Celebrate Grandparents' Day early this year by joining NOIAW in this virtual conversation with authors Jennifer Anton and Elizabeth Wellington Rollins. Let's take a deep dive into how researching one family story, and women whose stories were often undocumented, ultimately led these two authors to write their novels. And what about your family story? What are the questions you would ask, or did ask, to your nonna? Jennifer and Elizabeth will be happy to hear them!

Jennifer Anton is the author of Under the Light of the Italian Moon, inspired by her grandmother's life (in the picture, a photo of her family dating back to the early 1900s) and her search to understand the lives of midwives and how women survived in Nazi-occupied Northern Italy. Tracing those stories brought her closer to the grandmother she'd lost and to a lineage of resilience. Her work honors the everyday choices women made to protect family, hold on to hope, and survive. Under the Light of the Italian Moon tells the story of Nina Argenta, a midwife’s daughter in a small Italian mountain town, whose love for a man working in America is tested by family duty and the rise of Mussolini. As World War II engulfs her town, Nina must summon resilience and courage to protect those she loves.
Originally from Chicago, Jennifer now lives between London and Lake Como.

Elizabeth Wellington Rollins is a writer, award-winning copywriter, and author of the debut novel, The Three Graces of Pearl Street. She grew up outside New York City. Her book is, in part, a love letter to her Italian maternal lineage, as well as the place that raised her, her parents, and three grandparents (her grandmother, great-grandmother, aunts and friends are pictured on the right).
Liz is an avid home cook who lives in Vermont with her husband, their young daughter, and two beloved rescue dogs.

"The Three Graces of Pearl Street is a story of an Italian American triumvirate of women bound together by history but not necessarily truth. Graziella is the 96-year-old matriarch who has bargained with God for more time to do her good works. Her daughter Grace is a professor whose personal life is falling apart which unmoors her while her daughter Ella struggles to find her place in the world. This is an intergenerational story full of the complexities of family life that will surprise and inspire you at every turn. . . A stunning debut . . .” —Adriana Trigiani, New York Times bestselling author of The View from Lake Como.

Finding Our Grandmothers

Family history, women's stories, and the Italy they left behind - a virtual conversation.