My Author Profile Dr. Anne Pia, poet, essayist, translator lives in Edinburgh. She has a professional background in Education and policy advice to Government and she started writing soon after she retired. Anne writes in French, Italian and Scots as well as English and her work focuses on identity, immigration, language, otherness and sexuality. Food has been a strong and consistent and highly appreciated theme in all her writing. Anne’s creative memoir Language of My Choosing was shortlisted for the Saltire Award for Best New Book of 2017. In 2018, Anne was awarded the Premio Flaiano Italianistica: La Cultura Italiana nel Mondo.The Italian translation Ho Scelto La Mia Lingua was published in 2018 together with her first poetry collection, Transitory. She is a winner of the Crawford Gallery, Cork, Flash Fiction Competition 2021. Keeping Away The Spiders; Essays on Breaching Barriers was published in November 2020 by Luath Press, and her second poetry collection The Sweetness of Demons with translations from French, was published by Vagabond Voices in April 2021on the 200th anniversary of Baudelaire’s birth. Dragons Wear Lipstick her poetry pamphlet was published by Dreich in November 2022. She has read at the Stanza International Poetry Festival, the Dundee Literary Festival, the Paisley and Portobello Book Festivals. Anne is listed in the Scottish Poetry Library Catalogue of Scottish Poets and is a regular contributor to poetry and literary gatherings in Edinburgh and more widely in Scotland. In 2018 she was a guest lecturer at the British Institute in Florence. She has been invited to sit on the judging panel for the Scottish National Book Awards (Poetry section) again this year. Her new book, Magnaccioni My Food My Italy (Luath Press; 2023) celebrates in poetic prose and recipes a part of Italy, a philosophy, culture and a particular way of life .
Education...learning and teaching; languages and self-making through dialogue and exchange. My doctoral thesis (2008) was on identity and self-making through learning. Languages and translation... I have a joint Honours degree in French and Italian; and an authentic knowledge of Italy's South (my Italian Grandmother brought me up in her kitchen); music...I play in ceilidh band and have a professional diploma in music.
Fluent French and Italian; Laziale dialect is my mother tongue along with English. I have a passing knowledge of Spanish. I write poetry in Italian dialect, Scots and French.
I am a published author and I inhabit the world of writers, poets and amateur musicians. I am regularly invited to offer readings locally and in arts venues, libraries and bookshops around Scotland and sometimes beyond.
My first book, Language of My Choosing (Luath Press) was shortlisted as Book of the Year in 2017 by the Saltire Scottish National Book Awards. In 2018. I was awarded the prestigious Premio Flaiano Linguistica. I was invited to judge the Scottish National Book Awards (Poetry) in 2022 and again this year. In my prefessional life, as an HMIe I was seconded to the Ministerial Task Force for Literacy and Numeracy in 2000. I have been a Trustee on the Boards of SYHA, Victim Support Scotland and the Scottish Book Trust.
I regularly receive commissions to review the work of other writers and poets. My work as judge on the Saltire Scottish National Book Awards is paid work. I receive royalties from Luath Press, Vagabond Voices for the sale of my books.