Writer and editor specializing in nonfiction (books, feature articles, reviews, essays) for print and online publications.
I am a writer and editor living in Long Island City, NY. My passions are culture and the arts (especially music, movies, and theater), politics, social science, social and political theory. I have written about all these topics, for such publications as The Nation, Film Comment, Newsday, Gay City News, The Advocate, Cineaste, In These Times, The Italian American Review and Gay and Lesbian Review Worldwide. I also am a contributor to the online publications PopMatters, The New York Journal of Books, Rootsworld, La Voce di New York and I-Italy.
My well-reviewed non-fiction book , An Offer We Can’t Refuse: The Mafia in the Mind of America, explores some of my longstanding preoccupations as a writer: cultural mythologies and their social impact; ethnic identity and stereotypes; popular culture, especially film, and how such social categories as race, class, sexuality and gender interact in American society. I am a contributing author to many other books, including The Routledge History of the Italian Americans , The Essential Sopranos Reader (University of Kentucky Presses), Mafia Movies (University of Toronto), and Our Naked Lives (Bordighera Press).
I am a public speaker/conference presenter as well as a media consultant. I have spoken at conferences in the US and abroad, on ethnicity and immigration, film, music, and literature. I have been a consultant to, and onscreen presence in, several documentaries, including "The Italian Americans " (PBS, 2015); The Godfather Legacy (History Channel, 2013), and "Beyond Wiseguys" (PBS, 2008).
I currently am developing several projects, including a new nonfiction book.