Ask the Author: Etta M. Madden
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Etta M. Madden
A Fulbright award to teach in Sicily in 2009 spurred the ideas for my forthcoming book, Engaging Italy: American Women’s Utopian Visions and Transnational Networks. I had been teaching nineteenth-century American literature for years, and I knew many authors such as Nathaniel Hawthorne, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Mark Twain, Henry James and Edith Wharton wrote about Americans in Italy based on their time abroad. And I had been in Italy a few times before—first as a university student. But as I lived abroad as a middle-aged adult, for a period that extended beyond a short tourist jaunt, and in a locale without as many tourists, I began to consider expatriate life—beyond the typical 19th-century, educational “Grand Tour,” which had a predictable itinerary and limited time span. Living abroad beyond undergraduate studies or a brief vacation is different. I became especially troubled by the language James and Twain used to describe Americans abroad—as part of a “museum” or “spectacle.” While I could visualize American tourists in that light, I also knew that there were American women such as war correspondent Margaret Fuller who had different experiences in Italy—they were more “engaged” than disengaged from the local culture.
So I began to explore the stories of women who were more than tourists abroad. They followed what I call “later vocations” -- they followed their callings to act, taking them on paths much different from the typical tourist.
So I began to explore the stories of women who were more than tourists abroad. They followed what I call “later vocations” -- they followed their callings to act, taking them on paths much different from the typical tourist.
Etta M. Madden
My newest book, Engaging Italy: American Women's Utopian Visions and Transnational Networks, is due out any day, and I'm working on getting the word out. It's about three American women in 19th-century Italy: journalist Anne Hampton Brewster, orphanage & industrial school founder Emily Bliss Gould, and translator and author Caroline Crane Marsh, who was also known as "the ambassador's wife." The found their "later vocations" while living abroad. The next project, which builds from this one, is in the early stages . . . too early to discuss!
Etta M. Madden
By reading, of course! There's the necessary reading for research, since I write historically-based non-fiction. But reading gives me ideas about style and craft. It prompts my imagination. It allows me to visualize new ways of telling old stories.
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