Check Out Gloria Mattioni’s Story

Today we’d like to introduce you to Gloria Mattioni.

Hi Gloria, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself. 
I’m an author and a feature writer. For international magazines. My books and my journalism won me many awards, but what makes me happier is that I followed my passion. I’ve been a writer since I could speak in complete sentences and a professional one since I was eighteen. I started writing articles for an underground music magazine when I was a freshman in college in Italy and went on to become a journalist and editor at the Italian edition of Glamour at twenty. In 1992, I quit my well-paid job in another magazine staff, packed my son and my few essentials, and decided to move to Los Angeles. I came here with a press visa but didn’t have a contract, just confidence in my ability to pursue the stories I wanted to tell, interview the people I admired, and visit the places I dreamed about. I’ve always been a risk-taker. 

When living in Italy, I wrote several “books,” but I never pursued their publication, considering that my ‘private writing.’ After living a few years in the States, I expanded my horizons and became ready to pitch my ideas and manuscripts to publishers. I started publishing in Italy, four books between 1996 and 1998. But by then, I’d decided that Los Angeles was going to be my home base, so I challenged myself to become an American author. It took a little time, but I published three books in the U.S. since 2005. The newest is the novel “California Sister,” published September 2022 by Atmosphere Press, which already won twelve awards, including the prestigious 2024 Independent Press Award and Indies Today 2022 Best Contemporary Fiction. I keep contributing to European magazines and traveling around the world to do so, but I’ve discovered my voice as a fiction writer and intend to pursue that path as well. My next book, also based in Los Angeles, is a thriller with a badass female detective working a case that will take her to explore the dark shadows of our beloved City of Angels. 

We all face challenges, but looking back, would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Being an independent contractor means to personally assume lots of financial risks. Anything can throw upside down carefully constructed ‘monthly budgets’ designed to balance work and personal time in a way that still allows you to pay rent, put food on the table, and pay for your son’s college tuition. There were times when I had to wear many different hats to make ends meet, from translating Hollywood movies dialogues for the Italian market to coordinating production of movie segments shot in California by Italian companies. But I’m a fast learner and eclectic enough to appreciate variety, so it was all right. Then, the crisis of print journalism in more recent years definitely threw some curve balls my way. Much worse than all that was dealing with the sudden interruption of my ‘Californian dream’ when my beloved sister, living in Italy, suffered a brain hemorrhage that left her severely disabled and unable to speak and advocate for herself. That is the story I tell in California Sister, even if chose to do so through fiction to distance myself from the pain of reliving the ordeal, grief, and loss that left me ‘mutilated’ for years. Writing my sister’s story has been the best form of therapy. I can now talk about it without breaking down, and I’m trying to inspire others to discover what a beautiful healing tool writing can be. 

But it hasn’t been easy to ‘suspend’ my life here and go back to Italy for almost three years to be at her side, which included having to sell the first American house I bought and loved. The title of the movie “Girl, Interrupted” would fit that period of my life like a glove! 

Thanks – so, what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
As a bilingual Italian American author, I’m very proud of having mastered the ability to write directly in both languages without necessity of translating. I write stories revolving around imperfect, flawed characters and their journey of transformation. Every reader has defined my style as lyric, poetic, and visual. In fact, I write from all senses, but my main goal is to make the reader ‘see’ the scene. My agent is now focusing on pitching California Sister to movie companies. We both think it would make a great movie, and I’d love to give my novel a second life on the screen. Movies were my first passion, and I’d dreamed–and still do–of working in that business! As a journalist, I moved my focus from my early interest in music and show business to architecture, design, and lifestyle. I still occasionally interview musicians, actors, and directors, but I find more rewarding to produce stories about modernist architecture, particularly Californian. I work together with my photographer partner, who comes from Italy anytime I have lined up a few gorgeous houses to photograph in Los Angeles, we have great ‘chemistry’ on set since fifteen years. My roles go from scouting to convincing the owners, set designing, assisting on set, interviewing architects and designers, writing, and then selling the story to mags all over the world. But, more than anything, I’m known for ‘making those beautiful walls talk,’ which is not as easy as it might sound. 

What does success mean to you?
Good question! The most important thing for me is the satisfaction from having been able to make a good living doing what I like most while receiving a good feedback from readers who appreciate my stories. I might have made more money in p.r., as I’ve been invited to do many times, but my creative mind would have suffered. 

Pricing:

• Signed copies of my book can be requested contacting me at gloria@gloriamattioni.com and vary in price from $10 to $15+ postage.
• Business profiles, $350 to $600.
• Photo shootings and stories for architectural or design studios, $3-4,000
• Writing workshops $300 to $500 depending on hours and number of participants
• Speaking fee varies from $500 to $2,000, depending on the organization requesting it.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.gloriamattioni.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gloriamattioni/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/gloriamattioniwrites/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gloria-mattioni-45739b1/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/GloriaMattioni