We have been acting as a reputed creative couple for decades. In our early years we started to work as authors for “Romances” and Photo Love-stories (early 80’s), later on we were hired by the National Radio Broadcaster RAI while acting as copywriters for Advertising Agencies and as authors of girls’ magazines/fanzines.
As books’ authors we debuted in late 80’s for a number of “How To” guides published by the largest Publishers of the sector. We then moved to the long running TV series, of several kinds and genres: from sentimental comedy to comedy, from crime to “medical” and costume drama.
In the meantime we have always kept working as editors and supervisors of TV fiction, while holding courses of creative writing for teachers and pupils of the Italian Schools.
We came back to writing books in 2013, our books having been published by Sperling & Kupfer (Copyrights of L’amore è un bacio di dama have been purchased from the USA, Spain, Germany, France, UK, Poland , Bulgaria and Israel), Amazon Publishing and Emma Books.
ABOUT US
ELIZABETH:
There are meetings that change your life. A cliché? Maybe. Yet, in our case, that’s just how it was. We were both 18 years old. She was an actress, rehearsing well into the night in damp and dark cellars and, during the day, attending university: the story of theater. I was enrolled in literature, specializing in modern history. I organized 'meetings with historians', read only haut-literature, at the cinema only strictly European artists. But by night, I would devour "Angelica" and "Gone with the wind", although I would never have admitted it even under torture. We met by chance at a French course. I remember Gabriella came up to me with an outstretched hand and said ...
GABRIELLA:
"Hello, I'm Gabriella, you?"
"Elisabetta"
"What sign are you?"
"Scorpio"
"Really? Me too! I have a feeling we’ll become friends ... "
Words were never more prophetic.
I trust my feelings. Always. And I was right. But at that moment, I never knew that my life would have taken a different path than I ever imagined. The theater was my passion. I had always dreamed of treading the boards and had managed to. But, at the same time, I was a great reader: reading has always been an essential lifeline for me. I liked to write theater pieces to perform among friends, but I had never thought of writing as a profession. Then came the meeting with Elisabetta...
ELIZABETH:
... who had never thought of doing anything else in her life.
I know it may sound presumptuous, but a passion is a passion. Ever since I picked-up my first book, I discovered a love for reading; my love for writing arrived soon after. At seven years of age I wrote my first story, read publicly in the classroom by the teacher. Even then, I insisted that she let me publish it! From then on I wrote years and years of diaries, which, occasionally, I draw on to find inspiration. You could say that I have always had a clear idea and precise objective: to become a writer. But I never imagined that I would write with a partner ....
GABRIELLA:
Instead, there was such a strong harmony between us that we spontaneously thought about doing something together. We were both aware that neither modern history nor theater studies would allow us to "earn our bread", as they say in Rome. We had no connections or support ... basically, we had no backing whatsoever! But we were full of ideas, motivated and committed to make it in a job that was both creative and fun. Two dreamers, yes, but pragmatic and realistic. Those were the boom years of romance novels and, one day, Elisabetta said to me: "Why don’t we try to write one?". Given our feminist background, we had never read one, but we soon equipped ourselves: we bought a large number of them, studied them, deconstructed them and then built our own, having established the structure, empirically, yes, but ... scientific! Now came the hard part: we had to sell it! We would draw straws to decide who would make the next phone call to whichever editor was on duty ...
ELIZABETH:
... And the answer was invariably the same:
"Have you already published anything?"
We hung-up disappointed. Then we met a wonderful woman, Ivanka Veltroni, mother of Walter, the politician,who was presented to us by Lidia Ravera. She also wrote romance novels, as a hobby. She, too, had never published. She proposed that we present a "package" to the publishers - a first, authentic seed of a "Network". Her confidence rekindled an enthusiasm in us that had waned. We split the calls ... other doors were slammed in our faces, but we did not stop and, finally, one day I received a call:
"This is Anna Giusti of the ‘Intimacy Series’ published by “Cino del Duca”. We liked your novel, when will you come to Milan to sign the contract? ".
I admit, I had to sit down. It was one of the strongest emotions of my life.
"A crystal dream" was our first book. That was the start and since then we have never stopped. Ivanka may be gone, but she remains in our hearts ...
