24 Italians In America from Concord Days: Margaret Fuller in Italy [Video]

In researching and writing my book on Giuseppe and Anita Garibaldi and the unification of Italy (A Man Of Action Saving Liberty: A Novel Based On The Life Of Giuseppe Garibaldi)  I re-discovered the first American female war correspondent – Margaret Fuller — who I had first met in a college course on the Transcendentalists. I was once again fascinated by a life lived purposefully.

Then I found Tammy Rose’s podcast on the Transcendentalists – Concord Days – and was delighted when she asked me to guest for a discussion of Fuller’s work in Italy as both a journalist – and a nurse. — Rosanne

24 Italians In America from Concord Days: Margaret Fuller in Italy [Video]1

Watch this entire presentation

Concord Days sends love to Margaret Fuller on the anniversary of her death in 1850.

The conversation focuses on Margaret’s exciting days in ITALY!

Dr. Rosanne Welch takes us through her adventures and enthusiastically reminds us what she was like when she was living her best life!

Transcript:

I was just going to say, yes, I wouldn’t exactly use the word parallel because of course Italians were never slaves but actually, some who were shipped here were mistakenly sold into slavery because they could speak the language and nobody understood and they were dark. There are stories of that and of course, the biggest lynching — the most — the largest mass lynching in America happened to a group of Italian men in Louisiana. That’s post-slavery now. Yeah it was and they weren’t considered white because of that now and largely we’re talking about southern Italians, Sicilians, and southern Italians because northern Italians look more swiss. They look more german. They are blonder and blue-eyed. It’s Frank Sinatra versus Dean Martin. So any group that comes into this country, sadly, we sort of do the whole oh you’re at the bottom of the barrel. It would say you know no dogs or dagos allowed you know. No dagos should apply for this job. There was discrimination. I’m two generations away from that so it didn’t happen to me but I understood that it happened to my grandfather and I understood how that got in his way.

23 Why Return to the US? from Concord Days: Margaret Fuller in Italy [Video]

In researching and writing my book on Giuseppe and Anita Garibaldi and the unification of Italy (A Man Of Action Saving Liberty: A Novel Based On The Life Of Giuseppe Garibaldi)  I re-discovered the first American female war correspondent – Margaret Fuller — who I had first met in a college course on the Transcendentalists. I was once again fascinated by a life lived purposefully.

Then I found Tammy Rose’s podcast on the Transcendentalists – Concord Days – and was delighted when she asked me to guest for a discussion of Fuller’s work in Italy as both a journalist – and a nurse. — Rosanne

23 Why Return to the US?  from Concord Days: Margaret Fuller in Italy [Video]

Watch this entire presentation

Concord Days sends love to Margaret Fuller on the anniversary of her death in 1850.

The conversation focuses on Margaret’s exciting days in ITALY!

Dr. Rosanne Welch takes us through her adventures and enthusiastically reminds us what she was like when she was living her best life!

Transcript:

Tammy: So here’s a question that I’m never really sure. Were they were coming for a visit or were they coming to move permanently or was it sort of…

Rosanne: I believe the idea was they were going to move permanently because she could do more work there and she wanted to publish the book and it had to be published in the United States. So even if — yeah maybe not permanent the wrong way to say it — it was going to be a period of time so that piece could be done and the kind of — she knew that the United States needed to come and support what was happening in Italy as well. So I think it’s twofold. Her career is gonna move forward with this and he’s thinking he’s gonna help get the kind of support because Garibaldi lived in the states for a little bit too after one of his failures. So he knew that if you got people there on your side you would have the support you needed. So they had business reasons, as well as I’m sure she kind of wanted to show off her kid to her friends, because as you said earlier, that wasn’t part of her planned life story and when I was a kid I was never going to have kids because I thought that’s not something I want to do and then Ii changed my mind at 32 because a writer friend of mine actually said if you want to be a writer and you want all the experiences that a writer can have, you’re turning down an experience that only half the planet can have and it was it a conversation which again makes me think about Margaret talking to these women. What are the possibilities in your life and what have you told yourself you should or shouldn’t do based on what society will say about you and I did think having a kid would get in the way of having a career and then I realized no because you could do it your way and Margaret did right I think in that moment, in those periods in her life, she was really happy and I think that was you know the other reason she wanted to come back and show everybody, look I did it all.

22 Giovanni Angelo, Marchese Ossoli from Concord Days: Margaret Fuller in Italy [Video]

In researching and writing my book on Giuseppe and Anita Garibaldi and the unification of Italy (A Man Of Action Saving Liberty: A Novel Based On The Life Of Giuseppe Garibaldi)  I re-discovered the first American female war correspondent – Margaret Fuller — who I had first met in a college course on the Transcendentalists. I was once again fascinated by a life lived purposefully.

