Louise DeSalvo

Louise A. DeSalvo (born 1942) is an American writer, editor, professor, and lecturer who currently lives in New Jersey. Much of her work focuses on Italian-American culture, though she is also a renowned Virginia Woolf scholar.

Life

DeSalvo and her husband raised their children in Teaneck, New Jersey before moving to Montclair to be closer to their grandchildren.^[1]

She also teaches memoir writing as a part of CUNY Hunter College's MFA Program in Creative Writing.

DeSalvo's publications include the memoir, Vertigo, which received the Gay Talese award and was also a finalist for Italy's Primo Acerbi prize for literature; Crazy in the Kitchen: Food, Feuds, and Forgiveness in an Italian American Family, which was named a Booksense Book of the Year for 2004.

DeSalvo is also a renowned Virginia Woolf scholar. She has edited editions of Woolf's first novel Melymbrosia, as well as The Letters of Vita Sackville-West and Virginia Woolf, which documents the controversial lesbian affair between these two novelists. In addition, she has written two books on Woolf, Virginia Woolf: The Impact of Childhood Sexual Abuse on Her Life and Work and Virginia Woolf's First Voyage: A Novel in the Making.

One of DeSalvo's most popular books is the writer's guide Writing as a Way of Healing: How Telling Our Stories Transforms Our Lives.

Works

• Virginia Woolf's First Voyage: A Novel in the Making (Rowman & Littlefield Publishers Inc., 1980)
• Nathaniel Hawthorne (Brill Academic Publishers, Incorporated, 1987)
• Virginia Woolf: The Impact of Childhood Sexual Abuse on Her Life and Work (Ballantine Books, 1990)
• Territories of the Voice: Contemporary Stories by Irish Women Writers, Edited By Louise DeSalvo, Katherine Hogan, and Kathleen W. D’Arcy (Beacon Press, 1991)
• Between Women: Biographers, Novelists, Critics, Teachers, and Artists Write About Their Work on Women, Edited by Carol Ascher, Sara Ruddick, and Louise DeSalvo (Routledge, 1993)
• Conceived with Malice: Literature as Revenge in the Lives of Woolf, Lawrence, Barnes, Miller (Plume, 1994)
• Breathless: An Asthma Journal (Beacon Press, 1997)
• Vertigo: A Memoir (Penguin, 1997)
• Adultery: An Intimate Look at Why People Cheat (Houghton Mifflin, 2000)
• Writing as a Way of Healing: How Telling Our Stories Transforms Our Lives (Beacon Press, 2000)
• A Green and Mortal Sound: Short Fiction by Irish Women Writers, Edited by Louise DeSalvo, Katherine Hogan, and Kathleen Walsh D’Arcy (Beacon Press, 2001)
• The Letters of Vita Sackville-West and Virginia Woolf, Edited by Louise DeSalvo and Mitchell Leaska (Cleis Press, 2001)
• Melymbrosia by Virginia Woolf, Edited by Louise DeSalvo (Cleis Press, 2002)
• The Milk of Almonds: Italian American Women Writers on Food and Culture, Edited by Louise DeSalvo and Edvidge Giunta (The Feminist Press at CUNY, 2003)
• Crazy in the Kitchen: Food, Feuds and Forgiveness in an Italian American Family (Bloomsbury, 2005)
• The Art of Slow Writing: Reflections on Time, Craft, and Creativity (St. Martin's Griffin, 2014)

Awards

• Booksense Book of the Year 2004, Crazy in the Kitchen: Food, Feuds and Forgiveness in an Italian American Family
• The Douglass Society Medal for Distinguished Achievement
• Jenny Hunter Endowed Scholar for Creative Writing and Literature at Hunter College
• Gay Talese Award, Vertigo
• The President’s Award from Hunter College

References

Sources

• http://www.bloomsburyusa.com/Authors/default.asp?id=612&cf=0[]
• http://www.musingmemoir.com/memoir_and_healing.html
• http://www.powells.com/cgi-bin/biblio?inkey=62-0062515195-0

External links

• Works by or about DeSalvo, Louise A. 1942- in libraries (WorldCat catalog)