California native Nicole Martinelli has lived in the Bel Paese long enough to jump lines but still clock-watches when cooking pasta.
Based in Milan, she frequently reports further afield — from the development of a dolphin-saving whistle in Sicily to the ‘Rave Priest’ in Abruzzo for outfits including Newsweek, The New York Times, the BBC, Wired News , WWD and Spot-on.
She created news website zoomata in 1999, whose quirky stories from a grape-stomping workshop to the first association of house husbands, have been cited by UPI, the Telegraph, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Ananova.com and in books, “Heritage Italian-American Style” and “Living La Dolce Vita: Bring the Passion, Laughter and Serenity of Italy into Your Daily Life.”
Known to produce handfuls of hard-won Italian documents at the least prompting, she also holds a degree in Journalism from San Francisco State University, a Masters in Media & Communications from the University of Florence, Italy and belongs to the Italian society of professional journalists.
She does not normally refer to herself in the third person and never misses a day in the Orwell Diaries.