Then I found Tammy Rose’s podcast on the Transcendentalists – Concord Days – and was delighted when she asked me to guest for a discussion of Fuller’s work in Italy as both a journalist – and a nurse. — Rosanne

21 The Husband from Concord Days: Margaret Fuller in Italy [Video]

Watch this entire presentation

Concord Days sends love to Margaret Fuller on the anniversary of her death in 1850.

The conversation focuses on Margaret’s exciting days in ITALY!

Dr. Rosanne Welch takes us through her adventures and enthusiastically reminds us what she was like when she was living her best life!

Transcript:

Tammy: So talk about him (Giovanni Angelo) a little bit more because I feel like he’s sort of this figure and you know I want to imagine him in my mind as sort of like this you know super handsome — maybe not the rich guy but you know definitely — the man of quality that we all aspire to meet.

Rosanne: Well he went against his family as well because they were not for the united unification of Italy. So he lost his he — they wrote him off if you will. So that’s why it doesn’t have any money. He’s not going to inherit any and the family does have lands and all that stuff but they were against the unification and many people were because they were happy with whichever country was running their section of Italy or they didn’t appreciate the king and they didn’t want the king to be king over all of Italy or lots of different reasons that they were against it and so yeah they write him off and because he married her and she wasn’t Catholic and this is huge obviously back in the day.

I actually tell the story. My mom put together her brother — three children of Sicilian immigrants — only one son — my mother put her brother together with a woman who wasn’t Catholic and they fell in love and they got married. She did become Catholic because you know she converted because she knew she had to but on the day of the wedding my mother was a maid of honor. My grandmother was tying the bow on her dress and as she walked out into the church the last thing her mother said to her was I’ll never forgive you for this. That was 1950 in America. That was like you this is a mismatched marriage.

21 The Husband from Concord Days: Margaret Fuller in Italy [Video]

In researching and writing my book on Giuseppe and Anita Garibaldi and the unification of Italy (A Man Of Action Saving Liberty: A Novel Based On The Life Of Giuseppe Garibaldi)  I re-discovered the first American female war correspondent – Margaret Fuller — who I had first met in a college course on the Transcendentalists. I was once again fascinated by a life lived purposefully.

Then I found Tammy Rose’s podcast on the Transcendentalists – Concord Days – and was delighted when she asked me to guest for a discussion of Fuller’s work in Italy as both a journalist – and a nurse. — Rosanne

21 The Husband from Concord Days: Margaret Fuller in Italy [Video]

Watch this entire presentation

Concord Days sends love to Margaret Fuller on the anniversary of her death in 1850.

The conversation focuses on Margaret’s exciting days in ITALY!

Dr. Rosanne Welch takes us through her adventures and enthusiastically reminds us what she was like when she was living her best life!

Transcript:

…But she (Anita Garibaldi) knew that she had created her children and that she lived a life of love. Which is true of Margaret as well. She found a man, as you said earlier, that she could love who loved her for who she was and didn’t expect her to give that up in order to be his wife, and that had to be crazy because he was an Italian, right? He’s from an earlier era. We’re not even talking about feminism in Italy at the time. So that fact that he was open to that..he is a fascinating character that we, of course, lost any chance to understand more deeply through her.

52 Conclusion from There And Back Again: Writing and Developing for American TV [Video]

52 Conclusion from There And Back Again: Writing and Developing for American TV [Video]

Thanks to the gracious invitation from my Screenwriting Research Network colleague Paolo Russo – and a grant he was able to procure (and in the before-Covid time) I was able to spend a week at Oxford Brookes University working with the screenwriting masters students in Paolo’s course. At the culmination of the week, I gave this lecture on how writers rooms worked in the States.

Transcript:

…and if you don’t think novelists are writers who collaborate think about the fact that all these guys hung around with each other in a writer’s group and read stuff to each other and took notes from each other and made changes based on those notes. Those were writer’s rooms. The Eagle and whatever that pub is called I haven’t gotten to yet …that was a writer’s room right and from that room not only did we get those books. We got this collaboration. Phil Jackson is great. I love him. He’s brilliant. He does great stuff. He doesn’t do it alone. He’s just the guy who’s willing to do the interviews. His wife doesn’t care to do interviews. I don’t know what’s wrong with her but she’s making me crazy right because we’re forgetting that two women co-wrote this movie. That’s what makes it so much better for our times right? They got the best-adapted screenplay award. Two women and a guy made The Lord of the Rings into what it is. I think that’s really important. So who remembers what I said my teaching philosophy was

three things matter

Words matter, Writers matter, and Women Writers matter.

