Our bi-monthly series of panel talks continues with Food Writing and Social History – Telling Stories, Touching Lives, featuring book authors Louise DeSalvo and Laura Schenone, and journalist MaryAnn D’Urso. Explore the unique aspects of the place of food in family dynamics and cultural identity, and the particular joys and challenges of food as subject for the nonfiction writer. 

Louise DeSalvo is the Jenny Hunter Endowed Scholar for Creative Writing and Literature at Hunter College. She is the author of sixteen books, among them the memoir Vertigo, finalist for Italy’s Primo Acerbi literary prize; Crazy in the Kitchen, and Writing As a Way of Healing, a manual intended to help people cope with the effects of illness, trauma, and terrorist acts. 

Laura Schenone’s book, A Thousand Years Over a Hot Stove received the James Beard Award in 2004. Her most recent work, The Lost Ravioli Recipes of Hoboken, is an exploration of family history and the search for a long-lost recipe. Her essays and articles have appeared in numerous major newspapers and magazines. She is co-author, together with Nancy Ring, of the popular blog JellyPress: Old Recipes, Modern Life.  

Journalist MaryAnn D’Urso’s food features have appeared in the Newark Star Ledger and other newspapers. Currently, she is involved in a mentoring project for women in crisis, using food writing as a therapeutic tool in dealing with the difficult conditions of their lives.