''Second Wife'' * 2019 F(r)iction Creative Writing Award for '''merigan'' * 2022 Accenti Writing Contest Prize for ''Anywhere in the World''

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ciresi, Rita Writers from New Haven, Connecticut 20th-century American novelists Living people American writers of Italian descent University of South Florida faculty Pennsylvania State University alumni 21st-century American novelists American women novelists 20th-century American women writers 21st-century American women writers 20th-century American short story writers 21st-century American short story writers Novelists from Florida Novelists from Connecticut American women academics 1961 births