Thank you very much. You’re listening. This thing is good. All right and this is important to me. It’s not just what I know. It’s spreading that around this is my first graduating classroom at Stephen’s MFA. As I said it was an all-female college. So it’s about spreading the word. Writers are teachers with a giant podium. What’s your opinion of how this world should work? Put it out there and the bigger audience you get the more influence you get. Forget YoutTube and who does makeup well. Those aren’t influencers. People who tell stories — I seriously — they’re not — people who tell stories are influencers because stories teach us to feel and that’s what you get paid to do which I love. So again these are a bunch of books I use when I’m just thinking about putting this together. So if you’re interested in reading about showrunners, those are a bunch of books that do interviews with them, and of course, this is the bunch that I’ve written and that’s all I have to say. So I guess we’re doing a q a now right? so if people have questions, I am totally open to your things.

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* A portion of each sale from Amazon.com directly supports our blogs
** Many of these books may be available from your local library. Check it out!
† Available from the LA Public Library

20 What Might Have Been? from Concord Days: Margaret Fuller in Italy [Video]

In researching and writing my book on Giuseppe and Anita Garibaldi and the unification of Italy (A Man Of Action Saving Liberty: A Novel Based On The Life Of Giuseppe Garibaldi)  I re-discovered the first American female war correspondent – Margaret Fuller — who I had first met in a college course on the Transcendentalists. I was once again fascinated by a life lived purposefully.

Then I found Tammy Rose’s podcast on the Transcendentalists – Concord Days – and was delighted when she asked me to guest for a discussion of Fuller’s work in Italy as both a journalist – and a nurse. — Rosanne

20 What Might Have Been? from Concord Days: Margaret Fuller in Italy [Video]

Watch this entire presentation

Concord Days sends love to Margaret Fuller on the anniversary of her death in 1850.

The conversation focuses on Margaret’s exciting days in ITALY!

Dr. Rosanne Welch takes us through her adventures and enthusiastically reminds us what she was like when she was living her best life!

Transcript:

Tammy: Exactly because I think she was coming back to participate in a lot of the early feminist or like women’s like Suffrage movements and she was scheduled to speak at — what is it — Seneca Falls maybe.

Rosanne: Seneca Falls because again Lydia Marie Child who she knew in her childhood right becomes a big leader of that. One of the founders of that event and of course she’d want Margaret Fuller. I mean, my god she’s world-known. She’s world-traveled. She’s the perfect example of what women can accomplish if they are not given the rules and requirements that society was forcing on them. Exactly what Seneca Falls was meant to counteract.

19 What Have We Learned? from Concord Days: Margaret Fuller in Italy [Video]

In researching and writing my book on Giuseppe and Anita Garibaldi and the unification of Italy (A Man Of Action Saving Liberty: A Novel Based On The Life Of Giuseppe Garibaldi)  I re-discovered the first American female war correspondent – Margaret Fuller — who I had first met in a college course on the Transcendentalists. I was once again fascinated by a life lived purposefully.

Then I found Tammy Rose’s podcast on the Transcendentalists – Concord Days – and was delighted when she asked me to guest for a discussion of Fuller’s work in Italy as both a journalist – and a nurse. — Rosanne

19 What Have We Learned? from Concord Days: Margaret Fuller in Italy [Video]

Watch this entire presentation

Concord Days sends love to Margaret Fuller on the anniversary of her death in 1850.

The conversation focuses on Margaret’s exciting days in ITALY!

Dr. Rosanne Welch takes us through her adventures and enthusiastically reminds us what she was like when she was living her best life!

Transcript:

Tammy: You try to figure out so what have we learned from a woman who sort of goes beyond her station in life and accomplishes all these amazing things. Is it that she does get punished in the end or is it something, like I would love to have the idea of like her spirit, is just interrupted and shifted to a different plane or something because I think

Rosanne: That’s such a non-American way to think but it is the best yeah because I hate the other one you’re right. The other one’s terrible because it does like oh look you did everything against the rules and you paid for it which is not a message we want to share but the idea that maybe you achieved. It’s a little Jonathan Livingston Seagull. You’ve achieved the peak and now you move on to that next plane that we we don’t know. So we can’t understand.

18 Tragedy from Concord Days: Margaret Fuller in Italy [Video]

In researching and writing my book on Giuseppe and Anita Garibaldi and the unification of Italy (A Man Of Action Saving Liberty: A Novel Based On The Life Of Giuseppe Garibaldi)  I re-discovered the first American female war correspondent – Margaret Fuller — who I had first met in a college course on the Transcendentalists. I was once again fascinated by a life lived purposefully.

