Sage Woman review of The Singing of Swans
🔗 http://www.pearlsong.com/newsroom/marysaracino/SageWomanTSOS.pdf
About
Mary Saracino is the author of The Singing of Swans, a novel published by Pearlsong Press in October 2006. A native of Seneca Falls, NY who lived in Denver, CO for 12 years, she currently resides in Lafayette, CO. In addition to her work as a writer, Mary teaches creative writing classes and workshops on the Divine Feminine.
She is the author of three other books (Voices of the Soft-Bellied Warrior, Finding Grace, and No Matter What, all published by Spinsters Ink), and has studied the Divine Feminine as an independent scholar for 30 years.
Her essays and fiction have been published in the anthologies Writing by Italian Canadian and Italian American Women (published by Fitzhenry & Whiteside, Gina Valle, Ed.), She Is Everywhere (iUniverse, Lucia Chiavola Birnbaum, Ed.), Don't Tell Mama! The Penguin Book of Italian American Writing (Penguin Books, Regina Barreca, Ed.), The Milk of Almonds: Italian American Women Write About Food and Culture (The Feminist Press, Edvige Giunta & Louise DeSalvo, Eds.), Chicken Soup for the Preteen Soul
Her honors and awards include: 2007 Lamdba Literary Awards finalist for The Singing of Swans (Pearlsong Press 2006);2008 Pushcart Prize: Best of the Small Presses, nomination for her poem, "No Country for Old Women"; Third place award in the 2008, 1st Annual Italian/American Citizen Journalist Digital Witness Contest, for "No Parlo Italiano"; 2007 Fall/Winter Glass Woman Prize for "VIcky's Secret"; 2005 & 1999 Writer's Residency Awards, Norcroft: A Writing Retreat for Women; the 2000 Salvator & Margaret Bonomo Memorial Prize for Literature (co-winner) for "Valentino, Puglia, & Seneca Falls," a personal narrative published in the summer 2000 issue of Italian Americana; the 1999 Colorado Authors' League "Top Hand Award" (Adult Fiction Mainstream/Literary) for Finding Grace; 1999 ForeWord Magazine Book of the Year Finalist (Children/Young Adult category) for Finding Grace; 1994 Minnesota Book Award finalist (Fiction category), No Matter What; and participation in the 1991-1992 Loft Mentor Series program (fiction category).
She is a member of PEN America and the Colorado Authors League. She is a former member of the National Writers Union and the American Italian Historical Association.
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Reviews
<em><strong>The Lambda Literary Foundation named The Singing of Swans as a finalist in the Spirituality category in its 19th Annual (2007) Lambda Literary Awards.</strong></em><br /><br />"<em><strong>The Singing of Swans</strong></em> is a remarkable narrative calling -- even compelling -- us to connect with our own ancestral roots, to seek our own inner wisdom, and to reclaim our own inner voices!"<br /><br /><strong>Margaret Starbird<br /></strong>author of <strong><em>The Woman with the Alabaster Jar<br /></em></strong>and <strong><em>Mary Magdalene: Bride in Exile</em></strong><br /><br />"The Roman poet Ovid sang of the beautiful Sicilian lake where Persephone descended to the otherworld -- a lake now dying from overdevelopment. No siren's song could be more commanding than this novel centered on that magical tale. Generations of women of the <em>streghe</em> tradition -- call them pagans, call them witches -- join their voices in this tightly wrought magical chorus,"<br /><br /><strong>Patricia Monaghan</strong><br />author of <strong><em>The Goddess Path<br />& </em></strong><em><strong>The Red-Haired Girl from the Bog</strong></em><br /><br />"<em><strong>The Singing of Swans</strong></em> is more than a novel. It combines an immense amount of learning, a great novelist's ability to weave the present, the past, the far past, and the future into a spell-binding story...and to transmute all this into an offer of life to all of us trapped in contemporary deadening cultures....This novel may give you the courage to quit your dead-end job, book a flight to Italy, and, like Madalene, 'exhilarated by the possibilities,' howl 'at the brilliant blue Sicilian sky,'"<br /><br /><strong>Lucia Chiavola Birnbaum<br /></strong>author of <em><strong>Dark mother: african origins and godmothers</strong></em>