GABRIELLA:
... Because she taught us to believe in ourselves, in the strength of the group, solidarity between women.
ELIZABETH:
‘Made in Italy’ has always been one of our fixed ideas ... so much so, that after our romantic novels, we moved on to ‘Lancio’ photographic-novels; the ultimate in ‘made in Italy’ and a large workshop for an apprenticeship in the construction of stories, albeit with unmovable limits. But, as one of our screenwriter friends says, it’s always a challenge to manage to push through something new in such a well-established genre ...
GABRIELLA:
And we like challenges! We like to get involved, it's a boost of adrenaline that is difficult to give up. This is why, at a certain point, we left the photographic-novels and launched into new adventures. First there was radio, then advertising for a large agency that wanted to hire us as copywriters, but ...
ELIZABETH:
... We said no! We – and in this we are very similar - chose, and paid also rather expensively, the freedom to do what we wanted. We have always believed in ourselves, even at times, and there have been many, where all roads seemed closed to us.
GABRIELLA:
But we never lost our way! When the opportunity to write for the ‘Oscar Mondadori’ guides arrived, it was full-steam ahead again! Our friendship was strengthened, working together in a project with a common goal. In reality, our partnership is like sharing life ...
ELIZABETH:
…in both good and bad times! Together, we decided to opt for a new adventure: TV. We were given the opportunity to attend courses for RAI screenwriters held by American teachers and we jumped at the chance! Thus began our experience with television and with TV series, which allowed us to embrace different genres, from comedy to emotional, from the crime to costume drama. And it opened the way for other job opportunities ...
GABRIELLA:
You could say that we’ve done a bit of everything: editors, supervisors of fiction writing, teachers of creative writing, literary reviewers ... we range far and wide, convinced that you never stop learning and that growth is the key to feeling alive. And here we are, more alive than ever!
ELIZABETH:
Yes, but there is a piece missing: our return to publishing! It all started with an essay by Janice Radway, Reading the Romance, which we were asked to translate and comment on: a text from the 70’s on why women read romances. From that point on, we started a rediscovery of the current romance world, which brought many surprises. We discovered the most incredible contamination of genres, an audience of fierce readers, a myriad of dedicated blogs, a direct relationship between authors and readers, in short, a literary-world in a rolling-boil. Then, just as before, we looked each other in the eye and said: why not? We were tired of writing melodrama after melodrama after melodrama ...
GABRIELLA:
... We were looking for something lighter, to make us smile, for us to fall in love with too, with our characters, but without the drama and tragedy. In short, to write a full-blown romantic comedy! And, so, we did. Our first 'creation', inspired by the experience of television writers as we are, not surprisingly was called "I want a soap opera love-life!" – it was published by Emma Books. Then the rest came rolling in, even the print publisher, Sperling & Kupfer, took a chance on us and our intention to promote, at all costs, Italy and its excellence ...
ELIZABETH:
And here we are, back to our fixed idea of Made in Italy! All our novels are strictly set in Italy - Tuscany, Capri, Ciociaria, Matera … - have Italian protagonists and talk about Italy, its beauty and its cuisine. In each book there is also a recipe at the end; a winning idea of the cook between the two of us, Gabriella.
GABRIELLA:
True. Cooking is another of my passions and I thought of putting it to good use even in our novels. We always say that our novels are born in the kitchen! It is like an idea-lab where we brainstorm, confront ideas, discuss and sometimes fight ...
ELIZABETH:
Yes, that happens too. But what matters is that we are totally convinced that "two heads are better than one" and, starting with the way we work, this is something we never forget.
GABRIELLA:
We share ideas, feelings, emotions and even unresolved problems. We talk about it, dissect the topic, think about it some more and, only at the end, do we begin to write the outline. Only after we’ve shared our points of view do we know exactly where we're going to end up. Same method we adopted to go back to our passion for crime novels. We wrote “Chiedi al passato”, book 2 of the series “Emma&Kate”, which will be published by Amazon Publishing shortly. Two female detectives are the main characters, theirs is a real team effort, like ours…
ELIZABETH:
... where what really counts is the team's victory!