Then I found Tammy Rose’s podcast on the Transcendentalists – Concord Days – and was delighted when she asked me to guest for a discussion of Fuller’s work in Italy as both a journalist – and a nurse. — Rosanne

18 Tragedy from Concord Days: Margaret Fuller in Italy [Video]

Watch this entire presentation

Concord Days sends love to Margaret Fuller on the anniversary of her death in 1850.

The conversation focuses on Margaret’s exciting days in ITALY!

Dr. Rosanne Welch takes us through her adventures and enthusiastically reminds us what she was like when she was living her best life!

Transcript:

Tammy: I can just imagine Margaret saying, I don’t want to be defined by this shipwreck.

Rosanne: Yes you don’t and yet it does and doesn’t. She still has all these other things going for her but we are — as humans — as Americans– that voyeuristic tragedy. That’s why we’re still talking about the Titanic. Really. I mean and how many movies do we need about that. It’s very difficult and yet a tragedy is a a narrative that we’re used to right? We do Romeo and Juliet a million times. There’s a reason for tragedies to exist but I don’t know because I guess in Romeo and Juliet we learned the lesson that the parents being so separate caused this — that we could stop the hatred. It’s the same in West Side it’s a whole West Side Story. Stop the hatred because this is what it leads to. There’s a message. There is no message to her loss. We’ve learned nothing from that and I think that’s why it’s harder because I’ve tried to do I would love to do a Margaret Fuller movie but that part of it is just too sad for people to want to take on.

51 Teacher Make Good Writers from There And Back Again: Writing and Developing for American TV [Video]

51 Teacher Make Good Writers from There And Back Again: Writing and Developing for American TV [Video]

Thanks to the gracious invitation from my Screenwriting Research Network colleague Paolo Russo – and a grant he was able to procure (and in the before-Covid time) I was able to spend a week at Oxford Brookes University working with the screenwriting masters students in Paolo’s course. At the culmination of the week, I gave this lecture on how writers rooms worked in the States.

Transcript:

For me, teachers make good writers. Right? Obviously Icatered this to where I have come and been happy to be. I actually — went too fast — this was my facebook post the other day. I don’t like a lot of words on the screen but I couldn’t resist this because I’ve never been to Oxford before.

So I found this little church just off Wharton Road where he was once a congregant and I had to find the picture and send it back to my husband and the cat just found me which I thought was cute but seriously I mean how long has the guy been dead and I’m still fascinated by the things he wrote? They still mean something to me and my family. Likewise, writers make good teachers.

Watch this entire presentation

Subscribe to Rosanne’s Channel and receive notice of each new video!

 


* A portion of each sale from Amazon.com directly supports our blogs
** Many of these books may be available from your local library. Check it out!
† Available from the LA Public Library

17 A Fateful Voyage from Concord Days: Margaret Fuller in Italy [Video]

In researching and writing my book on Giuseppe and Anita Garibaldi and the unification of Italy (A Man Of Action Saving Liberty: A Novel Based On The Life Of Giuseppe Garibaldi)  I re-discovered the first American female war correspondent – Margaret Fuller — who I had first met in a college course on the Transcendentalists. I was once again fascinated by a life lived purposefully.

Then I found Tammy Rose’s podcast on the Transcendentalists – Concord Days – and was delighted when she asked me to guest for a discussion of Fuller’s work in Italy as both a journalist – and a nurse. — Rosanne

17 A Fateful Voyage from Concord Days: Margaret Fuller in Italy [Video]

Watch this entire presentation

Concord Days sends love to Margaret Fuller on the anniversary of her death in 1850.

The conversation focuses on Margaret’s exciting days in ITALY!

Dr. Rosanne Welch takes us through her adventures and enthusiastically reminds us what she was like when she was living her best life!

Transcript:

 

Tammy: It’s this you know long terrible voyage. Everybody gets sick. I think her child gets all like almost violently ill for a couple of days and they’re actually concerned that he’s not going to survive but then you know he miraculously gets better and it’s like this it’s this Hollywood story of like you know just you just have to keep fighting because you know. Fight through one more trial. Fight through one more trial and they literally get to Fire Island in New York, just off the shore of Fire Island, and do you want to talk about the storm, or do you want to talk about this moment?

Rosanne: The combination of the storm and the crashing and what kills me is you’re so close but you can’t swim that far unless you’re like an excellent swimmer and that nobody — there are people that literally loot the boat and the stuff that’s falling off in the water. They’re more interested in getting the free stuff they can sell than the people from there to here and it’s not that far. It’s so not that far and you’re on the boat — just like the Titanic — knowing that you have no way out. I mean that’s — we’re talking a good eight or ten hours of understanding that you’re going to die and you can’t do anything about it. I can’t even — I can’t even — I can’t even imagine that.