Backstory
I was born and raised in California to a Chinese-American mother and an Italian-American father. I graduated from the University
of California at Davis in French Literature with a minor in International Business. I currently live and work in Florence as an independent Web developer and
writer.
I initially came to Florence for two reasons: to learn Italian and to find my inspiration to write. Right after I graduated univeristy, I moved to Paris to work for a French software company. After finding my first writing mentor, Kathleen Spivack, I started writing short stories while living in Paris. I never felt ready to publish because I thought I needed some great "push" to make me a writer, so I decided to keep writing and wait until I felt ready. I moved to England and lived in Hampton Court for a few years while I continued working and writing.
In England, I had my own consulting business that provided me with a steady flow of work and income. After putting in long hours each day, I realized that I could do my job forever and nothing would ever change. I fit in my writing every morning and night, but never I felt like I was doing what I really wanted to do in life. Right before I turned 30, I decided that I wanted more. And writing was the answer for me.
My initial plan was to live in Florence for a few months, to learn the language and to get "inspired." But, as life would have it, things did not go as planned. After being in Florence a couple of days, I knew that it was where I should be and that I wasn't going to go back to my old life in England. I told all my friends, my clients, and my then-boyfriend that I wasn't returning to England.
I lived in Florence quite happily, learning Italian, making new friends, and working as an English teacher and freelance database developer. It was great fun for me as a single woman (I almost wish I had a blog then...). I made enough money to live, but nothing more. I was writing a lot, but still didn't feel ready to publish. I let myself get transported by my emotions and my day-to-day life. I wasn't planning for the future back then and I was just enjoying each day as it came.
Two years later in August 1999, everything changed. My mother was diagnosed with lung cancer and I quit my job and left my life in Florence to be with her. It had been 9 years since I last lived in the US. I stayed in her California home to take care of her and to spend as much time with her as I could. She passed away on June 1, 2001. I got married a few weeks after my mother's passing (and a few days before her funeral). I couldn't wait to go back to Florence, but unfortunately, I felt that I wasn't ready to move. Only a few months later while I was visiting my father in Oregon, we found out that he was diagnosed with cancer as well. He passed away almost two years later in 2003.
In 2004 when I started this blog, I had just arrived to Florence with my now ex-husband. We lived in my friend Simone's apartment near Piazza Santa Croce for two years. While we lived together, we slowly discovered more about ourselves and he decided to move back to the US in April 2007.
As we say in Italy, "Quando chiude una porta, si apre un portone (When one door closes an even bigger one opens)." I met and married my now husband Alessandro. We got married at my sister Gina's house in Los Angeles, where I was born, and now live in a new apartment along the Arno behind the Uffizi. I work as a web developer in both Italy and the US and continue writing fiction and non-fiction. My desire now is to publish my short stories, a novel that I've been working on, and anything else that I'm inspired to write.
I designed this Website with photos I took of Florence and developed a database back-end with PHP/MySQL. You can view the portfolio of my work on my work-related website, ganzina.
