My story, Amica del cuore, will be published in the Far Flung and Foreign anthology

Recently I got the news that my short story, Amica del cuore, will be published in the annual anthology of Writers Abroad. I wrote about the call for contributions in an earlier post. The title of this year’s anthology is Far Flung and Foreign, and contributors to this year’s anthology were asked to contribute a short story, creative nonfiction piece or poem that was well-grounded in a certain location.

It means a lot to me that Amica del cuore has found a home in Far Flung and Foreign. This short story, set in Rome, was written around a word.

Rome’s Campo dei fiori, one of the settings of my story

I love languages, and the Romance languages have this wonderful expression for best friend or close friend, which translates literally to ‘friend of the heart’. It made an impression on me when my young children were using this term to speak about their good friends.

While an Italian wouldn’t think twice about the term, I was quite moved by it and wanted to build a story around a foreigner struggling to make her home in Italy, who learns exactly how apt an expression it is.

In my story, two women-the sophisticated Roman, Giulia, and the small-town American expat, Jamie-meet when they’re competing for the affections of the same man. An unlikely friendship forms between these two very different women, and lasts a lifetime.

Far Flung and Foreign will be released in October, and I’ll be certain to link into my story then, and very much look forward to reading all the other contributions in the collection. The author Amanda Hodgkinson, who wrote 22 Britannia Road, will be writing the foreword.

There’s nothing I enjoy more than a collection of short stories and essays set all over the world. A virtual round-the-world trip for the (much more modest) price of a book…