Poem: Deer at Sunset

After sunset I stumble upon a deer, sometimes two, three, even four, the same family that has been roaming my neighborhood for months.

We’ve returned for our land, they say.

They are apparitions, these young deer, swift, delicate, unafraid.

Tonight, one waited for me on the sidewalk. I approached her. We were about four feet apart. She bent her head. I mirrored her. Our eyes locked. Then she turned and disappeared behind the hedge.

Wait, I said, let’s talk, you and I, woman and animal, animals, the two of us, old, new.

Dina Saalisi

Dina Saalisi is an author, speaker, and educator whose life's work is healing, a path she began early and walks with remarkable openness. Her journey started as a way to meet her own childhood wounds, and over the years she has learned to take down the walls built around a tender heart, one stone at a time, and to tend what she found behind them.

Along the way she studied with many teachers and explored a wide range of spiritual and holistic practices. The teacher who shaped her most, though, keeps no office hours and asks no tuition: Nature. Always present, endlessly patient, and deeply nourishing, the natural world sits at the heart of everything Dina teaches, including her work with flower therapy.

From her studio in downtown St. Helena, California, Dina leads courses on holistic healing and reconnecting with the living world. She speaks at events throughout Napa Valley, across California, and beyond, reminding audiences that the valley's finest harvest may be the one that feeds the soul.

Find her courses, writing, and podcast at dinasaalisi.com.Edvige Giunta

Edvige Giunta is a scholar, writer, and educator who carries Sicily with her wherever she goes, and lately that means the English Department at Kean University, where she is a Professor of English. Born and raised on the island, she studied at the University of Catania, then crossed an ocean to earn her M.A. and Ph.D. in English at the University of Miami.

Her field is Italian American studies, and her calling is making sure the women of that story are heard. She is the author of Writing with an Accent: Contemporary Italian American Women Authors and, in Italian, Dire l'indicibile, a study of memoir by Italian American women. She works in generous collaboration, interviewing writers and artists such as Nancy Savoca and Marisa Tomei and coediting six anthologies that range from food and culture in The Milk of Almonds to needlework in Embroidered Stories. Talking to the Girls, her collection on the Triangle Fire, won the 2023 Susan Koppelman Award and now lives in Italian as Le ragazze della Triangle.

Edvige also works as a literary resurrectionist, returning classics such as Tina De Rosa's Paper Fish, Helen Barolini's Umbertina, and Louise DeSalvo's Vertigo to print with her own accompanying essays. Her creative writing appears in The Adroit Journal, Barrow Street, Creative Nonfiction, and Words Without Borders, and in Italy in El Ghibli and DWF.

She leads memoir workshops for writers at every stage, carrying forward her long collaboration with the late Louise DeSalvo. She lives in New Jersey, where, rumor has it, the almonds are adequate.