Tag: ancestors

Secret Life of Nimu

Suman Rathore Shah

A story of grief, healing and hope. The essay traces a woman’s trip to her hometown after the death of her husband. The traditions that aid the process of grieving and a daughter’s realization about her mother’s resilience and watching her claim herself back. “She has a pacemaker; you cannot Read more

Suman Rathore Shah

About the Author – Suman’s first love as a child was photography and the classics. Encouraged to write at a young age, she’s been previously published in print in the Newport Life Magazine, Times of India, and Mid-Day. After almost 20 years in the advertising and publishing industry she’s going back to her first loves, writing and photography. As an evolving writer, she’s been honing her skills at Grub Street, Boston. Growing up bi-coastal in India, she never really put down roots until she landed in Boston almost 18 years ago. Now she lives bi-continental, and Boston is her karma bhumi, the place where she does her life’s work. She chronicles her stories on her blog, www.forkonaroad.com where she writes about all things that nourish life.

Love Letter to My Female Ancestors

John Michael Antonio

Dear Female Ancestors, I have decided to do something impossible. I want to communicate back through time and space the love I feel for each and every one of my female ancestors. Human limitations being what they are, of course, I am limited to writing this love letter in my Read more

John Michael Antonio

John Michael Antonio is a freelance writer, photographer, poet and screenwriter. He claims his Midwestern roots while at the same time admitting his incurable and insatiable love and addiction for all things New York City. He has been the husband to his wife, the love of his life, for almost thirty years and is a father of three wonderful children. He is an unapologetic male feminist as well as a passionate lover of fashion, art, movies and music from all eras and genres. An endless dreamer, John Michael is also an avid historian, ex-punk rocker and a legendary Internet surfer who sleeps, on average, about four hours a day. His work has also been featured on The Good Men Project.

Send in Your DNA Today!

Joan Mazza

You might find family members you don’t know exist: half-brothers, half–sisters living not too far away to visit. Might I find a better welcome than I had? I ask other family to be tested, but they shrug. They know who they are, don’t care about the dead, don’t want to Read more

Joan Mazza

Joan Mazza has worked as a medical microbiologist, psychotherapist, seminar leader, and has been a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee. She is the author of six books, including Dreaming Your Real Self (Penguin/Putnam), and her poetry has appeared in Rattle, Whitefish Review, Off the Coast, Kestrel, Slipstream, American Journal of Nursing, The MacGuffin, Mezzo Cammin, and The Nation. She ran away from the hurricanes of South Florida to be surprised by the earthquakes and tornadoes of rural central Virginia, where she writes poetry and does fabric and paper art.

Genome Analysis

Joan Mazza

Numbered and lettered genes listed in thousands of pages. Increased or decreased risk for this or that cancer, bone strength. Three genes say I’m likely lactose intolerant (I’m not) and prone to anxiety (I am). All my genes argue about Parkinson’s and heart disease and breast cancer, good and bad, Read more

Joan Mazza

Joan Mazza has worked as a medical microbiologist, psychotherapist, seminar leader, and has been a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee. She is the author of six books, including Dreaming Your Real Self (Penguin/Putnam), and her poetry has appeared in Rattle, Whitefish Review, Off the Coast, Kestrel, Slipstream, American Journal of Nursing, The MacGuffin, Mezzo Cammin, and The Nation. She ran away from the hurricanes of South Florida to be surprised by the earthquakes and tornadoes of rural central Virginia, where she writes poetry and does fabric and paper art.

Tales of Immigrant Ancestors

Joan Mazza

Another conversation with my aunt, who tells me about her father’s trip who made his crossing to America when he was fifteen. Alone, he traveled from Canicatti, no money or education, for vague hope of a better life, sponsored by his sister, my grandmother, who arrived at Ellis Island, 1917. Read more

Joan Mazza

Joan Mazza has worked as a medical microbiologist, psychotherapist, seminar leader, and has been a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee. She is the author of six books, including Dreaming Your Real Self (Penguin/Putnam), and her poetry has appeared in Rattle, Whitefish Review, Off the Coast, Kestrel, Slipstream, American Journal of Nursing, The MacGuffin, Mezzo Cammin, and The Nation. She ran away from the hurricanes of South Florida to be surprised by the earthquakes and tornadoes of rural central Virginia, where she writes poetry and does fabric and paper art.

Map of My Origins

Joan Mazza

My grandparents are all from Sicily, brave, unschooled souls who came through Ellis Island in their twenties, married paisans who did the same. My DNA test tells me more, smears my ancestry across all of Southern Europe to include Spain, Portugal, France, Greece. The swirl bleeds to touch Turkey, Azerbaijan, Read more

Joan Mazza

Joan Mazza has worked as a medical microbiologist, psychotherapist, seminar leader, and has been a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee. She is the author of six books, including Dreaming Your Real Self (Penguin/Putnam), and her poetry has appeared in Rattle, Whitefish Review, Off the Coast, Kestrel, Slipstream, American Journal of Nursing, The MacGuffin, Mezzo Cammin, and The Nation. She ran away from the hurricanes of South Florida to be surprised by the earthquakes and tornadoes of rural central Virginia, where she writes poetry and does fabric and paper art.

Italiano

Joan Mazza

An Italian heart is an artichoke,prickly-petaled, not inviting to eat. Every leaf ends in a little nail, a claw that forces you to navigate your way to tenderness, discover a taste that lingers, on your tongue and fingertips, embedded in the mushrooms, rice, chicken simmered with it. A platter of Read more

Joan Mazza

Joan Mazza has worked as a medical microbiologist, psychotherapist, seminar leader, and has been a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee. She is the author of six books, including Dreaming Your Real Self (Penguin/Putnam), and her poetry has appeared in Rattle, Whitefish Review, Off the Coast, Kestrel, Slipstream, American Journal of Nursing, The MacGuffin, Mezzo Cammin, and The Nation. She ran away from the hurricanes of South Florida to be surprised by the earthquakes and tornadoes of rural central Virginia, where she writes poetry and does fabric and paper art.

Grandma Josephine

Joan Mazza

My godmother tells me stories of my mother’s mother, her aunt, called Pepina. In her forties, she climbed into a dumpster in the Bronx to scrounge for food, discovered a case of celery, but not before the dumpster was hooked up to be carted off, stopped by her screams. Grandma’s Read more

Joan Mazza

Joan Mazza has worked as a medical microbiologist, psychotherapist, seminar leader, and has been a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee. She is the author of six books, including Dreaming Your Real Self (Penguin/Putnam), and her poetry has appeared in Rattle, Whitefish Review, Off the Coast, Kestrel, Slipstream, American Journal of Nursing, The MacGuffin, Mezzo Cammin, and The Nation. She ran away from the hurricanes of South Florida to be surprised by the earthquakes and tornadoes of rural central Virginia, where she writes poetry and does fabric and paper art.