Anne Calcagno

Calcagno's first novel LOVE LIKE A DOG has just won three awards. Set in

contemporary Chicago, this page-turner tells the story of Dirk & his single

father and how, in rescuing a pit bull, they find themselves face to face with

the most difficult of decisions. LOVE LIKE A DOG won the prestigious

first prize for a First Novel Award from the Next Generation Indie Book Awards, as well as being a finalist in their Animal/Pets category. It was furthermore awarded a bronze medal in the Great Lakes Regional Fiction category at the 15th Annual ceremony of Independent Publishers Book Awards. The novel also received Honorable Mention in the General Fiction category from the San Francisco Book Festival. One Top 500 Reviewer notes: "The prose is fluid, easy-to-read, and superbly written." Another claims: "this [is] a heart warming, beautifully written novel that will pull at your heartstrings."

For stories in her collection Pray For Yourself (TriQuarterly Books/ Northwestern University Press) Anne Calcagno received the San Francisco Foundation Phelan Literary Award, an NEA Fellowship and two Illinois Arts Council Awards. Her fiction has appeared in The North American Review, TriQuarterly, Denver Quarterly, Epoch, and other publications. She won a 2003 Illinois Arts Council Literary Award for her story "What's Yours?" published in Other Voices. Her stories have been anthologized in the Penguin book of Italian American Writing, Fiction of the Eighties, The Milk of Almonds and American Fiction, Vol 2. She has given over sixty readings and lectures throughout the country. Calcagno is currently writing an historical novel "Struck By Dina," set in Eritrea and Saudi Arabia, about Mussolini's failed colonization of East Africa.

A dual national, Italian and American, Calcagno is Editor of Travelers Tales: Italy (Travelers Tales, 1998, 2001) which won Foreward's Silver Medal for Best Travel Book of the Year. She wrote the preface to Travelers Tales: Tuscany. Her nonfiction and travel writing have appeared in The New York Times. the Italian American Historical Society, New City, The Saudi Gazette, the Chicago Sun-Times and The Chicago Tribune and In The Middle of The Middle West.

Calcagno teaches in the MFA in Writing program at the School of the Art Institute. She lives in Chicago, is married, and the mother of two tireless young people. She can be seen walking her Am Staff & her German Shepherd.