I've been processing the world around me through writing for as long as I can remember. As the daughter of an archeologist mother and an engineer father, I now use my writing career to explain how stuff works, obsess over all things ancient, and write novels.

I received my bachelor's degree in English Literature and minored in Creative Writing, French, and Ancient History at Boston College where in 2020 I graduated summa cum laude and won the McCarthy Award for best collection of creative writing. After a brief stint at a start-up company, I earned my master's degree in journalism at L'École du Journalisme de Nice, in France.

A journalism career was the only salaried solution to my deep curiosity for a number of mostly "ology" subjects that were simply incompatible within a single lifetime: ancient history, anthropology, mythology, archeology, paleontology, astronomy, evolutionary biology, geology... It's the only job in which I can be an archeologist or an astronomer or whatever expert I want - even if it's just for 500 words. 

US-born, Italian-raised, and having lived in various countries, I struggle with the question, "where are you from?" even more than the question, "where are you going?" (I don’t know). In my childhood I read bedtime stories with my father to improve my English, and quickly became fluent in English, Italian, and French. I guess that makes me a trilingual storyteller. Along those lines, my master's thesis was a narrative exploration of the concept of "home" to try and understand what to do when one feels at home in many different places (spoiler alert, there is no straight answer). 

My favorite book is Laini Taylor’s Strange the Dreamer, closely followed by Madeline Miller’s Song of Achilles and Alessandro D’Avenia’s Le Cose che nessuno sa.

Currently, I’m a daily correspondent for Smithsonian Magazine, a regular contributor to Gizmodo, and a U.S. correspondent for the Italian publication cittanuova.it, as well as a freelance writer with work appearing in publications such as BBC Travel, Discover Magazine, Atlas Obscura, Live Science, and The Brussels Times Magazine. When I'm not writing or reading - or thinking about writing or reading - I spend my time traveling, horseback riding, and with loved ones.